Hey I made fan art for gilded green. It’s honestly the best fic I’ve ever read
go read it, it’s a lu ten survives and gets brainwashed one
top 2 pics-
figuring out how id draw lu ten as Xiaofan(around the time of canon
bottom left- another Xiaofan, to the right Tuan, below him enlai, at the bottom is shirong full art is enlai getting the plans and giving them to long feng
bottom right- Shirong, wu sheng and huang, plus Xiaofan. Full art is shirong brainwashing lu ten
this is amazing and your art is so cute and thank you so much?? I am beyond thrilled omg I’ve just been staring at this for like half an hour and squeeing lol
Xiaofan looks precious, Tuan looks like he needs sleep (accurate), Enlai is Smug McSmugface, Shirong is like “welp guess I’m brainwashing a firebender now.” Love Wu Sheng and Huang, they look way too innocent for Tuan’s liking here, lol.
thank you so much for reading and enjoying and MAKING FANART!!!
Another celebratory ask! Kind of meta, but I would love to hear about the process you took to world build and your writing process. I figure it was probably ad hoc/as you go, but I want to know EVERYTHING.
AHAHA OKAY so there are a LOT of answers to this question.
I mean there's the very obvious Have Plot, Will Research approach, wherein I have an idea for how the story's gonna go and go look up info accordingly.
And sometimes I was just already aware of whatever fun fact I'm using, because my brain is a junk drawer of information and I vaguely recall reading something years ago, so I'll double check that info to make sure I've got it right and let the research rabbit hole take me accordingly if need be.
BUT A LOT OF THE TIME it actually goes the other way around, where I learn Something Interesting and say "I need to do something with this."
This is exactly what happened with everything Kohimori-related, actually. I had vague headcanons on Ty Lee that were basically "I think she grew up climbing trees and doing acrobatics in the canopy", and that was it. I had no further plans, and while I was sure Ty Lee's family could become interesting, they were on the back burner. Fun fact: Their original clan name was tentatively Matsumori, an actual Japanese surname that means something like "pine forest", and I think I only chose it because she was jumping around pine trees in The Chase.
And then one day when I wasn't thinking about Ty Lee at all my boss at my campus coffee shop says to me "Caelum they're doing an open presentation on coffee tomorrow and we've been volunteered to provide the refreshments, also it sounds cool and is relevant to your job and might get you extra credit in that Drugs and Health class you're taking so you should definitely check it out, you might learn something useful!"
What I learned:
Coffee does, technically, grow on trees
I'd always thought it was a bush. To be fair, it's a very small tree. But like, it's a tree, technically.
Coffee trees produce fruit
The fruit is called a coffee cherry
Wait, I realized. Wait, cherry trees are, like, a big thing in Japan and China, right? Sure this isn't an ACTUAL cherry tree but like....the Avatarverse has hybrid plants, so like... And sure coffee flowers are white but cherry blossoms are pink, and...well...
You can make juice from coffee cherries
Waaaaaaait there's a whole other PRODUCT that comes from this plant?? Cherry juice? That sounds DELIGHTFUL and ADORABLE. Which reminds me a lot of Ty Lee...
Medium and light coffee roasts should be paired with light, buttery pastries
Dark roasts should be paired with rich desserts, like chocolate
Oh, wow, I thought after I'd helped hand out the free refreshments for the tasting and had some myself, the coffee really does play off well with the properly-paired foods, it's amazing how the flavor palette changes from sip to bite when you don't add cream or sugar, waaaaaaaaait this means there are ways for people to get really snobby or particular about coffee, this opens up so many fun avenues...
And seriously, coffee grows on TREES, and Ty Lee is so adorably energetic that it just fits.
So basically I left that little presentation with a head full of ideas that were all basically I Think I'm Gonna Have To Make Ty Lee's Family Important Because Even Though I Don't Like Coffee It's Pretty Cool And I Can Do Something With This. Probably not what my boss thought I'd get out of it, but it gave me so much more than I was expecting. XD
ANYWAY, once I have the idea it's pretty much just a research rabbit hole for a while. Lots of googling and wikipedia, following the wikipedia sources, checking out other websites and then making sure that the info I find is also present in other places as well, which may just mean everyone's copy/pasting each other but also can mean it's accurate, lol. Back in college I also used to just go hang out in the library and flip through books when I was bored and I found some stuff that way, but I don't have a library that massive anymore nor do I have space/time for books, so it's mostly the internet these days. And then sometimes that research rabbit hole branches off into multiple tunnels as I find OTHER things that are useful/intriguing and figure out how to drag them into the fun as well.
Honestly the worldbuilding where I learn the things first and decide I need to use it somehow is probably the most fun. Stingrae read a book about historical Mongolian women once and emailed me babbling excitedly about it and how we needed to incorporate it into our worldbuilding somehow and that very evening we had a several-hour chat in which we hashed out geography, basic politics, potential OCs, and an appropriate Avatarverse replacement for the extremely important Mongolian horse (a takhi-goat, because an ostrich-horse just wasn't gonna cut it), and that's how we created the province of Caj-Bolor. XD
In celebration of the 10th anniversary, I’ll probably reread GG and send updates/highlight areas and as for commentary. Probably XD
But first. What aspect of Gilded Green was your favorite? What was something you put in a lot of world building for but never got to show either in fic or on tumblr. Who is your favorite character and why, what makes them special in your eyes? Which character has turned into a completely different one as soon as you started writing them? Which part of the fic did you like most when you finished it, do you still like it? Similarly, which part do you dislike most?
Lasty, anything about gg2’s story you want to share/talk about/rant?
-love, the dai li fangirl
Haha, no pressure! But at the same time yes if you do feel free to send me passages for commentary here! <3
What aspect was my favorite? Hmmm. *thinking face* I think, when I first came up with it, I was just thrilled to have these two small things - minor character Lu Ten, overlooked villain organization Dai Li - that I was able to combine into something so big. That was pretty nifty!
As I started developing the story, I think what really caught my attention was the fact that “Wow, all these characters are awful people!” Like. The Dai Li aren’t good.The Fire Nation aren’t good. Lu Ten is a victim but also an oppressor. All off these people have extremely different beliefs and worldviews - Fire supremacist, police state enforcers, classist academic gatekeepers - and all of them think THEY’RE in the right here and none of them are. I think Tien and Hoang might be the only people with a decent, non-oppressive worldview in the story so far. XD I was growing out of the storytelling trope of black-and-white morality at the time, so it was really fun to start experimenting with writing awful people as enjoyable, sympathetic characters.
World building? Hmm. I was just learning how to use my worldbuilding muscles back then. I seem to remember reading up a lot on how brainwashing actually works in the real world and going “I don’t think this is compatible with what we have in ATLA” and just kinda tossing that whole thing out. XD I also recall looking up a lot of stuff for the bits about Jouin, some of which - kalua pig! - has since shown up again in WFFD. I also recall someone on FFdotnet at the time saying “All this chapter did was tell us more about a dead character than the living one” and I was just kinda like -_- yes because he is DEAD and this is your chance to feel sorry about that, we’ll get plenty more of the living one later on account of him still being, y’know, alive. XD
Oh, and Shirong’s personal side projects. I finally got into that a bit in A Meeting of Minds, but the dude DOES have his own stuff going on, which Delun so rudely interrupted to drag him off to see Long Feng about brainwashing a Firebender.
I also did a bunch of research for the birthday party interlude, I think. Mostly appropriate alcohol for such an occasion? And....okay, this’ll sound funny, but.....food containers. I wanted Fen to pack up leftovers for Suyin and Shirong. That’s what my Italian family does after get-togethers, and I assumed that a Chinese family/friend group would do the same! But I also had, like, zero exposure to everyday Chinese life, let alone everyday Chinese life in the 1800s, and I just didn’t have the...idk, cultural osmosis? to figure it out. Like, if you asked me how Victorians would transfer food I’d probably come up with “Idk, wrap it in cloth and stuff it in a basket?” and I assumed people living in modern China would also be able to explain what their people did for food storage/transport 150 years ago but I didn’t have that cultural background, now, did I??? Also this was 10-12 years ago I was looking this up, mind you, the internet was still very different, there was plenty of information on Chinese historical events but not on everyday life objects, CDramas weren’t easy to find if they were translated at all and I certainly didn’t know they existed, and no one was posting beautiful aesthetic videos of life in a rural Chinese mountain village to youtube yet. Eventually I learned that bamboo baskets were a thing, but there wasn’t much info on THOSE either and I wasn’t sure how to describe them, so I just tentatively typed “basket” and called it a day. XD
YOU CANNOT ASK ME TO CHOOSE MY FAVORITE CHARACTER THAT’S LIKE ASKING ME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN!!! *shoves Yong off a cliff*
I’m very fond of the Dai family, along with the Trungs and Sais. I’m very proud of how Tuan turned out. I adore Yuan, who you’ve barely met, and Xun, who you haven’t. Huang and Wu Sheng are also definite faves and I can’t wait for y’all to get to know them better.
Characters do usually behave for me in terms of personality development. They surprise me, but they never really turn out to be the complete OPPOSITE of what I was expecting? They just kinda develop organically. Huang and Wu Sheng surprised me, tho, those boys got deep. I knew they had the potential, but developing their backstory actually caused Stingrae and I to develop Ba Sing Se’s socio-political backstory and Long Feng’s rise to power, all because of an inkling I had. That was a very satisfying few years of worldbuilding and story development.
Um, favorite part of the fic....idk, I’m very fond of the final scene, with Azula and her wall chunk from Lu Ten. I’m doubly fond of it because of how it always resonates with readers. Heck, during Azula week last year, I used that chunk of rock as an ongoing theme in Sandstone, and someone commented like “I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WROTE GILDED GREEN” and that made me really happy!
Lu Ten’s time stuck underground - I used the seven stages of grief to get through that one and it was very helpful in structuring that part of the story, and I figured it was deep or something because PSYCHOLOGY.
I’m also proud of myself for getting through the dark brainwashing scenes. So, like, FYI, fanfiction could get...very dark, back in the 00s. People love to play purity police these days and complain about how nasty people get can, but listen. Listen. Do you have any idea how dark FFdotnet got back in the day? Legolas And Aragorn Get Captured By Orcs And Brutally Tortured was an entire genre. I feel like torture fic was actually a lot more common back then, and darkfic in general - I’m sure someone could write a whole thesis on why it’s not so prevalent anymore, I’m gonna guess the fact that fandom is less-insulated and more public now could be part of it, maybe also the fact that the internet is more social media/influencer culture based so people care about their image, and also the purity police which is its own kettle of worms, but I also think that the Bush Administration had something to do with it? You have all these kids who were pre-teens when 9/11 happened, growing up during the Iraq War with an awful presidential administration while everyone was scared and conservative Christianity started to realize that their control over the nation’s “morality” might be slipping and reacted accordingly......yeah there was a lot of darkfic back then.
And I read a lot of darkfic too, but, uh....well, statistically speaking, a lot of writing is bad, okay? A lot of those fics were just weird; you could see where the writer had this idea, and also where they failed to execute it in a way that resonated or made sense. And whatever, writers were young and just wanted to pound out some catharsis, it’s cool, but it still just felt narratively awkward when you could tell how the writer was more focused on LET’S MAKE THIS AS DARK AS POSSIBLE instead of “Let’s tell this as well as possible.”
So the first several attempts at writing the brainwashing scenes, I was nervous because I didn’t want to get TOO dark, and when I finally decided “eff it” and said to Stingrae “I think I need to let this be as dark as it needs to be” I was still nervous because I didn’t want it to end up WEIRD. Idk if that makes sense, but anyway I seem to have done a decent job at it!
As for parts I dislike the most, uhhhhh Iroh’s retreat (I didn’t care, I just wanted to get it over with), Enlai might’ve been promoted too fast? idk, the fact that I came up with Nanyue AFTER I finished publishing GG so I couldn’t work that into the Quy bits, the fact that I was young and innocent and didn’t understand sexual slang or innuendo and randomly chose Dong as the name of the court physician which could lead to some awful puns except no one ever seemed to pick up on that and maybe I’ll regret pointing it out but the man IS going to appear again so I might as well get the first shot in myself. XD
I might have GG2 stuff to talk about but not sure, if I do I’ll make another post on that!
happy 10th anniversary! your works are a rabbit hole of goodness. i was blown away by your world building and fell in love with your ocs. 'Dutiful' is my most fav tho. i love how you wrote Min Lee as an impressionable youth. anyways, i was wondering what was her and the Kohimori clan's reaction to Ty Lee's part in taking down Ba Sing Se? it's funny that they were planning treason while their youngest manages to succeed at where their former crown prince failed
Thank you!! ^_^ I am so glad to have dug out that rabbit hole! Took me a while but gosh darn am I proud of what I've gotten done so far!
I am always blown away by how much people love my OCs, Min Lee especially. <3
SO the Kohimori Clan's reaction to Ty Lee helping Azula orchestrate the downfall of Ba Sing Se is a a lot of horrified, silently exchanged glances, perfect Fire Court smiles, and frantic letters to Min Lee.
You were supposed to keep an eye on her!!!
She RAN AWAY and we all agreed it was for the best, do NOT pin this on me I am under a LOT of stress over here!
This is the absolute LAST thing any of them expected when Min Lee reported that Ty Lee had run away to join the circus, and NONE of this is helped by the fact that Hiromi still has NO IDEA that Shigeru, Masao, and Ryoko are all staunchly anti-imperialist. She's spent this whole time assuming that her family was just anti-Ozai, because they were always supporters of Iroh, but now Iroh's been imprisoned as a traitor so they should really put in some pro-Ozai lip service with this great opening Ty Lee just got them.
"Oh thank the spirits, our daughter has gained our family so much honor, she's doing just like her grandmother did and is giving us the means to restore our reputation! We can get on Ozai's good side instead of his tolerant side! We can definitely work with this! Masao, aren't you proud?"
"Urk."
"Honey I know your mother was one of Prince Iroh's strongest supporters and I know that our family has always been hesitant to accept Ozai as the rightful ruler given the...circumstances of his ascent...but Iroh is literally in prison as a traitor now and we really need to be more proactive about our political survival."
Sburb headcanons for your Dai Li ocs pleassssse (and Long Feng too i guess 😫)
asdlkhdslkfjlksdjfsdlkafl you actually asked
Okay so I don't have a complete list because I wasn't really thinking about it when I came up with these years ago, I just wanted to note the ones that were obvious/easy to figure out/intrigued me, so I don't have EVERYONE, but I have a bunch!
Some basic themes - Reeducation tends to lean towards Mind, obviously, and Preservation tends to lean towards Time, obviously.
Long Feng - Heir of Light
He had to work for it, but everything DID pretty much just land in his lap after he managed to get all the pieces in place.
Shirong Zongzheng - Mage of Mind - Land of Silk and Lanterns
Kinda iffy because we don't actually know how Mages operate, but one speculation is that they benefit themselves by arming themselves with knowledge pertaining to their aspect. Another is that they create their aspect.
Yong Diao - Thief of Blood or Heart
Tuan Teng - Page of Heart or Blood
I've never been able to make up my mind on these two, but whichever of them is Blood, the other is Heart. Yong is obviously a thief because he literally steals Tuan's subordinates and takes what he wants for himself in life, whereas Tuan is a Page because he...has a lot of potential but nowhere near as much self-confidence and this is kind of a Vriska/Tavros situation, unfortunately. :/ Blood is bonds and community, and Yong takes that from Tuan in a lot of different ways, but Tuan also needs to develop that for himself. Heart is soul and the self, and Yong definitely captures other people's attention and takes things for himself, while Tuan really needs to grow more comfortable and confident in himself. Either one works, really. I might be leaning towards Tuan being Page of Heart, tho, and Yong being Thief of Blood.
Delun Jing - Seer of Time - Land of Dust and Artifacts
Listen. You can't tell me you're surprised.
Quy Dai - Seer of Heart
Again with Heart and souls and stuff. I could probably rethink this one, I'm not overly attached to it, but it can definitely make sense. Quy is a very observant person, and he can see a lot of different things in each of his family members - many of which he then purposefully ignores or refuses to acknowledge, either because it'd cause trouble or it'd be awkward. Also, Seers and Knights tend to work well together, and, well...
Roulan Li - Knight of Blood
She challenged Long Feng to a duel because of what he was doing to the Dai Li and she continues to work to make sure that their ACTUAL JOB isn't COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN over here.
Sunan Dai - Maid of Breath - Land of [IDK] and Poetry
I don't care about gendered terms. :P Maids maintain, right? And Breath is individuality and freedom. Sunan suffers from a chronic illness that may or may not be sickle cell anemia, which can cause shortness of breath, and despite that he still does his best to create the life he wants.
Zan Dai - Witch of Time
Look she's gonna turn out better than Damara ever did okay? Okay.
Wenli Dai - Sylph of Time
I probably went for the Sylph title because her husband, y'know, has a chronic illness, and Sylphs are healers, and yeah. She can't literally heal him, but she can make sure that the time they have together is healthy and wonderful.
Mu Li - Heir or Mage of Time - Land of Thread and Stories
I literally just came up with the classpect, lol, I only had the land ready to go. Either class would work for him, I think, but if he's an heir then he matches...
Peizhi Li - Heir of Blood - Land of Strings and Irises
This is Roulan's mom and Mu's older sister, in case you forgot.
Antoan Nan - Thief of Mind or Heir of Rage
Could go either way on this one. He's in Reeducation and he's a Nanyuese war child.
Now that I think about it tho, Heir of Rage could actually be a good class for Hoang Trung...she didn't exist when I first came up with these, lol, so she's not included unfortunately. I'll have to think about it!
Huo Bai - Sylph of Mind
Shirong's most trusted subordinate, and definitely a healer.
Fen Bai - Maid of Space - Land of Sugar and Frogs
Huo's wife.
Enlai Tong - Bard or Page of Light
Enlai reminds Long Feng a lot of himself, I think, so I have them share an aspect to reflect that. Bard would fit because he kind of did use luck/fate to destroy Iroh's Siege by passing on the intel that got Lu Ten "killed." Page would also fit because he's another one with potential that he has to learn how to use.
Huang Xu - Knight of Life or Rage - Land of Pumas and [IDK]
We haven't gotten to know Huang very well yet, but he is...definitely a protector, and also has a lot to be angry about.
Wu Sheng Shi - Rogue of Breath - Land of [IDK] and Laughter
Rogues redistribute their aspect and Breath is, again, freedom and individuality, and trust me this fits.
~~~
And that's pretty much it so far! I do have a few more, but not for anyone you'd recognize and one's a spoiler, so. *shrugs* Maybe I'll share those some other time! And also any others I might come up with in the future! Thanks for asking this, this was fun! :D
Eeeeeeee!!! Congrats on ten years!! I am having FEELINGS about this! All of your OCs are my favourites and I am so grateful for Stingrae’s support. I would commit CRIMES for a rewrite of GG, but mostly I want to know whether you have any favourite things you want to share? <3 <3 <3
Thank you Polly!!!! <3<3<3
We all owe Stingrae so much I stg.
I would also probably commit crimes for a rewrite of GG but frankly that’d still involve me having to WRITE it so idk if it’d help. XD
Oh jeez MY favorite things??? Uhhhh okay let’s see...
The fact that I am STILL loving this story and very devoted to it even after years, many of which were just radio silence. I knew that I was the slow and steady type, but it’s nice to have confirmation. XD
The fact that when I started writing this fic I was younger than Lu Ten is at the beginning, and now I am older than he’ll be at the end. Jk that’s not a favorite thing it’s just a pathetically hilarious thing forgive me lol. XD
I think I was one of the first people to say “actually Lu Ten would kind of be an imperialist jerk” long before I knew the term “imperialist”
ALL THE HISTORY AND CULTURAL THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM RESEARCHING FOR MY FICS. I learned a lot of history as a kid but good curriculums on Chinese history just didn’t EXIST back then, or at least didn’t exist in the homeschooling catalogs my mother was able to access, so it’s really nice to have a hobby that also helps me learn stuff.
Huang and Wu Sheng. I love them so much and I’m very proud of them and how they always catch new readers’ attention because they are NOT what you’d expect of Dai Li agents. I can’t wait to expand upon them and their backstories in upcoming fics.
Shirong, and how people can’t decide if they love him or hate him or relate to him or all of them at once. XD
The fact that, ten years later, people have FINALLY STOPPED ASKING ME if I took Shirong from a certain other fic, because the idea of different writers looking at the same baby name lists is a foreign concept :P
Literally everything about the Preservation Branch, I’m so proud of my dumb museum guards
The fact that it’s been so long since I first wrote GG and I’ve written so much other stuff since then that a lot of things people REALLY wanted elaboration on back in the day (Enlai, Huang and Wu Sheng) have kinda fallen to the wayside. I get a lot more questions about Nanyue and the Dai family now. The passage of time sure is funny!
Just the fact that I was actually able to write Gilded Green at all. Like. It’s hard to explain. But I had to grow into my writing. Or my writing style, or approach to writing...idk what to call it. But this thing I do? With the worldubilding? And the OCs? And just the careful web of....stuff? I always wanted to do that, even as a kid, I grew up on massive stories like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings with crazy worldbuilding backgrounds and deep meanings and elaborate politics and I could not figure out how to tell stories like that myself.
I remember being 12 years old staring at a bunch of concepts for an original fantasy idea I had and realizing that I had no idea how to make them work because I was too young to understand how the world worked. I remember deciding to shelve that whole story because I realized I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. Tolkien and Star Wars didn’t really explain how the worldbuilding happened, it was just THERE and I couldn’t figure out how to make it appear for myself, it wasn’t exactly easy for a child to figure out. Sometimes I envy kids these days who’re growing up with, like, Elena of Avalor, that show lays out some FANTASTIC political responsibility concepts in ways kids can understand, I could’ve used that as a kid.
I was also crap at understanding how people actually interact with each other and just....had all these issues with figuring out how to make a story work, not at the writing level, but on a my-understanding-of-the-universe level, which was kinda humbling and also kinda scary. And some of that was youth, and some of that was undiagnosed ADD making it so that I just didn’t Get Things, but either way when I tentatively started writing GG and realized that wait, I think it’s making sense, and the characters are interacting and it’s not weird, and I think I’m GETTING it, omg, AM I GETTING IT??? That was a great feeling, even if it did feel like I was balancing on a tightrope.
ALSO the way in which you can KINDA track me slowly going from raised-in-a-conservative-Christian-environment to WELP-I’m-queer-and-pretty-progressive-now over the course of my writing, tho that may be hard to see if you don’t know what you’re looking at. I can see it tho, lol. I was fortunate in that my upbringing was just kinda incidental because my mother was too tired to consider any other approach to life, and as time went on my family all actually grew into very different, much better people. I was kind of the trailblazer in that regard tho (not fun) and frankly it was fanfiction that helped me get over my queerphobia and internalized misogyny, and it was the racebending protests that cropped up around The Movie That Shall Not Be Named that made me start to realize how racism actually worked and what cultural misappropriation was. If you squint you MIGHT be able to make out where in my stories I started getting excited over my newfound beliefs and started frantically shaking more sexualities over my characters like “I have GOT to de-heteronormative-ize this” XD But yeah this fic has been a big part of my life and you can see me changing as a person if you know where to look.
MY OCs. The fact that my OCs win people over so well! I had a very volatile relationship with OCs in my youth - self-inserts were A Thing Of The Devil in fandom back then and were to be mocked. I was, I’m semi-sorry to say, part of that crowd - never flamed anyone directly, because I was raised to Not Be Mean, but I joined in on the mocking on private message boards. These days I look back on my youthful indiscretions with eye-rolling fondness, because I can now see how much internalized misogyny I was dealing with and I’m very much over the whole idea of Mary-Sues. But the community I was with did actually have a lot of GOOD writing advice as well, and it was a fun group of people, so I can’t fully regret my time there. When fandom drift eventually caused me to float away, I took those lessons on what made an OC annoying and useless with me, and when I started writing OCs of my own, I made sure to go in the opposite direction. It really seems to have paid off!
The fact that I’ve managed to collect a small but loyal following and see the same names popping up after I post something. I don’t think I could handle being a BNF, but knowing that I’ve got a dozen people who consistently read and enjoy my stuff? That’s so cool. <3
There’s a LOT of other stuff, really, but off the top of my head...here you go! <3
Happy 10th Anniversary To That Fic I Need To Update
That’s right, today marks 10 years since I posted the first chapter of Gilded Green back on good ol’ Fanfiction Dot Net! The fic itself, of course, is older than that, because it took me over two years to write, but the point still stands.
Happy birthday to my baby!
It wasn’t the first fic I’d published, but it was definitely the one I’d put the most work into at the time. Stingrae was a major support and a fantastic beta, and there’s no way I could’ve gotten the darn thing written without her. She held my virtual hand through brainstorming sessions and writing marathons and that time I decided I’d just have to let the brainwashing be as awful and creepy as it had to be and that time I drank too much tea and she gently told me to stop because my messages were riddled with typos, and ALSO that time she told me to stop obsessing over the calendar and timeline I was creating for ATLA itself and GO TO SLEEP ALREADY. XD
I still remember being oh-so-nervous about posting it, after years of trying to get it right. Feeling kinda bad that I only managed to get it to my liking after the ATLA fandom had started to die down. Wondering if anyone would bother reading it, considering it focused on an unpopular villain, minor characters, and a ton of OCs. Getting all giddy and super happy when the reviews started to come in and people actually liked it!
And people still like it, so many years later! And I’ve kept writing and shared so many more stories with y’all and made quite a few friends ever since! (If you’re a regular commenter of mine I love you and you’re my fandom friend even if we’ve never had a conversation outside of fic comments, I don’t make the rules. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Unfortunately I don’t have much to celebrate with. I would’ve LOVED to finally have GG2 ready to go, or even rewrite GG itself as a 10th anniversary edition that’s more in line with my current writing style and some updated worldbuilding/character development that I’ve come up with in the years since, but given last year and this year and everything else that’s going on I just haven’t had the spoons to do any of that. :P
BUT I’d still like to commemorate this kinda-momentous occasion somehow, SO! If anyone is interested, this is an open invitation to come by my ask box if you’d like to:
Ask questions
Make comments
Copy/paste a chunk of text from the fic (GG itself or anything else in the series) for me to leave DVD-commentary-style musings on
Ask the characters any questions
Ask me when GG2 is coming (please don’t ask me when GG2 is coming)
Tell me your favorite character/part/worldbuilding/whatever
Send me a bunch of emojis
Ask me about my Sburb headcanons for my OCs
Ask me about my Hogwarts House headcanons for my OCs
Idk, whatever else you think might be fun
Whether you saw Gilded Green on FFdotnet ten years ago or only just discovered it, whether you’ve ever commented on it or not, I’d just like to thank you for taking your time to read my story. I know I’m slow at writing, and that it’s easy to assume my stuff is abandoned, but I really do appreciate everyone who’s allowed me to share my fic with them. You’re all fantastic, and I love you!
it’s funny because the Dai kids are all musically trained and that photo is probably of Quy on the shores of Lake Laogai during the annual Dai Li Company Picnic
@persononplanet replied to your post @persononplanet replied to your post Okay but if…
Oh definitely, being a Dai Li agent that tortures definitely does not help the entire ‘I like walking over people and feeling superior to them’ part XD.
And one of my assessments was quite right! Yay! He likes the power and control he has over others (because of vague handwave yong doesnt know and will not just stop a sec for self reflection)
And yup, i’m very certain yong is overall disliked by the entirety of re-education because of that little stunt he pulled, woop.
And yes, actually, if due to some reason Tuan, Yong, and Shirong were stuck together, then Shirong would out of plain annoyance of them and pure boredom just continue thinking and analyzing the situation and then just sigh and try to solve a bit of the issue.
Cuz your work may be torture and dark stuff, it’s no excuse to be an overall dick. (Which Shirong, coincidentally, is a perfect example of. That man is a psychological torturer. In a way, it’s worse.
He drives people to insanity, watches, pushes his victims some more, and then manipulates them into trusting him so that he can do whatever the feels like. It’s dark, terrifying, and its really underplayed in the overall atla fandom how fucking terrifying and terrible brainwashing is.)
And despite that all, Shirong isn’t an asshole. He can make friends (sure he got like…one…but thats more than actual friends Yong has) and he can treat people with more respect and care than yong.
Plus, shirong is a wholesome godfather. Cuz eventho he overall dislikes to be surrounded by people (like banquets etc etc) he likes that little family so he’ll put up with them and try to be nice to his friend’s little kiddo.
Yong has a family, we see them briefly in that winter solstice party fic, but I doubt Yong would be a good and loving husband and father. He has literally never shown any semblance of caring about anyone or treating anyone with respect,
So i kinda feel bad for her, living with the Head of Investigation, a man who doesnt care about anyone but himself and has a big time hunger for power and, more importantly, a feel of having power, musn’t be a happy home situation.
Then again we’ve never really seen yong’s home situation, who knows, maybe his wife is literally the only person he actually cares about but personally I doubt it. If many, many years of being dai li partners can’t make him care even a tad bit about tuan,
Then why would yong care for the wife that was higher in status than him and - probably - has some wealth and power as well? He probably doesnt. And while thats alright in a society where arranged marriages and political marriages take place, you *are* supposed to treat her with some respect. Which i doubt he does.
But the most sad part would be the daughter. His poor daughter.
Her father is basically the biggest jerk in the kingdom and only the jade emperor knows what she has seen happen between her mother and father…
If yong is how yong always is, even at home, then i feel so damn bad for that child. I know exactly what its like to feel unloved, alone, and forgotten and I wouldn’t wish that to this innocent little kiddo.
At least tuan’s her godfather and her mother -probably- tries her best
*coughs* Actually you don’t have to worry about Yong’s wife and kid at all.
Like you really don’t.
Not like that, anyway. I mean maybe worry about them a little? But not like that.
Oh, thank god, Yong actually has some respect for *someone*.
I’m glad to know that both parties in this marriage don’t care for love and that they’re both using each other and that Yong isn’t being an absolute little shit to her and his daughter.
Seriously, thanks. I assumed he was, cuz yknow, of the big time jerk he is but I’m elated to hear the opposite, err, well, it’s as best as it gets when it’s concerning Yong.
I didn’t know problems with his wife going all ‘oh no im married to dai li!’ Like, no, she’d know and she’d know some disturbing and not pleasant things happen, I just hoped with all my heart he would be somewhat decent to his family. Which he is. So like, me is happy.
And for Yong, I think this would be very fitting :) cuz seriously, all the opportunity to he an ass and you weren’t. (Sure, it was cuz caelum was like ‘no fuck that, thats stereotypical, he’s smarter than that’ BUT STILL)
@gilded-green look i remembered what a reblog was so that i could send you this meme.
There’s some love? A little love? Something resembling love? Maybe? .......They love being rich and powerful together?
I mean honestly Yong may be sadistic but why would he abuse his family when he literally has all the scum of society lying around? No one cares if he tortures criminals, especially if it’s for a good reason. It would be stupid to hurt his very valuable and useful and even nice-to-be-around wife and daughter.
Hear that, Ozai? Even my sadist Dai Li OC who I specifically crafted to be a turd of a human being is better at basic life strategy than you. God.
But yeah, don’t worry about Yong’s wife being freaked out cuz she’s married to a Dai Li agent. If anything, she shows up at social engagements and the other guests smile and welcome her in and then warn each other, “Be careful. She’s married to a Dai Li agent.”
alskdjfgkdsjlfsdkljslfdk I died when I saw that meme, oh my god, yes. Except unlike Aang I’m not smiling when I give Yong that award, I just kinda mash it on his face like “Here you go. Jerk.”
@persononplanet replied to your post @persononplanet replied to your post Okay but if…
Oh definitely, being a Dai Li agent that tortures definitely does not help the entire ‘I like walking over people and feeling superior to them’ part XD.
And one of my assessments was quite right! Yay! He likes the power and control he has over others (because of vague handwave yong doesnt know and will not just stop a sec for self reflection)
And yup, i’m very certain yong is overall disliked by the entirety of re-education because of that little stunt he pulled, woop.
And yes, actually, if due to some reason Tuan, Yong, and Shirong were stuck together, then Shirong would out of plain annoyance of them and pure boredom just continue thinking and analyzing the situation and then just sigh and try to solve a bit of the issue.
Cuz your work may be torture and dark stuff, it’s no excuse to be an overall dick. (Which Shirong, coincidentally, is a perfect example of. That man is a psychological torturer. In a way, it’s worse.
He drives people to insanity, watches, pushes his victims some more, and then manipulates them into trusting him so that he can do whatever the feels like. It’s dark, terrifying, and its really underplayed in the overall atla fandom how fucking terrifying and terrible brainwashing is.)
And despite that all, Shirong isn’t an asshole. He can make friends (sure he got like…one…but thats more than actual friends Yong has) and he can treat people with more respect and care than yong.
Plus, shirong is a wholesome godfather. Cuz eventho he overall dislikes to be surrounded by people (like banquets etc etc) he likes that little family so he’ll put up with them and try to be nice to his friend’s little kiddo.
Yong has a family, we see them briefly in that winter solstice party fic, but I doubt Yong would be a good and loving husband and father. He has literally never shown any semblance of caring about anyone or treating anyone with respect,
So i kinda feel bad for her, living with the Head of Investigation, a man who doesnt care about anyone but himself and has a big time hunger for power and, more importantly, a feel of having power, musn’t be a happy home situation.
Then again we’ve never really seen yong’s home situation, who knows, maybe his wife is literally the only person he actually cares about but personally I doubt it. If many, many years of being dai li partners can’t make him care even a tad bit about tuan,
Then why would yong care for the wife that was higher in status than him and - probably - has some wealth and power as well? He probably doesnt. And while thats alright in a society where arranged marriages and political marriages take place, you *are* supposed to treat her with some respect. Which i doubt he does.
But the most sad part would be the daughter. His poor daughter.
Her father is basically the biggest jerk in the kingdom and only the jade emperor knows what she has seen happen between her mother and father…
If yong is how yong always is, even at home, then i feel so damn bad for that child. I know exactly what its like to feel unloved, alone, and forgotten and I wouldn’t wish that to this innocent little kiddo.
At least tuan’s her godfather and her mother -probably- tries her best
*coughs* Actually you don’t have to worry about Yong’s wife and kid at all.
Like you really don’t.
Not like that, anyway. I mean maybe worry about them a little? But not like that.
Damm, I didn’t expect to get more backstory on Yong and now his family, but now I really glad we did. (Oh, you have no idea how happy I am whenever I see a notification telling me you posted)
@persononplanet replied to your post @persononplanet replied to your post Okay but if...
Oh definitely, being a Dai Li agent that tortures definitely does not help the entire ‘I like walking over people and feeling superior to them’ part XD.
And one of my assessments was quite right! Yay! He likes the power and control he has over others (because of vague handwave yong doesnt know and will not just stop a sec for self reflection)
And yup, i’m very certain yong is overall disliked by the entirety of re-education because of that little stunt he pulled, woop.
And yes, actually, if due to some reason Tuan, Yong, and Shirong were stuck together, then Shirong would out of plain annoyance of them and pure boredom just continue thinking and analyzing the situation and then just sigh and try to solve a bit of the issue.
Cuz your work may be torture and dark stuff, it’s no excuse to be an overall dick. (Which Shirong, coincidentally, is a perfect example of. That man is a psychological torturer. In a way, it’s worse.
He drives people to insanity, watches, pushes his victims some more, and then manipulates them into trusting him so that he can do whatever the feels like. It’s dark, terrifying, and its really underplayed in the overall atla fandom how fucking terrifying and terrible brainwashing is.)
And despite that all, Shirong isn’t an asshole. He can make friends (sure he got like...one...but thats more than actual friends Yong has) and he can treat people with more respect and care than yong.
Plus, shirong is a wholesome godfather. Cuz eventho he overall dislikes to be surrounded by people (like banquets etc etc) he likes that little family so he’ll put up with them and try to be nice to his friend’s little kiddo.
Yong has a family, we see them briefly in that winter solstice party fic, but I doubt Yong would be a good and loving husband and father. He has literally never shown any semblance of caring about anyone or treating anyone with respect,
So i kinda feel bad for her, living with the Head of Investigation, a man who doesnt care about anyone but himself and has a big time hunger for power and, more importantly, a feel of having power, musn’t be a happy home situation.
Then again we’ve never really seen yong’s home situation, who knows, maybe his wife is literally the only person he actually cares about but personally I doubt it. If many, many years of being dai li partners can’t make him care even a tad bit about tuan,
Then why would yong care for the wife that was higher in status than him and - probably - has some wealth and power as well? He probably doesnt. And while thats alright in a society where arranged marriages and political marriages take place, you *are* supposed to treat her with some respect. Which i doubt he does.
But the most sad part would be the daughter. His poor daughter.
Her father is basically the biggest jerk in the kingdom and only the jade emperor knows what she has seen happen between her mother and father...
If yong is how yong always is, even at home, then i feel so damn bad for that child. I know exactly what its like to feel unloved, alone, and forgotten and I wouldn’t wish that to this innocent little kiddo.
At least tuan’s her godfather and her mother -probably- tries her best
*coughs* Actually you don’t have to worry about Yong’s wife and kid at all.
Like you really don’t.
Not like that, anyway. I mean maybe worry about them a little? But not like that.
See I have this thing where I’m not super fond of villains having to be awful in literally all aspects. I don’t like it when creators decide “Well that’s the bad guy so we can use them as a dumping ground for every awful character trait possible.” It’s annoying and uninspired and lazy and pretty much my only exception is Ozai because Ozai is just Bad At Everything, except also I do still headcanon he and Ursa did actually have a romantic relationship and The Search never changed that so never mind Ozai isn’t as much of an exception as I thought.
Anyway, Yong is neither a terrible husband nor a terrible father.
He’s not exactly a great father, either, but like. He’s a dad. It’s part of his identity, which he has carefully built for himself. And sure, in some ways, he sees his wife and daughter as tools and stepping stones to get where he wants, but uhhhhhh....that’s how it works in his society. That’s pretty normal.
Normal to the point that he uses his wife as much as she uses him. They met, had a whirlwind romance, he realized this upper-middle class young woman and her family could definitely help him in his career, she realized this up-and-coming regular-middle class young man was going places and it’d be beneficial to hitch a wagon to his shining star, and they formalized the whole arrangement with a marriage. And welp, that sure did turn out to be a good investment for the both of them! He became one of the highest officials in the government, she gets to be the wife of someone super important, and they both get to live in the Upper Ring and chill with nobility despite being Middle Ring commoners. Also her family gets all sorts of business deals thanks to their brilliant son-in-law’s connections. So everyone’s gotten what they want, and Yong’s wife probably doesn’t know the details of what he does at work, and she probably doesn’t care to, and if she did know about the torture, she’d probably shrug like “Well sometimes that’s just how it goes, isn’t it? How else is my husband supposed to keep the city safe?”
She’s not affected by it, and more importantly she doesn’t want to be affected by it. If you try to bring her attention to the torture, she is not going to be shocked or aghast or even teary over how you’ve opened her eyes to her husband’s horrible practices. She’s going to be very annoyed at you for attempting to throw a wrench into the gears of the privilege machine that is her life. And then she’s going to complain to Yong about you, because she knows her powerful husband will fix it.
She probably knows about his extra-marital activities, too, and she also probably doesn’t care so long as everyone knows she’s his wife and no other partners matter. It’s a small price to pay for the life she’s leading. Plenty of powerful people in Ba Sing Se have lovers on the side! Heck she might too, who knows?
As for their daughter, well, having a kid was part and parcel of the whole enterprise. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Get married, have a kid, pass on the family lineage? Also they just kinda liked the idea of it. So they had a kid, and Thi is growing up to be another privileged little lady. Her father is very powerful and her life is very nice and she wants for nothing and she doesn’t know what her dad does all day but she does know he’s a hero who protects the city.
Yong may not be winning Father of the Year anytime soon, but he’s not a bad dad. If anything he’s kinda like the stereotypical Victorian father who provides for his family and is loved and respected but maybe not necessarily close to his kid, and then proceeds to go to the office where he continues to subjugate the empire’s colonies using the power of coal mined by impoverished children. The main difference is that Yong is a bit more hands-on, but eh. *handwave* Storytelling. Whatever.
There are lots of people out there who got raised by loving parents who were also just...not great people. There are lots of people out there who were raised by their loving parents to be just as not-great. And they don’t even realize it, because to them their privilege is normal, and they aren’t going to be very bothered with changing things. Or they won’t want to because it’ll mean they’ll have to confront the fact that they might not be great people. Or their parents weren’t great people, and the way they were raised was wrong. That can be a scary and hard and upsetting process to go through.
And Yong’s family really has no reason to want to go through it. Why would they? Their husband/father is an important man who protects the city and provides for his family. What else could they possibly want?
@persononplanet replied to your post Okay but if you want to know some truly cursed...
I mean it fits a lot with who Yong is. A man who loves torturing and walking over other people that he feels like he can walk over. Tuan’s one of those and Tuan’s letting it happen because he’s not coming up for himself, at all. So he’s the most simple of the directors to bully. Yong wouldn’t dare do it to Long Feng, Shirong (oh yeah definitely bully the man that will brainwash you in the night), If Yong gets too close to Delun, Delun’s going to bore him to death with history,
And Quy...well Quy is just a chill dude no one really seems to mind. But Quy would stand up for himself and he knows how normal relationships should work.
All of which yong does not.
Tuan, all in all, is the easiest to bully.
Why does yong bully? Well who knows, we certainly dont. But some guesses? Probably a bad childhood wherein he might’ve been abused by his family, leading him to turn bitter and only know how to deal with people in a violent way and with disdain.
It may be insecurity, a fear of people not respecting him or something like that, which he tries to fill by feeling superior than them. Which obviously isnt exactly the right way to solve such isssues but its the only way he knows how to.
He definitely seems to enjoy it, so it might also be that he has a mental illness that screwed something up inside to the point he does nothing but what he always does, except when he needs to appear all formal and nice. (psychopathic perhaps?)
All in all, for whatever reason, Yong is an abusive little shit to Tuan because Tuan allows it. Tuan doesn’t stand up for himself, he doesn’t defend himself, doesn’t do anything, because he, just as Caelum pointed out, longs for that brotherly companionship that many Dai Li have with their assigned partner. But he doesn’t.
Plus, he might think that if he just sits back and takes it, it would be less bad than actively pointing out his former partner’s behavior.
It’s definitely an issue of insecurity for Tuan. And we see it all the time in the written works. Tuan’s a Dai Li director, he’s in charge of all the patrols, he’s scary and terrifying to everyone, except the rest of the Directorate. They all don’t take him that seriously and Yong outright bullies him. Tuan’s self esteem and self-assureness must be rock bottom at this point for this situation must’ve been going on for several years now, and that with Yong even longer.
My conclusion? Tuan deserves some actual care and friendship, someone should put Yong in his place, and I really need to stop pulling a re-education agent and psychologically analyzing people/characters, and get back to the mother’s day present im making.
thank you all for listening (err reading) to my tedtalk
-the totally not a weirdo re-education agent, ahlyae
OH HI AHLYAE I DIDN’T REALIZE THAT WAS YOU!!!! Thanks for the novel, lol.
Nice analysis! Reeducation would like their hat back.
I would like you to rest assured that there is no dark secret or tragic backstory or anything else in Yong’s background that could possibly be cause for sympathy, however. He is very much just a dick. A solid middle-turned-upper class asshole with a penchant for power trips, who sees human beings as numbers and statistics and capital that only exist as a resource to boost him up. One of those people who, at their core, is fundamentally just kind of a jerk, and instead of allowing basic human decency and their relationships with the people they care about to temper that, turns and goes in the other direction to just become an even bigger jerk. The kind of jerk who doesn’t see why human rights violations are such a big deal.
I mean okay maybe there was something that might’ve set him down this path, but like *gestures at Yong’s everything and also the Dai Li’s shadow police practices in general* we are well past that. A few decades and multiple torture victims past that, really.
Tuan is pretty much just living with it at this point, as he has been for years. I’m very glad that I got That Time Tuan Got Plastered published; in GG Tuan was comic relief and I appreciated him for it, but in TTTGP I got to show how he’s competent and also overwhelmed. Dude needs a vacation or ten and also a friendship detox but idk when that’s gonna happen for him.
Really is a shame auspisticism isn’t a thing in this universe. I’d nominate a Reeducation agent for their middle leaf.
.......Maybe someone should lock them in a closet with Shirong, if he’d would be willing to cooperate. Yong is low-key frightened of Shirong. He learned the hard way not to disrespect Shirong.
Okay but if you want to know some truly cursed Tuan & Yong information--
What Tuan wanted from his Dai Li partner was a nice moirallegiance
What Yong decided on was a really one-sided kismesissitude
What they actually need is a goddamn auspistice but that’s never gonna happen because there’s no cultural context for it and also no one else wants to touch their weird antagonistic relationship with a 100ft pole
*pat pat* I feel like I should make a joke like “if you don’t know what those words mean you’re one of the lucky ones and I’m sorry for tainting you” but in all honesty I unironically enjoy Homestuck so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
and yes, yes it does.
brief clarification tho - when I say “one-sided kismesissitude” I’m pretty much just referring to the hate/rivalry part of the relationship, not the sexual aspect. Yong’s not interested in Tuan like that. He just wants to have a rival, and by “rival” I mean “person he can easily mock and stomp all over and bully.” This is not a healthy kismesissitude.
Okay but if you want to know some truly cursed Tuan & Yong information--
What Tuan wanted from his Dai Li partner was a nice moirallegiance
What Yong decided on was a really one-sided kismesissitude
What they actually need is a goddamn auspistice but that’s never gonna happen because there’s no cultural context for it and also no one else wants to touch their weird antagonistic relationship with a 100ft pole
