#maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers Jiang Cheng picked up along the way

[allmydokkuns]

Hello I'm back on my bullshit about 3zunchengning poly AU, don't mind if I do scuse me I've been having some feelings about them all interacting so I'm just gonna get em down for posterity

A lot of the feelings I have about MingChengYao interaction boil down to my overthinking about Nie braids and Jiang braids + colors... Like in a world where Nie braids (CQL) and Jiang braids (donghua) exist, I feel like Nie braids are characterized more by symmetry and intricacy of arrangement whereas Jiang braids... not so much. Both evolved from the practical need to keep hair up, tidy and clean longer (Nie because butchers, Jiang because out on the water and at the mercy of the elements). But where Qinghe took them braids and really ran with it to distinguish between different roles, etc and also part of their sect identity (bc canonically the reason MY was treated like shit was because his mother was a prostitute and not formally part of Lanling Jin, so too I bet other clans also looked down on Qinghe for being founded by a butcher) as a "fuck you" to the snobs, Jiang braids developed in a different direction. Yunmeng braids could be intricate in certain contexts (maybe earlier in the sect history especially for significant life events?), they have for the most part kept more to the root of their origin (to keep the face clear of hair and out of the way in windy/stormy weather conditions, so navigating on the water is never hindered). In Yunmeng, hair is sectioned and braided to follow more curving lines around the head; those who are particularly skilled at it are said to have hands from which rivers flow, or you might say of someone whose hair is beautifully done that their hair runs like sweet water. Wrapping braids with (silken) cord or ribbons is also a favored style, and these kinds of accessories are a common gift from parents whose children are of marriageable age, or from a suitor with the means to impress. While intricate braids are beautiful, doing them up like that all the time takes time and energy best used for other things, so quality of hair ornaments/clothing counts just as much when you're looking at a person, perhaps arguably even more in a sect who can afford to clothe disciples in purple/black and issue them metal bells as tokens of their status as said disciples. Jiang Cheng as we see him in CQL (as jiujiu) wears sumptuous clothing, but doesn't have an equally intricate hairstyle, and arguably he doesn't need one in order to express how powerful of a man he is.

On the other hand, the relative intricacy found in Qinghe braids is also due in part to the martial aspect of the sect -- in CQL and the donghua their associated colors aren't quite as flashy as Lanling gold or Yunmeng purples, but dark grays or muted greens suit a martially inclined sect very well; different grades of fabric for clothing and different details in disciples' braids also help differentiate between those of different rank/roles in the sect. You can really see this in Meng Yao's rise in Qinghe -- from when he first meets Mingjue personally with his single braid fetching water to him personally escorting the heir apparent to Qinghe to the guest lectures in Gusu with those smaller, delicately wrought braids.

Hair and its arrangement is really important to how Mingjue, Jiang Cheng and Meng Yao show closeness in the polycule. Not only did Mingjue bestow braids (and status, and influence) on A-Yao with those braids, he also was the first person to disregard Meng Yao's background in favor of his own capability! The fact that we see young Huaisang in Fatal Journey with the same guan as Meng Yao years later in Gusu implies that Huaisang gifted it to him. To my knowledge the only three people we see with the coiled braids in CQL are Mingjue, Huaisang and Meng Yao -- also implying a level of regard (or closeness) not bestowed to the majority of the sect's disciples...

In the donghua we see Jiang Cheng adopting the same side braids that his father wore after the fall of Lotus Pier; Jiang Yanli wears a braided hairstyle as well! This implies the same kind of exclusivity as to who can wear their hair like that, at least in the donghua. Arguably in CQL you get more of that style mirroring with JYL and WWX with wrapped braids but I digress because in my 5-way sworn brother poly fixit all three siblings work that shit out and become even closer after the fall of Lotus Pier. Anyway the point I'm trying to make here is that once Yanli marries into Lanling Jin she'd be expected to take on the dress, style, colors of her husband's birth clan; same goes for Wei Wuxian who would presumably kind of tone his whole protagonist thing down to respect Gusu Lan's history of ascetic aesthetic :^) So obviously Jiang Cheng would have to look to his partners for that kind of style sharing and intimacy because let's be real, the man was absolutely robbed of people to lavish soft domestic attention on to in canon timeline. Mingjue has only Huaisang's hair to do until he gets himself some partners and a bunch of nieces/nephews through sworn brotherhood so give the man some hair to play with. Meng Yao had even less than both Jiang Cheng and Mingjue so he also needs somebody's hair to do and do hair for!!

Uhh in case anyone's wondering why I'm waxing so poetical about hair and domesticity, it's because way back in the day if you were seen in public with your hair down or improperly styled then you were either insane or embarrassed about it. The only people in your life that would see you with your hair completely unstyled are the person who's putting your hair up for you/attending you in the bath, if any, or your family that you live with (your spouse and children, maybe, and maybe not even that if you're posh enough). Like a lot of fanon tends to gloss over the need for servants and attendants in a more historically based setting but like. It's a thing y'all. Not shading anyone that doesn't go that deep in but it's an interesting level of detail to have. Sending away any attendants to be alone with your partner(s) carries a whole other layer when you're not married yet and supposed to be chaperoned, or when you're a busy sect leader 9 days out of 7 and your partner's just decided you need to rest and be pampered, or when you're married to like four other men and that fact is classified info, you know?

#MingChengYao #Nie Mingjue #Jin Guangyao (Meng Yao) #jiang wanyin (jiang cheng) #5-way sworn brother poly fixit #nie braids and jiang braids #5zun #3zunchengning #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers jiang cheng picked up along the way #of course they do xichen and wen ning's hair too theyre not ones to miss out on golden opportunities #of the five of them a-yao and wen ning have the most conglomerated hairstyles bc nie-jiang braids bleed into the style they had before #also bc wn got robbed of ties with peple that weren't dafan wen adjacent so! let him have partners clamoring to comb his hair! #also let wn write letters home and pop up after his travels as a person with agency and send back or bring back little things for them #like the potential for him to grow into a person who knows his own worth and hqve ppl see him for who he is and not his clan name??? sign #me tf up for real man #penny for my thoughts but a dollar for my insights #long post

[allmydokkuns]

Nie "stoic da-ge easily disarmed and embarrassed by direct compliments" Mingjue VERSUS Lan "excited drunk whose default is to list every single thing they like and admire about the important people in their life when restrained from Lan Shenanigans" Xichen

Unstoppable force meets immovable object, go!

#nielan #i guess #cue meng yao laughing his ass off until he's actually crying in the corner at said sight from someone's lap #probably jiang cheng's but wen ning could also fit san-ge into his lap so options #meng yao is sober for this because he needs to account in great detail to er-ge exactly what he said to da-ge while drunk #he likes reminding Xichen of how much they love it when he's so honest #with what he likes #jiang cheng is designated holder of liebing and shuoyue whenever xichen gets drunk though since da-ge is usually making sure #that xichen isnt making too big of a fuss #modern au friendly #wen ning is along for the ride really also he likes cuddling #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers Jiang Cheng picked up along the way #5-way sworn brother time travel poly fixit #try saying that five times fast #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen (Lan Huan) #real talk tho name me one (1) of these joys who DOESN'T have a little Thing abt being praised

[allmydokkuns]

Okay this is gonna be long but hear me out

Single father Lan Xichen adopting the entirety of Gusu Lan's orphans (particularly those who were orphaned during the Campaign) to spite the old-fashioned scant handful of sect elders who keep putting marriage prospects onto his plate

Bonus if one of them is Jingyi

Extra bonus for all his kids calling Wangji "shufu" and Lan Qiren "yeye" in private, "shugong" in public (father's father for the former, great-uncle/grandfather's younger brother for the latter)

Extra extra bonus for Xichen refusing to marry out of unrequited love that, spoiler alert, isn't actually unrequited, and reminding the elders (with the Zewu-jun Smile™) of exactly what happened the last time a Lan sect leader felt forced into marriage every single time his parenting decisions are questioned for no reason

#Lan Xichen (Lan Huan) #lan xichen #Lan Wangji (Lan Zhan) #lan wangji #Lan Qiren #single dilf lan xichen for the win amirite #have i accidentally made all three men of the main lan branch dilfs? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #okAY BUT #nie mingjue as bobo tho give him kids to play with #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers jiang cheng picked up along the way #5 way sworn brother time travel poly fixit #like i love single dadbro mingjue abd single daduncle jiang cheng but boy oh boy single dad xichen with more than one kid tho? #also let xichen be a little petty about qingheng-jun he deserves it

[allmydokkuns]

I had too many things going on today so y'all get some 3zunchengning downtime interaction ideas that have been kicking around my head to decompress. Might split it up into more than one post probably this is 3zun centric and already taking approximately forever to type

Da-ge and A-Yao play an almost neverending game of chess when they're both in a good place mentally and also in the same place and the same time. Chess happens to be one of the few activities da-ge and Huaisang both enjoy and do together and Meng Yao kind of got absorbed into that dynamic. Huaisang has two boards set up in his rooms in the Unclean Realm: one for his current game with da-ge and the other for san-ge. Meng Yao, on the other hand, keeps one board only and sets it up manually from memory every single time he plays with someone else. (It's a holdover habit of keeping what little space he was allotted clear and hating things taking up space that don't need to be out.)

Incidentally, once da-ge steps down so Huaisang can get a taste for holding the reins of Qinghe, he has the most time on his hands for teaching san-di and Wen Ning (and Xuanyu, once he's old enough) things that they never had the opportunity to learn. Riding, tracking, how to reduce almost any kind of game into nicely portioned edible bits, etc. He's also very insistent on any and all of his didi learning self-defense thoroughly, but avoids any mention of just why Huaisang's first act as sect leader was to make Mingjue take a vacation like the plague until Wen Ning, of all people, loses his patience with their da-ge and his blasé attitude about his impending death.

When da-ge, er-di and san-di are spending rare time free together, the outcome is never quite the same twice in a row. Once Xichen adopts Gusu Lan's orphans and they're acclimated to the sheer amount of extended family via sworn brotherhood they now have, 3zun often spends time with Xichen's kids, their collective nieces/nephews, etc. since Xichen is a Single Dad who worries he's messing up without knowing it, A-Yao's social meter isn't overextended with just the kids around, and they both really get a special kick out of seeing Mingjue allowing himself to relax and be drowning in children ranging from one-half to one-third his height. The kids love spending time with a-die, baba and bobo and feel very safe knowing three of the jianghu's most powerful men are in the same room.

When the kids are with someone else, what 3zun does with their time together depends. The closer it is in the year to the not-anniversary of Guanyin Temple/Mingjue's death, the more likely they are to quietly shut themselves in someone's rooms or private pavilion and spend the time entangled in each other in some way. (A-Yao asked at some point before they established this routine whether he should make himself scarce around that time. Xichen and Mingjue both shoot him down unequivocally. They all cry a little. No one mentions it after that.)

Er-ge and A-Yao on their own are much more likely to spend the time on a variety of pursuits. Sometimes it's poetry. Depending on the season and location, sometimes it's flower-viewing. Other times A-Yao quietly accompanies Xichen while he's painting or playing music, taking the time to read for pleasure or copy over works he likes/is interested in. They essentially use the time to indulge the more scholarly/artistic sides of themselves. Alternatively, A-Yao plans small outings to night markets or festivals and whisks Xichen away from his worries for a few hours, or if they've had a particularly bad time of it lately, they curl up together in a peaceful spot. Tea and snacks are mandatory, observations about their mutual acquaintances delivered in A-Yao's signature barbed pleasantries an occasional guest. ("A-Yao, have you perhaps been spending a lot of time with da-ge and Wanyin lately? It's almost as if they're here speaking to me..." / "Forgive me er-ge, I never realized how much it burdened you to be reminded of da-ge and our husband. Perhaps this san-di should endeavor to emulate Yao-zongzhu instead?")

Da-ge and er-di rarely get a chance to spend time purely by themselves, but when they do it's more likely because somebody somewhere found cause for a nighthunt requiring their Sects' special skillsets than it is due to coincidence, at least right after Sunshot. Da-ge conceded to training with Baxia less but refuses to abandon her altogether, so it's not uncommon to find the two sparring when they get the chance at all, blades optional. After Wen Ning lost his temper with Mingjue, he took his Didi's collective concerns to heart and started devoting time to research his family's history and qi deviation. This puts him in Gusu more often than not to take advantage of the Library there, and has the happy side effect of Xichen's kids getting to see their bobo more often. Jingyi is especially ecstatic about this, since Mingjue usually has cool stories or hidden snacks, and is almost always down to be covered in tiny Lan children.

#3zun #3zun centric #3zunchengning #for lack of a better ship name #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers jiang cheng picked up along the way #5 way sworn brother time travel poly fixit #ain't a fix-it unless it includes found family and soft domestic settings amirite #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen (Lan Huan) #Jin Guangyao (Meng Yao) #not a lot of jiang cheng in one of my posts for once color me surprised #ah well he'll get a post just for him in the same spirit later #Wen Qionglin (Wen Ning) #Mo Xuanyu #those are more like just mentions though #typed this instead of sleeping and resting my wrists so eh #implied xichengyao #kinda sorta even the 5zun is implied tho

[allmydokkuns]

This ain't really a thoughtstorm like my usual fare as much as it is a Thing that popped up in my head but

Okay so y'all remember my da-ge versus drunk er-ge thing right

Now like. Imagine da-ge versus drunk er-di picking him up and doing the whirling around in a circle thing like you'd do to a little kid and Mingjue getting a little emotional about this because no one's picked him up like that since he was little. And also maybe a little in shock bc like holy shit that Lan arm strength though. Also maybe a little bit thirsty bc holy fuck Xichen was just so casual about it?? Fun's out? GUNS OUT!!

Some day later, Xichen doesn't quite understand why A-Yao keeps brushing a hand over the crook of his elbow or the curve of his forearm, but he does enjoy the flush that's building up on Mingjue's face with every little smile that A-Yao keeps sending da-ge's way.

#touching other people rude and bad #nielan #i guess #for the one (1) person who reblogged that post with tags #I'm sorry tho if you're expecting primarily nielan content you're gonna be disappointed #i am primarily a multishipper #but like out of 3zunchengning i fully believe xichen is the one who most needs to be touching ppl #so like the idea of him taking any and all excuses to show his partners affection physically and carry them?? chef's kiss #it takes them a little while to coax xichen out from the mindset of #but once they do boy oh boy the cuddles #A-Yao is delighted by this obviously since he enjoys sitting in his partners' laps #da-ge is a bit more confused but rolls w it once he figures out he can take naps w his head in Xichen's lap and give him massages #jiang Cheng already knew xichen is like a big puppy but he may have underestimated just how much of a puppy he is #wen ning is Not Good at having gorgeous people so physically close to him so it takes some time for him to adjust to er-ge being like that #that's not even counting the time it took for him to adjust to bing with jiang cheng too #da-ge san-di and wen ning are in agreement that they really dont know how they got two of the most attractive sect leaders of their gen #to be with them. lxc and jc are mostly unaware of this but would disagree loudly if they knew #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen (Lan Huan) #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers jiang cheng picked up along the way #5 way sworn brother time travel poly fixit #plot twist: the real tragedy of lxc isn't his fatr at the end of canon timeline #it's the fact that no one gave him a hecking hug ffs #Jin Guangyao (Meng Yao) #3zun centric #implied 3zun #i guess?? #idk im tired #typed this instead of sleeping and resting my wrists so eh #ffff why are the tags out of order? i give up

[allmydokkuns]

Hey does anyone have any ideas/thoughts on a possible title for Wen Ning in a canon AU/fix-it where he lives and doesn't become the Ghost General? I mean like obviously it's got quite the Punch to it but he deserves a title that comes from his own accomplishments rather than association.

Just trying to brainstorm but it's difficult because there's an interplay between a character's circumstances/self and their title that we don't really get in the canon timeline since he originally dies so young. I'm just trying to think about the kind of person he would have become if he'd truly been able to live his life. We know he's capable of great loyalty and has strong morals but that kind of gets overshadowed in the plot because of what happens to Jin Ling's parents.

Also can we like appreciate how pretty his courtesy name is for a hot sec? It's a waste that I hardly see people USE it it's like how a lot of people fall into the habit of having a character address Jiang Cheng by his birth name in situations where his title or courtesy name would be much more appropriate? This doesn't happen with the main character but only to Jiang Cheng and it's kind of a blind spot in this fandom.

#wen ning has so much potential and i would love to see him mature into someone with agency y'know? #5 way sworn brother time travel poly fixit #maybe the real found family was the sworn brothers jiang cheng picked up along the way #Wen Qionglin (Wen Ning) #wen ning #seriously tho i think his courtesy name is really interesting #I'm calling myself out on calling jiang cheng jiang cheng too tho don't get me wrong i do it too sometime #but y'all expect me to believe in a xicheng fic where they were maybe acquaintances at the beginning at best #that no 1 eligible gentleman Lan Xichen is going to disrespect Jiang Vheng by being overly familiar and call him by his birth name right of #the bat when everyone that predeceased him in canon timeline are the only ones that canonically called him that? #that's reaching y'all the man doesn't even call his BLOOD BROTHER by his birth name #I'm aware I'm prob being nitpicky here but it just seems out of character for Xichen to do it and for Jiang Cheng to just let him?? #anyway didn't mean for that to turn to a rant but it's just smth I've seen that confuses me #oop also #mdzs spoilers #if you haven't already seen all of it I'm sorry