mxtx rare pair exchange - dear author letter!

[deepestbluesky]

first of all: hi welcome i'm so glad you're here and writing for me! i'm super excited to participate in this exchange. second: i'm SO SORRY for how long this letter got, please do not feel beholden to everything in it, there is so much and i just let myself ramble. i personally like getting lots and lots of information when i'm trying to write for someone else, but i totally get if that's not your thing—feel free to simply skim this or skip everything except what i already put in my sign-up if you are overwhelmed!

likes: any sort of urban fantasy or modern-with-cultivation au, road trips (or canon-appropriate equivalent), road trips (or canon-appropriate road trip equivalent), always a girl/rule 63 (but only if it’s queer), trans and/or nonbinary characters, casual sex, bondage (also generally d/s au and/or the trappings that come with it; collars, etc. but not possessiveness/jealousy), important relationships with other characters (found family feels especially), polyamory (inclusion of open relationships with canon significant others definitely included in this), complex relationships that don’t fit neatly into a platonic vs romantic or platonic vs sexual divide, banter/snarking, tattoos (just as a thing or as a tattoo store au), stories set in very specific places or take-your-fandom-to-work type AUs, superhero au, tentacles (but only if everyone involved enjoys it), omegaverse that specifically focuses on betas or is gen or has a focus on worldbuilding (omegaverse in general i am ambivalent towards), multimedia or non-traditional narrative fic (social media in fics, epistolary fic, fics that are just notes the characters write in the margins of another text, fake academic papers, audio transcript fics, whatever format you like! i love all of it)

DNWs: (non-canonical or non-temporary) major character death, rape/non-con (CNC definitely okay), bashing/villainizing of canon significant others

dislikes: high school au, big power imbalance, age difference as a kink (like, i don’t mind age difference pairings, but it’s not an appeal), amnesia, pregnancy, cheating/infidelity, or angsty endings that don't come from canon. dub-con is fine as long as it’s the ‘everyone is into everything going on but can’t necessarily consent’ version, but i wouldn’t say it’s a selling point for me.

extra special likes: platonic sex, polyamory where everyone’s relationship with each other is different and they get different things from each person, Queer Themes (especially in between things: bisexuality, being somewhere on the ace/aro scale, gender feels that don’t coalesce into anything well-defined), original characters and/or outside POV, that moment where someone sees something new in someone else for the first time and is taken aback by it, significant changes in how one character refers to another character (names)

 

i’ve seen CQL and read the novel as well as seen a bit of the donghua, but i’m happy to consume fanworks based on any version of MDZS canon or any sort of mashup you want to run with! with TGCF, i've seen the existing season of the donghua and read the novel and again: happy to consume fanworks based on any version or any combo of canons! i love the focus in canon about the stories that get told about people, whether true or false or both, and how those stories spread and change- i originally wrote this line about mdzs, but i like it a LOT in tgcf too. i also really like the ways the characters in both of these stories have such a complicated web of connections to each other in ways that aren't immediately obvious when you meet them in the story. i’m much more interested in characters figuring out a way to live in the society they’re in rather than leaving it behind, in general, and also what mundane everyday life is like for these characters who in canon are caught up in such huge bigger-than-life events. of course, i’ve loved many many fics that didn’t focus on any of these things i just mentioned, so don’t feel like you need to incorporate any of these things! and same goes for the prompts below - these are just suggestions and notes about what drew me in for these ships. if you have a totally different idea, go for it!

as you might notice, i'm really into casual sex or even platonic sex. many of these ships are things i don't see as romantic but as friends (or enemies, or weird coworkers lol) with benefits or something similar. this is not to say you can't write them as romantic! i'd be down to read that too! i am also perfectly fine with G or T rated fics even if i talk about sexy dynamics in the prompts! this is just to give you some context for the kinds of ways i tend to approach shipping and especially rare pairs. (also, i'm always fine with background canon/other pairings and implied polyamory if that's your jam!)

 

Fēng Xìn/Jiàn Lán/Mù Qíng: i just want them raising cuocuo togther!!!!! okay. to be clear. i would be into a lot of options here. but that's the main spark of inspiration for this ship for me! i love the idea of mu qing/feng xin getting together, but also jian lan realizing that she doesn't need to Do Everything Herself with regards to raising cuocuo, and them all figuring out a way to work together. i would be super into all three of them in a romantic relationship or varying types of relationship between them. [extremely picky request: i'm the one that nominated this ship for this exchange and i realized later that the tag should actually be Fēng Xìn/Jiàn Lán/Mù Qíng (no (TGCF) in parentheses, just the names), so if you do happen to write this, can you use this tag for the ship? thank you and i'm sorry lol]

Huā Chéng/Jiàn Lán: basically, i realized a bit ago that jian lan is one of the only characters we meet in the book who's also from xianle that hua cheng could have regularly interacted with: she's been there in ghost city (the whole time? presumably?), she actually did know xie lian sort of, and i can totally see hua cheng sometimes wanting to just be around someone else who remembers the flower-crowned martial god (and maybe also xianle in general—whether they're good memories or not!). i also had this specific thought of hua cheng wanting to know how to Be Good At Sex in case [many redacted thoughts bc hc doesn't let himself even think about the possibility of having sex with xl except for how he's totally thinking about it] and so he goes to jian lan to learn how to fuck. idk i just think they could be weirdly friends and also maybe sleep together for comfort sometimes! i also think jian lan's whole extremely brash attitude as a ghost would be something hua cheng is really comfortable and possibly amused with.

Líng Wén/Shī Qīngxuán: this is totally based on how they both have Gender Things going on in canon—their more powerful form vs their other form, and how that seems to fit differently on both of them but how it seems to affect the two of them differently than it does the other gods we see in canon. i would love if they had a standing meeting before canon and maybe ling wen shows up again post-canon to meet with shi qingxuan, who is super surprised and also maybe a little fucked up about how he (only using he pronouns here bc it's what the book does—i'm up for any pronouns for shx) is now seemingly stuck as a man. could also be a total au! i just think they should bond about Gender Shit and also maybe make out about it because it's less fraught to do that with someone else who also has gender stuff going on.

Cángsè Sǎnrén/Lán Qǐrén/Wèi Chǎngzé: i am super interested in cangse sanren and wei changze since we know so little about them, and i just think pairing them with grumpy on the surface but maybe just secretly wants to be loved lan qiren is VERY FUCKING GOOD. also honestly lan qiren! we know very little about his life pre canon too! i just think they're neat!!! were they all having their own cloud recesses summer camp romance? feel free to go canon divergent! feel free to not go au and have a bittersweet ending! (if it's canon-compliant, does lqr maybe remember things about them as he tells wwx about them?) feel free for a total au where modern au wwx and lwj are simply Not Thinking About how their respective parent figures are definitely hooking up now! i just like the adults getting to be also as messy as we know the sunshot generation is and the fun of these two mostly blank slates with lqr who could definitely have all kinds of unexplored feelings before canon.

Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Jīn Zǐxuān: all cheekbones, no communication skills, baby! could be an au where jiang cheng is the arranged marriage with jin zixuan. could be an au where they're stuck together somewhere and have to work together to get out. could be [im preemptively sad] an au where jiang yanli dies but jin zixuan doesn't and they raise jin ling together. idk!! could be a lot of things! i just think it would be very fun to see them having to learn to get along and then realizing, 'oh… oh i LIKE him? as a PERSON? and also he's HOT???'

Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn: i just want them all to be HAPPY [giant pleading emoji]. yunmeng shuangjie has my whole heart, i love wangxian, and i am absolutely obsessed with the long complicated tangle of jiang cheng and lan wangji's relationship over the years. i'm into this as either a triad or a poly-v with jc/lwj+lwj/wwx or lwj/wwx+wwx/jc. i love the three of them trying to figure out how to have a relationship, i love them being comfortably in a relationship and spending all their time switching off who are the two ganging up to roast the other one, i love all of them being into each other and thinking the others are in love with someone else. something i think about a lot is the idea of lan wangji and jiang cheng Knowing things about each other from when they searched for wei wuxian for three months together—important things like the shape of their war trauma to utterly minor things like what food they secretly hate—and i just think wei wuxian would be utterly fascinated by this. (for the record, i don't care if jc and wwx think of each other as brothers or not! i'll read either!)

Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn/Wēn Qíng: i have very little to say here other than: Big Sexy, but i will TRY. i'm especially into the idea of them like… hm. having some sort of relationship that SEEMS like a couple plus a third wheel (honestly up to you who is who lol) but that isn't, it's actually what they all want. i like that jiang cheng and wei wuxian could team up to get wen qing to relax and let herself have nice things, i like that jiang cheng and wen qing can team up to make wei wuxian actually take care of himself, i like that wei wuxian and wen qing can team up to tell jiang cheng he is loved and valued, and also i love that they all would just absolutely roast each other constantly (yes this is just. something i like. luckily anything with wwx+jc involved works well for this), and i would once again like to repeat: Big Sexy. if you're gonna go explicit with this one, i definitely think some kink (bondage? needleplay? other thematically appropriate kinks for these three characters?) would be fun. (for the record, i don't care if jc and wwx think of each other as brothers or not! i'll read either!)

Jiāng Yànlí/Jīn Zǐxuān/Luó "Mián Mián" Qīngyáng: i like the idea of jin zixuan and mianmian having a bit of a ‘king and lionheart’ (jon and alanna, if you’ve ever read tortall) relationship, and that just naturally growing to encompass jiang yanli. alternately, yanli being a bi disaster about jzx and mianmian sparring with each other (let jyl be just as much of a hot mess as her brothers 2k202k21!), and in fact, i would 100% buy all three of them as disaster bisexuals. or in another direction, the three of them forming their own little fortress to deal with the jin family bullshit.

Jiāng Yànlí/Qín Sù: i had the thought of 'what if jiang yanli survives and maybe qin su somehow survives too and they are like. divorced/widowed moms raising their kids together' and now HERE I AM. could be canon divergence, could be a total au, could be something else entirely! idk i think the idea of these two women who have been in love before finding something new and making a new life. could also be them turning to each other for comfort in a shitty situation!

Mò Xuányǔ/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn: i didn't think i had any thoughts about this and then i was like WHAT IF THEY'RE INSIDE WEI WUXIAN'S /BRAIN/!!! i still don't really know where i'm going with that haha. but i think it would be interesting for them to meet even if they're not exactly meeting? i also think there's a spicy sprinkling of self-cest adjacent going on here, which i'm here for. i also love AUs where mo xuanyu and wei wuxian are friends/exes/fwbs because they're into similar things. mo xuanyu deserves nice things and also maybe to fuck the yiling laozu, as a treat. ALSO i think there's a really lovely possibility for them to offer care and tenderness to each other that they won't extend to themselves, and that allowing them to gain a level of acceptance for their own issues because they have some similar ones. on a different DIFFERENT note: mo xuanyu teaching wei wuxian how to do makeup.