dillytaunt

Latest Posts by dillytaunt

Ive said it before, Xie Lian as Heavenly Emperor isnt an idea im really excited about, but if he were to become heavenly emperor, i think he would be exactly like the stereotype of the chill boss that's never around and lets everyone do whatever they want on the condition that the work gets done in the end

Feng Xin and Mu Qing are fighting over who gets to kill monster of the week? Thats fine, as long as you kill it. Roll dice or smth idc just help the villagers.

You can have 34 girlfriends at the same time, I guess, Pei Ming, but make sure you deal with whatever has been causing unrest in your territory meanwhile.

Everyone leave Ling Wen alone. Just leave her be.

Rain Master is allowed to bring in her farm animals to the great hall if she wants to i guess

Yes you can play music in the heavens but keep it low during night time

If you have any complaints, too bad. If nobody is dead or dying, I don't need to know. If you do disturb me, you may have to deal with my husband so just figure it out.

I want to post a rant about Mei Nianqing but I’m holding myself back and I don’t know why. 🤔

Ppl out here doin’ mental gymnastics to make Jun Wu seem more palatable 👀 I’m sorry bro but he is actually not just a MisunderstoodSadboi™

He is a monster incarnate.

Happy Pride Month!! Saw this and just had to reblog 😂

self-indulgent “Things to never say to someone who just came out” TGCF edition, happy pride month!

and spoilers for plot of tgcf:

Some beautiful soul out there did the thing 🥹

Pure Donghua Battle Beats «— YouTube link to Yiling Patriarch shredding it on the ghost flute. 15 mins of unadulterated spook that only gets more intense as it goes.

ALSO. I’d like to say I think it’s a crime that the donghua flutist didn’t get credit. I could not find any information about who the actual musician was. However Qiu Niu who did the audio drama flute sounds a lot like the donghua flute so imma just put that out there.

And it’s a further crime they didn’t put the flute in the ost

Wei Wuxian flute battle soundtrack when? I need that haunting, heart pounding donghua music 🥺 no dialogue, zombie moans dimmed, just straight up spectral rage and melody and battle beats.

I swear if I could blast that while cleaning, laundry would become a moral reckoning. Mopping? A battle for the soul of my household. Dishes? Consider them exorcised.

The correct answer is: Time is a construct. Pain is eternal.

There are many clues that suggest this is year 1, such as his first wake up scene where he’s surprised he has the shackle, the fact that he’d only had one incident of forgetting to eat which suggests he’s still freshly mortal, the displaced citizens. Then the more telling events like it being the first Zhongyuan to pass Xie Lian without him noticing. (Maybe he’d just been doing good with eating for a couple years and suddenly slipped, maybe the nightmare was so disorienting he forgot he has a shackle, maybe nobody was celebrating Zhongyuan during the wars aftermath.)

Conversely, there are things like the day his parents die is the day Yong’an completes construction of their palace in Yong’an (did they start building before Xianle fell? Or are they construction wizards? Or was it just remodeling?) and the fact that Lang Ying has a seriously progressed case of Human Face Disease. (Although there might be a time skip between the palace being built and the Xie Lian attacking)

And the fact that it says “a few years ago when Xianle fell” during the interaction with white no-face on the mountain (but define “fall” was it when the gates were sieged, was it the pagoda, the disease, or when the last soldier died on the battlefield?”

All this to say. Fuck it, I don’t care anymore.

Also, thank you @quetzalpapalotl for helping me sort through this

Why is it common knowledge that the flashbacks in Volume 6 (7s) take place starting 4+ years after the fall of Xianle? As in, they’ve been on the run for 4+ years. I can’t find anything to support this in the text, and there’s a lot of context clues that suggest it hasn’t even been a full year.

Please point me in the right direction to confirm this.

Is that timeline fanon or canon?

Interesting! I like that. I also like that ghosts are sustained solely from their own internal desires and gods solely from the external desires of others.

🤔

Does that technically make fallen gods ghosts? Since they’re supposed to be dead but their existence is dependent on attachment? Fascinating. And Hua Cheng.. a ghost turned god.. oop that’s a tailspin, I’ll stop.

Thank you for sharing! I had a fight with jjwxc and we’re longer friends, so I have no way of reading the revised version anymore 😭

@dillytaunt idk why I just remembered this, but more fodder for your musings: gods without followers really do just faze out of existence just like ghosts who lose their obsessions do, but also like ghosts, they can survive long past the point of abandonment if they have an adequate enough obsession, even if they never re-cultivate to the point of ascension. This all comes from the new additions to Xiao Ying's character from the revised version.

Why is it common knowledge that the flashbacks in Volume 6 (7s) take place starting 4+ years after the fall of Xianle? As in, they’ve been on the run for 4+ years. I can’t find anything to support this in the text, and there’s a lot of context clues that suggest it hasn’t even been a full year.

Please point me in the right direction to confirm this.

Is that timeline fanon or canon?

Just thinkin’ bout how Xie Lian wasn’t even lent enough spiritual power to have a conversation through the spirit array until Hua Cheng came along.

Hua Chengs handwriting is described hilariously and I’ve thought about it too, but not from the perspective of left-handed writing. So I love this take.

He’s so good at artwork and drawing, but soooo bad at calligraphy and the only reasons I could come up with were:

1) Writing (unlike art) is uniform, cold, and performative. It lacks expression(or is supposed to) and Hua Cheng is expression. His handwriting isn’t bad because it lacks anything.. it just has too much. Too much feeling. Too much expression. Too much artistic flair. Too much Hua Cheng.

2) He just wants gege to teach him, and refuses to learn on purpose.

But adding the struggle of left handed writing in a left-to-right format is a whole new challenge, especially with them sleeves 😂

I am a left-handed Hua Cheng truther. Still, I do think that even with the vision issues and left-handedness, he should have learnt to write at least a little neater after 800 years (especially since he was learning literally everything else), which has led me to the funny, probably wrong concept of Hua Cheng went maybe it is cause I’m a leftie and has learnt to write with his left hand and magically dry the ink while writing (as a leftie I know real ink calligraphy scares all left-handed people). Still, the second Xie Lian brings it up; he is like fuck I don’t know how to write properly with my right hand, and he wants to teach me and spend time with me, so ah, cursed right-handed calligraphy which I haven’t done in like 600 years it is. Like he’s committed to the lie immediately for Gege time which is valid of him.

I don't mind at all!

From my understanding, the word "ascend" is only used for the first heavenly tribulation. Ascend is step 1. After that you have your "2nd tribulation" or your "3rd" etc. So when they say "He ascended again?!" in reference to Xie Lian, they are not thinking "He's had a third tribulation?" because that means something else. The tribulations following ascension bring more power once passed. The ascension (basically) just opens the doors to heaven and welcomes you to a new power source.

And this is perf because we have the receipts now:

"For example, a heavenly official who managed horses was likely quite comfortable in their position. People always needed reliable transportation, and they couldn’t very well leave the condition of their horses and carriages to the whims of fate; who wouldn’t want their horses to be strong and healthy, and their travels safe? Thus, this sort of heavenly official would always see regular devotion. "However, what if one day mortals discovered something completely novel that ran faster than a horse? When this new invention inevitably overtook horses, worshippers of the heavenly official who presided over horses would decrease in turn. Heavenly officials such as these made up most of the heavens, blinking to life and flashing by like shooting stars. "This was the cruelest way gods declined because the process could not be reversed. A heavenly official in that situation was destined to watch their own decline until they disappeared entirely—unless they jumped down from the heavens, returned to being mortal, re-cultivated a new path, and then ascended once more as a brand-new god. Not everyone possessed the courage and fortune to do something like that."

Vol.5 Ch.79 7s

I really feel like this is pretty cut and dry in terms of explaining what happens to gods who have 0 believers left. They will die if they don't figure out a way to ascend again. And when they do, it will be their new first ascension.

What I love that you brought into the discussion is the reincarnation. That is a part of tgcf I hadn't paid much attention to and how it ties in. I'll be looking out for it

Editing: oh shoot I totally forgot to address MNQ. That's a loaded topic, but to keep it short, MNQ is "other" and he honestly sketches me out. He is the Birth of Old Age, Sickness, and Death. I have my own theories on that but this isn't the place lmaoo. (His pals are stuck on Jun Wu's face yet their bodies still became independent, sentient, mountain spirits. That's some next level shit.)

Since the shackles were man-made and not part of heaven.. then Xie Lian didn’t ascend 3 times, he went through 3 heavenly tribulations.

And he did the last one in his sleep and had the nerve to describe it as “having weird dreams.”

Legendary.

Yes, thank you you beautiful beautiful person. I was fr torn between going offline or making myself not be lazy. I still chose the latter, but it was cus the task became less dauting haha so in the 7seas version it's the same except we seem to be interpreting it completely differently.

"This was the cruelest way gods declined because the process could not be reversed. A heavenly official in that situation was destined to watch their own decline until they disappeared entirely—unless they jumped down from the heavens, returned to being mortal, re-cultivated a new path, and then ascended once more as a brand-new god."

Vol. 5 Ch. 79 7s

This part in particular. "Could not be reversed," Returned to being mortal," and "Brand-new god." in particular.

This is not a supplementation, a continuation, or a top-up. It is starting fresh. from ground 0, with nothing. And if they don't, then they die.

So I'm gunna have to hard disagree with the idea that "gods are always gods" especially since that passage is pretty explicit with saying they are not gods anymore once they lose their followers.

If they ascended again it would be a 1st tribulation.

Since the shackles were man-made and not part of heaven.. then Xie Lian didn’t ascend 3 times, he went through 3 heavenly tribulations.

And he did the last one in his sleep and had the nerve to describe it as “having weird dreams.”

Legendary.

Wei Wuxian flute battle soundtrack when? I need that haunting, heart pounding donghua music 🥺 no dialogue, zombie moans dimmed, just straight up spectral rage and melody and battle beats.

I swear if I could blast that while cleaning, laundry would become a moral reckoning. Mopping? A battle for the soul of my household. Dishes? Consider them exorcised.

It’s been months but I’m still thinking about this tweet that said out off every character from Xianle that we meet, Hua Cheng is the most representative of their love for the arts, for riches and beauty.

Like truly he in many ways comes to personify Xianle in a way, both in the high society luxurious culture that Xianle was famous for but also he’s the orphan from the four famous tales making him the representation of Xie Lians care for the common people. Like he is both the lowest of the low and someone who’s kept the Xianle ways alive.

Like all my brain is thinking of is how Xie Lian distanced himself from all that to cultivate, then to become a God, then a poor peasant and how homesick he’s been his whole life.

Only for his husband who was a poor peasant, then a solder, then a king who represents everything Xianle stood for and how their stories are going backwards and forwards and how Xianle is gone but how Hua Cheng embody all of Xianles culture from the poor to the rich and and how he feels like home to Xie Lian now.

OMG DAMN HANDSOME NEW OFFICIAL HUA CHENG ART BY GEAROUS FOR HUA CHENG’S BIRTHDAY!!!

I found it in an afterword. I don’t think I’d take what she said as Bible, since prior and after she is walking us through where her inspiration came from (a place she visited, a flower she saw, a storm she witnessed) and then it takes us through her iterations (it was intended to be 35k words, it was supposed to be a cozy fantasy the amount of manuscripts she had and threw away etc) so idk.

About the concept:

It feels off to me that she would make his abilities as an ode to his mom when the trajectory turned from “cozy serial” to a “dark epic” where the ML has an obsessive all consuming love.

How the story evolved:

Hold on while I have a breakdown about how Xie Lian is the only mxtx character to legitimately try to kill himself. This fandom spends all day and night crying about his deadbeat friends “suffering” over their abandonment of him, meanwhile he is the one who almost died over it—by his own hands AND others—and the only thing that “saved” him was Jun Wu’s curse of immortality.

Reading mxtx novels is watching a very clear walk into tragedy, where any other person at ANY MOMENT could intervene and say “actually, let me do right,” yet actively choose not to, only to cry years later about “well what did you want from me?” when their sins gets shoved back into their faces and their guilt starts gnawing at their flesh.

…Let me stop right here before I say something regrettable.

Probs so [someone] knows who to sacrifice for maximum gain at [the place where people are sacrificed for power]

Power of belief and all.

NO BUT WHY DOES HE HAVE A SWORD THAT DETECTS VIRGINS??????

I fr just wanted to stop responding cus this obv isn’t going anywhere, it’s pointless, we don’t see eye to eye, agree to disagree blah blah but there’s one part in particular I can’t let go because I’m wheeeezing

Are you aware that Mu Qing and Feng Xin were so desired in heaven, since they are both pretty competent ? In fact, Mu Qing easily found another master.

😂😂

Was this ironic? Do you realize.. what you’re saying? Their new master.. the system that desired them.. ok I’m done lmao you just made my point for me

“How could we? People made statues of him kneeling solely for the purpose of stepping on him!” Feng Xin said. “You’re not the one whose face is being stepped on, so of course you can dismiss it.”

“It’s not the first time that something like this has happened since the war was lost,” Mu Qing said. “And it surely won’t be the last. If he can’t get used to it soon, he might as well just die.”

This. Coming from the guy who literally appears in people’s dreams if he doesn’t think his statues are pretty enough..

😭😭😭😭 it was so sad that I couldn’t stop laughing. #JusticeForYizhen

I’m new to tumblr, I don’t get it, and I don’t really care anymore so I’m going to just keep pressing buttons.

If I make some fauxpas, oh well. I typically just comment on and reblog whatever I want while using anywhere from 0-50 tags. Depending on my mood.

I don’t understand tumblr boundaries so to me there are none 🥂

This is mainly for tgcf, maybe some mdzs. I might even start ranting about the mongol invasions from the 13th century at some point. Who knows.

No, I didn’t come from twitter. I’ve never used twitter. I came from a strange place called “offline” after years of an intentional self-imposed social media blackout.

(But if you do ever want to talk about the mongols hmu)

Yessss

He gave GODS a phobia of butterflies.

He jingles when he walks, like a literal fairy. He’s unapologetically, flamboyantly, gloriously extra. He’s a walking opera.

And I love him.

Listen, I love that Hua Cheng is revered as such a terrifying dude when this man is an 800-year-old virgin who named himself Flower, uses butterflies of all things to fight with, carries around an umbrella his crush gave him that one time, has his crush’s name tattooed on his damn arm, and made rain an important part of his character all because it was so Pivotal to Xie Lian’s downfall and rebirth. He gave no fucks. He’s in love with his gege, and everyone should know it.

All three audiobook series, all in one post! 🎧

TGCF audio novels:

tinyurl.com/TGCF-Audio-Book Here

MDZS audio novels:

tinyurl.com/MDZS-Audio-Book Here

Thousand Autumns Audio Novels:

tinyurl.com/TA-Audio-Book Here

Whether you love Hualian, Wangxian, or Yanshen, there is something for everyone!!

Hua Cheng: I built this entire mansion all for you gege

Xie Lian: This is so much! San Lang is very talented indeed!

Hua Cheng: It was nothing <3

~

Luo Binghe: I built this home to look exactly like the bamboo house, so Shizun need not to ever leave me again!!

Shen Qingqiu: A bit of a red flag, but I appreciate the sentiment

~

Wei Wuxian: So where's our home?

Lan Wangji: This is the Jingshi

Wei Wuxian: Did you build it?

Lan Wangji: No

Wei Wuxian: Oh

Lan Wangji: My mother also died here

Wei Wuxian: Oh no

~

Bonus!

Mobei-Jun: I made you a new home

Shang Qinghua: Ah, my king, thanks for the... igloo?

Mobei-Jun: Mn

Shang Qinghua: Does it at least have heating?

Mobei-Jun: No?

Shang Qinghua: Greeeeaaaatttttt

THANK YOU!

Alright, so I have good news and bad news: the bad news is that I’m gonna be pausing the comparison posts for a bit, possibly a week if not longer to work on a Hua Cheng bday thing. The good news is that the ghost bridegroom arc edits have a twist that I absolutely think y’all should actually read, so I’m thinking about putting it up for y’all!

Right up his alley indeed, he didn’t even have a chance to come to terms with Feng Xins departure yet.

Feng Xin doesn’t lash out with jabs and barbed wit like Mu Qing, but hes absolutely no better. His way of hurting Xie Lian is just as problematic.

It’s more sanctimonious, more judgmental, more “I’m disappointed in you,” which in some ways is even worse because it masks cruelty as morality.

“Where is your dignity?”

“Aren’t you ashamed?”

“You call yourself a man/god/whatever?”

Might as well say

“You used to be better.”

“Look how far you’ve fallen.”

It’s never overt abuse, it’s moral posturing. It’s humiliation disguised as righteousness.

There’s one scene where Xie Lian asks about Nan Fang and Fu Yao, and both of them claim they’re in detention. Mu Qing, ok yeah. He’s just like that, but Feng Xin? Willingly and publicly saying ‘I punished my subordinate for helping you’

That wasn’t the only time Feng Xin would pretend like Xie Lian meant nothing when others were looking iirc

And I 100% agree with you. by the end I think Mu Qing and Xie Lian are closer and I think it has a lot to do with Mu Qing being honest with not only himself, but Xie Lian. They both had a chance to express themselves in a healthy way and come to terms with the past. Because both of them made mistakes.

Meanwhile Feng Xin is still in his own world of “I did nothing wrong, theres no reason to reflect”

Hello there!

I saw the thread about topics within the book and one I had to ask about is what is this spicy take on the black water arc? Like now, I'm super curious and have to follow up on this!🤣😅

Veering sideways about the one on if Jun Wu did it or not. Xie Lian's parents being either killed or manipulated by Jun Wu to do so would track with him. Have you determined which stuff was probably him and which wasn't? It's honestly really terrifying to think how long he was terrorizing and ruining their lives until things unraveled with Xie Lian's third ascension.

And the three clowns one - what's that referring to?

TIA!🌸

Some of this is going to be tough to answer without going into full dissertation mode but I’m going to try to keep it brief and platform appropriate. I’ll save Blackwater for last haha you're tryna get me blacklisted

The thing that sold me on Xie Lians parents was the fact that they used his white silk band to do it, which is hugely symbolic and basically screams “It’s your fault.” First read through, I thought they did it because they were feeling as if they were a burden to Xie Lian. Since then though? No. That silk band was used by Xie Lian every single day, and he had to search for it. His parents were not so cruel. Then there's the amount of trauma that band would have had to endure to become sentient. A quiet acceptance of death by suicide doesn't fit the bill. 

I actually want to keep on that to further compound my thoughts, but I'm wont, because the point is; in finding out what Jun Wu may or may not have done, looking at out-of-character actions and what doesn't add up is best. Like Xie Lians sleeve getting caught on a cloud during his descent. The Spirits at Mt. Taicang that attacked Honghong'er. Mu Qing just so happened to show up at the blessed mountain when Xie Lian finally thought he was catching a break. Who killed Ming Yi? The friggen drought.

And yes, the clowns. MQ/FX. This ties into the prior: Why are they so unbearably acidic towards Xie Lian? Some past grievances, yes. But they are hostile, they think he's an idiot, and they're never there when Xie Lian needs them yet fight over who's the worse friend- not who is the better friend. It's not a bitter past, its more like their flames were stoked beyond reason. Then, time and time again, they deny any association with him in public, leaving him hanging. Are they just afraid of rumors? Mu Qing, maybe. But the noble and just beacon of righteousness, Feng Xin? Would watch his friend and former liege be humiliated and not say anything? 

And could I, in all confidence, after reading multiple mxtx works say "It's just because that one event upset them,” and leave it at that? 

And no, I have not verified all. Some have backup, some are speculation. It’s something I’d like to work on the next time I return to tgcf though. 

The Blackwater arc.. woof. Ok, bracing myself for incoming projectiles. 

In a nutshell, it's that Shi Wudu stole Shi Qingxuans fate of wealth and that's how he gained the title God of Wealth, contrary to popular belief. I could go full blown dissertation.. and actually I might, but first I'll just start with where I started:

Shi Qinxuan had a fate of wealth that was verified to not have been touched by Blackwater, nor consumed by the Reverend of Empty Words. So why was he a destitute beggar at the end? Not poor, not struggling, but a crippled, starving beggar. 0 wealth. None. Not a single coin.

The wealth he has as god was showered on him by Shi Wudu and most Shi Qingxuans temples were shared. I actually dont recall it saying he had his own temples at all (doesn’t mean it didn’t happen)

Then I asked myself "Why was 'wealth' used so many times in this tangled arc? Qingxuans fate, Wudu's domain, He Xuans windfall.." 

"Who benefitted the most?"

Then questions like "What was Shi Wudu's overprotectiveness really about? Mostly optics, right?" 

Because... what if someone found out..? His overprotectiveness really only flares up once the spiritual power is gone.. you could say it's all about safety but.. 

And so I read through carefully to either confirm or deny the hypothesis and regardless of how much no one wants to hear about it I'm firmly in the camp that this isn't a head-canon but possibly an intention. The timelines of Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan dont back the idea that the fate swap only happened at the last moment before ascension. Shi Wudu moved them to a home less than an hour away from He Xuans hometown before he even ascended. The power of the RoEW was not insurmountable. And just because Shi Qinxuan wasn’t “fated” to ascend doesn’t mean he couldn’t have, but Shi Wudu sure wasn’t going to wait to find out. 

Maybe it was greed, maybe it was a necessity in order to preform the fate ritual idk. But Shi Qinxuans fate is gonezo and neither the RoEW nor Blackwater laid claim to it. 

Hello there!

I saw the thread about topics within the book and one I had to ask about is what is this spicy take on the black water arc? Like now, I'm super curious and have to follow up on this!🤣😅

Veering sideways about the one on if Jun Wu did it or not. Xie Lian's parents being either killed or manipulated by Jun Wu to do so would track with him. Have you determined which stuff was probably him and which wasn't? It's honestly really terrifying to think how long he was terrorizing and ruining their lives until things unraveled with Xie Lian's third ascension.

And the three clowns one - what's that referring to?

TIA!🌸

Some of this is going to be tough to answer without going into full dissertation mode but I’m going to try to keep it brief and platform appropriate. I’ll save Blackwater for last haha you're tryna get me blacklisted

The thing that sold me on Xie Lians parents was the fact that they used his white silk band to do it, which is hugely symbolic and basically screams “It’s your fault.” First read through, I thought they did it because they were feeling as if they were a burden to Xie Lian. Since then though? No. That silk band was used by Xie Lian every single day, and he had to search for it. His parents were not so cruel. Then there's the amount of trauma that band would have had to endure to become sentient. A quiet acceptance of death by suicide doesn't fit the bill. 

I actually want to keep on that to further compound my thoughts, but I'm wont, because the point is; in finding out what Jun Wu may or may not have done, looking at out-of-character actions and what doesn't add up is best. Like Xie Lians sleeve getting caught on a cloud during his descent. The Spirits at Mt. Taicang that attacked Honghong'er. Mu Qing just so happened to show up at the blessed mountain when Xie Lian finally thought he was catching a break. Who killed Ming Yi? The friggen drought.

And yes, the clowns. MQ/FX. This ties into the prior: Why are they so unbearably acidic towards Xie Lian? Some past grievances, yes. But they are hostile, they think he's an idiot, and they're never there when Xie Lian needs them yet fight over who's the worse friend- not who is the better friend. It's not a bitter past, its more like their flames were stoked beyond reason. Then, time and time again, they deny any association with him in public, leaving him hanging. Are they just afraid of rumors? Mu Qing, maybe. But the noble and just beacon of righteousness, Feng Xin? Would watch his friend and former liege be humiliated and not say anything? 

And could I, in all confidence, after reading multiple mxtx works say "It's just because that one event upset them,” and leave it at that? 

And no, I have not verified all. Some have backup, some are speculation. It’s something I’d like to work on the next time I return to tgcf though. 

The Blackwater arc.. woof. Ok, bracing myself for incoming projectiles. 

In a nutshell, it's that Shi Wudu stole Shi Qingxuans fate of wealth and that's how he gained the title God of Wealth, contrary to popular belief. I could go full blown dissertation.. and actually I might, but first I'll just start with where I started:

Shi Qinxuan had a fate of wealth that was verified to not have been touched by Blackwater, nor consumed by the Reverend of Empty Words. So why was he a destitute beggar at the end? Not poor, not struggling, but a crippled, starving beggar. 0 wealth. None. Not a single coin.

The wealth he has as god was showered on him by Shi Wudu and most Shi Qingxuans temples were shared. I actually dont recall it saying he had his own temples at all (doesn’t mean it didn’t happen)

Then I asked myself "Why was 'wealth' used so many times in this tangled arc? Qingxuans fate, Wudu's domain, He Xuans windfall.." 

"Who benefitted the most?"

Then questions like "What was Shi Wudu's overprotectiveness really about? Mostly optics, right?" 

Because... what if someone found out..? His overprotectiveness really only flares up once the spiritual power is gone.. you could say it's all about safety but.. 

And so I read through carefully to either confirm or deny the hypothesis and regardless of how much no one wants to hear about it I'm firmly in the camp that this isn't a head-canon but possibly an intention. The timelines of Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan dont back the idea that the fate swap only happened at the last moment before ascension. Shi Wudu moved them to a home less than an hour away from He Xuans hometown before he even ascended. The power of the RoEW was not insurmountable. And just because Shi Qinxuan wasn’t “fated” to ascend doesn’t mean he couldn’t have, but Shi Wudu sure wasn’t going to wait to find out. 

Maybe it was greed, maybe it was a necessity in order to preform the fate ritual idk. But Shi Qinxuans fate is gonezo and neither the RoEW nor Blackwater laid claim to it. 

Ohhh. I see, you were talking about the initial accusation of why he got the shackle my bad. It gets so hard to unravel via conversation because things get tangled.

And are we off topic? I can’t tell cus when tgcf is the topic everything’s on the table for me 😂 no sah.

But really, I could go on a tailspin about tgcf and I have to stop myself. It’s just so incredibly fascinating! Things like..

The Entire Narrative is Propaganda: How Jun Wu used bureaucracy for control. He usurped the heavens centuries before anyone present ascended. He created the rules, the division of territories and the “divine laws” we thought were above him. Everything we knew was a lie.

Jun Wu, or Nah? A study on how many pies his fingers were actually in: what does he get blamed for that he didn’t do. What did he do that he doesn’t get blamed for? Part 1: Xie Lians parents were actually murdered, here’s why..

The astounding amount of foreshadowing and symbology in the God Pleasing Parade: 16 white horses and 16 named officials?! What does it mean?

“You are what they believe you are.” And how much that actually impacts their lives, relationships and abilities..(like some theories on why the Shi brothers relationship is pseudo-incestuous, cus I don’t think mxtx accidentally made them coded that way. No, I don’t think they’re actually incestuous. )

The Clown Show: but why are they really like that 800 years later? What could have happened?

Is Jun Wu the Missing Fire Master? The volcano and his seat of power.

And… some spicy takes on the Black Water arc that I usually keep to myself because they tend to ruffle feathers. 😅

All that to say, I totally relate to falling headfirst into this story and needing to untangle every thread. I really appreciate conversations like this, ones that don’t turn into arguments but actually let us question things and share interpretations. I made a Tumblr just to find alternative takes and dig into things with people who care as much as I do. So thank you— this has been such a pleasant and thought-provoking exchange. Doors always open.

Why do so many fans think Jun Wu has no control over who ascends? Like, yes.. people ascend without his permission because there really is a cosmic order in this universe but he literally only needs to fill the slot to prevent randos from ascending.

And YES he CAN artificially ascend people and he DOES. I’m fr about to write up a whole essay on ascension this weekend istg.

The man literally says:

“Even fates can be swapped. Why not spiritual power?” Jun Wu said. “There are many things that are hardly as difficult as you assume. It is only a matter of a few words and a few brush strokes from a few great heavenly officials.”

Right after he sucks out one homies spiritual power and injects it into another.

And let’s be real.. Do y’all really think Jun Wu actually ascended a second time using his own power?

The dude who has the suffering souls of his first attempt at human sacrifice plastered on his own face and.. screaming?

Hell nah. This dude became the grandmaster of demonic cultivation. He experimented on fetus spirits like some mad scientist interested in unethical stem cell research. He probs invented the damn fate swapping ritual himself.

He has an entire fucking Burial Mound volcano where he vents his resentful energy. You think all that energy is accumulating just cus he’s mad? Or from just the three faces?

No way fam. This man is actively cultivating the dark arts and probs needs so many followers just to help balance the yang to his yin.

I mean.. c’mon. You fr think Feng Xin and Mu Qing ascended back to back naturally? And just after they left Xie Lian? There’s a whole damn arc about how unusual it is for two people so close to ascend so fast and so young

Jun Wu gifts Feng Xin a bow called Fengshen which is a homophone for the name of an entire Chinese myth about appointing mortals to godhood for political reasons.

Blows my mind to see that so many collectively deny the possibility when the narration is screaming clues from every digital and physical page.

I have decided. I like tgcf better than mdzs, but I like Wei Wuxian better than Xie Lian. Wbu?

(I still love Xie Lian. And I still love mdzs, but the scales have been weighed.)

“How could we? People made statues of him kneeling solely for the purpose of stepping on him!” Feng Xin said. “You’re not the one whose face is being stepped on, so of course you can dismiss it.”

“It’s not the first time that something like this has happened since the war was lost,” Mu Qing said. “And it surely won’t be the last. If he can’t get used to it soon, he might as well just die.”

This. Coming from the guy who literally appears in people’s dreams if he doesn’t think his statues are pretty enough..

If I was going to make this analogy it’d probably be more like:

“imagine if you attended a car rally where you and hundreds of people murdered your brothers friends then started plans to hit your brother with a car and kill him (since he’s using diesel instead of gasoline.) But then your brother shows up with a bunch of remote control cars and it turns into some kind of deadly demolition derby. Metal flying everywhere, flaming tires arcing across the sky, the ground is littered with oil and glass.

Then your sister shows up with no car, barefoot, and she’s just running around in the chaos. She’s hit by one of your brothers car and your brother races to get her. She’s injured asf and needs immediate first aid. Then some asshole on your own side drifts in, tires screeching, and slams into her.

Raging mad, you murder him with your car.. only to find out years later that the car you killed him with.. was given to you by your brother. And you wouldn’t even have been able to attend the death derby from hell if it wasn’t for him.”

Imagine you're in a car with your brother and you keep telling him "slow down, you're going too fast" and he insists "I've got it under control!" And then he hits someone and you get out of the car and find out it's your sister. Your brother goes crazy from guilt and starts running over people left and right until you have to kill him to make sure no one else dies. Then years later he comes back to life and his boyfriend reveals oh guess what fuckhead. The reason he had to drive recklessly everywhere? Because he gave his legs to you in a secret operation you didnt know about. That's mdzs from Jiang Cheng's pov