#and everyone just nods along while jin guangshan plays indulgent uncle with jiang cheng over the lives of his people! who swore loyalty to

[winepresswrath]

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.

[ohsoverylittlehoneybee]

One of my favourite scenes in the whole show happens when Jiang Cheng is called to account for Wei Wuxian’s jailbreak and Jin Guangshan tells him that he’ll write Wei Wuxian killing his cultivators off like it’s a parking ticket Obviously we the audience know those guys sucked and sympathize with Wei Wuxian’s desire for vengeance but they didn’t get a trial and it’s not being treated as an execution.Wei Wuxian certainly doesn’t have the authority punish Jin cultivators even if they are guilty  and everyone just nods along while jin guangshan plays indulgent uncle with jiang cheng over the lives of his people! who swore loyalty to  him and had a right to his protection it doesn't really matter what wei wuxian did it matters who he is which means he gets to kill a bunch of people so long as he doesn't hit anyone too important but is not enough to counteract 'emotionally unstable one man superweapon not under jin guangshan's control'  like JGS is definitely making a point about how reasonable and indulgent he's being and if that second part wasn't in play he might not  bother   but that's a move available to him! this is a very shitty universe to not be a magical aristocrat in and an even shittier universe to try and go it alone in tbf that is honestly also true of our own universe like- one of the surest signs of privilege in my country is also whose fuckups get treated as fuckups and whose fuckups get treated as Crimes you're just generally not allowed to vengeance murder a bunch of people admit that's what you did and have it be cool                                                                                                                                                

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.

[theleakypen]

tags from @winepresswrath​ continue to be real good:

One of my favourite scenes in the whole show happens when Jiang Cheng is called to account for Wei Wuxian’s jailbreak and Jin Guangshan tells him that he’ll write Wei Wuxian killing his cultivators off like it’s a parking ticket Obviously we the audience know those guys sucked and sympathize with Wei Wuxian’s desire for vengeance but they didn’t get a trial and it’s not being treated as an execution. Wei Wuxian certainly doesn’t have the authority punish Jin cultivators even if they are guilty and everyone just nods along while jin guangshan plays indulgent uncle with jiang cheng over the lives of his people! who swore loyalty to him and had a right to his protection it doesn't really matter what wei wuxian did it matters who he is which means he gets to kill a bunch of people so long as he doesn't hit anyone too important but is not enough to counteract 'emotionally unstable one man superweapon not under jin guangshan's control' like JGS is definitely making a point about how reasonable and indulgent he's being and if that second part wasn't in play he might not bother but that's a move available to him! this is a very shitty universe to not be a magical aristocrat in and an even shittier universe to try and go it alone in tbf that is honestly also true of our own universe like- one of the surest signs of privilege in my country is also whose fuckups get treated as fuckups and whose fuckups get treated  as Crimes you're just generally not allowed to vengeance murder a bunch of people admit that's what you did and have it be cool

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.