straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2023-08-14 07:44 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2023-08-14 07:44 pm
Fic In A Box 2023
AO3:
Table of Contents
★ General Likes
★ Smut-Specific Likes
★ Art Likes
★ DNWs
Crossovers
★ Haruno Sakura (Naruto) & Ning Yingying (Scum Villain)
★ Haruno Sakura (Naruto) & Rena Lanford (Star Ocean)
★ Haruno Sakura (Naruto) in YYH
Fire Emblem Fates
★ Laslow & Selena & Odin
★ Laslow/Selena/Odin
★ Laslow
Naruto
★ Haruno Sakura
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk
★ Levi/Jed
★ Lavan/Jed/Levi
Till the End of the Moon
★ Tantai Jin/Li Susu
★ Li Susu/Sang Jiu
★ Mo Nv
★ Ye Qingyu
★ Nian Baiyu/Ye Qingyu
General Likes [↑]
• blood, blood-drinking, characters coughing up blood.
• canon settings.
• canon divergence AUs.
• castles, shrines, abandoned ruins, dark forests, haunted locations, places with a deep sense of atmosphere and/or history.
• competency & competency kink.
• dysfunctional or otherwise complicated relationships, especially if the people involved genuinely care about one another.
• fevers, feverish confessions.
• ghosts ghosts ghosts GHOSTS.
• gothic horror.
• grief/mourning.
• hair kink, loving descriptions of long hair, hair brushing, hair petting.
• hand-holding, casual touching, any focus on hands.
• catching someone as they collapse
• characters not realizing how bad shape they’re in until they’ve collapsed
• exhaustion
• loneliness
• a physically injured character comforting/trying to comfort a character who’s emotionally distressed about that injury
• silent suffering that’s forced out into the open
• well-earned emotional breakdowns
• outsider POV.
• pet monsters, monsters that inexplicably decide that they like you, pet cats, cats that invite themselves into your life and never leave, pet snakes, foxes (wild foxes, foxes as friends and companions, just foxes in general! ♥), bees & beekeeping.
• tea and tea-drinking.
• trapped together / huddling for warmth scenarios.
• any time-related shenanigans: time travel, time loops, peggy sue, etc.
• unusual formats (e.g., epistolary, interactive fiction, non-linear storytelling, second person POV, etc.)
• winter/autumn settings and atmosphere (e.g., snow, autumn leaves, pumpkins, fog, tea, etc.)
• worldbuilding.
Also: when it comes to interactive fiction, I adore bad endings.
Smut-Specific Likes [↑]
• biting, especially on the neck or inner thighs
• blood and bloodplay
• femdom
• for characters with dicks: orgasm delay / edging, asking for permission to come
• fucking against a wall
• hair tugging; hair kink
• hand and finger kink; glove kink
• men crossdressing / wearing a dress during sex
• monsterfucking
• sex pollen; magic made them do it
• somnophilia
• tentacles; sentient plants/vines
and these sex acts: frottage, intercrural, mutual handjobs, oral sex (both cunnilingus and blowjobs), vaginal fingering, PIV sex
Art Likes [↑]
• anything that plays with lighting—shadows, candles, fireplaces, campfires, lanterns, etc.
• cool color palettes (especially whites/blues/greys).
• black-and-white or neutral color schemes with pops of another color
• those deliberately sketch-y looking pieces — I feel like this could go especially well with my “illustrated text” medium opt-ins
• displays of magic (when canon-appropriate)
• characters wearing their culture’s traditional clothing
• physical affection: kissing, hugging, hand-holding, cuddling
• fun monsters and monster designs
• anything from my general likes or fandom prompts which might inspire you
• nature themes; winter/autumn settings & motifs (e.g., snow, autumn leaves, pumpkins, fog, tea, etc.)
I’m not an artist, so apologies if any of the terminology I use here sounds off.
Do Not Wants [↑]
• eye injuries
• zombies / any of the rotting undead
• cannibalism / anything getting eaten alive
• rattlesnakes
• pregnancy, lactation, requested characters having children (including canonical children; just pretend it never happened), kidfic, small children & babies in general
• first person POV (exception: I have no problem with this in the case of in-universe documents, e.g. epistolary)
• unrequested setting-change AUs, mundane AUs, omegaverse & similar AUs based around defined biological roles, sci-fi/IN SPACE settings
• serial killers
• for art: color palettes comprised entirely of reds/oranges/yellows— please let there be some neutral or cool colors to balance it out
• for Fire Emblem Fates specifically: deeprealms / the canon cast having children
• for Naruto specifically: Boruto canon, endgame Sasuke/Sakura (mentions of her canonical crush is fine), Naruto/Sakura (mentions of his canonical crush is also fine), Tsunade/Sakura, Naruto/Hinata
• for Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk specifically: anything set in the Gentle Ending, particularly the epilogue setting
Smut-Specific DNWS
• anal tearing/bleeding
• belly kink
• come eating, come inflation
• daddy/mommy kink
• foot kink (exception: I enjoy boot kink!)
• maledom in m/f relationships
• rimming
• sounding
• sex acts involving characters under the age of fifteen (you don’t need to namedrop their age, but don’t refer to them as being younger than that or describe them in ways that would only apply to a child.)
Crossovers [↑]
Medium Opt-Ins:
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Field Report
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Mission Report
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Writing - Non-Linear Narrative
Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives
I love crossovers a lot! There’s something so incredibly satisfying about seeing how two different worlds mesh together, especially when the author highlights and contrasts the differences in each canon’s worldbuilding and magic systems. I really love watching characters trying to figure the characters from other canons out, with all their abilities/backstories/interesting aspects of their characters and original world being slowly revealed along the way. When it comes to video game canons, I love it when the game mechanics / fighting system are somehow integrated into the worldbuilding.
With secondary world fantasy canons like Naruto, I do tend to prefer world hopping crossovers as opposed to “these two canons were set in the same world the whole time”. I don’t need too much set-up for how Sakura (or NYY or Rena) get to the other world—a few sentences about a sealing accident/misfired jutsu/planned use of seals or jutsus/random mysterious portals/Nedian technology/weird Airplane-bro-esque plotline/anything along those lines work well enough for me. I’d definitely prefer for the focus of the fic to be about Sakura (or NYY or Rena) actually being in and interacting with the other world.
I really like the “Sakura has civilian parents” headcanon; you don’t have to include it, but I’d appreciate it not being contradicted in-fic. ♥
Haruno Sakura (Naruto) & Ning Yingying (Scum Villain) [↑]
I just have massive amounts of feelings about how they both start off their respective canons with the characters around them seeing them as being just ~silly, love-struck girls~, and then proceeding to grow stronger and more competent as time goes on.
If you’re doing Sakura going to Scum Villain, I’m particularly interested in seeing them interact in post-canon Scum Villain, or at least post-Endless Abyss! If you’re doing NYY going to Naruto, any time period for NYY is good. On Sakura’s side, I’d like her to be at least a genin when they meet, but beyond that, I’m also flexible with time periods! ♥
Haruno Sakura (Naruto) & Rena Lanford (Star Ocean) [↑]
Star Ocean: The Second Story is quite possibility the nostalgia fandom of my heart (to the extent that just opening up the in-game menu made me literally teary-eyed with feelings when I last revisited it, haha) and I’ve always loved Rena deeply; I just want to see my two faves interact. Also, they’re both healers who punch things, so if you want to play with that point of connection, please yes do!
Canon divergence where Sakura’s the alien that Rena runs into instead of (or in addition to?) Claude? Post-canon adventures where a Rena who knows more about herself and her history and also the existence of other worlds runs into Sakura. Sakura crashing into their journey mid-story Opera and Ernest-style??? Anything’s great, really!
A note on Rena & Claude’s relationship—I love their friendship deeply and dearly; it’s one of my favorite relationships in the game—but I don’t ship them, so please don’t have them as a background established relationship or anything like that.
Haruno Sakura (Naruto) in Yu Yu Hakusho [↑]
I would love to see Sakura interact with any of the main four or Yukina (or Botan!), but really, anything’s great! I feel like Naruto and YYH are canons that go really well together and would love to see it.
Maybe something about Sakura’s adventures in the demon realm? Sakura taking on the four saint beasts before they cause trouble in the YYH canon timeline? Sakura crashing in on Keiko & Botan’s fight/flight during the four saint beasts arc? Sakura literally crashing straight into the middle of a Dark Tournament match via unexpected portal? Sakura becoming the fifth member of Team Urameshi, whether due to a Genkai death (both the canonical one or via Genkai having confronted Toguro earlier) or in place of Genkai? Sakura wandering the human realm and coming across an imprisoned Yukina? The sky’s the limit!
Fire Emblem Fates [↑]
Medium Opt-Ins:
Length Opt-In - 500 minimum words per fic
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Excerpts from a Journal/Notebook/Sketchbook
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Writing - Non-Linear Narrative
Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives
Laslow & Selena & Odin [↑]
Laslow/Selena/Odin [↑]
I have a truly ridiculous amount of feelings about these three. I already really liked them in Awakening, and getting to see them again in Fates was… amazing. Plotwise, I cry a lot about how underutilized their plotline was in Revelations after having spent all that effort setting it up, but in terms of characterization and relationships, I am awash in both emotion and iddy delight.
I loved seeing how they’ve grown and matured as people over the years, and I also loved seeing the ways in which their relationships with each other have also changed and grown. I love the concept of the three of them being strangers in a strange world together, with no one else familiar with their pasts and histories but each other. The Awakening kids are already a small group of time-traveling survivors from a post-apocalyptic world, and adding dimensional travel into the mix is just… these three have lived through so much. I have a lot of feelings about how, between growing up in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, time travel, and dimension travel, these three have basically lived through like three wars, starting from a very young age. And the only ones who can truly share in and understand the entirety of those experiences are the other two members of this trio. The kind of bond something like that must create fascinates me—and Odin & Laslow’s S-Support really got to me in part because of that.
On top of that, I also just have an iddy love of secrets and the potential for secrets being revealed, and their plotline is absolutely perfect for that. If you want to play with a secret reveal or other characters Noticing Something Off, or anything that explores these three’s experience of being in a different world, please feel absolutely free to do so. Worldbuilding, cultural differences, the burden of the secrets they keep, memories from their old world (both the timeline they were born in & the new one they helped create!) coming back to haunt them, the sense of connection that being literally the only people from their own world in this place creates… anything along those lines and more would be excellent.
Also: heartbreaking Birthright route content. I am always here for that. Relatedly, I’m a little obsessed with how Laslow’s the only one of the three who can canonically die in-story. Maybe something dealing with Odin & Selena mourning Laslow after he dies during the Birthright route? Alternatively, how does a Laslow who survives those events deal with the aftermath—particularly if he’s the only one left standing (i.e. Peri dies alongside Xander, but he doesn’t)?
I also have a looooooooooooot of iddy feelings about the loyalty they feel towards & the relationships they have with their liege lords (as well as Odin’s relationship with Niles), so if you want to play with those relationships your fic as well, I’d be very here for that!
Laslow [↑]
This section will be short, because I think my trio request talk also covers what I’d want from this one, but I just want to add that Inigo was already one of my faves in Awakening, and Fates just sealed my fate on that front. I love him so much. I love the interplay between his flirting and attempted confidence with his sensitivity and how so very flustered he can get. I love his relationship with his mom! I love his dancing, and how intensely private he gets about it. And I’m a little obsessed with his line from the end of Awakening about how he can’t think of anything worse than dying alone, and how that informs his character.
Naruto [↑]
Medium Opt-Ins:
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Field Report
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Mission Report
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Writing - Non-Linear Narrative
Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives
Haruno Sakura [↑]
Sakura, my love!! Naruto is my forever fandom, but honestly, it’s less that I’m in the Naruto fandom and more that I’m in the Sakura fandom—she’s my all time favorite fictional character, and nearly all the fic I read for Naruto is about her in some shape or form.
I’m particularly interested in mission fic. Send Sakura on a mission somewhere! Whether it’s by herself or with a team, both are fine with me. Case!fic or mysteries (even if they’re not mission-related) would also delight me. I also love worldbuilding and fantasy politics! Maybe she goes on a diplomatic mission somewhere, as the Hokage’s apprentice? (If you send her to Suna, I’d love to see her interact with Temari!)
Honestly, when it comes down to it, just anything plotty would make me happy. I particularly love: stories that explore Sakura’s strengths without ignoring her flaws. The use of genjutsu, especially in creating unsettling situations. (Ghost stories?) Anything about early!canon!Sakura growing stronger in a way that plays to her own natural talents.
Relatedly, I also opt-in to crossovers with any fantasy canon, regardless of if I know it or not. You can see some of my general and Sakura-related crossover thoughts in the Crossover fandom section above. My only request on that front is to please avoid plot and character spoilers for Tales of Abyss, Bravely Second, and the Akatsuki no Yona manga, as those are canons that I haven’t consumed yet but still have investment in remaining unspoiled for. I just really like the idea of getting to see Sakura in a different world.
I’d prefer fic set in either the vague post-canon setting that was used in so much fic before the actual ending for the series came out or something set during canon, whether it’s of the missing scene variation (especially during the timeskip!) or a canon divergence.
I also love canon divergences where Sakura goes down a different path, particularly in the form of her picking up a different mentor. I don’t want her betraying Konoha, but am into the thought of her having to struggle with divided loyalties if the mentor is someone she later discovers isn’t friendly to Konoha. …Weird mentor choices via time travel is also a great option, fyi.
If you want to pair her with someone, I… ship her with a lot of characters, but my favorite canon-adjacent pairings for her are Ino/Sakura (friends to rivals to lovers! ♥) and Sai/Sakura. But I also particularly love Deidara/Sakura (I love the idea of Deidara seeing Sakura’s chakra-fueled strength as a vehicle for art and being attracted to her capacity for destruction and violence), Itachi/Sakura, Kisame/Sakura, Karin/Sakura, Temari/Sakura, Gaara/Sakura… But honestly, I’m up for almost any Sakura ship, with the exception of those listed in my DNWs. Feel very free to sell me on the Sakura rarepair of your heart! I also love gen takes on any of those relationships (especially Ino & Sakura—the amount of feelings I have about their dynamic <3 <3 <3)
Also: I really like the “Sakura has civilian parents” headcanon; you don’t have to include it, but I’d appreciate it not being contradicted in-fic.
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk [↑]
Medium Opt-Ins:
Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Excerpts from a Journal/Notebook/Sketchbook
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Medium Opt-In: Writing - Epistolary
Writing - Non-Linear Narrative
Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives
DNW clarification: For this fandom only, you can consider my serial killer DNW to be mostly waived. I don’t want to see the Black Shadow murders happening “on-screen” or vivid descriptions of the corpses, but otherwise, canon-typical handling of the situation is perfectly appropriate.
Additional clarification: I’m okay with murders! I’m also okay with mass murder in the context of the Wolf Brothers ending. It’s just specifically serial killing that hits the DNW feeling for me.
In regards to the Illustrated Text opt-in: I feel like a journal/notebook/sketchbook like that would suit Levi well.
Levi/Jed [↑]
This was easily my favorite romance in the game. I love love love how, of all the love interests, Levi is the only one to fall in love with Jed without knowing she’s a woman. That it doesn’t matter to him what she is—man or woman, Wolf or Hawk—only who she is. I love how much he just likes her, and the ease of their interactions with one another—how comfortable they are being around each other, how much they enjoy one another’s company. And, of course, their mutual drive to protect one another! Jed’s realization of her feelings for him felt so natural to me, and I was a well of emotion all throughout Levi’s ending, both the sweetness and the tragedy.
Also: he stabs his own hand while in a mindless murderous rampage because he doesn’t want to hurt her?? And then she lets him bite her shoulder bloody to give him an outlet for that madness?? Please picture me fanning myself through all of that.
I admit I was initially very “oh no” about the Black Shadow reveal (see: the fact that I usually DNW serial killers), and was worried that it would ruin my enjoyment of Levi’s character, but I ended up liking how the game handled it? Like, if it’d just been “he really likes killing people, and so he does, the end :)”, it would have been a dealbreaker for me. But it’s made more complicated than that—first with the inclusion of the “magical stone drawing out and encouraging the darkest parts of him” thing, and secondly, and more importantly, with the Francisca aspect, which is the detail what made it really come together for me. I love how it wasn’t just one thing, but all three of those aspects working in tandem that drew Levi down that route, and that his own feelings aren’t uncomplicated about it.
But also: the Francisca thing!! That was so deeply fucked up, in a way that had me making heart eyes at the screen—for the depth it added to the Black Shadow situation, to Francisca’s character (who’d been a bit flat for me up until that moment), and for the implication of the Wolf Clan family dynamics as a whole.
Just. The emotional manipulation at play! Levi murdering people in an attempt to make his mother happy, so that she’d praise and love him! Francisca coldly using him to achieve her political ends in a way that keeps her heir’s hands clean! (Which I personally read as her wanting to raise the ideal image of a noble and just leader of a clan, similar to how she want to raise Jed as a kind, generous, and strong person as a “fuck you” to Aria. Which in turn raises even more terrible implications re: Levi being the “dispensable” child…) And then Levi feeling increasingly uneasy about and “stained” by his crimes, but also being unable to stop because see above points about his mother, and the way that all leads to Jed becoming a spark of light in the darkness for him!
Anything that digs into any of the points I raised above would be excellent. Also, on a lighter note… I am a shallow woman who feels very denied by the lack of a kiss CG in-game, so please, let them kiss? I have a need. (Though all the hand stuff was very very good as well, and I’m here for more of it.)
I genuinely loved the bittersweet tragedy of their canon ending, but I’m also very very here for a happier one! Maybe an alternate take on the Wolf’s Wife ending? The emotional complication of being married to one brother while in love with the other—or maybe she fake-marries Levi instead? Or maybe something that takes place after one of the happy endings? Or something else entirely!
Another thing I would be into is a pre-masquerade (or pre-canon) romance between the two of them! Levi is already in love at that point; what if Jed was too, or became aware of her feelings earlier? The complications of navigating those feelings while Jed is still keeping her gender a secret is interesting to me.
Lavan/Jed/Levi [↑]
Me @ the Wolf Brothers ending: /eyes emoji /eyes emoji /eyes emoji
It’s so fucked up in the most delightful way possible; it was the first ending I got and tbh, it set the bar so high for the rest of the game. I do see this more as a V-shaped pairing focused on Jed, but if you can sell me on it being a fully-reciprocal triangle (maybe via emotional trauma), please feel very free to go for it!
I already talked about my Levi/Jed feelings above, so for the Lavan/Jed side of things… I enjoy how much these two admire one another for their strength—seeing the best in each other, even as they themselves feel useless. And the game sold me so thoroughly on Lavan’s romantic feelings for her. The detail about how he’d resented her as a child added a depth to their dynamics that really worked for me. Unfortunately, I struggled with Jed returning those feelings in Lavan’s ending. It felt more like she saw him as a (platonic) brother until the end, just one she enjoyed being with, and her having to be told by a third party that she was in love with him didn’t help with that.
But in the Wolf Brothers ending? Yeah, absolutely. That’s the route where this trio’s mutual devotion hits its peak; Lavan and Levi willingly corrupt themselves for Jed’s sake, to her horror—but that horror doesn’t stop her from falling into the darkness herself for the sake of being together with them. There’s such an intensity and obsession to their feelings in that ending that makes it very easy for me to be able to see Jed meeting the two of them on the same level, romance-wise, and I’d love love love anything that deals with that ending, the fallout, or anything about the three of them falling into a mutual unhealthy obsessive murderous romance.
Or maybe something that plays with the Wolf’s Wife ending? Although I wasn’t into the execution of it in canon, I do think there’s a lot of potential in the concept of Jed escaping execution through a fake marriage to Lavan. Particularly since she, Lavan, and Levi are living in the same home afterwards. It strikes me as an excellent opportunity for all of them—not just Lavan—to dig into their emotional trauma and for them and their emotions to grow, shift, and change in response to their interactions with one another in the aftermath. Maybe this is a route where Jed also realized she loved Levi in that encounter in the alley? Or maybe she realizes her feelings for the two of them along the way, as they work through things.
Till the End of the Moon [↑]
Medium Opt-Ins:
Length Opt-In - 500 minimum words per fic
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Writing - Non-Linear Narrative
Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives
Tantai Jin/Li Susu [↑]
/cue me desperately trying to condense my flailing before this ends up being a 2K+ essay on my thoughts and feelings about these two
These two have the most amazing messy-complicated-fascinating dynamic. Calling it enemies-to-lovers almost feels overly simplistic! There’s Li Susu, my darling—righteous, determined, and traumatized by seeing a future version of Tantai Jin kill everyone she cares about. Then there’s Tantai Jin, starting off the series as having been hated by everyone since birth, struggling and scheming his way to survival and power, while an evil god whispers promises to him in his head all the while—and also carrying his own traumatic experiences with the original Ye Xiwu, who he believes Li Susu to be.
How strongly and obsessively he reacts to the kindness she shows him, despite what he sees as having been their past history! His only finding out that Li Susu isn’t the same person as the woman who tormented, humiliated, and beat him in the early days of their marriage after his 500 years of obsessively searching for her while his body is burned and battered by the waters of the Ruo River! And all of the added complicated emotional dynamics of Li Susu showing him genuine kindness, while also secretly plotting to kill him the whole time, while also trying again and again to put her faith in him and see if he’s capable of being good! Which gets even more complicated and messy when she does finally fall in love with him too!
On that note, it makes so much sense why Li Susu would be so ready to assume the worst whenever Tantai Jin does something amoral, because she knows he’s literally going to become the devil god! But it also makes perfect sense why Tantai Jin would make those choices because of his past and everything he’s gone through! Their choices and actions are driven so strongly by their pasts and perspective of the world, and their initial inability to understand the other feels so satisfying because of it. And I love how they do, slowly, work their way towards having a true understanding of one another, and how hard-earned that is! And then how hard it is for Tantai Jin to convince Li Susu that he’s truly gone evil at the end of the series, because they did finally succeed at understanding each other! Their relationship development is messy, it’s complicated, and it’s so so satisfying to watch.
My favorite canon setting for them was during their whole time in the mortal world, with their time in the Jing Kingdom having a particularly special place in my heart, but I also find their interactions in the final lead-up to the finale interesting and honestly am hungry for just about anything for these two, regardless of when it’s set.
I’m also just like. Eternally obsessed with the way their time in the Bo’re Life changed and shaped them, both as individuals and in regards to their relationship with one another. It makes sense that being that deeply entwined into another person’s life, feelings, experiences, and tragedies would linger, and I love how the show returns to that again and again. Tantai Jin having flashbacks to Ming Ye’s trauma when he sees Ye Xiwu in a similar situation as Sang Jiu! The two of them wandering the Shangqing Realm and feeling nostalgic about a place they’ve never been? Delicious, delicious, delicious.
Other things I love about them: all those dramatic moments of self-sacrifice, them saving each other, both of them coughing up blood and looking very pretty while doing it, the incredible number of times they get married.
I’d be up for any idea inspired by my rambling above, but for some more specific prompts:
More time travel! Maybe instead of searching for Ye Xiwu’s soul, Tantai Jin time travels (heart thread included) back to their first meeting? Or maybe it happens after that betrayal wedding, where he’d have even less context—or maybe Ye Xiwu somehow accidentally dies instead or in addition to Xiao Lin as an unexpected side-effect of Tantai Jin’s scheming—in any case, leading to two time travelers from two different futures interacting without knowing they’re time travelers? Or Tantai Jin time traveling after he dies? Or anything; I’m always weak for time travel plots.
Similarly: time loops! All the time loops, set at whatever point in canon you’d like. Especially if they come hand in hand with a good dramatic secret reveal. Both of them looping, only one of them looping, all options are good.
Speaking of secret reveals: truth serums of any kind, yes.
They get married again. Maybe it’s a post-canon reunion wedding! Maybe it’s a time loop where they get married like fifty billion more times! Maybe Tantai Jin ends up in a time loop of that wedding where Li Susu shoves the spikes in his heart? Or maybe both of them do, but neither of them realize that the other is looping too at first! Or whatever else your mind cooks up.
Li Susu could also tie Tantai Jin’s wrists to a bedpost with pretty silk scarves and bang him. Maybe it could be a wedding night treat <3
I do love Tantai Jin’s relationship with his shifu, and it would be a shame to lose that, but: I am also a shizunfucker, so maybe: an AU where Li Susu (temporarily) loses her memories of her time as Ye Xiwu, and then she’s the one who takes Tantai Jin in as a disciple?? (Though I would want Li Susu to remember eventually.)
Anything working in Li Susu’s fear of birds! Or Tantai Jin being able to talk to animals, which I loved and the series seemed to forget was a thing by the end.
Li Susu/Sang Jiu [↑]
Look… evil!Sang Jiu is hot, Li Susu is super gorgeous, so let’s let them be hot together, okay?
What interests me about this ship is that Li Susu knows Sang Jiu more intimately than she can ever possibly know any other person, because for a brief time, she was her. But Sang Jiu doesn’t know Li Susu—she died long before Li Susu was ever born. And unlike Ming Ye, who had a piece of himself lingering after death & so could meet with Tantai Jin—Sang Jiu never meets Li Susu.
So let them meet! I feel like reincarnation and time travel are the two obvious options, and am down for both. But if you have a different idea that hasn’t occurred to me, please run wild. I have a slight preference for it being post-canon Li Susu who meets Sang Jiu, but as long as it takes place after she’s experienced the Bo’re Life (and isn’t unkind to Tantai Jin), I’m open to persuasion. If Sang Jiu is reincarnated: please let her have her memories! Or at least recover them at some point.
Mo Nv [↑]
Mo Nv! I find the differences between her and her life as Bingchang really interesting. She’s literally a demon, but there’s a lot less desperate scheming, grasping for power, and overall trouble-making going on—she’s so much more chill! And I think the reason for that is because she’s a demon.
As Bingchang, she dealt with so much insecurity in her life, despite being a part of a rich family. The daughter of a concubine, her siblings more favored than she and always in the shadow of an unkind Ye Xiwu—she’s hungry for stability and safety, and in her eyes, the only way of securing that is to go to the very top. But as a woman, her options for achieving that are limited. Her schemes are the only avenue to power (and thus, security) that she really has. But as a demon, she’s been given more power than Bingchang ever had from birth. She’s not so desperate any more, and I love how you can see that difference in how she moves and carries herself.
I ship neither Bingchang/Xiao Lin nor Mo Nv/Gongye Jiwu, but I do find the role those relationships played in her lives and her emotional reactions to them interesting. I actually never bought that she herself loved Xiao Lin—just that she wanted the security he represented, and that, after a childhood spent in the shadows of others, she hungered for someone to genuinely love her best of all.
Relatedly, one of my favorite Bingchang moments is her final one. The tragedy of her never trusting in Xiao Lin’s love, her scheming bringing about his death, and then her finding out that he’d been in love with her before she obtained that second set of love threads/before she’d started scheming to gain his affections? Delicious, delicious tragedy.
Her dying in that moment was the cherry on top when it comes to a satisfying tragedy, but I also love how her rebirth as/return to being Mo Nv allows her the chance to internalize and work her way through her feelings about that—and also how that life as Bingchang changes her as a person once she returns to being Mo Nv! Her character arc kind of fizzled out at the end of the series (as did those of so many other side characters), but I’m hungry to see it explored more fully, because I find the ideas so interesting.
Me and my fixation on sibling dynamics also adores her and Si Ying’s relationship. The love and devotion between them!! I could eat that up for days. Honestly could have done with more Mo Nv grief and rampaging after Si Ying’s death, but I did enjoy what we got. I’m also intrigued by the hints we got about what went down with Mo Nv in their shared backstory, and would be down for seeing that explored more fully.
I’m also down for Si Ying/Mo Nv, if you want to get fuzzy on the boundaries between platonic sibling bonds and incest, but also exploring her having to share Si Ying with Si Ying’s devotion to the devil god. Si Ying/Jing Mie also makes for a cute side-pairing that I’d be down for.
I realize this section is high on rambling and low on specific prompts, but when it comes down to it, what I mostly want for this request is to see any or all of these ideas or dynamics explored further.
Ye Qingyu [↑]
When Ye Qingyu was first introduced, I never thought I’d find him this interesting. And yet, here we are! I think the first moment he really grabbed me as a character was when he made the choice to surrender to Tantai Jin. He’s faced with such a difficult decision there—obey the emperor, prove himself a loyal general, and throw away hundreds or thousands of lives in the progress, or take Tantai Jin’s offer and end the bloodshed, but in doing so knowing that he’ll be branded a traitor and that the emperor will almost certainly have his family killed in response? He’s such a forthright person, and I think it’s in this moment we see it’s not just some blind ideals of nobility that drive him, but that he’s genuinely trying his best to do what is right, even if doing so leads to personal suffering. (Also, Emperor Sheng can join the long list of fictional emperors who fucked themselves over due to being overly paranoid.)
But what really makes me lose my mind over Ye Qingyu is where his story ends! He loses his entire family and the woman he loves within a very brief span of time—most of them within a single day. And then Tantai Jin just up and vanishes on him—or kills himself in his grief, from Ye Qingyu’s perspective—and then Nian Baiyu also skedaddles on home, leaving Ye Qingyu all alone to pick up the pieces of the Jing Kingdom and make sure the country doesn’t fall into chaos. What an incredible burden!
The last we see of Ye Qingyu in the past, the ministers are asking him to hunt down an appropriate member of Tantai Jin’s distant relatives to take over as king. But then, 500 years later, we see that he’s spent the past 500 years ruling Jing Kingdom himself as a supposedly successive series of masked kings. How did things get to that point? What made him take up the mantle of king? Did he try to find those potential successors and realize that none were suitable, or could he not find anyone at all, or—? How has he spent these past 500 years?
Grief, mourning, and loneliness are all very delicious themes for me, fyi.
I also so badly want to see a reunion between him and Li Susu, and am honestly a little sad that the series didn’t give it to us. So maybe they get to meet, somehow, post-canon? Or—maybe during that period of time where Li Susu was investigating the history of the Jing Kingdom to find out what happened to Tantai Jin, she comes across a wild rumor about the masked Jing king being immortal, goes, “!!!”, and then goes to hunt down who she thinks must be Tantai Jin, only to discover her brother instead?
Nian Baiyu/Ye Qingyu [↑]
After going on and on about Ye Qingyu in my solo section, I feel bad that the main thing I have to say about Nian Baiyu is, “he’s such a cutie ♥”, but, well. He is! He’s such a cutie! I’ve been fond of him from his first introduction, and my feelings basically stayed the same throughout the whole series. I love his devoted loyalty to Tantai Jin, and while I do think his subplot in the ending portion of the series really needed more screentime, I did enjoy the torn loyalties, struggling with guilt aspects. And his trying to make it up to Tantai Jin at the end! I also love his ability to talk to animals and am always here for more it.
I really enjoyed the period of time when these two and Pian Ran were Tantai Jin’s inner circle, and that’s also where my fondness for this ship was born.
As for Pian Ran: I like her a lot, and want her to be treated well by the narrative. Some options as to how to handle that could be: the Nian Baiyu/Ye Qingyu feelings starting after her death; an AU where she and Ye Qingyu are still drawn to each other/have a deep bond, but it’s not a romantic relationship; Ye Qingyu having/struggling with feelings for both, but trying to ignore the feelings for Nian Baiyu as best as he can (and then she dies, and it gets even more complicated, emotions-wise). I wouldn’t want an active love triangle or to see him having something actively going on with both at the same time.
There was a brief period of time after Tantai Jin exited the Jing Kingdom storyline, but before we found out that Nian Baiyu had been the one to spirit him away, where it looked like these two were the sole survivors of this tragedy and would have to pick up the pieces together. And I was very /eyes emoji about where that could lead. But then Nian Baiyu went back home—which makes sense, since the Jing Kingdom was never his home—leaving Ye Qingyu all alone. I’d be interested in AUs where he does stay (...after a quick trip home to take Tantai Jin to the Nether River, lol), or unexpectedly comes back (and has to deal with the guilt when he later finds out about the Moon Tribe being destroyed while he was gone), or—
Post-canon reunions! What particularly intrigues me about this option is how, both of these characters started off as normal humans, so after 500 years they would normally be dead, and almost certainly expect the other one to be. Unexpected reunions with someone you believed dead, yes/yes? Nian Baiyu is left in an interesting emotional state by the end of the series, what with the “guilt over betraying a person he was devoted to and trying to make up for it—giving up on saving his tribe after 500 years of suffering/sacrifices made on their behalf in the process—before getting yeeted off of a cliff (to save his life, admittedly)” thing, and I’d love to see that explored. And what about Ye Qingyu? His situation seems very lonely to me. Did he feel at all betrayed or hurt by Nian Baiyu leaving him behind to deal with all of that alone?
And then, of course, feelings. Feelings they had 500 years ago, but never explored or fully realized, until now? Or new feelings sparked for the first time after 500 years of living difficult and separate lives? As always, I’m down for grief and guilt complicating things, but I also love healing and finding peace.