#been a zukka nationer since 2020/2021

[ifwebefriends]

Avatar started trending the other day and now I have severe Zukka brainrot again

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

okay so i just stumbled upon your blog and the first thing i saw was the pianjeong tag.

i have to ask.

do you ship piandao and jeong jeong??? do other people ship piandao and jeong jeong ???? is pianjeong a thing, and if so, WHY ?????

i'm truly baffled but i want to be enlightened

(i know you sent this a while ago sorry, took me some time to figure out how to respond and gather all the links to fic)

yes, yes, and yes, though of course it's a pretty niche thing since it's about minor characters.

as to why - imo it stems from the fact that if you want to ship either of them with someone, the other is the most obvious choice. around the same age, fellow white lotus member, fellow ex-fire nation military, easy to interpret as gay. like no, they don't have any canon interaction, but it's easy to imagine that they've interacted offscreen.

for my part, i got into it in 2020 when my friend abby @afaramir came up with it while writing earth system history, a zukka fic with piandao as zuko's gay professor. when trying to find a character to be his husband, she landed on jeong jeong, and then decided to go explore that dynamic with spark from a flame and we said forever (but forever wouldn't wait for us). i'd always liked both characters - i'm a sokka fan so of COURSE i like piandao, and i thought jeong jeong was fascinatingly tormented - so i was drawn in.

i think i'm still into it so many years later bc the storyline and characterizations established back then are legitimately really good. there's kind of a pianjeong "canon" to me:

they meet as young men in the fire nation military. young piandao is desperate to prove himself worthy (backstory from an old nickelodeon lore site says his parents abandoned him as a kid for being a nonbender) meanwhile young jeong jeong is a firebending prodigy (from that same lore site) vaguely uncomfortable with the status & privilege that grants him. they both crave what the other has

piandao brings a sword to a fire fight and wins. they both find the experience exhilarating - piandao is thrilled to be defeating a powerful firebender, and jeong jeong is thrilled to have someone stand up to him (spark from a flame, an old phenomenon)

they start a relationship of sorts, kept secret bc of the homophobia in the military (army dreamers)

jeong jeong deserts, leaving piandao behind (we said forever)

piandao eventually leaves the military too, traveling the world and learning the truth of the war (beyond your darkness)

they both independently end up in the white lotus

piandao offers jeong jeong a place to stay at his mansion after the war and they reconnect. it's been so long and so much has changed and jeong jeong definitely isn't in the right mental place to be in a relationship but slowly, he gets better and they get close again (i'm your light, ghosts, diary of the deserter)

like, is this kinda just two OCs in atlaverse? probably. but i think another reason i've been into it so long is that it allows me to engage with atla without always having to deal with the broader fandom discourses that frustrate me. i think atla is a pretty good show so the way fandom tends to want to change or ignore canon doesn't really appeal to me. i'd rather just play around in the universe! also i started writing a lot of pianjeong fic in 2020-2021 and tend to be a slow writer so i'm still working on it, and that keeps my interest alive.

so yeah. feel free to join us in old man yaoi if you like :)