Dear Sundial Exchange person

[extrapenguin]

Hi! I'm ExtraPenguin, and this is my sundial_exchange letter! It is Long. It's got general likes, DNWs, prompts both general and character/ship-based, but feel free to mix and match! Belated note: I know I selected Smut and Gen as the genre categories, but don't sweat it too much. If it seems like something I'd enjoy, go for it.

Likes

• Narratives of reconstruction: fixing something, whether that be a country, a piece of equipment, a relationship, or a person. (Examples: Nirvana in Fire, Zuko's arc in Avatar: the Last Airbender)
• Journeys of discovery, whether the discoverers be the characters or the reader.
• Worldbuilding!
• Tea.
• Competence porn.
• Redemption arcs. Rehabilitative justice.
• Narratives where something happens; plot. External conflicts. Casefic.
• Comedy of Errors -type things.
• Crack taken seriously.
• Engineering, especially of the sort that keeps civilization running – sewage, maintenance, transport etc – plus fault analysis and infrastructure design stuff.
• Characters expressing caring for each other by feeding each other/giving each other tea.
• Good mentor figures/teachers who have their students' best interests at heart and succeed.
• Tensions between origins and current presentation (eg. Dixingians: considered monsters, mostly pass as human).
• Enthusiasm in general.
• Loyalty, loyalty kink.
• Untitled Goose Game crossovers where the horrible goose turns up to cause problems.
• Loving descriptions of small details/of how systems run; insertion of Shown Their Work details.
• Happy endings.

DNWs

• Podfic
• No Powers AUs; setting change AUs (eg: Hogwarts AU, Coffee Shop AU) (exception: In Space AUs are 100% OK)
• Christianity, mentions of "sinning".
• Humiliation, especially public.
• Intergenerational incest, including foster/adopted relationships.
• Unrequested het ships, including Wang Zheng/Sang Zan. (People are still allowed to have parents.)
• Women getting pregnant/having children/giving up anything in favor of motherhood.
• Requested characters being presented as/rendered utterly helpless; the "damsel in distress" trope.
• Stories about mourning unwelcome changes to the body/realizations about the body, with "body" defined broadly, (ex: acquiring a disability, infertility, weight gain) and the associated grief/angst.
• Stories about mourning a dead person.
• "Ye Zun dies and everyone rejoiced" stuff – if you want to get rid of him, you can have Ye Zun depowered by the Hallows and sent to therapy in an offpage institution so everyone lives on post-canon.
• Novel-based characterization, worldbuilding, or plot points.

General prompts

• Casefic! I love casefic. Maybe something where everyone thought it was a guy from Dixing, but the guy's actually human/Yashou? Or just a random Dixingian turning up to cause trouble. Stuff caused by the Regent?
• The baiji river dolphins didn't actually go extinct; they were all Baiji Tribe Yashou and they shapeshifted into their human form and walked out of the Yangtze when it wasn't satisfactory anymore. Then they ... get involved with Dragon City/the SID somehow.
• Untitled Goose Game crossovers! The goose comes and causes trouble, chasing people around, stealing the Hallows, and doing evil goose things.
• Worldbuilding! I would love anything that dealt with the Hallows, legends in Dixing, the nature of dark energy, or how the pre-meteorite society functioned on the surface.
• More aliens turn up! Are they Dixingians and Yashou's ancestors/same species, or some unrelated one?
• Political reform in Dixing, where the Regent is tossed out and the whole Lord of Dixing situation is resolved into something with less life force sucking.
• Someone entirely different steals the Hallows and the SID has to get them back.
• All this time, the true villains were the Hallows/the Regent/Minister Gao

Art prompts: My ships together (especially the rare ones). Untitled Goose Game crossovers with characters chasing after a goose with a Hallow. A scene from one of my more fic-oriented prompts below? (Sorry, I'm crap at prompting for art.) My favorite color is blue, and I like chiaroscuro and contrast and clarity.

Vid prompts: Should any of the prompts beneath work for vids, go for it; if not, I would also enjoy e.g. a compilation of Zhao Yunlan's badassery. Song ideas: Dangerous, Glowing Embers, Let It Roar, Sing Along, Unchain Utopia.

Character & Relationship prompts

Zhao Yunlan
How did Zhao Yunlan transform the SID from something from his father's days to his own? The only retained employee was Da Qing – where did all those men in suits go and where did Zhao Yunlan get his ecletic band of misfits from? What did the average SID case look like before the Longevity Dial?

Shen Wei
I would love something about Shen Wei's career in academia and also how he adapted to modern life! Shen Wei's first year in undergrad must've been really hard on him – how did he set about forging connections with his friends? (Did Cheng Xinyan and/or Professor Zhou find out about the Dixing thing?) Or about how newly-minted Professor Shen and his first PhD student (and prize cabbage) Li Qian – how did he find her? Or in Dixing, Shen Wei gets sad and high (he didn't know cave mushrooms were hallucinogenic) and now he has a protection squad?
(Relevant & stuff: Cheng Xinyan & Shen Wei, Li Qian & Shen Wei, Shen Wei & Professor Zhou.)

Ye Zun
AU in which Ye Zun gets a different Dixing power? Or he tries to break the timeline and fails.

Zhu Jiu
Zhu Jiu decides to become a fire code inspector who harasses the SID by reporting its numerous fire code violations – from outside the door. (Because there's a shield he can't get through. Not that the SID should ever know he's stopped by the shield.) And the exterior violates enough fire codes already; surely they can't expect the poor fire code inspector to look inside? Cue n+1 rounds of malevolent petty bureaucracy weaponized against the SID.

Cheng Xinyan/Zhu Hong
Look, just make it happen? Zhu Hong comes to pick up Da Qing from a therapy session, sparks fly, there are longing glances and they bone. Dr Cheng wants to investigate snake serum thing in a medical setting and they liaise? High Chief Zhu Hong wants to integrate the Yashou better into modern society and Dr Cheng helps with that?

Li Qian/Sha Ya
They met in canon and it was hot! Sha Ya goes honeypot to get at the serum? Li Qian decides to go to a concert and oh no the main act is hot? Li Qian's grandma tells her to get out more, Li Qian meets a hot guitarist, hot guitarist goes WTF at the Longevity Dial? Zany hijinks, Sha Ya utterly freaking out when she realizes Li Qian's PhD supervisor is the Envoy, erotic electrostimulation, mad science, yes please!

Wang Zheng/Zhu Hong
I was 100% here for Zhu Hong going all "Hong-jie will take care of you!" so ... Zhu Hong taking care of Wang Zheng! (Sexual ways included.) Wang Zheng getting Zhu Hong a heat lamp? Zhu Hong making sure Wang Zheng gets everything she needs despite not being able to go outside? Team bonding?

Lin Jing/Zhu Jiu
Zhu Jiu tries to get at the SID through putting fake profiles on dating sites, then succeeds in luring in Lin Jing! And things turn even more hilarious from there. Chatting in in-app messages about Final Fantasy! Dates at Zhu Jiu's favorite cosplay shop! A truly hilarious series of escapades where Lin Jing and Zhu Jiu are both very Nothing To See Here about dating the enemy? Zhu Jiu and Lin Jing moving in and adopting a goose together, and "please don't fire me for listing Zhu Jiu as my next as kin, boss"? Lin Jing asking about conditions in Dixing and coming up with a new Treaty in concert with Zhu Jiu to make the whole invade Haixing thing obsolete?

Shen Wei & Ye Zun
Look, I just want them to reconcile, okay? Canon divergence where Ye Zun rants at Shen Wei about why he hates him, or Shen Wei comes across Ye Zun much earlier, or just – anything. (Feel free to include other characters in on the getting them to communicate thing!) And then they rebuild, with Ye Zun still raw over the things gege did/didn't do, Shen Wei trying to figure out how to be a responsible big brother as an adult in the future, full of awkward mutual caring. Or Shen Wei takes Ye Zun to experience something he hasn't experienced before, like the park or the zoo or they paint with watercolors together!

Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
How about an AU where baby Shen Wei isn't found by a Dixingian patrol after the dirt nap but rather by Zhao Yunlan (e.g. on the trip during which he finds Wang Zheng)? Or just anything where Shen Wei gets to realize that no, he's not a knife. Shen Wei telling Zhao Yunlan more about Dixing and Dixing powers and how they work and having fun at it? Zhao Yunlan entices Shen Wei for cuddles? Extra post-canon time loop where Zhao Yunlan gets sent back to Shen Wei's undergrad days and wraps him up on a blanket burrito because he can?
Porn-wise, I prefer Shen Wei as sub/bottom, and am 100% down for Zhao Yunlan deciding he wants to push all of Shen Wei's buttons, e.g. with bondage or rough sex or praise kink or edging or knifeplay.

Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan/Ye Zun, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Ye Zun, Zhao Yunlan/Ye Zun
All of the above applies! Also, body-sharing scenarios where Ye Zun and Shen Wei end up in the same body post-canon. Or canon divergence AUs where Zhao Yunlan meets Ye Zun first in the present. Or where the Hallows drop him onto baby Ye Zun and he breaks the timeline by rescuing baby Ye Zun?

Shen Wei/Zhu Jiu
Baby Zhu Jiu had such a cute hero worship thing going on! Maybe he could meet his hero earlier, and Shen Wei decide that if he's never getting Kunlun back, maybe he could move on? Or Shen Wei has to attend a party in Dixing, has some sort of reaction to the food (hallucingenic cave mushrooms?) and then Zhu Jiu escorts him to his bedchambers and is all atwitter at the Envoy leaning on him? Zhu Jiu has doubts courtesy of Ye Zun, then goes and actually asks Shen Wei about them due to fortuitous opportunity, instead of canon murdering?

Ye Zun/Zhu Jiu; Ye Zun & Zhu Jiu
Best Minion should get to meet Ye Zun in the flesh! Let him rescue his Boss from empillarment! Does he desire to heal all Ye Zun's trauma with love and his dick? Or maybe he discovers somehow that Ye Zun and the Envoy he so admired are twin brothers – what would the fallout be? Actually, any of Zhu Jiu discovering the twins' backstory would be A+, either through Ye Zun's distorted telling or the actual truth.