Yuletide 2022 Letter

[nemainofthewater]

Dearest Author, 

 

Thank you so much for my gift in advance! Please know that I will absolutely adore anything that you gift me and though I am going to provide more likes/dislikes and some general prompts further down, please feel free to combine prompts, or ignore them completely if you get inspired in a different direction! I’m Nemainofthewater on AO3 and most other fandom spaces. 

 

Things I like: 

-Found family! I really love team-as-family, slice of life type stories where everything may be difficult (or not!) but at least they have each other

 

-angst: I am awful for this and I enjoy reading angsty things, though I would like some glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel and for it not to be all doom and gloom. 

 

-Adventures: I love case fics or adventure things where the characters work together to solve something. It doesn’t have to be anything important! Problem solving is wonderful at all levels, whether it’s something large like overtaking an empire or small like hunting for the perfect cake. Bonus for characters displaying unexpected knowledge/skills, or just being good at their jobs and their team appreciating that

 

-some canon divergence AUs or role reversal (although on the whole I am not a fan of college/high school AUs). I really like time travel and time loops as well as ‘for want of a nail’ type stories. Modern day AUs are a little hit or miss for me; sometimes I love them and sometimes it really takes me out of the story? I am fond of the type of modern day AUs that preserve the fantastical elements (ie, cultivation in the modern world type thing!)

 

-characters who don’t take care of themselves being gently bullied into sleeping/eating/resting, or just generally just looking after themselves. I am a huge fan of the ‘perfect mask much work until I collapse’ type character, especially when there are others around to take care oof them before/when they eventually collapse. 

 

-food or creating things as a love language (platonic or romantic)

 

-OT3s to solve love triangles 

 

-people appreciating other people’s competencies! 

 

-multimedia! (meta, articles, etc). Outsider POV is also something that I love and if you feel intrigued by adding that and/or any multimedia bits please indulge yourself! 

 

-identity porn

 

-wingfic, especially wingfic that looks at the practical things associated with wings/the (pseudo)biology/the social implications… 

 

-survival stories? I don’t know how to characterise this. Kind of the ‘trapped on a desert island’ kind of thing where everyone has to work together and bring out their various specialities and intelligence to build a home. The kind of domestic slice of life type thing only with having to literally establish their own settlement type thing

 

DNWs: high school/college AUs, texting fics, characters watching the show/read the book they’re from, script format (for the entire story, in universe reasons such as they’re acting or a video is being transcribed is fine so long as it isn’t the entire story!), PWP, sibling (biological or otherwise) incest, underage, character bashing (out of universe: it doesn’t count if characters don’t like each other in canon, for example), racism, sexism, homophobia, aphobia, transphobia

 

Below are the fandoms and the characters that I chose alongside some prompts and some reasons why I like the characters; please feel free to mix and match, smush together, or even ignore them altogether if you get inspired! 

 

Above all, please write whatever pleases you and whatever you have fun writing; I promise that I will love whatever I get! 

 

I am very happy to have any other characters that you want to add into the story unless I’ve written out a fandom specific DNW about it. 

 

Legend of Fei 

Mu Xiaoqiao, Li Yan, Yang Jin, Ying Hecong

First of all, if you just want to write the three idiots without Mu Xiaoqiao, please feel free! Equally if you just wanted to write about MXQ and one of the other three I would be ecstatic to read it! 

 

I am a huge fan of Li Yan, Ying Hecong, and Yang Jin’s dynamics and the fact they appear to share one braincell between them that they pass back and forth. I would adore anything with them post canon. I enjoy them as an OT3 but am equally happy with gen and feels!

 

Mu Xiaoqiao is just amazing and I love the begrudging relationship that he forges with a’Fei in the show. I think that there’s a lot of potential for Yan’er continuing her ‘kidnapping leading to becoming friends’ streak with him! 

 

I also love the idea of MXQ accidentally walking into the middle of the other three’s relationship (whether during or post canon) and being very ‘Bitch, you live like this?’ about it. 

 

The Disguiser

Ming Jing, Ming Lou, Ming Cheng, Ming Tai

Ok, but this family. Honestly, I felt very meh about the romances in the show but each and every family scene hit me like a freight train, I love them so much

Some optional prompts:
-maybe Ming Jing DOES find out earlier. I would love to see all the staged fights between all the siblings. Ming Jing looks like she was having fun when she got to take part in them and honestly she deserves to be part of this as well.
-An alternate universe set at some point not around WWII. Ming Tai attends a new university far, far away from his family. When he gets there he realises that Ming Jing has decided to concentrate on the (wherever he ends up going) branch of the Ming Company for however long he’s there, Ming Lou is the new vice chancellor of the University and ah-Cheng is one of his lecturers. It would be hilarious if a fan club for ah-Cheng sprang up just to see the mortification on Ming Tai’s face. Obviously, my DNW about no college/university AUs would not apply here
-Aunt Gui is the Worst (although I feel sorry for her and what she went through, she also took out her anger on an innocent child). I would love to see Ming Jing, Ming Lou, and Ming Tai realise this and work together to get rid of her because they can see that her being here is negatively affecting ah-Cheng
-all of the Ming family is vastly too self-sacrificial for their own good and I would love to see something that explores all of them trying to fall on their own swords for each other and being thwarted.
-Ming Jing and Ming Lou took in two young children to raise when they themselves were still teenagers. I would love to see a pre-canon fic exploring this!

 

Nirvana in fire 

Mu Nihuang, Mu Qing, Lin Chen 

Do you know what, I haven’t seen enough fics that explore Nihuang and her brother’s relationship. Mu Qing just wants the best for her! He’s also not the most subtle or tactful of people! I just want Lin Chen there for the chaos, though I don’t mind if he doesn’t appear in the fic. 

 

-does Mu Qing go to Langya Hall to demand a list of suitors for his sister? 

-is Lin Chen stuck babysitting Mu Qing one day? 

-Do Nihuang and Lin Chen somehow team up to get Mu Qing out of trouble?

-Do Nihuang and Mu Qing team up to get LIN CHEN out of trouble? 

 

I will literally love anything you write. 

 

 

Rookie historian 

Goo Hae-ryung, Min U-won, Song Sa-hui, Yang Si-Haeng

What I would adore from this prompt is Historian Shenanigans. Please feel free to use whichever characters you want from the ones that I’ve nominated, and in any configuration that you desire. 

 

Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

Wang Zhi

This feral gremlin is only 17 at the beginning of canon, omg. I would love to see him having fun knowing more than everyone else and revealing that information in the most amusing ay (to him) possible.

I would also love anything exploring his life in the palace, and his relationship with the Emperor and Noble Consort Wan. Are they the most messed up family ever? Wang Zhi gets away with a lot but he also has so many expectations placed on him: how does he feel about that? And has that changed throughout his life growing up/does it change as he gets older?  

 

 

 

Love and Redemption

Luohou Jidou, Yu Sifeng

There were so many feels and interesting things that the show could have explored more about gender and identity in the last few episodes of the show. Seeing more of these two interacting would be brilliant!

-any expansion on the scenes where Sifeng stays at Luohuo Jidou’s palace to serve him while also trying to see whether Xuanji is still there?
-post canon, do we get a situation where Xuanji sometimes feels more like Luohou Jidou and shapeshifts accordingly?