#zhanning

What? I need some backround... ��

I assume you’re asking about Wen Ning x Lan Wangji?

I’ll be frank - it’s a crack ship that has quickly spiralled into one of my favourites.

My friend and I were discussing how Wen Ning and Lan Wangji were both sweet, kind, helpful, pure-hearted, initially demure, and UTTERLY DEVOTED TO WEI WUXIAN (who can honestly be a shithead sometimes xD); and then we were like, “Hey, let’s ship those two, then!”

We came up with an AU where Lan Wangji was the one to notice Wen Ning’s talent in archery! Feel free to imagine how cute that scene must’ve been.

When Wen Xu burns the Cloud Recesses, Wen Ning is the one to help Lan Xichen escape and ensure his safety, and secretly aids Lan Wangji as he attempts to rebuild the Sect. So LWJ’s feelings go from a crush to full-blown love, yay <3 

Anyways, because you can’t get into MDZS if you don’t love angst, poor Wen Ning still dies in this AU, and Lan Wangji... you know how in canon he injured 33 of the Lan seniors when he found out that Wei Wuxian died? Imagine that but worse.

My friend joked about how Hanguangjun (含光君) became 寒光君 (it’s still pronounced as Hanguangjun, but 寒 means “cold”, and 寒光 means “cold light”, which refers to the icy, chilling glint his eyes emit post-Wen Ning’s death); and on a more serious note, this gives a delicious opportunity for Lan Wangji to go go dark!

I don’t have a fixed route in mind, but one of the possibilities is that he works with Wei Wuxian (who still owes a debt to Wen Ning and Wen Qing, and who still becomes a demonic cultivator). After his murderous rampage, he finds Wei Wuxian and pleas/begs/screams hoarsely at him to DO SOMETHING, and boom, zombie Wen Ning, like in canonverse.

Or maybe Lan Wangji bides his time and destroys the Sects from inside-out, not motivated by some sort of enlightened desire for reform, but for the sake of personal revenge. I like this idea because that means all three (four if you count Huiasang) of Lan Xichen’s brothers break his heart in some way, haha.

Or alternately, if you want a more interesting and fucked up version of Wang///xian, Wen Ning’s corpse is destroyed (I’m sorry sweetheart...), so Lan Wangji also turns to demonic cultivation. With him and Wei Wuxian’s combined talent, they try to find a way to resurrect Wen Ning; their dark, demonic, heartless methods lead them to be ostracised, renounced and hated by the Cultivating Sects, so their loneliness pushes them to get closer together and they become something like fuckbuddies. And then they manage to get Wen Ning back and yay, OT3.