Your Window to Inspiration: Seamlessly Browse Tumblr!
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.