MXTX Exchange 2020 Letter

[straightforwardly]

AO3: straightforwardly

Table of Contents
   ★ General Likes
   ★ Do Not Wants

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System
   ★ Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu
   ★ Ning Yingying/Sha Hualing
   ★ Liu Qingge/Shang Qinghua
   ★ Tianlang-jun/Yue Qingyuan

Heaven Official’s Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu
   ★ Shi Wudu & Shi Qingxuan

General Likes [↑]

• blood, blood-drinking, blood kink
• canon settings
• canon divergence AUs
• competency & competency kink
• ghosts ghosts ghosts GHOSTS
• hair kink, loving descriptions of long hair
• hand-holding, casual touching, any focus on hands
• outsider POV
• ridiculous concepts taken seriously (thank you Airplane-bro)
• shrines, abandoned ruins, dark forests, haunted locations, settings with a deep sense of atmosphere &/or history
• tea and tea-drinking
• temporary character death (even for relationships I didn’t choose the Major Character Death warning for!)
• any time-related shenanigans (time travel, time loops, peggy sue, etc.)
• trapped in a coffin together / coffin sex
• Two People Only One Flying Sword
• unusual formats (e.g. interactive fiction, non-linear storytelling, & so on.)
• winter/autumn settings and atmosphere (e.g., snow, autumn leaves, pumpkins, fog, tea, etc.)
• worldbuilding

For non-canon ships, I prefer either getting together or pre-ship fics. For canon ships, I still really like both of those things, but also enjoy established relationships!

Do Not Wants [↑]

• eye injuries
• zombies, any of the rotting undead
• cannibalism, anything getting eaten alive
• pregnancy, requested characters having children, small children & babies in general
• first person POV
• unrequested setting-change AUs, mundane AUs, a/b/o
• permanent (non-canon) loss of body parts

DNWs For E-Rated Requests: anal tearing/bleeding (mentioning that it’s happened in the past is fine, since bingqiu, but I don’t want it happening on-screen), belly kink, come eating, come inflation, daddy/mommy kink, foot kink (note that this doesn't include boot kink, which I love!), lactation, rimming, sounding.

SVSSS-specific DNWs: unhappy endings for bingqiu (including breaking them up), SJ being referred to as “A-Jiu”, the Shen twins headcanon / Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan being family in any way, LBH referring to SQQ with any variation of the name “Shen Yuan”, SQQ thinking of himself as “Shen Yuan” post-transmigration, YQY finding out that SQQ isn’t SJ.

TGCF-specific DNWs: Ships involving He Xuan.

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System [↑]

Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu [↑]
I love these two so much—more than words can say. As long as the two of them get a happy ending, I’d read just about anything for them: post-canon, missing scenes, canon divergence AUs, established relationship, alternate getting together scenarios, Luo Binghe’s adolescent pining, hurt/comfort, fluff, horror, knives… I’m here for all of that and more. When it comes to sex, I’m definitely up for switching and non-penetrative sex acts.

Any kind of supernatural/monster encounter would be excellent! Fox spirits (both friendly and cruel); mysterious, dark, and potentially cursed forests; spooky fog; any kind of monster or spirit, whether it’s from Chinese mythology or one of Airplane-bro’s creations. SQQ geeking out about a horrifying monster that they encounter while LBH admires the breadth of his knowledge? Or anything that plays with the juxtaposition of LBH’s maiden heart with how intelligent, competent, and powerful he is?

Anything inspired by the following list: Accidental Monster Acquisition, Character pines for someone who thinks nothing of undressing casually in front of them, Character Should Not Have Touched That Magical Artifact, Entire Cast Convinced They're The Only One Feeding This Sweet Cat, Forcing Exhausted Character to Get Some Sleep, Grief/Mourning For What Ends Up Being A Temporary Character Death, Holidays Airplane Bro Inflicted on PIDW, Physically Injured Character Comforting Emotionally Distressed Character, Competently handling the horrifying thing, Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/injured/etc.), Pining characters unknowingly share sex dreams (but figure it out in the end), Nightmares that are memories

Finally, if all else fails, hurt/comfort and/or kissing can never go wrong! ♥

Ning Yingying/Sha Hualing [↑]
I LOVE THESE TWO. NYY is one of my top five favorite characters in this novel (& the only one on that list that does not have either “Binghe” or “Qingqiu” in their name)—I love her character growth so much and am endlessly fascinated by the differences between her and who she was in PIDW. SHL, on the other hand, is a character I find both hot and fun to read about. I love her breezy scarlet outfits, the jingling bracelets she wears, her casual, laughing cruelty and very demonic morality… and her status as an overworked employee, haha.

I love the idea of NYY becoming SQQ’s succeeding disciple! Maybe it turns out that in a world where The Resentment of Chunsan is widespread knowledge, a peak lord’s succeeding disciple and a demon lord’s overworked employee have a surprising amount of reasons for needing to meet with each other? Both for serious or ridiculous reasons would be great.

Or, for something more serious, maybe an encounter between these two during those five years when SQQ’s dead and tensions between Cang Qiong and Luo Binghe are at an all-time high?

Sex pollen is also always an excellent solution! Let them bang!

Or maybe they have to get married For Reasons. Ridiculous, fun, tropey reasons. Can you imagine how gorgeous NYY would look in red? (As we all know, SHL is already gorgeous in red.) I’d love to see them slowly grow from dislike (...or dislike with a dash of horniness, cough) into genuine affection. ...Or just dislike with a dash of horniness, period. I’m open to a wide variety of takes!

Finally, I’m always up for anything involving the weird flora and fauna of this world (or weird traditions and/or rituals)!

Liu Qingge/Shang Qinghua [↑]
Blame verity.

This ship was sold to me as “lqg finds sqh annoying, fear horny is sqh's brand, it's so funny” and I’ve been here for it ever since. It’s so true!! SQH is into people who terrify him and it’s great!!

As for actual prompts…. maybe post-canon fic where LQG is still pissed about the whole "demon spy traitor" thing and they have to go on a mission together! Or maybe something where they get into a bad situation (post-canon, pre-canon, mid-canon, whenever!), and SQH’s sketchy, half-remembered knowledge of his own novel helps get them out of it?

I’m also here for the two of them having to get married for Reasons, them having to pretend to get married for reasons (my kingdom for LQG in a red bridal veil *_*), weird qi deviations, anything that plays with the cultivation setting, THE RETURN OF THE SUCCUBI, the weird flora and fauna of this world, and/or ridiculous, fun, tropey nonsense taken seriously. Lots of different things, essentially!

I’m also fine with receiving SQH/LQG/MBJ, if you want to play with that mess of personalities! Maybe something where SQH manages to win LQG’s loyalty before the demonic traitor spy thing comes out? Something set after they became head disciples but before they ascended as peak lords could also be fun!

Tianlang-jun/Yue Qingyuan [↑]
I’ve never thought of this ship before seeing it in the tagset, but I’m weirdly intrigued by it? This has such a “two old widowers finding peace with each other” vibe. After all, by the end of canon, both of them have lost their most precious loved ones (even if YQY doesn’t know just how thoroughly SJ has been lost.) (Of course, YQY's so repressed that I can't really see him actually talking about feelings…)

I’d really love a quiet, thoughtful-feeling piece for this one. Maybe a far-future piece set after YQY has stepped down as peak lord, where he starts wandering the lands and runs into TLJ? Encounters in teahouses and inns and along the road, encounters involving the weird flora and fauna of this world, maybe even multiple encounters over a long period of time… I’d be up for any / all of that.

The role YQY played in TLJ’s sealing could be an interesting point of contention. On a milder note, there’s also The Resentment of Chunsan, which TLJ adores, but YQY hates enough to ban it from Cang Qiong Sect.

If you have another idea that doesn’t run up against my DNWs, feel free to go for that too—I don’t have too many ideas for this ship, but I’m interested in seeing what you might come up with.

I’m pretty squicked by rotting things, so please don’t linger too heavily on the state of TLJ’s body. Brief mentions are fine, but I don’t want detail or to see parts of his body falling off on-screen. For art, just please don’t show it at all.

Heaven Official’s Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu [↑]

Shi Qingxuan & Shi Wudu [↑]
(This is not a DNW per se, but I’m not particularly interested in He Xuan in general. He can appear in the fic if necessary, but I'd prefer him not to be a main focus.)

I LOVE AND ADORE ONE TYRANNICAL WATER MASTER. Shi Wudu is easily my favorite character in TGCF, while SWD & SQX is my favorite relationship in the novel. A terrible person who would do absolutely anything to protect their beloved sibling? It’s like MXTX wrote him just for me.

I love how much these two care about each other. I love how Shi Qingxuan is the more moral of the two of them—how he actually cares about justice—and is genuinely horrified when he learned what SWD did for him, but that also isn’t enough to override his concern for SWD’s well-being. On SWD’s side, again, I love how deeply protective he is and how little he cares for morality—or, ultimately, his own well-being—when it comes to keeping SQX safe. 124 was absolutely heartbreaking, but one thing that struck me was the difference between their reactions—SQX with his, “it doesn’t matter what happens to us as long as we’re together” versus SWD’s “my own life doesn’t matter, as long as you’re well”. It’s so painful and so good!

In general, I really like how they aren’t in perfect agreement with one another, but do genuinely, deeply care about each other. My heart! <3 I don’t want to see SQX die or have a fate any worse than what happened in canon, but I’m up for terrible things happening to SWD—as long as he never loses his pride. I love how he was tyrannical and proud up to the very end! I’d love to see these two to end up relatively happy and by one another’s side, but I’m also very much here for bittersweetness.

Maybe instead of reentering the reincarnation cycle, dead gods become spirits that no one can see or touch? I’d love to see SWD looking after his brother without anyone knowing—especially if SQX does, slowly, become able to see him in an exception to that general rule. Or perhaps, unbeknownst to anyone else (including his brother), that wasn’t the first time SWD had died—he just (to quote a tag from elsewhere) “always comes back from the dead. In water. Naked.” Or maybe, at the moment of his death, SWD somehow managed to devour HX and became some unnatural combination of god and ghost?

For pre-canon happiness: festivals! food! small moments in their daily lives! Anything inspired by my general likes list, really.

Hurt/comfort is also always great, especially if it involves SWD being protective of SQX or getting injured for his sake! Anything playing with the longevity lockets they have would also be fantastic. I love how frantic SWD gets when he doesn’t know whether or not SQX is safe! His being injured for whatever reason and cutting down everyone and everything standing in his way until he finds Shi Qingxuan again would be fantastic. Or maybe SQX’s locket breaks or gets damaged for some reason, and the resulting reaction from SWD’s locket makes him think that his brother’s dead? SHIPS EVERYWHERE BETTER WATCH OUT

AU where SWD is the Heavenly Emperor! AU where SWD becomes one of the Calamities! Fallen London AU that either takes place in the Fourth City or where the canon setting (or maybe Jun Wu’s former kingdom!!) is what has “fallen”!