#this is mostly a joke but can you imagine Lan ‘my love is a danger to the people around me and especially my beloved’ Wangji

[candidateofloyalty]

[image id: heavily edited meme with shen qingqiu on one side and wei wuxian on the other. text in the center reads "mxtx made us in different series because she knew lan zhan couldn't handle me playing resentment of chunshan at him. end id]

[silentstep]

chengqing for the ask game?

Ship It, ship it, shiiiiiip iiiiiiiit, my otp

What made you ship it?

a nebulous sort of question! Who know what alchemy makes these things happen? But: Jiang Cheng is very very much my character type, and in a lot of ways Wen Qing is too, although we spend less narrative space with her; they're both incredibly lonely people in their positions and circumstances, who want to have partners on whom they can rely and trust, and they would like to be that person for their own partner, and they very much want each other, and they would be so good as partners, and they both! have! nobody, basically! who can really fill that position in their lives, or who would be so well suited, AND YET THEY ARE SO TRAGICALLY DENIED—

What are your favorite things about the ship?

they're both loud, strong-willed, stubborn people, who live beneath seventeen layers of hard bitter self-protective shell, and yet beneath them they are just. actually sweet. and they're so devoted, so devoted, they'll walk themselves to their deaths in contentment for the people they love and never even say a word about it, they're so fucking dutiful. I'm so so so weak to dutiful characters. CHARACTERS TORN BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY, is there anything better, THERE IS NOT.

but my actual favorite thing is just how good a match they are for each other! they are 110% on the same page about pretty much everything, in that they agree with each other about what the right decision is in every situation. are My People in danger? Move heaven and earth to save them, up to and including sacrificing innocent outsiders. They don't want to do that— they both have perfectly functional moral compasses, they don't want to hurt innocents— but they'll do it for Their People's sake, when push comes to shove. If only they could yoke together, imagine how well they'd sort!

and you know what else? I like that they both know it. There are so many relationships where the central tragedy is that neither ever really knew how much they meant to the other until it was too late, like Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian. Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen have a touch of that, too, and so do Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. But Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing actually don't have any of that. Jiang Cheng, when he first meets her, has no idea of the extent of the malice and destruction that Wen Ruohan means to bring to bear on the cultivation world and his clan in particular, and she at that point already knows that it's going to be her people or his, and that she's choosing hers, and that she is consciously already betraying every good faith effort he's making to reach out— when he sees her in their cabin and goes "Wen-guniang!! Why are you here? :) :) :D" and she can't even respond because the real answer is "to help my uncle bring fire and death to this sanctuary of peace and learning, for the sake of the lives of my family and clan" and it breaks my heart— but like. that's the last time they don't understand each others' situations. They know that they want each other, and they know that it doesn't matter, because they can't have each other. </3

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

hahahahahahahha!! yes. it's: she's not domming him. He's not ~submissive and breedable~ and she doesn't peg him about it. So sorry, you're just going to have to get over the fact that it's ew icky het without any femdom to make it better. They're actually completely equal partners! or, if anything— no, listen, this mostly isn't even out of spite, but like— I mean, I look at Wen Qing, who has been gritting her teeth under all her burdens that she's refused to let anyone share for so long, and like…

WQ:  what if I 😳 let go of control for a hot minute 😳 and it resulted in nice things happening to me and not things like, say, my entire family dying

Canon:  no  :)

& I'm just so so so annoyed by all the jokes and memes that are just "lol Jiang Cheng wants Wen Qing but she doesn't want him back I mean can you imagine haha! imagine a female character wanting a male character; imagine a female character having vulnerabilities instead of being Strong™… she must always stay in perfect control at all times and none of the feelings can be on her side or else she's not Strong" and no!!  her strength and tragedy are that she DOES want him and she knows she can't have him and she holds herself back because of it!  it's that she doesn't ever get to focus on just the things she wants for herself because she always has to be in full-on survival mode!  it's horribly sad!  it's not a good thing!  it's a sad thing!  give Wen Qing someone she can trust to handle things sometimes!!  she's so alone in shouldering everything all the time; it hurts my heart.  During their time in the Burial Mounds she & WWX are absolutely bros & it's great, but in a lot of ways he's also someone she's got to manage.  Jiang Cheng's number 1 good characteristic is that he shows up and pulls his weight every single day no matter how boring and unglamorous.  and I just want that for her, let her be attracted to his strength, come on, come on

also on his side, my g-d, let Jiang Cheng get to feel actually valued for his strengths for once in his life???? let his reliability and dedication and work ethic be valued by an important person in his life! His entire family made him and his mother feel like the bad guys for not being ~fun~ when there was important work to be done, and for him I want someone who'll consider that a good thing instead. And she would.

and I do think, honestly, that they would both find a relationship in which neither of them has to always be the Caretaker or the Nag to be a huge relief and a safe harbor.

[got-your-back-always-will]

Fanfic update

For the two of you who’ve actually read So Much More to Learn and Do, I’ve come to the decision not to “finish” it. Part of the decision comes from just not having touched it in a very, very, very long time (February 12, 2016!). Also, I always imagined finishing it before the official comic would be released. That just isn’t possible anymore.

I also think I left it in a good place in that if I had said it would only be six chapters, that last chapter could have served as an ending. (I’m not sure if I’m going to “officially” change the chapter count on AO3 to reflect this though.)

For anyone who’s interested in what was planned for “Chapter 7: The Talk of Republic City”, I’m going to put the details after the cut. One thing to note is that I massively over-write. I generate more content than I post. The material after the cut is all stuff that I had written out (messily) but in a finished chapter I probably would’ve cut at least one third of the material.

So here was the planned sequence for Chapter 7.

After returning through the portal they go their separate ways, but not before Korra gives the map to Asami to keep as a souvenir of their vacation.

Asami goes home to her mansion, takes a really long bath, musing over her vacation with added toilet humor.

Then I had this long writeup that I debated about including that involves Asami passing by her father’s office and thinking about the nature of love.

Asami manages to get breakfast for itself (it’s really early) and draws up camping gear inspired by her spirit world vacation but imagines the designs being of use to the refugees.

Mako joins her because it turns out that he’s been living in the mansion too since apparently the new portal destroyed his apartment. (I kind of like this idea that Mako keeps getting displaced from his homes.)

In my fic, Mako was suspicious of Korra and Asami’s vacation and tries to fish information out of Asami. Asami catches on right away what Mako is asking. (Essentially Mako figured it out because they had chosen the spirit world, far from the eyes of other people. I like smart Mako.)

The intended chapter title, “The Talk of Republic City” comes from Mako in this conversation when he awkwardly offers to give Asami advice on dating Korra.

Thankfully, this awkwardness is broken up by Yin and Tu joining them. And then there was this whole side story about Yin whipping up awesome smoothies (Tu sources the fruit). I just had this idea for another story that Yin would start a famous smoothie stand, endorsed by Prince Wu of course!

Meanwhile, on Air Temple Island, Korra has a little reunion with Naga, then promptly falls asleep, and then is awoken by the airkids pouncing on her. Korra enthusiastically lists of moments from their vacation but omits the “interesting” bits. Of course, Jinora is suspicious.

Then Raiko has an infrastructure meeting that Korra arrives unannounced at. She’s trying to get to know Asami better by attending it to get a better sense of what Asami’s business is all about. Varrick and Zhu Li are there, of course, as is Lau Gan Lan. Varrick goes on about glider suits because when Tenzin had mentioned what Asami had said to him, Varrick was all, “Wow, that’s an interesting idea!” and ran with it...but never did actually jump off the tower.

There’s some angsty bit about Hiroshi in that meeting as they discuss things like what to do with the metal (does RC keep it for rebuilding or do they give it back to Zaofu) and building a memorial. Because Hiroshi had tried to take over the city with Amon before, does that affect how they should perceive his heroism against Kuvira? Asami kind of shuts down - more antagonized than cryface about it. Varrick actually stands up for Hiroshi before Korra has to.

Much later on, Korra notices Bumi and Bum-ju deep in conversation and looking at her “differently.” When confronted, Bumi translates for Bum-ju and says that they won’t tell anyone human... but the spirits pretty much know. It’s because freakin’ Furry Foot is a horrible gossip!

And Korra tells her parents and they...are...not...surprised. There’s just this ongoing joke throughout the chapter about how Korra and Asami chose a dangerous place like the spirit world to take a vacation. It’s kind of a “No one in their right mind would choose the spirit world” kind of joke. Korra mentions the infrastructure meeting to her parents.

Then Mako and Asami have another conversation that is less awkward because Mako has gotten more used to the idea and he notices that talking about Korra makes Asami light up. It’s a feeling he’s familiar with.

There’s this big dinner thingy at Air Temple Island and Korra and Asami tell everyone but it turns out practically everyone knew already... except for Prince Wu who treats the announcement as “So does this mean you’re both off the market?”

The last scene is Korra and Asami having a conversation looking out over the ruins of Republic City. There’s stuff about the three years. There’s stuff about humans and spirits getting along (and a joke about how spirits and humans are at least alike in how gossipy they can be). The title of the fic gets dropped in conversation. There’s even a joke where they explicitly speak out “Korrasami” as a sort of reference to the building of the city of “Omashu.” There’s a lot of referencing of things that happened on their vacation.  Naga, in particular, takes particular notice to Asami calling Korra “Korra-bear.”

The ending conversation is mostly about their predecessors, their legacies (and the legacy bit was planned to be very meta) and how they’re going to rebuild the city together, and be there for each other as they work at what they’re best at. And they keep looking over the city. But then Asami falls asleep on Korra’s shoulder and Korra isn’t exactly sure what to do because she can’t just keep sitting there like that.

...at which point Naga positions herself behind Korra so that Korra can lay back on her and fall asleep herself. (Naga approves.)

I mean, that was the gist of it.

Fic writing is hard, folks.