#But yeah it is extremely clear to me what happened with jg and it is at best toxic as fuck and at worst… coercion and manipulation

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

tw: abuse discussion, intimate partner violence, grooming discussion, power and control. Trying to be vague here and not fly too close to the muse Sun

Re: red tv and the manuscript discourse, I wonder if people realize that it is actually possible to have abusive/toxic/harmful relationships with people your own age, too? Like even if Taylor and jg were 2 years apart, harm still could’ve occurred….? Like it was obviously not grooming bc that is a very specific set of experiences usually involving a child and a person in a position of trust/power like a parent or teacher or coach etc (I know this bc I lived it!!!). But like… that is not the only kind of harm that can happen to young people???? Her youth/naivety was definitely a factor in how fucked up the situation was but it was not the only element. Power dynamics do not begin and end at age. Adults can fuck each other up, too…

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i have been obsessing over this extremely short moment post-sunshot campaign for weeks now trying to put together a lengthier post about it, but i think the screenshots themselves arranged chronologically speak for themselves. so i will just post them and then talk about the framing, because i’m insane about it.

just about everyone else on this side of the banquet hall within the scorching sun palace is looking towards jin guangshan as he speaks—everyone except for:

1) jin guangyao, who is staring straight ahead with a startlingly flat and resigned expression on his face, despite being seated in a position of honour beside his brother, and

2) nie huaisang, who is obviously TRYING to pay attention, but his attention keeps wandering between looking at nie mingjue, and looking at jin guangyao

(also he gets no further commentary/acknowledgement from me but look at jin zixun back there just lounging in his seat like a smug spoiled brat. ugh. step on legos forever jin zixun.)

the camera shifts its focus while jgs keeps talking to zero in on jgy’s expression. this deliberately highlights and provides us the chance to see his expression in more detail. and it is so hard to discern what he is feeling specifically beyond “not great,” but what stands out for me is: he isn’t wearing his usual polite, customer service mask, the one he managed to keep in place both during the introductory sequence at the cloud recesses in the face of so much mockery from the jiang sect disciples.

so what is that expression? what is going on in his head that he can’t play the part that he’s perfect for years now, when he has supposedly almost achieved everything he ever dreamed of accomplishing for himself and his mother? i mean, i have my suspicions of course, because we know what is going to happen very soon.

and then—

—the focus of this scene changes, drawing our attention away from jin guangyao towards nie huaisang where he’s seated just behind nie mingjue. because nie huaisang is not paying attention to jgs’s speech or watching his da-ge. unlike everyone else in this banquet hall in this moment, nie huaisang is looking at jin guangyao, observing him in this moment where his polite mien has failed him, and god what i wouldn’t give to know what is going through his head!! because:

1) i don’t for a moment believe nmj told nhs the details of what transpired between him and jgy during their confrontation in the scorching sun palace. i don’t think he did this as a favour to jgy or to lxc, either. imo this decision would be consistent with nmj shutting down any discussion of what caused him to exile meng yao from the unclean realm back in… uhhh, episode 10?? when nhs, wwx and jc all converge in the unclean realm throne room to ask about meng yao’s fate. (yeah it was episode 10.) anyway for all we know this is the first time nhs has seen his old body guard/babysitter since he watched meng yao totter feebly into the wild blue yonder all those months ago, and now here he is seated in a place of honour between jin zixuan and his da-ge, looking perhaps even more miserable than he did while bleeding from a giant sword wound in his chest. it is entirely consistent with nhs’s character to be like ‘???? what is up with this??’ but not even he is bold enough to ask jgy what is up in the middle of this banquet, not with da-ge right there.

2) his expression is ALSO harder to read than it would have been when they were last together!! but there are clearly gears and cogs shifting and ticking and whirring behind his eyes, and the fact that the framing calls attention to nhs noticing jgy in this moment when it’s quite clear no one else does is one of many hints the show is dropping for us that nhs is more than just a lackadaisical and absent-minded second son. he notices things that no one else does—but, as with jgy, we are left to guessing as to what he is thinking, and what conclusions he is drawing.

well okay it looks like i managed to write a lot of words down about this after all!! go me.

[paradife-loft]

Close reading all the Jin Guangyao scenes: episode 24

Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 22 | Episode 23

The title of this is a lie, actually, since the first half? two thirds? of this is going to be finishing up with episode 23, but ah well.

So, I left off with the previous episode right after the deeply unfortunate clusterfuck of a conversation between Jin Guangyao, Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Guangshan, followed by “sometimes war crimes can double as grooming your extremely emotionally vulnerable son, and that’s terrible”. Which means now, it’s time for…

Swearing an (extremely ill-advised) oath of holy fratrimony!

This is a bit of speculation, since we see almost no detail on what went into the decision to become sworn brothers, but my read is that it at least partially reflects a political motive – tying prominent members of three clans together, rebuilding the rather demolished state of firm alliances and power left in the wake of a major war – while also reflecting a personal desire I think on Lan Xichen’s part to repair the rift between his two good friends, and offer them each a promise that they won’t be left isolated in the middle of larger forces trying to break them down.

The political aspect becomes a bit more apparent when considering the wording of the oath itself, actually: “We are liable to the immortal sects. We are to bring peace and stability to the commoners… If there is a change of heart, one will be faced with a thousand accusing fingers, and the wrath of Heaven and men!” – While this reflects a shared set of values, certainly, it also strikes me as relevant that these three, two of them current sect leaders, are swearing essentially not to become like the Wen clan that they’ve just deposed: they’ll be accountable to others, they’ll work for the benefit of those living under their authority, rather than capriciously throwing their weight around for personal gain.

Oh, and also - I’ve mentioned before, the dramatic irony here in how the consequences they invoke for failing to uphold the principles of their sworn brotherhood are in fact exactly what happens to Jin Guangyao in the end – given what’s to come, the oath he’s swearing ends up being more like a curse. Don’t swear oaths, kids, it never works out well. Of course, at the time, I don’t think he has any intention at all of betraying those principles – the “bring peace and stability to the commoners” part is certainly something he makes an effort to follow up on, once he has the power to do so! Still, for something that starts out with an explicit declaration to not be the sort of evil that Nie Mingjue so straightforwardly abhors, it’s… a very sad outcome.

Moving forward, we have… the most awkward set of greetings in the entire world, I swear. Mingjue shows up to the post-victory banquet and gets offered the world’s most politically-fraught location on the seating chart; Lan Xichen then reminds Jin Guangyao in front of the assembled members of three(!) separate sects to call him da-ge instead of Chifeng-zun. Jin Guangyao redoes his greeting/offer with the most intense deer-in-headlights look (pictured above), pretty clearly aware that Mingjue is not about to be happy with him. (This little exchange, including the encouraging nod also from LXC to NMJ, is further evidence beyond simply their general personalities I think, that Xichen was the driving force behind the brotherhood oath, especially in a personal sense.) But also, it serves as another piece of foreshadowing future events: knowing Mingjue is unlikely to be happy with the offer of Wen Ruohan’s old throne, Jin Guangshan hands the actual task of offering it off to Jin Guangyao. Here at least, Mingjue doesn’t get distracted from who’s really behind the offer, and addresses Jin Guangshan in vehemently refusing the seat; but it nonetheless continues establishing the pattern where JGS uses Jin Guangyao to be the primary face of his own less-than-savory political maneuvering.

(Which in general, makes me think it’s kind of interesting that he does have Jin Guangyao there greeting guests with him in the first place, and not Jin Zixuan? It’s a bit difficult for me to read what the status of co-greeter is supposed to be – second-in-command, or glorified servant? I think there may be a little bit of both, if JGY is there on one hand because he was the one setting the banquet up, but on the other hand also, because JGS wants to parade him around as his very own hero of the Sunshot Campaign, as Sect Leader Yao is so kind to remind us.

And then there’s... the one-on-one chat with Wei Wuxian.

First off, I’d like to link people to this post by @hunxi-guilai​, which honestly just goes over… a lot of what I probably would have liked to say about the implied meanings in this conversation. Essentially: Wei Wuxian is interested in what’s going on with this other Sunshot hero who also seems to be not carrying any sword (in a scene where we even see Jiang Yanli carrying hers!), and who had previously used a somewhat unorthodox weapon for his Wen Ruohan stabbing. Jin Guangyao though, is… not really interested in drawing attention to either of those facts (and I’m sure not in a way that would see him in solidarity with WWX), considering “unorthodox and outside the standard set of accepted behaviours in cultivator society” is the opposite of what he’s trying to look like right now.

Relevant to this, honestly, is the question of “what the fuck exactly even is a soft sword,” which CQL does approximately nothing to explain on the face of it, and only very implicitly does so if you’re obsessive like me and try to take blurry screenshots to compare the sword we see stabbing WRH with the sword that Jin Guangyao uses when fighting WWX’s paperman in episode 41.

Which do appear to be the same sword, inability to get a good clear look at it in either context notwithstanding. Oh, and JGY seems to have either repainted or swapped out the hilt, at some point in the intervening years – perhaps to better match the Jin clan’s aesthetic of white & gold sword decoration that we see on Jin Zixuan’s Suihua?

Anyway, for context on the “what’s a soft sword” issue, I am going to quote a relevant portion from the (EXR translation of the) MDZS novel, even though in general I’m trying to keep the canon cross-pollination in these meta to a minimum.

Back then, when Jin GuangYao worked undercover at Wen RuoHan’s side, he had often hidden the sword at his waist, wreathed the sword around his arm to use during critical moments. Although the blade of Hensheng seemed to be soft to the extremity, attacking with lingering motions, it was in reality both sharp and haunting. Once the blade had wrapped around the opposition, Jin GuangYao would apply it with a bizarre spiritual power, and one would quickly be severed into pieces by the sword, despite its tender appearance. Quite a few famous swords had been battered into piles of scrap iron just like this. At the moment, the blade of the sword attacked as though it was a serpent with silver scales, biting at the paperman without any hesitation.

So yeah – it’s an uncommon weapon, a sword with a blade that can bend and thus works very well for things like being sneaky and unassuming, and not fighting “fairly” in a way the vast majority of other cultivators would have any experience countering.

And... oh my god. Now we’re finally onto episode 24 properly.

The first input we get from Jin Guangyao this episode is this charming smirk as Wei Wuxian walks up into the center of the hall to interrupt JGS’s unpleasant “hey let’s renew this betrothal~” play. Personal amusement about a rather dramatic individual showing up to do something undoubtedly also dramatic? Entertainment about how a person not known for his skill at subtle political maneuvering is probably about to come in and make a mess that the Jin clan will be able to spin to their own advantage? Ehhh, why not both?

Though of course, the Jiang clan members function very well as a unit here once Wei Wuxian comes in to shake things up, and it’s not nearly the uncomplicated win for the Jin clan that he was probably expecting. Meanwhile, once that’s over, he takes the next opportunity to introduce his father’s next order of business, the invitation to the Phoenix Mountain hunt - and in fact, he does so with an absolutely seamless transition from Jiang Yanli’s rejection of the proposed marriage plan renewal:

“Everyone. For the previous Clan Leader Jiang to have such a daughter is already a great comfort to his soul. And not just Jiang Clan, but after the mess with the Wen Clan, every clan has experienced losses. This is a crucial time for us to rebuild and we critically are in need of manpower. For the past days, Father has spent a lot of time pondering over this matter. Luckily, he’s found a countermeasure. I dare to represent my father in inviting everyone back to Jinlintai during the fall. Jin clan will be putting all efforts towards reorganizing the round-up and hunting event at Hundred Phoenixes Mountain.”

It’s easy to overlook, I think, but the amount of rhetorical skill to put that together on the fly? It’s really not for nothing that Meng Yao was first introduced as being impressively sharp and well-spoken. He’s taking what starts as a loss of face for the Jin clan, redirecting it to focus on the virtue of Jiang Yanli, and then tying that in to the losses and worries that every sect now has in the wake of the war ending. And having reminded them of their own interests and present worries here, he steps in to offer a solution that slots the Jin clan in back at the top, looking extremely good, due to the wealth and comparative manpower advantage they have over everyone else after entering the war relatively late.

(Also, to clarify since it’s only ever implied rather than stated outright in the show, via the dialogue here and then another piece during the hunt itself – the Hundred Phoenix Mountain hunt, from what I can tell, is a regular event held for the purpose of showing off each clan’s skills so that they can attract new prospective disciples, hence why it’s a solution to the sects’ manpower being depleted by the war. Additionally, given the use in particular of reorganizing the event, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that ordinarily, this event would be one put on by the Chief Cultivator. So with the Wen sect demolished, there was nobody readily available to step up and take over handling this event until now. Jin Guangshan may be fooling none of the viewers about his intentions in adopting a seat right next to Wen Ruohan’s old chair, but he’s certainly making good use of a-Yao’s rhetorical talent to get yet another instance of stepping into the role vacated by the Wen sect looked upon as praiseworthy benevolence.)

…And then what thanks does he get for it? Some dispassionate praise, more work, and no appreciation for the tea he’s made.

It’s a bit telling (and painful) the way he responds to being asked if he’s found the location of the Yin metal yet, also: “Not yet; I’m incompetent.” I think he’s definitely the sort to feel, even as he’s very aware of the worth of his skills and what sort of areas he’s good with in some respects, the foundation of his belief in himself is nonetheless incredibly rocky and it’s easy for a reminder of any sort of failure to loom suddenly very large over his self-assessment in the moment.

At the same time though, Jin Guangyao is very much an adaptable person, and we see that on full display with his next explanation: that the one who has the last piece of Yin metal may very likely be Wei Wuxian. It’s both an exercise in political savvy, pointing out a powerful and disruptive influence likely to cause problems for Jin Guangshan in the future if his interference in the marriage proposal is any indication, and a significant sewing together of information from several different sources: Wei Wuxian’s opportunity to be in the same place previously as Xue Yang, as he explains to JGS, but also the front-row seat for WWX interfering with the power of Wen Ruohan’s Yin metal using Chenqing and his new Yin Tiger Seal.

I don’t think he holds any particular animosity toward Wei Wuxian at this point? This reads to me like a calculation based pretty essentially on: his father is clearly invested in expanding the power of the Jin sect and diminishing the interest or ability of other sects to oppose him, and also in (instrumentally to that goal) getting his hands on the last piece of Yin metal. Jin Guangyao has been explicitly tasked with working on the latter concern, and probably implicitly at least with the former - at some point, and some point soon, he’s going to need to produce results on that front, or else be dropped from JGS’s incredibly conditional regard for not being useful enough. Given the confluence of circumstances, lining up suspicions (which for all he knows are likely even true!) against Wei Wuxian serves both goals, and gives him another safe place to rest for a day or two before having to continue worrying how to be helpful enough to keep deserving his newfound status.

And that’s it for Jin Guangyao in episode 24! Poor kiddo. Looks like you can climb another rung higher on the ladder, sure, but it doesn’t mean you’ll make it free of being used for quite a long while still.

[neverdoingmuch]

okay! tma au time!

so i’m gonna start off by saying jgs is elias in this au. i dont care what you say about elias’ sexy voice or charisma or whatever, they’re both slimy and evil. also gertrude, so to speak, is wen chao. (bear with me pls)

most other people are assistants. i think? i mean lwj, wwx, jzx and a few others are?

(my brain says it would be funny to have lwj as sasha and su she as not!sasha but lwj deserves better than that)

i’m not really gonna follow the plot of tma bc rip

anyway!

the assistants are just kind of vibing in the archives when they discover that wrh, who’s like the chief of police and is an avatar of the slaughter, is actively killing people for the fears bc acab

does he have a deal with jgs and that’s why wen chao is the archivist? yeah probably. wen chao is the archivist bc daddy had connections. wrh put jgs in charge and sent wen chao to make sure everything was running how wrh wanted it to be

yeah, wrh wants to have control over all the fears or something idk

so wen chao is the archivist. but unlike gertrude who purposefully made things really messy and a nightmare he’s just really incompetent. wen zhuliu is the avatar of the distortion and theyre tight bc zhuliu owes wrh or whatever.

so the wrh stuff comes out and a bunch of people band together to try and bring justice to him and thus we have the sunshot campaign

maybe all the families have their own fears? the lans are the lonely and the nies are the hunt. jfm and yzy are avatars of the bad parenting idk. 

anyway, before they took any action, wwx had already started investigating bc wen chao is a lil bitch and very suspicious

while investigating wwx gets sucked into the archivist stuff and ends up being thrown into the tunnels under the institute with wen zhuliu who then proceeds to do distortion fuckery for three months

he finally escapes and kills wen zhuliu using the powers he’d begun to develop in the tunnels (it’s so strange that he stumbled across a tape recorder which he’d named chenqing and after that he kept finding statements,,, so strange)

he’s killed wen zhuliu so he goes off and kills wen chao and now he’s the archivist whoo

he joins up with the others and they go kill wrh, sweet it’s all dealt with but jgs starts spreading shit about how all the wens are terrible and must be killed (including wen qing’s family who are like paramedics who work ed with the police, so not cops but forced to work w/ them)

while jgs is touting that bs jgy is in the background slowly manipulating wwx into getting all the different marks (idk what they were called) from the different fears

he gets kidnapped by xue yang who is nikola and spends a month getting moisturised by him and told that wow he’s so impressive killing the other avatars,, im gonna follow in your footsteps (let’s say that avatars have a truce not to kill each other in this world. like they’re all equals and pretty much the same strength so there’s no real point in killing each other or trying to kill each other)

wwx escapes and im kinda annoyed we dont have enough bad guys for wwx to properly get his marks but whatever

he goes back to the archives and they come up with a plan to kill xue yang and they go off and do it

imma let you pick what happens here. does jzx die? do we let xxc and sl have the spotlight and this is where their story comes into play?

whatever happens, wwx goes into a coma for thirteen months and enter extremely hot avatar of the end who helps him wake up (mo xuanyu?? mo xuanyu.)

he goes back to the archives and lwj has been taken by the lonely while he was gone so he’s working with his uncle again (the lans are the lukases and i take no criticism)

side note: in this au wwx gets two phobias! (gee wwx! how come you get to have two phobias?)

so mr spider was definitely a thing and so were the dogs

while wwx was on the streets he found this book and he’d just started learning how to read so he decided to practise but then some other kid stole it from him and he ended up watching him get eaten by a giant spider also the dogs attacked him bc no rest for wwx

does wwx pretend not to be aware?? i’d say yes. if not bc of trauma then bc it’s super obvious and the look on lwj’s face when the jane prentiss equivalent attacks and wwx says wow those worms were a lil weird huh? is so funny to him

anyway lwj was in the know the whole time and he probably moved out of his family home and joined the archives so he could investigate jgs but then wwx dies and hes like aight yeah imma feel real lonely right now

so wwx comes back and jc, who had been the host of ghost hunt CW (cultivation world) and was attacked by an evil ghost, tries to kill him

after their fight and subsequent freedom from the slaughter and the eye (sans eye removing bc fuck that) jc moves in with jyl

im sorry that what the girlfriends isnt a thing here but i love the idea of a jyl who just isnt scared of anything because she’s seen death and just can’t get scared anymore

she still dates an archives employee though. it’s jzx, who is kinda like tim in this au i guess? did he die in that explosion? (i want to say no so jyl would be happy but if he dies and she’s mourning him and jc and wwx fought,, well now wwx is alone for bad decision times)

one day wen qing comes up and is like pls help my brother, he’s been taken by the buried so wwx runs off and finds breekon and hope (su she and jin zixun), kill jin zixun and steals the coffin

the rest of the wens are in hiding atm so he doesnt have to like monkey chain all the wens out of the coffin 

so wwx goes inside the coffin and rescues wen ning (bc jon and daisy’s relationship was super sweet)

they get out and immediately run away with wen qing and the rest of the wens

where do they go? wen qing’s cute cottage in scotland (or cultivation world equivalent)

so they’re living as farmers and wwx is getting sick bc he can’t get statements from here but he has to protect them bc the jins keep attacking (what are the jins working for?? idk. the vast? the dark? who knows, not me)

anyway lwj comes and is like you have to come back to gusu/the archives and wwx is like no! bc he has to protect the wens

so lwj is like fuck ive gotta move my timeline up and find a way to off jgs

jgy ends up doing it and lwj is like /: my revenge,,

everyone is happy! jgs is dead, wrh is dead! but then jgy starts stirring up rumours about wwx and lwj is honestly so tired of this shit

and bc people keep attacking the wens, wwx manages to collect the rest of the marks from the other fears

jgy sends his letter: dear wwx sorry for the deception yada yada yada

but wwx is aware of that shit and just kills himself before he can finish reading it

whoo apocalypse averted but lwj comes to help with the wens just in time for his burial so not whoo?

anyway we know wwx isn’t dead and he’s just vibing in another coma or something equivalent (why does he die twice in this au? bc idk how s5 will end but it’s a tragedy horror podcast and i want them to be happy so he gets to die twice)

anyway, the avatar of the web, mister manipulation and secrets extraordinaire nie huaisang is very pissed after jgy manipulated his brother into becoming an avatar of the slaughter and decides to just expose the dude

lxc kills him bc he deserves to kill jgy tbh,,, manipulative toad

nhs also restores wwx’s rep bc they were besties in uni and i refuse to accept anything else

he rocks up to the cottage/farm and is like hey guys i helped clear wwx’s name and wen qing is like hes fucking dead what help were you? and nhs is like ?? he’s not dead

so they unbury him and lwj wakes him up through the power of love and all that jazz

anyway, wwx manages to do *insert super cool thing here* and gets rid of all the fears and they get a happy ending bc i really want them to have a happy ending

do they stay living on the farm/cottage with the wens?? no but they buy a cottage nearby and happily live there together raising rabbits and growing idk pumpkins