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Hot Take of the Day, but I feel like post-canon Jin Ling has to become a fundamentally different person than who he was pre-canon, and fast. With Jin Guangyao dead, he's now the sect leader and being a sect leader is completely different from being an heir.
His relationship with Jiang Cheng has to change. It's fine for a child to rely on his uncle, but for the Jin Clan's affairs to be run by an outsider? No way. Jin Ling might still rely on Jiang Cheng, but it's going to be a huge problem if it seems like JC is running both sects.
He's going to have to start dealing with Lanling's interior politics, whatever those are. He'll have to run and attend Jin conferences. Basically, he's going to have a huge amount of responsibilities dumped on his head, and no one to guide him through them, since JGY is dead.
All the people who ignored him and all the kids who didn't want to play with him? That's gonna change. Lanling is Rich Rich, and cozying up to Jin Ling is going to be at the top of a lot of people's lists. He's going to have to do Politics. It's going to be REALLY miserable.
But he's going to grow! He's going to have to sink or swim, and while he's probably going to flounder for the first year or so, he's going to get better at Politics and Authority, because he has to. He simply has no other options. He's going to get more mature.
So, depending on how far post-canon we are, Jin Ling might still be a sulky kid, but he's not going to be better at keeping it to himself. He's going to have a retinue, guards, the whole shebang. He's probably going to get MUCH better at lying, or at hiding the truth.
And his relationship with JGY is gonna change. He's going to be constantly compared to his uncle in ways both good and bad (JGY was 'evil' but he knew how to run a sect and Jin Ling just doesn't), and he's going to have to find out what kind of Sect Leader Jin HE is.
His whole life, he's been defined by his dead parents, but becoming Sect Leader will let him establish himself on his own virtues and not as an extension of his family for the first time. Even if JC wants to help him run the Jin Sect, Jin Ling doesn't necessarily want that help.
YMMV may vary on any of these, of course. Maybe you just don't want to deal with this mess. JL certainly doesn't. But I feel like for post-canon works, it's worth considering that JL's situation has changed, and that he's going to change too.
This tweet thread brought to you by one-too-many post-canon fics where Jin Ling behaves the same as he did in canon. I get it, I do. But of all the people in MDZS, Jin Ling is gonna change the MOST post-canon, and idk. I'd kinda like to see that, you know? #jinling
