The Way I Will Devour Every Bit Of This, Especially How The Jianghu And Regular Society Would Structure

The way I will devour every bit of this, especially how the jianghu and regular society would structure itself around the Gong family's catalog of exports. And yessss to any and all supply chain analysis.

Also, I'm curious about the implications of these arms exports for the development of "terrorist" and insurgent groups. When I first watched My Journey to You, I was intrigued by the possibilities of Wufeng's origins, especially given the similarities in certain fighting styles. Some people on Reddit theorized it's because the Wufeng founder might have had familial links to the Back Hill but what if Wufeng received this knowledge (and possibly technologies) through other means? Reminds me of how the US armed, funded, and trained groups in Latin America and SWANA and the long-reaching impact that has had on governance and development in those regions.

Re WIP Title Game: I want to know EVERYTHING related to your WIP about My Journey to You's Gong family economics and their position in the jianghu and regular society. Personally, I always felt there was a lot of sketchiness about that family (starting with their whole bride ritual) so would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable about the genre's worldbuilding tropes!

my write up for this was originally pending a rewatch but it's taking awhile to organize it. Anyway i'm gonna need to simplify this down because I think some information from some categories will cross over and others are probably best left out -- but I've transferred a tree I wrote down on paper for the planned topics:

the family skill sets/offerings of exportable goods plus limitations they would impose on it + reasons for limitations

how those goods (And thereby the gong family) would traditionally be seen in a wuxia-world jianghu

implications of selling what they sell and what that would mean -- including how would that cause all of jianghu and regular society to structure itself around their catalogue

gong shangjue's role as the only person allowed to go outside - and therefore must control the customer-facing side of the gong family

how the gong family handles inherently uneven distribution of favor/power/access to Things

extrapolation on what customers the gong family must be selling to and how they would be able to maintain the power that allows them to continue to have autonomy

what it might be like for shangjue to somehow straddle both jianghu and regular society at a high level AND lever control over both worlds' power levels via what he allows to be sold - imagine a single representative for company that's essentially the monster amalgam of lockheed martin and the beyer corporation. Now imagine that guy having access to all the world's leaders at every layer of society

What would gong shangjue's personal limitations be in this situation? Where does he draw the line? (will probably refile this under gong family limitations)

what it must be like to come home and suddenly have to let go of that power and be completely under someone else's control (see section about how the gong family handles uneven distribution of favor/power/things)

Supply Chain Management - logistics for sourcing of raw materials and movement of goods when no one is allowed to leave the compound

the bridal selection and currying favor and what it means when the gong family accepts and expects tribute

the gong family as an ancient conglomerate and how they handle guanxi

also - economic conglomerate as a feudal family (think korean chaebol families, esp. Samsung) with some sort of mysterious lore that even they have forgotten about - and how they will be able to pivot. Also what are they going to do about their birth rate??

It's a lot that I have swimming around in my head. I'm basically trying to power slam my way through every shorter fanfic and meta I can to create brain space for my monster writings - of which I count this one to be. LMAO

Gothic Horror in a League of Noblemen!!

Also since bad kids is that one director's older work. Would you recommend watching that before his recent drama? (brainfarting on the name.) Anyway what I mean does his style evolve in a way that it matters to keep his works in sequential order? Or does his storytelling mature further?

Ooh @kingsandbastardz this has to be a two-parter because I can go OFF about ALON.

The Long Season vs. The Bad Kids

I'm only halfway through The Long Season, but I'd say it's both thematically and narratively more sophisticated than The Bad Kids. The show is ruminative, bleak, but also humane.

One of the things I love about Director Xin Shuang's work is how meticulously he captures stories of the choices people make when they feel like they have no choices. In The Bad Kids, he uses color and frames within frames to create a sense of dread and inevitability about our young characters' futures. And in The Long Season, he uses editing and visual parallelism to create an even more complex narrative of fate. It's like the characters are forever suspended in time, doomed to repeat mistakes even in old age as they cling to the nostalgia and ideals of a world that doesn't exist. The fact that these moments are intercut with hope, resilience, and comedy make them even more devastating.

That said...I much prefer The Bad Kids. At least so far. It's simpler but also, at least for me, more emotionally engaging. The inherent vulnerability of our young main characters make the stakes feel that much higher. I also haven't seen a show do misdirection that well in YEARS. The way it plays with our assumptions and capability for empathy...it implicates us as much as its characters.

So I think watch order depends on the feeling you want to leave with rather than the director's style!

i just read about the "narcissism of small differences," aka the idea that the more a community has in common, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences perceived in each other, and i knew there was a reason my time in academia and fandom felt oddly similar lmao

“When I first asked my grandma if I could write and publish about her, she gave me an instruction that has stuck with me over the years and I try to always keep it in mind when I write about family. She said, roughly translated from Korean: “you can write what you want, but let us live a little more beautifully the second time.” I took this as permission with a condition that I would fictionalize where necessary, to protect them and myself. The women I write about are both us and not us. Maintaining that fictionalized barrier is important to me.”

— Jihyun Yun, from “you can write what you want, but let us live a little more beautifully the second time": Jihyun Yun in conversation with Nicole Lachat, published Prairie Schooner, March 9, 2023