The Way It Ought To Be

Thank you for writing for me! I’m excited to get anything you want to write for me.

General likes: A character valuing friends/family above everything else; mutual adoration; unconventional domesticity; unexpected supernatural elements where appropriate; world building; competent characters being good at things; hurt/comfort; plot or emotionally interesting conversations between characters (I will always prefer interaction over basic character studies, i.e. one character introspecting); interesting character dynamics, the more complex the better. I love canon divergence AUs where you change one little thing and the entire plot spirals out from there like a butterfly effect.

General dislikes: infidelity/adultery even in the background (OK if characters have past relationships are fine, but no relationships overlapping with the present one and no indication that they previously engaged in infidelity with other partners); full on noncon (dubcon, even very dubcon, is fine); major character death; unhappy endings (not even bittersweet); modern/no-powers/mundane AUs (especially coffee shop/office AUs); public embarrassment/humiliation that seriously bothers the character it’s happening to; any suggestion that things are “fated”/have to happen/characters don’t have free will;

Mo Dao Zu Shi (Cartoon)

Okay, I love this show. I love the world – I love the cultivation format, the low-fantasy magic and flying swords, the politics, the cute scenes, the character dynamics – the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, all the family relationships from Lan Wangji-Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang-Nie Mingjue, Wei Wuxian-Jiang Cheng-Jiang Yanli…everything in it, I love. And for the cartoon, especially, I love all of the clever illustrative choices: the colors and designs of the sects, the beautiful way the arrays and talismans are visualized (visual contrast between the more orthodox arrays and Wei Wuxian’s uncontrolled demonic cultivation..!), the loving attention paid to fight scenes in a way they really aren’t in the novel…even the ridiculous Cornetto ads have a warm place in my heart :) 

At the moment I’ve only seen the first season for various reasons, but I’ve also read the book, so feel free to go ahead and write whatever. I’ll love it, I promise. I’ll probably have seen season 2 by the time your fic comes out anyway.

So, my favorite character is actually Nie Mingjue – I have a special love for extremely competent and deadly people with heavy responsibilities on their shoulders, upright moralists who care deeply about doing the right thing and almost fail to understand why other people won’t, complex characters with flaws like holding grudges and being too stern and too easy to anger and who agree to forgive people despite knowing better, plus sentient swords, my god, the whole Nie saber thing is my jam – but, alas, I was busy during nominations and failed to realize that this was going to be an available fandom, so he’s not actually a nominated character. But writer, if you include him anyway, whether dead or alive, I will be very pleased with you.

Okay, sorry, had to get that out! Now, onto the characters I WAS able to nominate, who I also love dearly and without any restraint – so trust me, if you only write about them, I will still be utterly delighted with you.

Also: I have no objection to the incorporation of aspects of the novel, but honestly I really love the little changes the cartoon puts in: little things like Jiang Cheng staying at the Cloud Recesses longer, or his final goodbye with his mother, or other things like that. If you want to only include stuff that’s canonical from the cartoon, go for it! At least for me, I’m going to try to keep my requests limited to the cartoon.

Theme for what I want this year: family relationships. All the complicated, ridiculous family relationships.

·       Nie Huaisang – two types of fics I want:

·       1: I really want Nie Huaisang-Nie Mingjue relationship fic here. I don’t care if you write it shippy or purely familial, I just want the two of them being close and caring about each other more than any reason dictates; I want them to trust each other, even if they don’t always understand each other’s priorities. I want Nie Mingjue trying to drag Nie Huaisang into immortality if need be, trying desperately to protect him as best as he can; I want Nie Huaisang loving his ridiculous older brother despite his sternness and temper. I headcanon Nie Mingjue as being Nie Huaisang’s sole guardian from a pretty young age for both of them, especially after their father is murdered, so feel free to draw from that or anything else, really. Feel free to go AU, particularly canon divergence or adding in more supernatural elements. 

·       2: if you don’t want to write Nie Mingjue, I’d love to see fic about Nie Huaisang dealing with the Sunshot Campaign or the lead-up to it when he’s a teenager. He’s just a kid, and a pretty useless kid to boot, and he’s living in the lead-up to a war with his clan as one of the biggest hawks. Imagine an ambassador from the Wen sect coming over for dinner; imagine the conversations Nie Huaisang must have overheard; imagine how he felt when he had to go to the Nightless City as a hostage. Tell me what he did during the Sunshot Campaign.

o   Do not want: bittersweet introspective solo fic where Nie Huaisang monologues about his feelings; unhappy relationships/relationships without trust; Nie Huaisang being an out-of-character badass in terms of physical fighting (he’s good-for-nothing and I love him for it; no expert-fan-fighter please); a fic focused on Nie Huaisang in a romantic relationship with other members of the cast (e.g., Jiang Cheng, Lan Xichen, etc.) - basically, Niecest is OK if you prefer that to platonic fic, but I don't want any other Huaisang romances.

·       Jiang Cheng – oh, Jiang Cheng, poor Jiang Cheng…! He’s so incredibly tragic – he’s just in such a terrible situation all the time and he keeps trying and it keeps not working, and of course that’s going to embitter someone, especially someone left all alone in the world but for a baby that he’s totally unequipped to raise in any way other than the way his mother raised him, which…isn’t that great. The fact that he loves Wei Wuxian as much as he does is a testament to his character, even if he reacts, uh, badly to him later on.  Suggested ideas:

o   Fics about his relationship with Jin Ling. He loves him so much and he is such a bad parent; he was always meant to be an uncle, to spoil him rotten, and he probably panics and overreacts to every milestone, but he makes it up by how much he cares. I love how much Jin Ling loves and adores his uncle, the way he ignores the constant (extremely hollow) threats to break his legs. Extra points for them interacting as adults. Do not want: Jin Ling thinks Wei Wuxian is a better uncle than Jiang Cheng; Jin Ling romantic relationships

o   Fics of people dealing with the prickly hedgehog that is grown-up!Jiang Cheng, especially those other than the ones we usually see him interact with in canon. Jiang Cheng-Jin Guangyao most awkward parent conference of the year? Five times Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji sat together in total awkward silence at tea houses and one time they had an actual conversation? Jiang Cheng getting drunk with Nie Mingjue over mutual family-killed-by-Wens trauma? Go for it. Extra points for fic where Jiang Cheng ends up hanging out with people who are nice to him, even if he’s not necessarily nice to them. Romantic relationships OK but not preferred. Do not want: Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang or fics focused on interactions between the two of them – give me other people

·       Jin Ling – see: Jiang Cheng. I’d also love to see someone else’s take on “Wen Ning wakes up early and kidnaps six-year-old!Jin Ling to raise him because clearly no one else is doing the job, and then Jiang Cheng shows up.” Do not want: Jin Ling romantic relationships, fics focused on Jin Ling only

Scum Villain

Ah, Scum Villain, the often overlooked brother of the MXTX novels in which the fandom, rather puzzlingly, seems entirely composed of the characters without any reference whatsoever to anything they do in canon. I don’t love it as much as I do MDZS, but it is, undoubtedly, an adorable novel.

Fandom DNWs: any appearance by Shen Yuan, any appearance by Shang Qinghua (vague NPC background mention is fine, but prefer not at all), excessive focus on Luo Binghe, any permanent memory loss/personality alteration for Shen Qingqiu especially, appearances by the system for anyone, any modern-day people at all

Mobei-jun –

·       I was moderately indifferent to him in the novel, but the extracts with him and Shang Qinghua were adorable and I really like the two of them being dumb as rocks around each other even though Shang Qinghua annoyed the living daylights out of me in the main canon. “You beat them up to show your affection”…goddamnit, Mobei-jun, you’re useless and I love you.

·       I would be interested in non-conventional ships for him – either with Lin Qingge or with original!Shen Qingqiu, because I think the character dynamics would be super interesting. Neither of them are well-disposed towards demons, he’s not well-disposed to them…how to make it work in a way that keeps them all moderately in character? Do you have him run into Shen Jiu early on? Do you throw him into a bad situation with Lin Qingge that forces them to make a temporary alliance? Do you have original!Luo Binghe give Shen Qingqiu to Mobei-jun as a gift and have things get complicated after that? Do you get him together with a resurrected Liu Qingge in the original timeline?

·       Do not want: No Shang Qinghua at all (no appearance, no past relationship, no pining)

Original!Shen Qingqiu

·       Not going to lie: one of the most uncomfortable bits about this whole novel is how we get all this detail about Shen Qingqiu’s backstory - his tragic childhood, his suffering, his overcoming it and somehow making his way to be a peak lord despite it all, the way he couldn’t escape his past and lashed out against others – and we never get any emotional payout from it.  He only has bad ends: he dies horribly at Luo Binghe’s hands or he disappears and is replaced with Shen Yuan, who everyone likes better anyway.

·       He never repairs his relationship with Yue Qingyuan (any emotional closeness between him and Shen Yuan is, quite frankly, fake and super creepy because he’s not Shen Jiu and any forgiveness Shen Yuan gives him is simply undeserved because he wasn’t the one who was wronged); he never resolves his misunderstandings with Liu Qingge (misunderstood time and time again – it’s a perfect set up for a fascinating enemies-to-something relationship, but we never get to see any of that because, again, he’s GONE – Shen Yuan is a totally different person, so the relationship formed between them is not the same as it would have been, and Shen Yuan wasn’t that complex, hateful, cruel individual who despite all that still tried to save Liu Qingge and got blamed for it, then never tried to defend himself…that’s the relationship I want to see get fixed! You can’t fix a relationship by literally replacing one of the parties in the relationship!); basically, he’s stuck with “really bad vicious book ending” and being replaced, and neither is a satisfying end to the beautiful narrative arc we see drawn for him.

(I like transmitigation stories as much as the next person, okay, but part of the deal is that you need to make transmitigating!character more interesting than the original goods, and in this case the original goods gets ALL the backstory and emotional development, while the new guy gets…dumb misunderstandings and relationship stuff, which is fun, but not AS fun. I legitimately wish they had been two separate characters.)

·       Requests:

o   Ship fic with Mobei-Jun (see above: I don’t even know HOW you’d do that, but oh boy do I want it)

o   Ship fic with Liu Qingge – give me that enemies-to-something I describe above; keep Shen Qingqiu mean and vicious and arrogant, every bad trait he has, and make them fall in love (resentfully, begrudgingly) ANYWAY. Extra points for Liu Qingge finding out about some of Shen Jiu backstory, because I love h/c.

o   Friendship emotional resolution fic with Yue Qingyuan. I don’t ship it, but my heart aches for the two of them – Shen Jiu is really only hurting them both with his resentment, but Yue Qingyuan keeping secrets isn’t helping the situation. I’d really appreciate this happening in any fic, even if it’s not the main focus.  

Liu Qingge –

·       What can I say? I like characters who are always ready for a fight. Always. Even when it’s a bad idea. Especially then. Liu Qingge is just such a delightful character in this way: he cares very strongly, he’s a good friend, and he is, very often, a total fucking idiot who misunderstands the world because he evaluates it through his own lens of everything-is-about-fighting and assumes everyone else does too.

·       Requests are as listed above: ship fic with either Mobei-Jun or Shen Qingqiu. 

 

The Untamed  

Guys, I just started watching this (10 eps in) and I LOVE IT. I love it so much. The changes they made from the novel (at least so far) are so clever and interesting – and one of the things I liked most was the surprise in-person appearance of thematically relevant lesbians, as I like to call Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi.

Just – wow. What must that relationship have been like, guys? It ended in horrible tragedy, yes, with Lan Yi being an impulsive idiot and Baoshan Sanren trying to stop her, in wonderful foreshadowing parallel for another pair that might be named. Plus, Lan Yi ending up devoting her spirit to the Cold Spring and filling it with rabbits, and Baoshan Sanren retreating to her celestial mountain (celestial mountain, I want ALL the world-building about that, okay??) 

·       Baoshan Sanren/Lan Yi fic! Happy canon divergence AUs very much welcome here, but so are weirdo other AUs – these guys are all but designed for it. You want to write an AU where one of them is a professional assassin and the other one is a hermit? Go for it. If you’re going to write pure canon, please avoid focusing too much on the tragic end.

·       Anything about Baoshan Sanren and her celestial mountain – tell me how she got there, how she ended up founding a mountain: How did she end up on a celestial mountain? Did she make it herself or did she wander across it or what? How did she establish her sect and what are its rules? How did she end up picking her first disciple? Tell me about her disciples,  either the doomed ones of book canon, living in a mountain in which time doesn’t seem to apply, or just make something up because we’re in Untamed land, we’re free to do that. Plus: we see her for all of what, five seconds, but based on what we know about the disciples of hers we do meet - Cangsen Sanren, who Wei Wuxian resembles, and Xiao Xingchen - she must have been a very interesting person, and I would love to see her interacting with those disciples (or with Wei Wuxian, for that matter!)

·       Lan Yi inventing the Chord Assassination and fighting her way through Lan sect rules to somehow become Sect Leader. What in the world spurred that on? How did she do that – and why did she decide to do so?

Honestly, just go for it. There’s very little I’ll dislike here.

Separately: fic about Nie Mingjue (I say separately because I think of them as separate, though tbh I would be weirdly interested in seeing Nie Mingjue meet either/both Lan Yi or Baoshan Sanren?). See above for my extensive discursion on why I love the novel/cartoon version of him – as for the version here, I’ve seen episode 10 and I wanted to DIE because FEELINGS but I don’t know what happens next. By the time you finish writing and post your fic, I probably will have seen the rest of the show (planning on it!), so feel free to write whatever you like with him.

Requests: Virtually anything. I love this character SO MUCH, I don’t care WHAT you do with him: give me shippy slash fic with virtually any character (3zun is fine, etc., but also feel free to go wild and pair him with just about anyone – Jiang Cheng, Xue Yang, whatever), give me platonic fic, give me happy fic, give me tragic fic, give me fluffy fic, give me hatesex…I’m open!

If you really want a specific prompt, I’d love to see a fic where Meng Yao/Jin Guanyao is obsessed with Nie Mingjue. But seriously, anything will be fine.

Do not want: No Nie Mingjue/Wen Qing or Qin Su; suggestions Nie Mingjue deserves what happens to him

 Thanks again!