xparrot | 7 Guardian fic recs

Tomorrow I leave on a several week vacation overseas, to be roadtripping with my family +

naye and

doctorskuld! \o/

...So today instead of packing I've been poking at the epilogue of my current Guardian WIP (

bonibaru gave me excellent beta feedback that helped me figure out what was troubling me about it, but it means rewrites) and making rec posts I've been intending to do for weeks...

So to add to the other themed rec lists for Guardian -- here's seven of my favorite fix-its in the fandom, working in and around and through to a different end than what canon gave us.

Come On Baby Light My Fire by

galaxysoup (4K words)
Zhao Yunlan is in the lantern, and he's going to make the best of it -- and his best is pretty amazing. So creative and so much fun and if the ending has to happen as it did, then this is how it should go.

The Touch of Your Mouth (your heart's truth tells me) by

ranalore (3.5K words)
They made that bet; they're not going to lose. Given the end there are surprisingly few reincarnation AUs in this fandom, but this one packs so much into just a bit!

Something Sacred We Found by

bluemeridian (7K words)
This is less about the fix-it and more lovely soothing and sexy WeiLan -- but I love the opening mentions of how they got here, because yeah, Zhao Yunlan totally just would.

Aftermath - 余波 by

in_the_bottle (2K words)
Of course there is a canon fix-it already, in Priest's 4th epilogue to the novel. This is a gorgeous follow-up to that, melding the two canons and showing how Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are still themselves, wherever they are.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This by shaenanigans (3K words)
There are a couple fic with this basic concept, because with visions and time travel already part of canon, of course they're a solution! This one in particular is the pure unadulterated comfort I needed that the finale didn't give.

Though my soul may set in darkness by marcicat (28K words)
So yes, time travel is a thing...and if you can use it to fix one thing, why not fix everything? This takes "everybody lives" to a whole new level, and everyone (Ye Zun included!) working together to accomplish that is just a delight.

With a Twist of the Kaleidoscope by

naye (127K words)
Everyone probably knows this one already but I can't see how you could have a fix-it list without it. Huge and epic while still keeping the WeiLan romance at its core, this fic reshapes the whole final arc of the Guardian drama to fill in plot-holes and make sense of character motivations. And repeatedly break your heart along the way, but don't worry, it fixes that too!