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eliteprepsat · 2 years

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#vocabulary #modicum #word of the day #English #WOTD #English class #learning English

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starcurtain · 22 days

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2.1 Penacony Spoilers!

I know the scene after Ratio's "betrayal" can be read a lot of ways but I am shocked I haven't seen more people interpret it as Ratio being so worried about Aventurine that he couldn't stay away even though he was supposed to.

We know:

1) Ratio absolutely knew Aventurine's plan from start to finish, both his gamble to create "death" in the dream and with the three cornerstones. (Wish people would stop underselling Ratio in their analyses; "Three chips are enough" is a direct enough clue that, genius as he is, Ratio would never miss.)

2) In his own words, Ratio was acting according to Aventurine's instructions while in Dewlight Pavilion and with Sunday and felt that he did a good job not giving them away.

I think most people are on the same page up to there, but then I've seen a lot of people interpreting this scene after Aventurine leaves Sunday's mansion as Aventurine being genuinely angry at Ratio (possibly after having gaslit himself into thinking Ratio was actually betraying him).

But this doesn't make much sense to me because:

1) Ratio actually has nothing to gain by selling Aventurine out to Sunday. They're on the same side in this mission. Information about a Stelleron on Penacony wouldn't be news anyone with a brain like Ratio's and why would he need someone else's research on Stellerons when he already has ties to the Genius Society through Screwllum and Herta, as well as the Astral Express where the Trailblazer is actively housing a Stelleron?

2) One of Aventurine's most notable lines of dialogue is how it's perfectly fine and expected for "friends" to use each other and backstab. This is his default understanding of partners--why would he suddenly be mad about something he expected from the start?

3) If the betrayal wasn't already planned and was just a possibility based on Aventurine's understanding of Ratio, why would he ever have revealed there were "three chips" (aka three cornerstones) in play? If even the betrayal over Topaz's stone wasn't planned, just assumed, why would Aventurine reveal the existence of the third stone? He would gain nothing from doing so.

Instead, I think it makes a lot more sense to interpret Aventurine's frustration with Ratio in this later scene as annoyance over Ratio taking an "unnecessary" risk:

1) As far as Sunday knows, Ratio had just very seriously betrayed Aventurine, completely selling him out and essentially sending him to his execution.

2) In the scene afterward, Aventurine is out in public in the middle of Penacony where The Family's eyes are always watching, yet Ratio walks right up to him to check on him. Why would someone who just sold you out come up to you immediately afterward to check on your health?!

3) It's only natural that Aventurine would pump the brakes and go "Wow, didn't think you'd show yourself after you just betrayed me, remember?" Because that's the act they are supposed to be keeping up! They're still being monitored; it's not safe to break character!

But Ratio is a genius, right, so why would he break character here? From the standpoint of the ploy itself, revealing to the Family that he and Aventurine were still on the same side would only jeopardize the plan, not help it.

The logical explanation, then, is that Ratio went to Aventurine here because he felt like he had to.

He had to check in and make sure the situation was still under Aventurine's control.

(In fact, the entire exchange through the middle of this scene is Aventurine and Ratio confirming the rest of their plot in a veiled manner: Ratio brings up the plan and mentions what's concealed in the gift money bag, Aventurine confirms the cornerstone is good to go; Ratio asks what his next step will be; Aventurine says he's going to do the insane thing of handing out cash while looking pathetic [aka fishing for Sparkle]. Ratio essentially asks if he's crazy enough to take the final gamble with his own life, which Aventurine confirms, and then Ratio sets them up for the finale by gifting him the doctor's note.)

Ratio was willing to risk ruining their entire plan--something Aventurine does seem to be frustrated about at first--just to ensure Aventurine still felt all right about the situation.

He needed to deliver his note demanding Aventurine stay alive.

He needed to tell Aventurine to come to him if the situation got too painful to bear.

In short, Ratio was worried enough that he could not stay away even though, for the sake of their plot, it would have made significantly more sense for him not to appear. The gain of breaking character was worth more to him than the risk of being caught.

You honestly don't even have to take this in a shipping context. The real point here is that Ratio is an incredibly good person who wasn't okay with Aventurine's self-sacrificial plan and who felt morally compelled to check on a person in pain. He's a healer through and through, and ignoring Aventurine in this condition--ignoring someone who was taking so much risk on themselves--simply wasn't possible for him, no matter the danger it posed to the plan.

But for those who do ship Ratio and Aventurine... I hope more people will come to see this scene as another example of Ratio's genuine concern for his mission partner! He did not have to appear here at all; it would have made much more sense for him to leave Aventurine to his own devices to uphold the illusion of their "betrayal." He showed up in this scene--very likely against Aventurine's expectations--because he was concerned for Aventurine's situation and wanted to ensure Aventurine knew he could fall back on Ratio's support at any time if the plan went awry.

tl;dr: I wish people would stop interpreting this scene as the aftermath of a betrayal. Aventurine wasn't ticked off with Ratio in this scene because he felt like he'd genuinely been backstabbed; he was ticked off because Ratio was literally breaking their pre-established "betrayer" character just to be fussy over Aventurine's safety and well-being. (Okay, and to double check on the plan, but let's be real, the first part was definitely more important. 👌)

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lemongrace · 1 month

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moon's sacrifice a little symbolic gift art for @audreyofcrows of her character Tarellia! i am so normal about this haunted blue creature

#world of warcraft #night elf #warcraft #my art #artists on tumblr #tarellia bluemist #kaldorei #tw: blood #digital art #elf #illustration #art #we do a modicum of religious symbolism

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emkini · 1 year

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I think about Zuko and Ursa a normal amount

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #zuko #ursa #atla fanart #em draws #illustration #I had heart of stone from SIX playing on loop while drawing both of these #because I enjoy hurting myself #I am on a fucking roll right now apparently #cannot go five seconds without drawing something #the stuff I've been posting is so incredibly self-indulgent but y'know what. I do not care #normally i'd have a modicum of shame but nope #if I want Zuko to look sad in his mom's robes then that's what he's going to do <3 #privileges of being an artist #yes it's 4:30 in the morning shut up #id in alt text #edit I fixed his wack ass face

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saywhatyouwillbut · 12 days

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to have malakai and rowan flirt for three episodes, then get together, then break up one episode later because of a mushroom-trip misunderstanding,,, then for rowan to have actually been obsessed with amerie the whole time and for rowan to threaten malakai to stay away from her ?? TERRIBLE shit to happen to a character just starting to accept his bisexuality imo

#poor malakai why do all of his experiences with men turn out so shit #first the three way then this shit #no wonder he’s in love with amerie #literally none of his other love interests have treated him with a modicum of decency #anyway i love him #malakai mitchell #heartbreak high #heartbreak high spoilers #heartbreak high season 2 #i op

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road-kill-eater · 1 year

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finis

#art tag #dragon #fantasy art #babies first background with a modicum of effort put into it in 20 hundred years

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chalkrub · 24 days

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i'm once again sharing a birthday with jesus - but even more importantly i'm sharing a birthday with my darling MIDGE!! happy birthday beautiful creature i can't believe you've been around for two years now

#my art #oc #midge #midge has been reborn on this holy day after a one year drought of midge drawings. kind of like jesus #i don't draw midge enough (says this about 70% of ocs)#there's not enough hours in the day to spend drawing my funny guys #you should dedicate every modicum of free time to the creation and realisation of ocs. always remember this #i didn't like last year's midge drawing but i like this one so all is well in the world #having a chill birfday this year. had a nice lunch (honey hot chicken burger mmmmmm i love hot honey mmmmmmm)#imp #fairy

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acepalindrome · 10 months

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No one should be obligated to feel sympathy for a bunch of rich people who are probably dead after spending a grotesque amount of money doing something stupidly risky for no practical reason but that they’re rich and bored,

BUT

I do think it’s fucked up that some of you guys seem to think it’s a moral failing to feel anything but glee and delight at a bunch of people, one of which is 19, suffering one of the most horrific deaths imaginable that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

#titanic #oceangate #it’s possible to be critical of all the factors that lead to the situation in the first place #(ft a whole lot of greed and hubris)#while also having a modicum of sympathy for a fellow human being suffering a truly nightmarish death #but pitying horrendous human suffering when the people involve are rich makes you a bootlicker apparently??

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swordsonnet · 10 months

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self-proclaimed radical leftists: in the communist utopia that exists only in my head, everyone will work, by which i mean a full-time job in the post-industrial revolution sense. this is because work is obviously the only way one can contribute to society, and everyone who doesn't work is a parasite that will be eradicated in my Communist Utopia™. i don't even care about the products or purpose of people's labour because, as everyone knows, employment equals morality and so having a job is inherently virtuous and not having a job makes you a lazy leech who doesn't deserve to live. trust me, this is a very communist idea. i'm practically an expert because i read 1.5 tweets about marx.

what? omg why are you making this about disability, i was obviously talking about normal people 🙄 if you're disabled, you have an excuse to be a useless waste of resources who can't contribute anything 😊 in my ✨ Communist Utopia ✨, you don't have to work if you're not able to. don't worry, we'll have rigorous and dehumanising tests to determine if you're disabled enough or if you're just a lazy faker! this process is infallible and has no drawbacks whatsoever for disabled people. have you considered that maybe you're the real ableist for criticising me? 🤔 anyway, have i mentioned how much i love employment and also the taste of boot leather

#so many internet 'leftists' are actually just deeply reactionary if you look even a millimeter below the surface #and it clearly shows in their complete refusal to treat disabled people as even remotely human #anyway if someone needs to disclose their diagnosis to you for you to treat them with even a modicum of respect #then you dont respect disabled people at all. period.#just as mocking people for being harmlessly weird is always wrong and not just when you know for a fact theyre autistic #you can't just act like having a job is the only way to contribute to society and then go 'but it's okay if you're disabled'#because you're still saying that we're useless. and going 'okay but you cant help it' is not as supportive as you might think #disability #ableism

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basilone · 5 months

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#band of brothers #bobedit #hbo war #hbowaredit #ronald speirs #basilcreations #speirsrd #I am in situations™ with this man rn #expect some modicum of fic at some point y'all cos I'm on a roll

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serafisolaris · 5 days

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the taste of blood / the color of love

#touchstarved #touchstarved game #vere #vere touchstarved #my art #he's so pretty it hurts #begging for a modicum of his time

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metamatar · 6 months

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boggles my mind that people in the united states simply directly say that arab and muslim people are not marginalised in the west. random, innocent arabs are still being tortured in guantanamo bay. muslims everywhere will tell you how flying anywhere is a terrifying experience.

#jewish zionist are the marginalised ones everywhere forever no one else can ever be granted even a modicum of innocence

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fuckmeyer · 9 months

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Jasper as a character is so interesting because he ends up a Confederate because he can't actually empathise with the slaves and because he simply accepts cruelty around him, and then when he becomes a vampire he literally can't ignore others suffering because it hurts him, but even decades after he becomes a Vegetarian he still can't get a hang of it partially because he still can't see humans as *people*. Idk there's smth to be said about him becoming a vampire because of his own cruelty and then being eternally in horrific pain because of said cruelty that fucks.

Jasper's whole life is a curse & i love to see it

here we have a Confederate supposedly so empathetic that he acquired a "gift"... yet not so empathetic as to recognize he was fighting for the enslavement of an entire race. despite seeing the consequences of slavery literally every day. now, the man who spent his last human days denying the humanity in others is forced to spend his immortal life being slapped in the face with their emotions. forever. hueeueueueu-

yeah, i would call that "gift" a curse, actually.

if Twilight weren't a horror story, we might see a discussion between Jasper/Bella about how immortality forces you to confront the darker side of your nature (e.g. "there will come a day when the societal beliefs imbued unto you leaves you standing on the wrong side of history"), & Jasper's journey with finding love & humanity. OR, y'know, he could've just had ONE (1) line where he says "yeah i'm not proud of my service." simply, if Twilight weren't a horror, Jasper could see the error of his ways & change for the better.

HOWEVER. Twilight vampires are "mentally frozen" when they turn, so Jasper is likely still a racist who does not regret his service. no matter how many times he is confronted with his cruelty, he won't change. meaning whatever life he chooses, his gift dooms him.

wow! eternal curse!

we see evidence of this frozen mental state in his decision to go vegetarian. he doesn't switch bc he feels bad about killing humans:

"I could feel everything my prey was feeling. And I lived their emotions as I killed them. [...] You've experienced the way I can manipulate the emotions around myself, Bella, but I wonder if you realize how the feelings in a room affect me." (Eclipse, Ch 13)

note the dehumanizing term "prey" & the focus on himself. he laments not that the human lives he's taking have value but that their dying moments harsh his vibe.

the irony! trapped as an empath while never possessing the ability to be an empath! CURSE CURSE C-

herein lies a bigger, juicier curse: Jasper is, himself, (hot take) enslaved in the sense that he will never know freedom, philosophically speaking, due to the choices he made in life. the series tries to paint him as a master tactician & competent leader; fanon often paints him as a free-thinking amoral black sheep. in reality, he simply obeys the commands of higher authorities & abides by their worldview regardless of how toxic it is to himself or others.

in the beginning, he had María.

he entered the Southern Vampire Wars not by his own volition but stayed because he was content not having a choice. however one feels about María, the fact of the matter is 1) as a newborn he was stronger, bigger, & faster than her & could have run away or overpowered her, 2) had the "gift" to identify emotions & could KNOW when/if she was malicious or manipulating him, & 3) could have escaped by influencing her emotions to make her disinterested in him. at any time in the 100 years they were together, he could have left. he talks about never knowing a life outside the war & discovering "options I'd never dreamed I had." ok???? run 100 miles in any direction & you would have seen a life outside of war. BOI-

instead, he took comfort in being submissive & adopting someone else's ideology. not only did it remind him of his past, but it meant he had no need to reflect on his actions or beliefs. he prefers others dictate his worldview & order him around even if it means being unhappy. he only left because he was going to be assassinated, & even then, it wasn't until someone else told him another life was possible that he "realized" another life was possible.

notably, the period where he's most free— living with Peter & Charlotte— is his rock-bottom where "the depression got worse." but, again, not because he realized the value of human life: "I was so wearied by killing [...] even mere humans."

then he meets Alice.

Alice, who has visions of being vegetarian & converts him so they can live with the Cullens. Alice, who dictates how her family should live their lives to the point where she manipulates them. Alice, who goes so far as to dress the Cullens, who orders Jasper to wait in the car while she & Bella go shopping, who Jasper refers to as "truly [...] one frightening little monster" because for all his experience she can still beat him in combat.

his eternal soulmate is authority.

despite being unhappy with his vegetarian life, as it makes him feel weak & coddled & a liability to everyone around him, he follows the lifestyle because Alice tells him to.

then there's the Volturi, another authoritative body. "We owe the Volturi for our present way of life," says acclaimed bootlicker Jasper Hale, who in the same moment shudders at the atrocities they committed, yet strangely sees no other way for a governing body to keep the peace... so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but, since Carlisle outranks the Volturi as an authoritative figure in that he more closely aligns with Jasper's new worldview, Jasper sees no problem deposing the vampiric governing body if it means his sister-in-law of like 2 months can keep her demonic spawn. so i guess we don't really owe the Volturi that much

to his credit, we see glimmers of him questioning his leaders: 1) his decision to leave Maria, 2) his considering switching diets to defeat Victoria, & 3) going against the Volturi. but, again, these decisions are all just a result of his self-preservation & submitting to the higher authority du jour.

in the end, he has the perfect storm of conditions that would allow him to escape the prison he's created, to find freedom & to love humanity unconditionally... but he won't. Jasper's ultimate curse is that regardless of whether he realizes the enslavement of his own self, he will never leave his cage because it's cozy & easy & allows him to never think for himself.

AAAANYWAY Jasper's life sucks & he's trapped in an eternal prison of his own making. lol

#twilight #twilight renaissance #the twilight saga #jasper hale #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #you're right there really is something to be said about jasper the shitfuck confederate ending up in this situation!!!#like it would be tragic if it wasn't so comedic and if he didn't display a modicum of self-awareness!!!!#you make a great point about how he accepts cruelty his whole life and even when he's unable to ignore it he just is forced to accept it fo #ever #the absolute *chefs kiss* curse. smeyer coudlnt have written a better curse if she tried #in fact i do believe ALL the cullen gifts are actually curses in their own way #and it's so delicious to think about it that way #god i just love thinking about twilight as a horror #you're right riote- It Fucks #thanks for sending this my way!#cheers~

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soullessjack · 8 months

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another tally on the “things about jack that have been almost erased by the baby au” is how genuinely fucked up and weird and scary and violent and horrifying he is. the body horror of his existence is so. Palpable.

he looks human, but he still fundamentally is not human, and the thing that separates him from being human or belonging or being normal and loved and accepted without strings attached is his own bloodline. his own family, his own father. the blood that runs through his veins is the blood of the devil and he wasn’t fed it like Sam. the anger and rage and capacity for violence inside him isn’t an ancient curse like it was for Dean. It’s just who he is. It’s his neurology. Jack enters a guilt/grief-induced psychosis so bad he starts hallucinating his own dead evil father who proceeds to say “I’m in your head, your DNA,” and goes on about how Jack’s place with the only chosen family he ever cared for is that of their little pet monster who’s only kept around to kill things for them. And this is his subconscious, remember, these are all Jack’s own thoughts being given a hallucinatory voice.

When jack is first born he doesn’t even register that he’s not a full human. It’s not until he catches dean telling the sheriff that he’s a Nephil and gets stabbed all the way through his entire heart to the hilt of the angel blade and survives, that he realizes he’s Not Normal. Jack stabs himself 18 times with “grim determination,” dedicated to making a wound stay open in his body, but nothing happens. He doesn’t know what any of this is, but he knows it’s dangerous and he’s seen firsthand what he can do, because he sent the sheriff careening backwards into glass when he didn’t mean to do anything more than push her away. He tells Dean he will hurt someone again [whether he means to or not]. And he tells Sam, using his powers is like breathing; it’s a subconscious, physical, neurological part of his system that he cannot (currently) consciously control or stop.

He’s literally a living weapon. These powers of his that hurt people are akin to breathing. His violence and his evil is deep seated and runs through his heart and bleeds out of him. But he can’t bleed the evil out. He can’t escape what he was born into or what keeps him alive. He can’t even live without this nuclear power that ostensibly others him from everyone forever. He’s foaming at the mouth and seizing and fainting and bleeding and going into total systemic failure and subsequently dying as a human because he just isn’t human and he can’t live as one even if he wants to, even if that is a part of him it still isn’t the only part of him. The other half that makes him untrustworthy and violent and angry and dangerous and nuclear and evil and feared and hated is the one part he is left dying without.

His body dies a first time because it couldn’t live without its own hereditary disease, he died as a human and goes to human heaven and sees and rekindles with his human mother, the part of him that he wants to be and loves but can’t exist as. He’s brought back but now he’s a time bomb, a nuclear reactor internally melting down. he’s a weapon, but he’s alive because he was born as a weapon, and neither of these things were his choice.

and then a second time his body dies because he was only registered as a threat with no humanity. his eyes are burned out of his skull and instead of heaven with his mother, instead of humanity, he wakes up in the pitch black abyss where other nonhumans go when they die, then he’s brought back and he’s a weapon for the third time. He’s a living bomb, a collapsing black hole, and he has to eat human hearts ripped straight from the chest to keep his bomb body alive and ready for detonation, ready for collapse. He’s so far from human, further than he ever wanted to be, further enough to make his deep rooted fear a reality that he’s too suicidal to bother rebuking. Why rebuke the truth? The absolute truth that the devil, the evil of all things is in his blood and he is evil and he was a born weapon whose body exists to destroy and kill and not even his own love or will can stop it.

He is a gun that doesn’t want to be a gun and hates that his body is made to shoot and kill, but he has no choice in being anything else but a gun. He cannot ever be good, he was never good to begin with, he was just malfunctioning, glitching, experiencing an error and virus and flaw that he wishes was his entire programming. His eyes glow yellow like the corrupted Star Wars Sith and Rosemary’s Baby and a whole slew of evil things that are evil and meant to be rejected. When he gets angry, people stare at him as if he’s a cornered animal, because that’s what he is to them. To both sides of the equation, he is an animal. A foreign creature, a thing, he’s not human enough to be human and he’s not angelic enough to be an Angel. He’s some weird mixture that nobody can understand or accept. He’s unpredictable and violent and wild and born that way and only in his subsequent domestication, only in the extension of personhood and humanity can he be deemed worth loving. He’s like a dog, detrimentally loyal, old yeller going rabid while saving his family and having to be shot in an act of mercy. Barking and biting at people who might hurt his loved ones and killing them as an act of love. Sam wanted Nick to burn so Jack burns Nick and that’s why Jack says they would be grateful. He did what Sam wanted. Same for the other biblical killings. He’s the cat sinking its fangs into rodents and birds. Leaving the punctured corpses on the doormat as a gift, I did this for you because I love you, don’t you love me too?

I haven’t eaten well in the past two days does this click click anyone’s boom. Saliva

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catra-come-out · 20 days

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Catra: Some day I'll tell you guys about the time I stabbed the cop.

Glimmer: Oh my God, Catra.

Catra: He stabbed me first!

#spop #incorrect spop quotes #she ra and the princesses of power #spop incorrect quotes #incorrect she ra quotes #catra #adora #she ra incorrect quotes #she ra spop #catradora #since I don't seem to be able to maintain the headspace to post with a modicum of consistency #I've decided I'm going to use the outreach I've developed on this blog for good #and continuously queue up spop posts to be spread #maybe it'll help folks reach more people idk #the queue tag will be 'i am not queuete!' as an. obvious reference.#anyway that's my update #happy blogging everyone!

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poorlittleyaoyao · 10 days

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Well its iirc said that the reason JGY is managing the whole crowd as JGS' right hand is because Zixuan's off on business, so maybe JGS purposefully did not send for his honorable hot head of a son in love with Yanli who may have derailed the meeting in a way not beneficial to JGS. Or MXTX just didn't want him there.

Ooh, this is interesting, and it gives me an excuse to go on about how JGY is presented when we see him serving his father at events.

At the Nightless City victory banquet, JGY's role seems to signify a decent amount of status. He's working the event, but JGS is there making announcements and greeting guests right alongside him and he has his own seat with the rest of the gentry, in a prime location right between his half-brother and his eldest sworn brother.

Fast-forward to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt the following month, and things have changed. JGY is master of ceremonies, explaining the rules of the competition during the hunt and commending everyone's performances at the banquet. He makes announcements at his father's behest and stands up on the dais near the throne, which seems like it's a privileged role, except that this time, he doesn't get to sit down.

He alone greets guests as they enter, he alone circulates in an attempt to deescalate the various conflicts his cousin instigates, he alone is responsible for finding more monsters to hunt when people throw a hissy fit about WWX catching too many. His half-brother, meanwhile, participates in the contests, goes on an awkward not-a-date with his crush, and spends the entire banquet (with all its drama) seated in silence. JGY's seeming authority prevents him from participating in the festivities the way that his supposed peers do. Yeah, he's by the throne, but he's standing--not unlike the servants.

Now, to be clear, he does have a place set for him! When he stomps over to try and make Jin Zixun stop bullying the Twin Jades into doing shots, he rises from the place across the hall from Jin Zixuan that's unoccupied in the second image.

So JGY's certainly afforded more status than a servant, but he's not being treated like a family member, either. No other Jin family members or disciples rush up with a bowed head alongside one of the maids to offer JGS a new cup of wine after JGS flips a table in anger at WWX's disruption.

And it's certainly not Zixun (who instigated the disruption and embarrassingly lost the ensuing power struggle) or Zixuan (who is still trying to marry the disruption's elder sister even after she publicly turned him down) who are getting wine thrown on them for their trouble!

All this is to say, I'm surprised to hear that the novel explains JGY's role as something done out of necessity due to Zixuan's absence, because my takeaway from CQL is that these responsibilities are a deliberate attempt to set JGY apart from Zixuan as different and lesser. Zixuan's right there and he does nothing, either in fulfillment of an assigned duty or of his own volition. I can't imagine him overseeing an all-sect meeting, even on something that didn't tangentially involve his personal life.

#jin guangyao #trying to be better about tagging characters in posts that took a modicum of effort so the tags are uhh. Not Awful.

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