Do NOT Think About Zukka X Cardigan By Taylor Swift Unless You Want It To Envelop Your Soul

Fetch! 

au where nhs doesn't have to girlboss and can just be malewife <3

went into a fugue state and had to draw some Jiang Cheng and his cub

Zuko gets adopted by [insert character here]

Sangcheng week Day 1 - Occasions

🪷 While a cultivation conference was being held in Yunmeng Jiang, the Jiang-zongzhu and Nie-zongzhu rested together. In the morning, Jiang-zhonghzu would cut off the sleeve of his robes, so as not to rouse his resting lover, not knowing that said man would flaunt the piece later for all to see. 🪷

lol this was supposed to a proper two-parter to tie in the point together more clearly and all but...... i just didn't feel like finishing this part ngl so all you get is a sketch hjdsh

also dont think too hard about why would JC go to the conference in the ruined robes or why didn't he take them off in the first place when going to sleep or how did NHS manage to get it together so quickly just. don't worry about that ok. plot convenience jfhkd

close-ups of the girlies. yes lines only cuz im lines lover and colours hater (more like failure lol dfhkjh)

OH YEA BTW for those who dont know ye this is obvs a reference to the emperor Ai of Han and the whole cutsleeve thing lol

bonus:

(i like to think nie husiang’s entire existence is just a stream of continuous  flustered internal screaming upon being Chosen™ by this really weird grumpy dog with abandonment issues,)

spending time with 舅舅

Strong Nie Huaisang is strong (and a delicate flower)

*me, getting out of my dissociative state to log back on my mdzs bullshit for a hot second:* there really wasn't much of a choice for Nie Huaisang but to send those girls with Jiang Cheng. No matter how upright Lan Xichen was, he didn't trust him enough to play the role of a neutral judge given how close he was to Jin Guangyao. Nie Huaisang couldn't take care of that part without disturbing the wishy-washy persona he carefully crafted for himself in front of the entire world. But Jiang Cheng? Relentless. A dog with a bone. He'd get to the bottom of the matter and dig out all the facts in less than 2 hours, never mind if someone he should be cultivating strong and stable alliances with is at the centre of the storm. Trust the leader of the sect represented by the flower that blooms in the mud to lend his ear to a servant girl and a prostitute.

Why is Jin Ling the way that he is (85% Jiang Cheng by mass), despite having presumably been raised mostly in Lanling - you know, the sect he’s going to inherit? A series of headcanons by me:

For at least a year following his brother’s the Yiling Patriarch’s apparent death, Jiang Cheng had a vibe like he was one word, half a sideways glance, a single split hair from snapping and killing everyone in this room and then himself. This only intensified when he was holding his sister’s son. And he held his sister’s son whenever physically possible. So they, uh. They let him keep the baby. Jin Guangshan was furious when Sect Leader Jiang just kind of stormed into Carp Tower and took his grandson, and everyone let him, but he finally saw Jiang Cheng face to face and it was like…you know what you can keep him. It’s okay. It wasn’t even a politically manipulable rage, it was so ABUNDANTLY clear that anyone who tried would also die. So Jin Ling lived in Lotus Pier and was carried around by his uncle like 24/7.

When this was starting to abate, Jin Guangyao’s son, Jin Rusong, was born. Coincidentally and tragically, Jin Guangshan dies shortly thereafter. 

Not in words, no, goodness no. Not even in actions. Maybe in non-actions - in Jin Ling only being invited to spend about one week out of every four in Carp Tower, in Jiang Cheng making no real move to find a wife - Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao have an agreement for several years. If one day Jin Ling were to give up to his cousin his claim on LanlingJin, and inherit YunmengJiang instead…that’d be okay. 

Then Jin Rusong dies and Jin Guangyao is a practical man, and begrudgingly so is Jiang Cheng: Jin Ling really needs to be spending more like 3 weeks in Carp Tower to every 1 in Lotus Pier. He needs to be raised by his father’s family, of whom he will one day be the head.

But it’s TOO LATE! The boy has spent his impactful first like five years learning to be shouty and straightforward! And moreover, Jiang Cheng has, uh, opinions about things, so little Jin Ling’s gonna hear Jin Guangyao and Qin Su’s advice to, like, smile and make friends even when he doesn’t want to, and he’ll be like, “well that’s DUMB. I WON’T.” They’re probably genuinely trying to parent him and still! This is how it goes! 

Maybe it would’ve sunk in eventually, but he kept going back to Lotus Pier for a week out of every month for positive reinforcement - because you cannot actually tell me that even when Jin Ling was at his brattiest, the entirety of Jiang Sect didn’t pick up on their sect leader’s energy of “this child will be CHERISHED or YOU WILL ALL DIE.” Not, you know, explicitly cherished, but…it beats the annoying court politics and terrible cousins of Carp Tower hands down

(in fact, you KNOW Jin Guangyao could’ve somehow arranged for Jin Ling to have more friends at Carp Tower, and instead he actively chose to be sure he would be Jin Ling’s only real ally there, and tbh that’s why he needed to die.)

TLDR Jin Ling imprinted early on the angry grape and part of that imprinting meant he was resistant to all other options for how to be, and also it got continuously reinforced by the directions from which he did and did not receive love

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.