#ngl I've had a canon fix it in my head for a while

[blu3haw4]

for the made up fanfic title: "let it flood, let it flood, let it wash away"

The first thing that comes to mind is something angsty, which isn't really my thing so... bear with me for a sec.

I feel like it could be a little three-acts type of fic

Im thinking maybe canon? Canon fix it perhaps?

Clarke's Pov with everything going wrong; First act, delinquents dying, the ark failing, the grounders attacking and Clarke in the middle of it trying to hold everything together (as usual)

Second act, she does make a deal with the grounders, either with Lexa or Anya first and everything is still very stressful, they need to accommodate to trikru culture, they have to prove they're useful to trikru if not to the entire coalition, they need to make plans for the ark's landing and a maintened peace afterwards.

Maybe there's no mount wheater, or maybe there is but Lexa never betrays Clarke. Maybe they don't kill them all and their plan goes through just fine or maybe act three is about Clarke processing all the things she's done, Mount wheater included.

And Act three 'let it wash away' Clarke goes to Polis, Lexa and all skykru become heroes, they finally defeated their century long enemy, the grounders' nightmare. It wouldn't all be rainbows and unicorns of course. Polits suck but are necessary, this time though Clarke and Lexa would face them together. The would finally get together and Lexa would show Clarke all the beautiful things about earth, about their culture and their people. Clarke would get the chance to remember all the fun things she got to do in the ark (they would definitely play chest very often) and enjoy earth truly for the very first time. Lexa would bright her days just as much as Clarke would brighten Lexa's. She would change too, of course. Aside from the polits and changing her mind with Clarke's ideas, she would be lighter, she would let go, be freer, she would want to enjoy life as she keeps on showing Clarke that is possible. She'd sort of rediscover life's beauty while showing it all to Clarke.

And they would be happy, they'd help each other cope with all the bad thing and share all the good ones. They'll love each other for all eternity and they would make each other stronger in every way.

[lachambers-central]

Suddenly remembered this fic I started writing a years ago (and never finished) where it was this whole different parallel dimensions, where a modern Gordie switched place with 50/60s Gordie. And lachambers was canon in both, but in the past they had to hide their relationship while they were open about it in the modern times, and the different Gordie's were forced to navigate life in these different timelines.

I wrote the most about OG Gordie in the future, and just the shock of his mum being a working woman, his dad doing household chores and just Chris being openly affectionate towards him in public.

I actually found out that the text was saved, after initially thinking it had been lost to time on my old computer, but seeing that I'd thought to save it on my drive was so much fun.

I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but thought it would be fun to share. Here's some of my favourite passages from it because I'm in a sharing mood, pls remember that I wrote this a long time ago and that the writing will be stilted, and I've fixed some grammar to spare you:

Ok, first some og Gordie in modern times:

“Gordie Hun, you ready to go?” He just nodded and followed his mother outside.

From inside he could hear his father's voice saying “Fine, just leave me with the dishes then. I see how it is Dorothy.” This was unlike he’d ever heard, because for the first time his dad had talked about doing the dishes without spite and calling it a women’s job. Instead he talked about it with a playful tone.

...

“Hey,” He said, glad to see someone who didn’t seem to have changed.

“Hi,”

Chris said leaning in, quickly pecking his lips. And that was the last straw. From a different room, to a different mum, everything being oh so different, and now the one thing he thought he could rely on was completely different too? He wasn’t having it. He pushed Chris away.

“What the heck are you doing?”

He looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but no one seemed the least bothered. Chris was shocked at the sudden action, but thankfully he didn’t seem mad.

“You can’t do that in front of people?”

...

And finally a little passage of modern Gordie in the past:

“What?”

Instead of answering Chris pinched Gordie on the arm.

“Ouch, what was that for?” Gordie asked, rubbing his arm lightly.

“To show you that this ain’t no dream. Have you smoked something weird? Is that it? Gordo, did someone force you to smoke something weird? Because that would be the only explanation as to why you act this way."

“Smoke?” Gordie scoffed. “You know I don’t smoke.”

It was at this moment Chris seemed to truly be losing it.

“Are you playing a trick on me man? Because if so, it ain’t funny”

Gordie just shook his head unable to comprehend what the heck was going on.

(The amount of times I use the word heck in this fic makes me wanna gouge my eyes out ngl)

[hyperbolicgrinch]

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time? 

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Im sorry there's so many. I'm just a simp for my author wifey, and you can ask me anything forever 💖

ASKS FROM BANG?!! I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Don't apologise, I adore you for it. Thank you, 🥜, for taking the time to send me anything. ☺️

(huhuhuhu permission granted, let's go 👁️👄👁️💖)

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

Hmm. If it's like punctuation (and grammar too, I guess), I'd say it's like 4 (1 being the best thing ever sgsggdj) cause 85% of the time I know exactly what to to with that and love fixing little low stake slip-ups that have laid out rules I can follow and don't really need to overthink about.

Editing, like going through and punching everything up a notch or cleaning up flow is hmm, still pretty high. Like a 5. Cause even though it can be daunting and painstaking, I love that I actually have words on a page to play around with. I think it let's the ideas and scenes reach a closer version to the ones I had in my head. It's a lot of work and can drive one crazy but getting things to sing or spark is so satisfying ngl. 😌

Editing when you have to overhaul and rewrite large parts and fix one big problem but maybe make ten more is a quick and easy way to go insane but I still think it's not that bad. Like a 6 or 7. Cause, once again, I've already got words to fuck around and find out with and I'd take that over a blank page any day.

Proof reading editing can be really fun because spotting inconsistencies and lining them all up so they match makes brain go brrrrr so like a 5 or 6. Especially because at that point I know I'm so close to the finish line and the pay off is right there if I just get my shit together. 😂

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

fuck it, more than 5 be upon ye: 🥣🚩🫀🧵🧲😤💋🦋🏴‍☠️

🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?

Fatigue. 😅 Depression. 😅 Imposter syndrome. 😅 The stars not feeling like they've aligned correctly. 😮‍💨 The pressure to write a scene how it is in my head. 😩 The "what's the point?" poison to my whimsy and motivation. 🙄 The amount of time that's passed since I started writing the thing. 😭 The constant desire for instant gratification. 😐 The everyday horrors. 😵‍💫 My pedantic ass. 😮‍💨 Me forever renting real estate in the procrastination CBD. 🙄 I love to shoot myself in foot and just stare at a wall thinking about writing but not doing it. So just about everything under the sun, really. 🤪

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

I don't know if this is what the question meant sfsghfhjjj but arghh I want a modern au that's so specific and catered to my exact tastes and based on the rambles my sister and I have had hsjjajjsk but there's also like this canon divergent ??? fix it??? au??? manifesting?? idea I have been thinking about non-stop since it got inside my brain but that I'm worried to to do in case it gets my hopes up for canon but basically I want two characters (and their crews) (but also these other two random characters that are not related to the first idea or each other bwhhah but I have thoughts for too and need them to come back exactly how I am envisioning because it would honestly be the Best Thing to Happen Since Sliced Bread ppfft hshajjajahsh) to somehow find each other again and team back up and take no shit to get revenge and then maybe kiss a little bit in front of the 1️⃣☮️ or something agshshsjaka after a dramatic entrance and while they hold some huge threat off so Luffy can get the ultimate boss fight done hdhsjskjshdj (Oda I'm so fr like if you need a rest or wanna hand their arc off so you can focus on bigger things, I'm right here cracking my metaphorical knuckles, I'll do it for you so fast, I have Ideas, put me in coach you won't regret ittt🙂👉👈) but it would be like so much work to make a plot that even made sense for it because I would have to do so much reaching and hand waving unless I got real serious about it and even then I would have to make so much up because there is no word of Goda or known timeline yet or events to use for its structure. 😅😂

But just anyone. Anyone that isn't me should write it (like Oda if you've got a moment...I mean, you've already done most of it,, might as well keep going, man) 😂 Maybe they even have... I haven't had a chance to look. 😅

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

Any and all comments spark joy and make me hehehehe and teeheeteehee and kick my feet and then I put them in my "reasons to keep writing" folder so I can go back and look at them when I'm feeling like a fraud or giving up on the thing. I wish I could be more specific but I really do cherish when people take the time to just leave anything. If they say what they liked or quote something they loved, that's even better, but merely a kind-hearted bonus. ☺️

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Hhrrmmm. If the vibe check just ain't passing for whatever reason or the tone and character is off to an unforgivable degree. 😌 Maybe it's in character for them and the version of that character they have in their heads, but if it ain't clicking for me, it ain't clicking, and I can't push through it. 😩 I think this is a very common one but yeah, character makes or breaks a fic. Cause it's the whole point, at the end of the day, ya know? 😅

[burst-of-iridescent]

Hi, so just starting off by saying that I despise the comics and L*K. Character and plot assassination at its finest. However, I did read some of the Imbalance comic. And I will say that, like the other comics, it’s not well-written in the slightest. That being said, if we’re being comic critical here, I can actually see some points being made for KA in that comic. Aang actually going out of his way to comfort Katara for once? Aang admitting that Katara was right, that he listened to her, and that the city needs both of their help, when she says that the city needs only him? Bryke’s incel self-insert would NEVER. It genuinely had me confused when I read it the first time ngl. Then I realized that the comic was written by a woman, and it suddenly all made sense why their relationship was a lot more equal in ways that the show never gave us. Obviously, whatever small amount of growth the comic gave to their relationship is null because the other comics and LOK exists. But yeah, I genuinely think if the ship was written like this (where both of them are older and the romance is a lot more subtle but they are both on equal terms, a lot of people wouldn’t have problems with KA. Just wondering if you’ve seen those parts and what are your thoughts on it?

i've heard that the comics do (retroactively) try to fix kat.aang by addressing some of the issues pointed out in the original show, like giving katara more agency, making her a more equal partner in the relationship (like you pointed out) and having aang explicitly ask for consent, and good on them for trying, but it's just too little too late. not only are the other comics also terrible to ka (*cough* love is a battlefield, the promise, whichever one it is where katara just sits sad and neglected by the side while aang shows off to his fangirls) the original show still exists and that cannot be salvaged. besides, reading and taking the comics as canon means accepting the most bullshit character assassinations, and getting a marginally more tolerable kat.aang just isn't worth that tradeoff.

but i think you hit the nail on the head to say that if the ship had been written with both of them being older and on more equal terms, many people would've been far more okay with it. i've said multiple times that kat.aang was never doomed from the start (the way mai.ko was) and it was a deliberate writing choice to make them not work.

in my opinion, four things had to be done to make kat.aang a palatable and healthy ship:

katara and aang needed to be on the same maturity level, preferably through having aang actually undergo growth. the reason i enjoy book 1 kat.aang is because i think this is the season where katara and aang are the closest in maturity, but the gap between them grows wider as the show continues and hits its peak in book 3, right when they get together. this makes their relationship feel unequal and imbalanced, and makes aang impossible to buy as a romantic partner, because we see him only as a child.

there had to be a give and take on both ends. this means seeing aang give actual emotional support to katara (especially in the southern raiders), and katara stop mothering aang. aang comes from a monastic culture, so having him just naturally help katara with cooking/cleaning/etc because he's used to being in an environment where everyone pitches in would've been a great way to establish katara and aang as a feasible couple who would work well together. i would also most definitely have had katara and aang bond over being the last of their respective benders, because this is something only the other would've truly been able to understand. it would have showed us that katara and aang get and help each other in ways that no other characters can.

the relationship had to be framed from both katara and aang's point of view, not just aang's. scrap the ridiculous will‐they‐won't‐they and just show us that katara is actually interested in aang. have aang be presented from katara's view the same way jet is, the same way she is from aang's. have moments that show us why katara would like aang (see point 2) and for the love of all that's good and holy, do not make katara a voiceless reward for aang's efforts. she deserves just as much say in her romantic relationship as aang does. one of my favourite episodes is the cave of two lovers even though it's so kat.aang heavy because it actually does this reasonably well. katara initiates their romantic interaction, blushes thinking about it, and actually seems to be into it.

take out the chakra blocking plot point. kat.aang was already bad in universe, but making their relationship an external narrative problem just fucked them over both in and out of universe. kat.aang became a huge stumbling block in aang's character arc, was never resolved satisfactorily, and overall contributed nothing to either the ship's or the plot's development (unless another ship was supposed to be endgame)

of course, i also wouldn't have made aang an incel who felt entitled to katara's affections and forced his romantic affections on her, but maybe that's just me.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

So I saw your comment about xue/xiao on this post about cheng/xian and it occurred to me that's even ironic how xy, in his own twisted way of seeing things and according to wwx's deductions, killed Chang Ping bc he "offended" xxc when turning his back on him while jc, on the other hand, went killing people who reminded him of wwx/just in case they had a connection to wwx. And I'm not saying xy is any more right, he is that effed up (and the dissonance is so shocking too, as if it wasn't HIS fault in the first place, that. I'm sorry. but I find it amazing... that's what xy is in the end) but still if you're going to make a parallel with these two, I have to say that: it says a lot that xy, the psycho murderer, kills someone bc, again, in his twisted head he offended "the object of his affection" but jc, tsundere misunderstood grape, kills people bc he relates them to "the person of his affections".

Anyways, that aside but also related to something you mentioned about they not wanting the tragedy of Yi City... You hit the nail on the head. Look, ngl, I personally find annoying of course when people like that anon that also mentions xue/xiao talks about how horrid and how disturbed she finds people like them. I think it's unnecessary bc it's not even like this is about them but jc so why bring them out of nowhere to say such things? And sorry for the tmi but allow me to really make clear that I've never had not even a close to an abusive rs in my life so I hope people finally get that we know to separate reality from fiction and I guess the fact we aren't triggered by it it's also a sign some of us luckily can say irl we've never allowed any dangerous bs from another person.

ANYWAYS, sorry I digress. Back to the point, the truth is that while I find unnecessary to say things like that when the main theme isn't even them, I do understand if some people feel uncomfortable by it, I just believe there are certain fandom etiquettes and it's not the same to talk about how of a horrible person xy is, bc he is, than shading people for being in their corner shipping something problematic. And what's more important about xue/xiao shippers is that so far, in my experience, we are quite "content" with the result? We accept this is a tragic effed up story and we accept it couldn't end well. We aren't, idk, blaming wang/xian for what happens to xy when he and he alone dug his own grave, duh. We like it bc of its tragedy. And I think the best proof is that there isn't as much fix-it fics like people who maybe think this is about being apologists would believe. From time time of course we need some crack, some unrealistic result, some comedy even lol... but I think the reason our ship work for us is bc we like it bc of it is and not bc we project ourselves. Also, I thank God never saw MXTX being attacked by xy stans... I don't doubt there must be some cringey stans like there are everywhere but I'm sure they're a small number. I actually find amusing MXTX being like "why do you ship those, idgi??" 😂 but above all, I respect her bc it's her work. This is not about being a boot licker, I believe it's ok to have your opinions too and not necessarily agree with the author... Too bad that all the MXTX antis I saw are gross about her and they're far from just giving criticism. They're plain bitter haters. It's not like it personally affects me and as if she doesn't have the right to have her own opinions on her story and own characters just bc I happen to ship something I KNOW it's not canon, ffs... In any case we can agree to disagree bc it's also my right to ~romanticise~ whatever I want as long as it's fictional. All in all, I'm grateful she created this story that hooked and these characters I learned to love...

Sorry if this became long and if it's all over the place 😅 but I just couldn't help myself and wanted to bring some points on this whole matter...

So I will break down my comments point by point anon!

On the point of Xue Yang, I find him fascinating along with his relationship concerning Xiao Xingchen. They had built up a relationship on so many lies, and lived fairly happily in that all while Xue Yang was unable to parse out what his animosity was towards Xiao Xingchen his love for him, and his idea of honoring this same person. It is just a mess of a relationship with so much that can't actually be described because even the characters can't separate exactly what is going on there aside from the pain Xue Yang caused because he just does not understand kindness and empathy in a significant way that could have saved himself. It is a gorgeous plot point and awful bond. It's also just at the cusp of Xue Yang being in denial admitting that he DOES miss Xiao Xingchen and his build up of this unconscious guilt for having killed someone he learned to love and know. Especially next to Jin Guangyao who doesn't have this guilt but is very good at speaking like he is, and Jiang Cheng who is not regretful for what he did to Wei Wuxian.

On the topic of ship shit talk: I have no bone to throw here as a defense. I shit talk chengx!an and plenty of pairings with mutuals and friends as a vent, because I find ships ridiculous as much as others. Everyone in my eyes can do as they want, say what they want in terms of fandom made content. It's there in all it's non-canonical glory to roast or praise on all ends. I think the issue here in regards to all of this is the conflation of fanon being made to seem like actual canon and the line of where personal tastes needs to be made apparent. MXTX isn't big on shipping outside of her main pairs, I'm the same with mine for OC's and I am very very picky in regards to this, but fans are gonna fan and Rule 34 is there no matter what. Fandom curating is always the answer if certain pairs get to you that badly. I also think there is a fine line with accusations of romanticizing non-canon pairs and it's place in a real life context towards others individuals as I think morbid material has it's place to be explored safely within literature and entertainment without pearl clutching or holier than though attitudes especially prevalent in English/Western fandom.

People get far too invested within the fandom headcanon space and a lot of vitriol pours out from that. It's a double-edged sword especially claiming to love something from this while condemning a multitude of people (mostly always chinese mainland fans, or other LGBT+ people who do not share the same self-flagellation attitude towards an entertainment piece). Self-flagellation is hypocrisy in my eyes and just because some people tend to make a very loud note of this, does not make them morally superior in sharing the same content as everyone else no matter how they do this.