#vos thoughts

[vosling]

thank you audio fiction podcasts for getting me to look forward to my weekly morning of household chores 🎧

[thyandrawrites]

So, on rewatch I think that butterfly Wuhuo had no reason to enter the star stone illusion alongside the others. None that related to his plotting to kill Ji Ling, anyway. In fact, he actually had to make sure he'd be outside the illusion when Wu Zhiqi summoned the dragon deity power to attempt to stop the stone from shattering, or else he couldn't steal said power from him.

So, all of this to say that he still went in, at his own risk and against all reason, and no one can convince me that it wasn't because he was burning for a chance to see Yuan Xizai again. The real one, even if just in a memory. Perhaps even to get clarity on the events that lead to the explosion that killed him. But mostly just to see his brother again after 50 years. But then... Then the one in front of him isn't Xizai at all, cause Li Jie has been sucked into the star stone too and taken his place. So we get this devastating moment

The look of absolute defeat on his face while he's toying with the obsidian fragment his brother gifted him, thinking of the pointlessness of his life's journey, of all his wasted efforts.

Even in a illusionary do-over, Yuan Wuhuo still "achieves nothing". He doesn't get to see Xizai again, he doesn't get to save him this time either. He attempts to stab Tiandi to death but that fails when the illusion just patches itself back together; he then tries crushing the 6-eyed butterfly pupa that would make Tiandi lose control, but that too doesn't change anything. The explosion still happens, Xizai (now Li Jie) is still closest to it and gets hit by the biggest shockwave of it, and Wuhuo is powerless to stop it. Powerless to stop history from repeating itself.

No return, no finding it again. His brother is gone, nothing can bring him back. Not even an artifact designed to make you relive your past.

[thyandrawrites]

This scene goes hand in hand with Zhao Yuanzhou getting psychosexual hallucinations of his demon ex husband haunting the body of his new human husband, and how the inherent terror of those blurred identities unveils both Zhao Yuanzhou and Ji Ling's most deep-seated, most repressed and yet painfully visceral desire: being known, seen through completely, disarmingly, and beloging anyway. The community of souls only born from going through the highs and lows of fate with someone who has seen all of you, including the worst, most unlovable parts you don't want to acknowledge as parts of you.

This longing is something that both Zhao Yuanzhou and Ji Ling keep buried deep. They don't dare speak of it, of how much it hurt to have shared everything with someone, to have loved them and still love them and need them at your side, and yet not get to. They pretend there isn't an open wound in their heart, despite how much it bleeds into every relationship they form ever since. How it shapes them into people who already expect loss before they even let themselves love someone else fully. In their mind's eye, that loss becomes an inevitability, and one that they dread something fierce.

The doomed past and the more compassionate present blur together, cruelly taunting them. Who are they facing? Their new friend, or the person they didn't get to hold on to? Is there a difference between them?

The dread of Li Lun possessing Zhuo Yichen's body to kill Zhao Yuanzhou is weighty, but so is ZYZ's fear of the past repeating itself. When he sees ZYC's features blur into LL's, it's not the possession he's terrified of. He imagines them at the altar of their old oaths to each other, where new oaths were formed with new people. Li Lun isn't just an enemy to defeat: it's Zhao Yuanzhou's past coming back to remind him of his broken promises, of his failed "forever"s. He doesn't need to physically possess Zhuo Yichen for Zhao Yuanzhou to feel his haunting, suffocating presence.

If Li Lun was a beloved close friend ZYZ was forced to part ways with by the cruelty of fate, but still painfully present in his life in a way ZYZ can't bear to extricate himself from, to put an end to, then the butterfly demon is that and worse. In the latter, the haunting is twofold: it's Yuan Wuhuo the butterfly demon possessing Li Jie, and it's Yuan Wuhuo the human haunting the replica, the painted skin, close enough to the original to taunt Ji Ling with regrets and unsolved issues, but not close enough to bring relief to that hurt, to offer any closure. His existence itself feels like a slight to the idealized memory of the great hero.

In both cases, the image of a loved one no longer in their lives superimposes itself onto that of their newest kindred soul, with an urgency that spirals into almost frenzied desperation. As if to mock the hope of being known again, of being accepted fully. After all, fate is something you cannot change or interfere with. And if you were doomed by it once, doesn't that mean you'll always be doomed to lose what you hold the most dear?

[thyandrawrites]

Headcanon that the fox plushie without eyes was sewn by Yuan Wuhuo in the first place. He admits he was the one who could sew in the family, and the doll specifically lacked eyes, as if made to comfort a small blind child into not feeling afraid of and alone in his disability. It's made of coarse materials, has no particular embellishments as if to drive in the fact that it was put together by someone barely scraping by, and wasn't bought. I think that's why Yuan Xizai held onto it for his entire life. How alone he must've felt once again when his brother enrolled into the Shilin Sect, and he only got to meet with him once a year.

I like to think that Yuan Wuhuo deliberately chose to add eyes to it when he stitched it back up. Because that doll is so symbolic to him. He got so angry when Ji Ling claimed it—when he superimposed himself (without knowing) onto the memory of another weak, scared blind person, and the image was one Yuan Wuhuo was not ready to accept. To see the doll bring comfort once again put into sharp relief that Ji Ling was scared and helpless. That he needed taking care of. That Yuan Wuhuo was, once again, bringing harm to that vulnerable person in the name of pure selfishness. Yuan Wuhuo doesn't complain about Ji Ling keeping the doll anymore after that. He doesn't take it away. But he doesn't free Ji Ling, either. A little bit because of grief, a little bit because of desperation, he's ruthless because to him the end justifies the means, much like when he forced Xizai to eat the dragon marrow. Up to that point, Ji Ling was pitiful, but not yet a person. He was a fox yao, and yao killed his parents.

That changes when Ji Ling shows him his very human, very kind heart. When he gives up his blanket to bring comfort to Yuan Wuhuo after he collapses. Ji Ling doesn't take the opportunity to search his robes for the key of his chains; the idea doesn't even occur to him because he lacks the opportunism to even think of it. He doesn't have a single mean bone in him; he's in this situation in the first place because he attempted to save someone and it backfired on him. What Ji Ling does instead is spend the night freezing just to help someone he felt needed it more. And that cracks Yuan Wuhuo's facade for the first time, forcing him to confront the truth he's been trying this whole time to keep at arm's length: Ji Ling does not deserve this. Xizai's death is not his fault. It's Wuhuo's.

And so comes the silent apology—repairing the doll he damaged, because he cannot make up for his ruthlessness, but he can make amends. Mending things was his job in the family. And so he mends.

The doll matters a lot to Ji Ling, perhaps as much as it had to Xizai. But Xizai is still not back, and Wuhuo would break, lose his raison d'être, if he lost that purpose to protect what's already gone. So he needs to hold on to the idea that Xizai can come back. That Ji Ling has that power. Because he brought Wuhuo back with his tears, didn't he? He must have deity power stored away somewhere. He's just keeping it from Wuhuo, surely, even if he spent years pretending to be weak and powerless and scared, flinching away from him, being pitiful and vulnerable and human in all the same ways his little brother used to be.

And that duality carries—Yuan Wuhuo wants Ji Ling to stay the villain (so he doesn't have to confront himself or his own actions), but he can't reconcile that excuse with the reality of Ji Ling being so upset that Wuhuo took away his only source of comfort, and looked exactly like Xizai when he begged him to stop. At some point, the line between Ji Ling and Xizai have started blurring, but he needs those lines to be drawn. They're his only shield.

So he fixes the doll, but he makes it different. He gives it eyes, a feature that Xizai's plushie never had. And I like to think there's symbolism in that, from a narrative standpoint. I'm sure he didn't mean to, he just wanted them to look different enough to separate the two. But he's taking away the feature that was originally supposed to bring that comfort: the lack of eyes. Ji Ling might be blind, too, but Wuhuo doesn't want that to be his responsibility. He doesn't want to feel bad for him, so long as Ji Ling cannot fulfill Wuhuo's obsession. And yet, at the same time... The fox pup's eyes (his tears) are also what brought Yuan Wuhuo back. If Xizai's sight was what made him vulnerable and in need of someone stronger to shield him, then the fox's are the source of his greatest fit of inhumane power yet: godly healing that can reverse life and death.

Stitching eyes onto the doll can then be read as a deliberate act, on par with how DYI-ing a doll without eyes had been. A visible difference, and a desperate attempt to draw up a mental divide as his last defense against the sympathy already clawing at his heart. His last defense against the unbearable, agonizing outcome of his own choices

[thyandrawrites]

(Episode 22 spoilers)

So, Lu Wuyi is lying through her teeth about everything throughout the whole episode. We all agree on that, right? It wasn't particularly subtle. Especially about double-crossing Ji Ling for her Wu Wangyan. I'm not discounting her trauma of seeing her jiejie die or her strong bond with her btw. I just think it makes no sense for a character who's starved for connection and love to suddenly turn against one of the only two people who've seen her for who she is and loved her unconditionally. My guess is that time-traveling LWY went back in time to prevent Ji Ling from dying for her (we don't know yet if it was for her but I've had this gut feeling for a few days now and it's not getting any weaker with today's crumbs). Notably it wasn't even her who said she cares more about WWY than Ji Ling, but she immediately jumped on it when he offered that explanation, bleeding heart and everything. To me, it read very much like she was making him forget about her on purpose (again) even if she had to break his heart in the process, maybe cause she holds some hope that it will prevent his future self-sacrifice if he thinks his affections were misplaced. It won't because Ji Ling still loves her unconditionally, but that's another story. I doubt she fully understands that anyway.

As a smaller tangent to this theory, I also think that her attempts to change the past keep getting thrown askew because of some time-fuckery variable we have not yet been introduced to. I'm way less sure of this prediction so I'm not holding my breath for it but I think she might be failing (and future!Ji Ling might also be failing at "changing the ending") because they're time traveling from different futures and keep getting in each other's way. At the very least, future!Ji Ling is suffering from time traveler's drawbacks, possibly more severely than LWY given he's also crying blood (hinting at even more rewinds from his end) and he still has his ring, though it looks like it's no longer containing any power. I also think that the frosty Ji Ling apparition had the same robes of the future Ji Ling with blodshot eyes, so make of this what you will

[thyandrawrites]

Li Jie saying 'I don't even know his name' as he sets out to follow the calling in his heart is so important and dear to me. He doesn't give for granted that what he'll find will be his Ji Ling. But it doesn't matter to him because he's always been willing to follow him come hell and high water. And after Li Jie went on his own self discovery journey he understands that what Ji Ling needs to do is the same. Li Jie will still wait him at the door when he comes back with an answer. Just like how Ji Ling didn't tell Li Jie his origins and let him find that answer for himself despite having a solid idea of who he could be. It's just... The trust and respect and love of wanting someone to fully self-realize instead of telling them who they're supposed to be, whether the mask fits or not. To Ji Ling that was perhaps the greatest act of care, given how he never had the opportunity to live his life as himself. And I think post-canon Li Jie understands that. He knows that freedom is what Ji Ling needs the most now. From a duty that chained him his entire life, but also freedom as in the liberty of choice. "Ji Ling" was a name bestowed to him, and despite changing the characters that compose that name to have a less impersonal meaning, it was still an identity that didn't fully belong to him. But now, he has the chance to make that choice, to name himself, to be free and to be happy. Nothing is chaining him anymore. Li Jie knows he might never come back, and he doesn't intend to bring him back, either. either. Instead, Li Jie sets out to find him. Not as a commander seeking directions from his Sect Leader, not as the product of a dead man's obsession. But as a friend. After grieving him and thinking he'd lost him forever, only to be told he'd come back to life but not in Li Jie's lifetime, Li Jie's heart longs for that reunion, but there's no innate pull telling him the right way anymore. That string was cut. This is a new beginning, and what awaits him might be a completely new person. One that Li Jie wants to get to know. To Yuan Wuhuo, he claimed that following Ji Ling was a choice he made of his own free will, and this resolve now proves how genuine those feelings are. With no compulsion to protect, what is left is just love. The love that was always there, but now it's free, too, to come to the surface. And it's an act of love, too, wanting to meet him where he's found a comfortable nook for himself, one that truly belongs to him, whoever he is now, this time for real

[thyandrawrites]

I'm thinking about how in every GJM drama snow is always more than just an aesthetic, but a visual narrative tool cause it's always symbolic of loneliness. It was snowing in the scene where Zhuo Yichen learns of his brother's death and then lies in a fetal position in a bed of snow under that tree that holds so many memories. He teaches himself to use Cloud Light while it's snowing.

Snow as a signifier of deep loneliness comes up very often, and it's even expanded on in the ost. Pei Siheng sings about how he wishes "this snow storm would arrive later" in his and his sister's duet that's all about the somber realization that they've both been carrying their burdens alone in life, and now that the are finally at each other's side, sharing them, they cannot go on living on this borrowed time together much longer—PSJ will be left to carry on alone very soon, without PSH there to help her along the way anymore.

This symbolism carries over in Vos with the ice/snow motifs. Wu Shiguang's village is cased over in ice when his clan is exterminated. The Formless Moon members are chased by the ice curse when they cut off their spiritual tail, dooming themselves to a life on the run, alone in their fate as outcasts from the rest of the moon sisterhood. Ji Can, a demon cultivated through Ji Ling's loneliness, is covered in frost.

But even tho the ice imagery is more prevalent, there's also symbolism around snow, too. Li Jie's monologue to butterfly Wuhuo about witnessing both Ji Ling's glory and lonesome fate is also narrated over a shot of Ji Ling sitting still under the snowfall, his hand extended as if to feel its cold touch on his equally cold, lone heart.

"why are you bringing this up", you say

Well. Guess where else snow comes up again!

This is a dream sequence, not a physical location. Its attributes—the landscape around Li Jie and Yuan Wuhuo—change as easily as a passing throught when Wuhuo thinks of his family and we're transported back to the New Years festivities, watching the fireworks, seeing his memories. There's no frost anymore when Wuhuo "crosses the river" and walks into the warmth of that memory, into the warmth of his family's embrace.

In other words, what commands the weather in the dreamscape are Li Jie's emotions.

Yuan Wuhuo urges him to find out who he is, to decide what to make of his life from now on. Is Li Jie, too, only held up by a dead man's lingering obsession? Will he also fade once that last thread to reality fades away?

But Ji Ling is dead, and what remains is not the original Wuhuo's regrets or unfulfilled wishes.

What remains is loneliness. Because Li Jie's feelings aren't the imprint on snow of someone else's steps that he's retracing again. They're his own snowfall.

[thyandrawrites]

So. Heartbreaking little factoid that no one asked for

As you probably could tell, I'm on a vos rewatch for characterization, and something I noticed is that Ji Ling has the habit of striking what I call the Long Shen Pose, meaning that peculiar "regal" way he stands with his left arm bent over his belly and his right arm bent behind his back. Cool, you might say, but why are you bringing that up. Well, because it's posturing. He notably only does the pose when either A) he wants to appear more authoritative as Long Shen or B) right after he accidentally lets a little too much of Ji Ling slip out and he feels like he needs to resume wearing his mask. You can literally see this in action in the star stone illusion when Lu Wuyi questions why he's acting so considerate and uncharacteristically warm to her, and he immediately shakes himself, schools his expression back into aloof distance, and strikes the Long Shen pose.

It's even in the middle of a conversation about acting!

So naturally after picking up on that I got curious to double check if this was something that he was copying from the real Chi Wen to better sell the act, or if it was part of the persona he adopted in order to appear a more legit deity. Basically, similar to how he lies that he doesn't like the taste of meat because the one he's impersonating is a vegetarian who is expected to live a life of simple, frugal meals and abstinence from worldly pleasures, in true ascetic monk fashion.

With all that in mind, I was paying extra attention to how the original Chi Wen held himself in all those brief glimpses of him we got here and there, but much to my disappointment, his arms were always flat at his sides, never bent in the same pose Ji Ling often does.

"is he just improvising, then?" I wondered next, already wondering if my search would be fruitless too in the more extended flashbacks of Ji Ling's past in that one episode we see the whole story. "If Chi Wen doesn't do the Long Shen Pose there either, I'm going to go off the assumption that this is what Ji Ling decided looked like a dignified, kind but aloof gentleman," I told myself.

Until, and this is where I proceeded to cry emoji at my screen...

The reveal.

Second picture is Ji Ling's vision from his fox eyes, as evidenced by the general blurriness and tilted up perspective. He never did see Chi Wen's face distinctly, or else puppet Ji Ling, who inherited the same memory, would've been able to tell that the Long Shen he knew and the Long Shen who saved him from the rocks were different people. But the one feature that stood out to him and the one he (consciously or subconsciously?) still emulates to this day is the striking, noble figure Chi Wen struck as he approached him for the first time, lending some of his godly powers to a lowly little blind fox.

That's the Chi Wen he hopes to fill the shoes of. Not the Dragon Deity, but his personal savior. Don't mind me as I cry a little about this actually