Words of Wood

I have started posting the sky ships AU!! I am REALLY excited to share this with people, I had an absolute blast writing it.

Also, did I mention that it has ILLUSTRATIONS? I did a little drawing per chapter, in sort of "explorer's logbook" style. Here is a little thumbnail of the one for the first chapter :D



Title: The Cloudfarers (Guardian | 镇魂)
Author: frith_in_thorns
Word count: ~44k in total, chapters of ~2.5k each
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, SID team
Warnings (generally for things also included in canon, at similar levels of detail): violence, background death of unnamed or minor characters, discussion of slavery including of children, deliberate self-injury for plot reasons. Also descriptions of giant bugs (not spiders). Please ask if you would like more specifics.
Content/Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Sky Pirates, Illustrations, Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Secret Identity, First Meetings, Developing Relationship, Slow Burn, Fade to Black, Wholesale rewriting of canon, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Eventual Happy Ending, Different magic system, Swordfights, Peril

Summary: Zhao Yunlan is the captain of the sky-ship Guardian. More accustomed to trading runs, he and his crew are given a mission -- to track down the stolen Hallows, with the assistance of Shen Wei, a seemingly-innocuous clerk from Dragon City...

Chapter 1/19 on AO3


I feel I very much need to give a shout-out to a couple of strong influences on this fic, which are the book series The Edge Chronicles and Tales of the Raksura. I haven't taken many things directly from those canons, but they are really vivid worlds of giant forests and sky ships and these books are why I'm so into these worldbuilding tropes.

I started posting my new fic! Updates will be every Tuesday and Saturday. This is the canon-compliant fix-it I have been going on about for ages :>

Title: All the Boundaries Between (Guardian | 镇魂)
Author: frith_in_thorns
Word count: 2197 words (this chapter)
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, SID team, An Bai, Zhao Xinci
Content/Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Dixing politics

Summary: In Dixing, expecting to have died after lighting the Lantern, Zhao Yunlan wakes up.

On AO3

I am still REALLY behind on AO3 comment replies. Especially for longer comments, and especially especially for Goblin Fruit. I'm kind of overwhelmed and get stuck in this stress-cycle of "but is my reply ADEQUATE???" and I do know this is silly but I'm having a hard time breaking out of it. If you've left me a comment that I haven't replied to please do know that I 100% LOVE and CHERISH it and it made my day brighter and I WILL reply hopefully before too much longer.

This is probably to do with the fact that real life (especially work) has been hugely overwhelming and stressful at the moment. I don't really want to talk about it even under lock, but argh. /o\

Anyway, I'm still plodding slowly along on writing. Still haven't been able to face editing any of the 5k things sitting around, so I wrote something new instead. (Reading this whole post together, really my executive function is just completely shot at the moment. I want a new one for Christmas.)

Title: A minor hill to die on (Guardian | 镇魂)
Series: Part 6 of The unofficial newsletter of Dragon City University (BioEng Dept)
Word count: 1600 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Jiajia
Content/Tags: Action, Unexplained ambushes, Shen Wei has terrible priorities, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Professor Shen's attention snapped back to her. "Jiajia," he said, very quietly. "We need to get inside."

For the "blood loss" square on my hc_bingo card

Trick Or Treat went live, and I received TWO fics! Guardian and Vorkosigan, I am extremely happy and loved both :D

Rising Tide (4041 words) Vorkosigan, gen
Tags: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Simon Illyan, Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, Miles Vorkosigan, Barrayaran politics, Storms And Floods, Hurt/Comfort
Cordelia deals with the aftermath of a violent protest.

vacancy (5057 words) Guardian| 镇魂, WeiLan
Tags: Zhào Yúnlán, Shěn Wēi, Trick or Treat: Treat, Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Intoxication, Injury, Dubcon Cuddling, Kissing, Future Fic, Handwaving
“Is that it?” Zhao Yunlan asked. “You thank me for showing you the most basic degree of courtesy and we go on as we have?”

I only wrote one fic for the exchange, which is a lot less than I'd meant to do, and I'm also not massively happy with it? Argh. Mostly the problem is that I'm not good at breaking out of writing a long-fic when it's eating my brain. I have at least one half-finished which I might try and finish before reveals?

...on that note, I started posting Goblin Fruit. It's posting in chapters not really for my enjoyment of cliffhangers this time but because the angst quotient in this is literally overwhelming. I actually stopped writing it to write another Jiajia fic because I needed a break. Ellie read halfway through it after it was posted and went, "Katherine are you still cross about the plasterboard?" YES I AM.

Then I also had to stop writing because I got a message from the Yuletide mods Thursday morning saying that because I'd defaulted in 2014 I'd been blacklisted and should write a pinch hit this year to be able to participate again. SO THAT WAS FUN. I queried whether there was anything I could do *this* year and was told if I could write a 1k fic to post to the collection filling a letter from last year before sign-ups closed then I could keep my sign-up. So I did that but it was definitely stress I could have done without.

Anyway, here are three fics from me.

Goblin Fruit Chapter 1 (3500 words) Guardian| 镇魂, WeiLan
Tags: Shěn Wēi, Zhào Yúnlán, Lín Jìng, Chǔ Shùzhī, Dà Qìng, Zhù Hóng, Wāng Zhēng, teamfic, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Really so much angst I'm not kidding, Eventual Happy Ending, Magical drug addiction, Caretaking, handwavy post-canon, They live in a house now, Extra warnings inside, Slightly bullshit magic science
"It grows barely at all in Dixing," Shen Wei said. "The drug's always been too rare to cause more than very occasional issues."
"I'd love to strangle whoever thought to bring some up to Haixing," Zhao Yunlan said, grimly.

Low Statistical Significance (2133 words) Guardian| 镇魂, gen
Tags: Jiājiā, Zhào Yúnlán, Shěn Wēi, Fluff, Slice of Life, Burglary, Mild boundary crossing which would be stressful IRL, but this is fiction so it's all good, Zhao Yunlan cannot do DIY, nor can Shen Wei but he cheats
"Oh," Jiajia said, surprised. "The SID deals with burglaries?"
Chief Zhao grinned, a bit sheepishly. "Not usually," he said. "Shen Wei called and said I needed to help you out."

Negative Spaces (1101 words) Guardian| 镇魂, WeiLan
Tags: Shěn Wēi, Zhào Yúnlán, Post-Canon, Assumes a fixit happened, Angst, Imperfect endings
It's not enough, sometimes, not really. But it has to be.

I started posting!

Title: Above all shadows rides the sun Chapter 1/5 (Guardian | 镇魂)
Series: Part 3/3 of Beneath the sun
Word count: 5600 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, SID team, the Regent, An Bai
Content/Tags: Dixing politics, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fixit, Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Cultists, Canon-Typical Metaphysical Bullshit

Summary: The pressures in Dixing and on Shen Wei are being stoked to a boiling point. It's getting harder to hold things together. Maybe impossible.

On AO3

For the "undeserved reputation" square on my hc_bingo card

I did feel a little bad about posting bits of this both as a Sunday Six and also in the brush_and_lantern updates post, since I knew it was nearly finished. But I guess those were like teaser trailers? Anyway, here is the Thing.

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Title: Beyond all towers strong and high (Guardian | 镇魂)
Series: Part 2 of Beneath the sun
Word count: 16,300 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, the Regent, SID team
Content/Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Plot, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fire, Dixing politics, Angst

Summary: Zhao Yunlan tries to shield Shen Wei from the demands of both Haixing, where an arsonist is challenging the SID, and Dixing, where the Regent is questioning his fitness for the role of Envoy. Something has to give...

On AO3

For the "bullying" square on my hc_bingo card. Also I think this counts as a fill for this month's "Caves, Courts, Cottages" theme on brush_and_lantern, especially since Part 1 was set 90% in a cave but was posted just before the theme went up!

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New fic! It's the one I've been stressing about for the last couple of weeks, but I think I'm pleased with it now. Well... it's also a lot of very iddy tropes. So. I hope you like it?

It's also my 10th Guardian fic, and the 5th longest thing I've posted to AO3. *\o/*

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Title: In darkness buried deep (Guardian | 镇魂)
Word count: 12,400 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Content/Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, handwavy post-canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, lost in a cave, Magical Exhaustion, Caretaking, Lots of caretaking, eventually, Shen Wei's poor life choices, extreme measures for avoiding awkward conversations

Summary: An investigation in Dixing leads Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan deep into the cave tunnels. Stranded in the dark, the secret Shen Wei's been hiding only makes things worse.

On AO3

For the "hiding an injury/illness" square on my hc_bingo card

Are you shocked at the sheer volume of fic I've been producing? Yeah, me too. Absolutely me too. This is the eighth fic since the end of June.

Also I apparently still write either extremely focused on dialogue and action, or abstract poetic description. Absolutely no middle ground. (This fic is the second type.)

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Title: some stars fall home (Guardian | 镇魂)
Word count: 1100 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Content/Tags: Post-Canon Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, kind of weird, fixit but with no real explanation, Waiting, Pining, Angst

Summary: Zhao Yunlan is waiting.

On AO3

Oddly enough I didn't have an "agonised waiting" square on my hc_bingo card so this is the "coma" square instead.

This is the fic which I've been posting Sunday Six snippets of and referring to as the Confusing Angst Fic. (Zhao Yunlan has the confusion and everyone has the angst.) It's complete but I think it works better read in parts, so I'm posting it over the next three days.

Title: Silence sharp as blades (Guardian|镇魂)
Word count: 3500 words (chapter 1/3)
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Content/Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, happy ending though I promise, handwavy post-canon, Established Relationship, Communication Issues, Dixing powers do whatever I want them to, sort of casefic but mostly Feelings

Summary: There's something I need to take care of this morning, Shen Wei had said, two days ago, and then had neatly removed himself from Zhao Yunlan's apartment and whatever this relationship was that they had been building together, without saying any more about where or why.

On AO3

I've been writing this very slowly over the past few days, and yes I do realise that it's probably quite ill-advised, don't @ me.

Title: throw your body on the pyre (Guardian|镇魂)
Word count: 500 words
Characters/Pairing: Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan
Content/Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Missing Scene, Self-Harm, (for canon reasons), but yeah, Angst, spoilers through later episodes. Please read the warning note inside the fic.

Summary: Small snippet for the late-night kitchen scene in episode 23. Shen Wei, with a knife.

On AO3

This fills the "ritualised pain/injury" square on my hc_bingo card.