winter_blossom

30. Prompt for a fanwork

I know there's not much point in my doing this, since I don't really have anyone to prompt, and - more importantly - no time/energy to offer anything in return. But I figured it'd be as good a chance as any to put one of my favourite fanfic/AU scenarios out there. (By the bye: I've never visited the Plot Bunny Farm, so any overlap is purely coincidental)

Mafia/Triad AU - I first got the idea when I saw this poster and a tumblr comment on it which was along the lines of, "They look just like a mafia boss' son and his assassin."

Zhao Xinci is the boss of Haixing, one of the two most powerful mafia families in Dragon City. Zhao Yunlan is almost unanimously accepted as the next-in-line for the position due to his unorthodox-but-ultimately-effective methods, despite his father's belief that he isn't good enough - perhaps not sufficiently ruthless? - to lead such a large gang. But Zhao Yunlan is perfectly capable of being ruthless when the occasion warrants; he simply prefers to coax and bribe and seduce instead of intimidate, to manipulate people into thinking they're doing his bidding of their own accord rather than force them into it like Zhao Xinci does. Of course, the core members of his team (you know who they are) are all by his side willingly, and despite some minor insubordination now and again, would gladly lay down their lives for their boss.

Dixing is the rival gang which has been at odds with Haixing since before Zhao Xinci was even born. The Regent is their PR guy, and recently some brat named An Bai seems have become the de facto leader, but everyone who's anyone knows that it's two brothers who actually lead the gang from the shadows, though nobody knows what they actually look like or even how old they are - only that they're rumoured to be the most efficient killers in Dragon City, if not the whole country.

The Yashou are a ragtag group of assassins/spies/odd-jobs-people who sell their services to the highest bidder. It's unheard of for them to pledge their allegiance to any one individual or organisation, so it's quite shocking that Zhao Yunlan has not one, but two Yashou who have pretty much joined Haixing solely for his sake.

Lin Jing is a hacker who got recruited by the police/government to infiltrate Haixing, but has now effectively changed sides and continues to feed the government half-truths which keep them scoring minor victories without ever netting any of the big fish.

Chu Shuzhi is a Dixing man stationed to keep an eye on Haixing's activities by Shen Wei, but for the most part, he acts reliably as Haixing's heavy-hitter.

Wang Zheng and Sang Zan are "harmless" desk workers for one of Haixing's front organisations, but they're plenty capable of letting loose if it's to protect their family.

Guo Changcheng is an ordinary college student who didn't even know that his uncle, a senior government official, was in dealings with the mafia until its boss found him a new job in Zhao Yunlan's group (under the assumption that the more innocent and clueless a potential mole, the less likely the group were to ever suspect any connection between him and Zhao Xinci). Zhao Yunlan is like, "Whatever, I owe your uncle a couple of favours, anyway, so you can just...stay in the back office and arrange archived files or something. But I'll be damned if you're getting away without some basic combat training, kiddo!"

A mid-level Dixing member caused Yunlan's mother's death in a misguided bid for his bosses' recognition, and Zhao Xinci has since sworn to wipe the gang from the face of the earth. Yunlan doesn't really trust anyone from Dixing either, but is willing to come to a ceasefire so that they can use the resources they're wasting fighting against each other to combat the increasingly-more-resourceful Organised Crimes Division of the police. And in the interests of negotiating this ceasefire, Shen Wei begins to work with him behind Zhao Xinci's back, while - of course! - keeping his identity hidden.

Meanwhile, Yunlan's division is doing a bit of "harmless" side business in Dragon City University, and Yunlan decides that it'll go much more smoothly if he seduces/dupes one of the staff into helping them out - or at least looking the other way - and casually makes contact with Shen Wei with that goal in mind. It may not go entirely as planned because the seducing happens both ways (albeit inadvertently on one side), much to his confused delight.

Ye Zun grudgingly agreed to Shen Wei's proposal re: a temporary truce, but only because Shen Wei promised to take down Zhao Xinci and make Yunlan boss. But as time goes on, he begins to question Shen Wei's loyalty to Dixing in general and him in particular, because Shen Wei, falling harder for Yunlan by the second, realises that unlike a lot of other bosses' sons, Yunlan - despite his ambitiousness - has no real intention of overthrowing his dad and taking over the gang, and becomes conflicted about his original mission.

This eventually leads to an all-out war between Ye Zun (who has now decided to go ahead and crush Haixing entirely) and Shen Wei, with Haixing and Dixing caught in the middle. The finer details are - as often happens with this kind of story idea - a bit hazy in my mind, but the end result would be a merger between the two gangs, with Zhao Yunlan as the boss on the Haixing side (Zhao Xinci is still alive, if unequivocally deposed) and either Shen Wei and Ye Zun reaching an agreement that's contingent on Dixing being accorded an equal cut of the spoils and Ye Zun continuing as the boss on that side, or Shen Wei taking over after defeating Ye Zun.

Phew! That got pretty long. Still, it was a lot of fun coming up with this plot bunny, even if it's not gonna grow beyond that. And, yes, I am aware of the existence of Just Cared Too Much, which is an amazing fic that I'd gladly read 100 000 words of, but isn't exactly what I had in mind when I came up with the above plot framework, either.

Aaaand that brings me to the end! I'm roughly a week behind schedule, but this is the first time I've actually written my own posts, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Of course, the general level of traffic on this blog made a lot of those posts akin to shouting into the void (a special nod to

sakana17 for her lovely comments which allowed this fact to be at least partially untrue!) but I was surprisingly okay with that. Planning and typing these out was tons of fun and allowed me to consolidate a lot of theories/opinions in my own mind. Plus, my sister had a blast reading them, and this was all thanks to her in the first place, so I'd call it a resounding success!