Hua Cheng Is Actually A God.

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 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.

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. 

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.

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??????

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’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)

Feng Xin.. is kind of an ass?

Rereading for the umpteenth time and wondering why no one ever talks about how Feng Xin was regularly spending money at a brothel to chill with his crush, but had the gall to shame Xie Lian for trying to steal money just to afford his dads medicine.

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:

The fact that Quan Yizhen regularly descended just to beat up his own worshippers, and this only resulted in gaining a larger following… is probably the most realistic thing in this whole high fantasy series.