hello i just found your oubing art and OH MY GOD IT IS ETHEREAL!!!! the way you draw them is so dynamic and full of life, and the chemistry practically buzzes off the page!!!! literally i love your art style so muc
also your AUs have me in a chokehold they are all SO DANG GOOD im thinking about them to music aldllalslskalak
anyway for the question part of this, i specifically wanted to ask about the Prince & General AU where Nezha is apparently pretending to be a woman named Lady Zha. You mentioned he snuck into an immortals’ festival or something? What is he trying to accomplish exactly? I know it’s to help his town but I was hoping you’d be willing to elaborate a bit on how exactly he’s trying to do that?
First off erm, thank you???? That's genuinely SO SO sweet and hearing abt the effect my art gives off??? I'm so honored ;-; and the fact you seem to enjoy my AUs too!! Aaaughh I'm glad you're liking my silly self indulgent ideas haha
As for the Prince and General AU though, who am I to pass up the chance to ramble on about one of the favorite AUs I've made? ehe
In short though, to answer your question, Nezha is attempting to sell himself off into marriage! Specifically so that his family would receive a dowry!
The dynasty Nezha lives in is still widely patriarchal. Though Chentang Guan doesn't strictly follow the norms of the time, these traditions and practices still continue to live on, including the practice of bride prices or dowries which are given to the bride's family as an act of good will, respect and a show of status and wealth.
In the state Chentang Guan is left in after the loss of nearly half the Li family's entire kingdom, they are in desperate need of funds and resources to spare, and as neighboring kingdoms and former allies continue to cut ties and avoid trade with the whatever remains of Chentang Guan, Nezha is left with no other choice but to recall the political lessons and stories his mother had instilled upon him and follow in her footsteps
ok this makes more sense now. it also explains why he had to pretend to be a woman. i hadn’t realized that marriage was what nezha was angling toward; i fully assumed ao bing just fell head over heels and the trying to marry lady zha thing was an obstacle to nezha’s plan, rather than the plan itself 😂
but him specifically trying to find someone who’s wealthy enough to pay an exorbitant bride price makes sense!! because there’s no guarantee a marriage alliance wouldn’t fall through once his identity was revealed, and if a woman married nezha, he would both be unable to pay a good bride price for her, but also her family’s dowry to her would be within her control and wouldn’t innately benefit Chentang Guan…. so getting a man to pay a hefty bride price FOR nezha is really the only way to guarantee they can use the money for aid.
damn…. nezha is smarter than i am, it seems
man…. this make the whole runaway situation later even more heartbreaking on nezha’s part… he loves ao bing so much that he’s willing to break his own heart and also pass up a way to help Chentang Guan. solely because he doesnt want ao bing to be stuck with a disappointing bride… GOD
UGH!!! MY HEART?!?!?! LITERALLY THIS IS SUCH A GOOD AU I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH AHHHHHHHH
dont worry nezha, as soon as ao bing finds out who you really are he will literally be the opposite of disappointed. I WISH YOU TWO HAPPINESSS!!!!!!!!!
MORE OF THIS AU 🥺🥺 AND WITH A ZHENYING AND NEZHA'S ACTUAL APPEARANCE OUTSIDE OF LADY ZHA
Zhenying in this au was raised by Nezha for most of her life after Lady Yin's death to the point they have a somewhat parent/child relationship, and I hope that shows in her design with her taking some of Nezha's colors and inheriting his hair buns,,
zhenying is truly doing it like no one else, bless 🙏
i love that nezha is such a good older brother wahhhhhh!!! also LMAO the way she calls him da-ge cracks me up. muzha & jinzha who? the only brother she knows is nezha.
also them shouting at each other while ao bing sweats…. INCREDIBLE AHHHHHH
also this nezha design…. im in love with it ahhhhh!!!! he’s so hot… ao bing you lucky man. you thought lady zha was pretty but wait til you see how hot he looks now 😂
anyway i love this au so much and also drew you some fanart of nezha teaching zhenying makeup. thank you!!!!!
Oubing Arranged Marriage AU(?) ramble before I suffer through midterms on Friday
(technically it's more of a Cinderella-esque au, but that doesn't give the most fitting image image in my mind </3)
A lot stays the same in this au, a good chunk also changes so bear with me here 😭
So, first thing's first, the dragons aren't imprisoned. They're still kept under close watch by heaven and forced to do as they say, but they're given a lot more freedom than they do in canon. The Eastern Dragon clan itself has become a well-known and well respected group, having earned great renown and many riches through tales of great battles against demonkind in defense of innocent and helpless mortals.
Second, the whole demon pill/spirit pearl incarnation still happens, though with how well the dragons have acted, acting on heaven's will, the spirit pearl was instead given to Ao Bing when he was born as a gift to the dragon clan, with the demon pill being entrusted to Taiyi Zhenren to be destroyed or sealed away immediately instead, no 3 year curse required. But, somewhere on the journey, Taiyi, my diva, fumbles </3 and Nezha was born as the demon pill incarnate because, idk, Taiyi dropped the demon pill on a very pregnant lady Yin and is forced to become the third prince's uncle because he's too embarrassed to admit to the grandmaster that he fucked up 🫶
Anyways, the boys develop as usual. Ao Bing lives lavishly with great treasures and riches, and is trained and taught well by both his family and clan members, along with his shifu Shen Gongbao, meanwhile, Nezha has... Well, his life doesn't exactly stray from how it was in canon.
Nezha was a quick learner and an artist at heart. He was trained in politics and the art of strategy and war by his general father, and was taught the ways of cultivation, fighting techniques and (tried to be taught) meditation by Taiyi Zhenren, but he has always been a mama's boy, and so stuck to Lady Yin's side as he grew. She helped teach him small things such as manners, discipline and respect, and helped hone his skills in politics alongside her husband, as well as battle, but Lady Yin also taught him smaller, more domestic skills such as how to cook, do his hair– even to the point Nezha could be seen doing "peasant" duties such as cleaning, washing clothes, or trying to copy how Lady Yin applies her makeup. Despite all this, as the incarnation of the demon pill, Nezha had a penchant for causing trouble, and his loud and rowdy behavior, alongside his tendency to push and question societal rules and roles only adds to the fear and displeasure the people of Chentang Guan have for their youngest prince.
Nezha, despite his own behavior, wanted to be accepted by the people of his kingdom, wanted to bring glory and honor to his family, and hoped so badly to catch up to his older brothers' achievements and be someone his younger sister Zhenying could look up to. But, whatever hope he had didn't matter after Chentang Guan was attacked and overwhelmed by a demonic swarm, leaving most of the kingdom in ruins and over half the population dead, with Lady Yin being one of the many casualties that were mourned after the massacre had ended.
Chentang Guan wasn't the same after the incident.
Rumors of the kingdom being haunted and torn to cinders by demons kept outsiders from visiting, save for a few traders or thieves and crooks who have no place left to go. Chentang Guan, once a thriving, lively town was now a broken reflection of what it used to be, kept together by the remaining members of the Li family, and the bond they held with the surviving villagers and the few new outsiders that have called this poor rundown place their new home.
Somewhere down the line, Nezha took up the mantle and became a general much like his father and mother were, keeping close watch over the main center of Chentang Guan. Even still, Nezha, forced to grow up faster than he should (both physically due to his demonic nature and mentally bc of... YKnow, the incident), wasn't blind to his kingdom's hardships. They were a recovering community, but food and building resources were hard to come by after their farms and fields were destroyed in the attack, and with rumors of their town being cursed by demons, outside trade had become much harder, even with the Li Family's good name. They are in desperate need of resources, people, help, and through an offhand mention about a divine celebration among immortal and divine royalty from Taiyi, Nezha knew just what he needed to do.
His father and mother taught him the ways of politics, of the way power, riches and strength can be given through something as simple as a lone union, but his mother was the one who spoke of how- despite the constraints and restrictions- femininity can be just as powerful in the game of statemanship. So, as Nezha dons his mother's old hanfu, applying his makeup with practiced movements, and changing form just slightly to hide the most obvious of his demonic traits, the young general sets off with not a word to his master nor his family to take part in what may be the hardest battle he'll ever come to face.
Some proper references for the mysterious Lady Zha and Ao Bing 🫶
(Nezha's hanfu was once Lady Yin's, who had it custom made to wear during one of Nezha's birthdays, and yeah, Nezha did steal Taiyi's jade pendant, solely bc he wouldn't be allowed entry to the immortals' festival/celebration otherwise 💔)
(Ao Bing is just babey)
BONUS UNDER CUT, BUT BE WARNED THAT ITS SUGGESTIVE LMFAOO
There’s a total of like 6 steps to stir fry and I just found like 8 ways I’ve been doing it less than ideally. Thank you for this! I’m definitely making stir fry this week and I’ll be using this to guide me.
btw I’ve found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:
Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!
especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but it’s really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)
Genuinely don't know if I'm ever going to finish these, but I'm still proud of them! I'll put the master post with the cannibalism comics up too as a last confetti toss for the cotl fandom
This was AMAZING, STELLER work and you should be super proud of it! It was an incredible treat to have your artwork for this scene, thank you for it! I am still completely floored by all of the detail and the attention you've put into every panel
i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping
this also goes for aesthetic or -core titles. 'y2k tank top' is going to get you resellers and fast fashion brands advertising to people looking to meet a current trend. 'thin strap crop tank top' is going to get you a diverse group of results and not upcharge you to hell and back
additionally, shop second hand when you can, second hand and thrift sites typically organize clothes by the cut and color. theyll be more affordable than a depop seller curating you a style to sell you
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