#oh also my AU chaoyao dynamic... ty Stella_Azurite from ao3 ur my sister in arms in the battle for iggychu and also my inspo

[tianshiisdead]

iggychu?

S+ tier, ultra OTP. idc if that rank isn't on the list. Oh man, how do I even start.

Short explanation here, long historic one under the readmore

I will preface this by saying it's a ship with a tumultuous history of imperialism and very real suffering, a perpetrator x victim ship, a 'dark' ship, etc. Keep that in mind as a general warning. I am personally rather confident in my ability to treat it carefully as a Chinese person and someone with a fairly solid background in early modern Chinese history, and I personally am rather laissez-faire with shipping, but YMMV

I think the main appeal to me really is the history. Like, it's my OTP that got me back into Hetalia like 2 years ago (and I met my darling gf thru it) so of course I love the ship as is and I love AUs, but the history hits all the points of tension and power imbalance and 'divorce' and crushed dreams that I love so much. I love both characters separately as well and I love how explosively they come together and fall apart. I think their personalities could fit surprisingly well in another world, another life, where they could have a quiet moment over tea and Wang Yao would appreciate Arthur's quiet grace and Arthur Wang Yao's pragmatism and beauty, but now and for the foreseeable future their interactions will always be tainted with smoke and pain and wars that Arthur doesn't even truly remember.

I do also love AUs btw I really do think they'd suit each other in another world, another time, without all the history hanging over them.

Rundown of relationship through the lens of chronological history: Fair warning, it's 1.5k words

Ok. Okokokok. So. Let's start from the beginning. I want to post this before bed so no references. Sorry if I get any history details wrong, it's been a second and this is all off the top of my head.

WARNINGS: abuse, drug use, nonconsent/assault, imperialism, the works. This is not a happy pair nor do they get a happy ending.

So initially, I imagine their first meeting to be the classic Macacartney Embassy of 1793, it's the classic (if rather orientalist) trope, Arthur marching in with the retinue after a year of exhausting travel, having finally reached the celestial kingdom, and Wang Yao there to greet him in resplendent deep blue robes. China was known in Europe through a variety of lenses, from the fascination with the exotic - Marco Polo's adventure to 'Cathay', Chinoiserie which had reached a fever pitch in the 1700s when China was both close and unknown - to the respect of philosophers for the faraway empire's imagined orderly way of rule. Arthur and his crew have been mistreated and pushed aside by official after official, but here they are now, and Arthur catches a glimpse of silky dark hair and frosty amber eyes and easy, effortless power and he's infatuated.

Wang Yao is, for his part, equally fascinated. Qianlong is wary despite his own fascination with European technology, Manchuria - will call him Erdeni - is even more wary, but Wang Yao's been screwing around the palace for a long time without much real political power outside the symbolic, and Arthur is a lovely surprise, finally he has a glimpse of those British who've been causing so much trouble in Canton! Arthur is a little rough around the edges, but certainly more refined than Wang Yao was expecting. His face lights up when he gets a moment with Wang Yao, he kisses Wang Yao's hand and tells him it's custom, Wang Yao allows it all with a sort of giddy amusement.

Their first meeting is like that, mutual fascination. Now, the British were already running something of a deficit and selling opium, however they were not the only ones at this point - the Dutch were the ones to introduce opium mixed with tobacco as recreational iirc, so although the dynasty had something of a problem they were trying and failing to deal with, it wasn't blamed on the British at this point. Qianlong is suspicious and a little tired, he knows he British have gunships (Macartney made sure to sail up on a big one) and he has to deal with stirrings of rebellion on top of Macartney's demands for more trade and land, Erdeni is horribly stressed, and Wang Yao is... kinda dreamy ngl! Likewise, Macartney leaves in an angry huff, but Arthur is just a little lovesick.

Now let's watch it fall apart! This part of the story is fairly straight forward, many issues happen in Canton including another failed embassy, the British East India Company losing their monopoly on Canton trade opening the shores up to private businesses both British and American, opium sales shoot up, rebellions shake the Qing, not helped by an aging Qianlong and a severely corrupt government willing to lie to his face, Arthur and Wang Yao are quite busy with their own affairs and only give each other a passing thought. Maybe there are letters, though, every once in a while, playful at the beginning but increasingly snippy as relations, what little there were, worsen. Their views of each other, developed within their own countries and politics, would likewise worsen.

By the time Arthur was invited to a debate in the British House of Commons discussing whether or not to declare war against China for all the chests of British opium dumped by Commissioner Lin into the sea, his view of Wang Yao was decidedly negative. Irritating, arrogant, backward, childish, and wholly unable to show any respect to his own, much less 'barbarians'. That pretty face is wasted, he thinks viciously, on a child tyrant in arrested development since before Rome, in desperate need of correction. On Wang Yao's part, he's starting to feel a bit of the rot, both the opium epidemic in its early stages and the rebellions that shook the latter part of Qianlong's reign leading to long decades of violence and famine, by the time the Daoguang emperor attempts ever more desperately to crack down on opium in the 1820s, both Wang Yao and Erdeni are nearly bedridden. In his periods of lucidity, Wang Yao curses his past self who giggled and allowed Arthur to kiss his hand.

So, then the wars start. Suffice to say, alongside war comes forced opium legalization, the taking of colonies (little Ka Lung, who's never known his older brother not surrounded by smoke and sickness, later on Weiwei, abandoned little coastal town left forgotten, Shanghai, Tianjin, etc) Arthur visits more, now.

Of course he does. Wang Yao can't say no.

He doesn't visit particularly often, however, despite personal interest, China has always been on the margins of British empire - only the China hands Truly cared about it, the central government did not. Arthur visits to oversee colonial development, visits imperial institutions the British had set up like the Imperial Maritimes Custom Service that control China's coast and later on postal system, etc. He drops by Wang Yao's place too, visits the bedridden fallen star living deep within the walls of a rotting imperial stronghold, does as he pleases because Wang Yao is barely awake enough to recognize him, anyways.

I won't go too deep into these few decades, just know they are excessively bleak. Rebellions come and go, Taiping and British involvement, Boxer rebellion sees Arthur marching in with a veritable army, Alfred, Ivan, Kiku, Ludwig, several others, Kiku jumps in headfirst and shakes hands with Arthur over Wang Yao's half-dead form, Arthur takes and takes and takes and when he's not taking he barely remembers Wang Yao is alive.

But Wang Yao... is alive. Alive, and responding to every desperate attempt by the emperor to reform and grow. Weihaiwei is a result of that, a coast where the Qing's first modern fleet were supposed to be docked, a child who was not a replacement for Ka Lung, but still an opportunity for Wang Yao to be better. Of course Weiwei gets taken away by Arthur in the end, but Wang Yao is far from finished.

I've let time get away from me, so lets quickly fast forward past the fall of the Qing and birth of the new republic, past ww1, when China sends workers to aid Britain and France, past May 4th 1919, all the way to 1922.

Wang Yao is a man reborn, Arthur is a man beaten down by an empire slipping away from him and a war that devastated his people and country on a never before seen scale. British imperialism in China has never been stronger, taking great economic concessions only to be bombarded with the ever-growing nationalism and anti-imperialism of the new Republic and then sending in the military to quell that. Arthur shows up periodically at this point, rolling his eyes at Wang Yao's arrogance and mourning the easy submission of the late 1800s - I've done Yao a disservice by allowing him to get these ridiculous thoughts of republic when he barely knows how to reason, he thinks, leaning pretty far right in his thinking due to all those personal emotions tangled in that he won't put a name to. Wang Yao though, Wang Yao only cares that he's above all that now, that Erdeni's dead by his own hand, that he's now Arthur's equal and WILL be treated as such. Wang Yao's also currently a little more preoccupied with, well, the constantly ramping up invasion on his shores, courtesy of Kiku.

Talking about that invasion, he certainly hasn't forgotten that Arthur had shaken hands with Kiku over his body and soul, splitting him up like a piece of meat. Arthur's relationship with Kiku has been deteriorating in the meanwhile, until, oh, Europe seems to be in some kind of war, and China's also at war with an ally of some of those Europeans, might as well formally declare an alliance!

1941. China is still riddled with colonies, colonial institutions, and concessions that would not start being returned until 1943-1999. The Republic of China joins the US, USSR, and Great Britain as the Four Powers. Wang Yao faces Arthur over tea and cookies, still bearing bruises from their last meeting (countries heal slowly when embroiled in civil war and invasion and chaos) and steels himself to talk strategy.

Nowadays? Arthur wouldn't be able to recall much about it all, Wang Yao rendered as just another pretty face in a long line of victims. Wang Yao still gets nightmares of opium haze and burning pain and Arthur's cheerful voice scolding him for taking on more than he can chew, and hides it behind a mask of nationalist fervour, lets it colour his vision so he will always remember what it feels like to be weak.