#TGCF liveblogging

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

Ever since I learned that Xie Lian saved tiny child Qi Rong and defended him from bullies and that's where the little Qi Rong hero worship comes from I've been quietly losing it because it's just similar enough to Hua Cheng that he would hate it! There's quite a lot of differences, starting with the fact that Qi Rong did have other people (like Xie Lian's mom) and that his mom was able to leave her abusive husband before dying and go somewhere else where she had some support even if she still wasn't treated that great for a noble lady and that he was still a prince surrounded by riches and waited on by servants even if he was an outcast and laughingstock around his peers, and then even in terms of their choices after there's the fact that Qi Rong might say his violent behavior was defending Xie Lian but he barely listened to what Xie Lian wanted (Hua Cheng has also done bloody vengeance in defense of Xie Lian - 33 destroyed gods, 800 years of menacing and harassing fengqing - but now that Xie Lian is here to make these choices he isn't hurting people Xie Lian doesn't want hurt, even if they hurt Xie Lian terribly) and also there's the difference between "challenged 33 heavenly officials who actually physically hurt Xie Lian to a fight and then made them hold up their end of the agreement" and "tracked down and beat up the child Xie Lian went out of his way to save because saving them got Xie Lian in trouble" or " threw things at Xie Lian's shidi/servant for temporarily upstaging him at the performance they both planned out and worked on together". Most importantly is that Hua Cheng doesn't have Xie Lian up on a pedestal (at least, not one he can fall from), he doesn't have a perfect idealized version of him in his head, he's not getting disillusioned with differences between his idea of Xie Lian and the real thing - like Qi Rong was, and like he did, and that led to more and more fights between Qi Rong and Xie Lian until (presumably, I haven't actually gotten there yet) Qi Rong was disappointed with the reality of Xie Lian and the temple burning and kneeling statues and such came of it. (Somewhere in the first arc Xie Lian says something about that to Hua Cheng, about not having that level of devotion for someone you actually interact with because you might find out they were different than you thought, and I wonder if he might have said that thinking of Qi Rong specifically as much as the worshippers of Xianle as a whole.)

So it's not a perfect Dark Mirror situation, there's quite a lot of differences, but there's enough similarities it's pinging my parallel detectors... I think there's enough room to make a comparison there, or to call attention to some of those similarities, and that Hua Cheng would viscerally and immediately hate it if such a comparison was made. I can imagine and wonder about a situation where Qi Rong got de-aged, or hit by some amnesia curse or memory-stealer, or some other nonsense that'd lead to a Little Qi Rong running around, and wonder if that Qi Rong would look at Hua Cheng and approve xD Would he see Hua Cheng's devotion to Xie Lian and go "Ah yes, that's an appropriate way to act around Cousin Crown Prince! Finally someone else who's a normal amount of angry when Cousin Crown Prince is insulted!"? Hua Cheng would despise just absolutely all of that xD

#Me Talking #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #TGCF liveblogging #is this liveblogging or is it more something else? I dunno I'll just put it in the tag for convenience #It's at least a little bit plot bunnying. Are there Qi Rong amnesia/de-aging fics? #I have not checked yet but the idea has seized me and now I think that there should be #It would be just. Such a weird and uncomfortable and awkward situation. For absolutely everyone #Having to take care of Baby Qi Rong! Would be such a mess! #No one is having a good time except *possibly* Qi Rong and maybe not even him #Ugh. Do I have to figure out how to write Qi Rong to put my money where my mouth is that this should be a thing?

[toffeecoco1]

forever obsessed with the way hua cheng didn’t really intend to enter xie lian’s life. he just wanted to see him. check on him. was pleasantly surprised to have such a nice chat. i get the feeling that he just wanted to make true on the promise he made as a wisp—“I want to protect them. […] then I won’t let them know I’m protecting them either.”

then when they arrived at puqi shrine, he had every intention of leaving—he already did everything he intended to. it’s xie lian who invites him in and asks him to stay at the shrine.

#i just. bshdhjdjf fhnggggg #they’re so #hua cheng loves him so much #but xie lian is the one who pulls him close #tgcf #xie lian #hua cheng #hualian #rewatching tgcf #tgcf spoilers #liveblogging tgcf

[radiantmists]

he xuan spending years trying to break out of the kiln: -_-

the massive xie lian statue in the corner:

🙂

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #i imagine this was before he met hua cheng too #so he probably had zero context #he's just fought(/ate?) his way through the whole gauntlet of mt tonglu #beat the mountain spirits. convinced the kiln to close. started fighting everyone inside #and there's just a mountain-sized statue of... some guy? probably a god??? #genuinely a bit impressed that whatever goes down in the kiln during a normal ghost king ascension didnt fuck up the statue at all #...imagine if it had and hua cheng found out that he xuan had damaged his masterwork #tgcf liveblog

[unforth]

I take 8 points of psychic damage every time Crunchyroll subtitles gege as "Lian."

#unforth rambles #tgcf #tgcf liveblog

[veliseraptor]

jun wu's ending will never not drive me absolutely insane. it's just...nobody's asked to forgive him or forget what he's done, but he's not being punished, either, and xie lian's deeply symbolic gesture of passing on the bamboo hat (representing the compassion he received at his lowest point) is so heavy with meaning.

jun wu is finished but he doesn't have to die and he doesn't have to suffer, or at least the narrative isn't lingering on his suffering - to the contrary! it portrays his defeat as a relief even to him. he doesn't even have to be imprisoned in eternal isolation - mei nianqing is there to stay with him explicitly as a friend.

it's such a compassionate ending for a main antagonist and it murders me.

(anyway once again mxtx's rejection of the punitive impulse and truly jun wu is the apotheosis of that and feels a little like mxtx banging the reader over the head with it as a theme. or maybe that's just me.)

#dysfunctional gods and ghost kinks #lise reads tgcf #webnovel liveblogging #jun wu

[skygemspeaks]

Hua Cheng when other people are betting: you get only one chance, no do-overs

Hua Cheng when Xie Lian is rolling: these rolls don't count, we're just practising. Everyone's going to sit here and wait as long as it takes for him to win, no complaints

#tgcf liveblog #i love him he's not even trying to hide how far gone he is

[raylin-creates]

What the hell did Hua Cheng do for He Xuan that he can get away with all this?? I know part of it is for taking care of his fish but that can't be all of it!

#raylin liveblogs tgcf #tgcf volume 7 #tgcf chapter 122

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

So Ling Wen is like...the HR of the Heavenly Realm, right?

#original thots #tgcf #gonna need a liveblogging tag for this #yall tgcf ppl tell me if im wrong

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Me: idk if I want to dive back into reading the whole two million word novel……that sounds like a lot rn…

Me several minutes later: I’ll just read this one million word alternate canon fic instead.

#help I am 310k into this fic and it’s barely getting to the banyue arc #no paths are bound #tgcf #hualian #Caitie speaks #tgcf liveblog

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

The thing I continue to be unable to get over is Xie Lian picked up Qi Rong and now he's just. There. Eating Xie Lian's food and complaining about it, yelling at passerby, third-wheeling Hualian, lying there in the yard during Shi Qingxuan and Ming Yi's visit... He's just around now! Hua Cheng came over to visit Xie Lian after Xie Lian left Ghost City and he just presumably found Qi Rong lying there in the shrine tied up by Ruoye! And then during the ensuing hualian flirting Qi Rong is also just there!

#Me Talking #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #TGCF liveblogging #I wonder whether Hua Cheng knew Xie Lian was keeping Qi Rong (and children) BEFORE he popped by the shrine #I also wonder whether Hua Cheng knows Qi Rong knows about/has seen the ring #Qi Rong's basically incapable of not running his mouth... did he say anything about it? #Did Hua Cheng even let him say anything before dumping him in a river is the question actually

[abysslll]

everyone meet the two worst gamblers in the history of godhood

#tgcf liveblogging #i love them. the trio this season is already so much funner than the guys from last season

[toffeecoco1]

fy: do you know what he was doing before he ascended?

xl: what?

nf: massacring cities.

fy: not every official in upper heaven is easy to get along with. no one can be trusted.

nf: well… a few of them can be trusted >:(

fy: do you mean yOuR general??

feng xin is trying so hard to unsubtly become xie lian’s friend again 😭 and mu qing is being a menace 😭

#i love them #incompetent little guys #they love their best friend sooo much!! and are incompetent about it #tgcf #xie lian #feng xin #mu qing #fu yao #nan feng #xianle trio #liveblogging tgcf #but also like?? when fx and mq aren't Fighting #they actually communicate so well together LOL

[radiantmists]

it took me a minute (read: several days) to pin down why i liked this comment in the epilogue so much, but i have it now.

the whole book has given us a lot of xie lian's journey to understanding how much he's loved, and shown us his struggle with that, as well as his realization of how much he loves hua cheng in return. but what we barely get glimpses of is the monumental realization hua cheng was having, that xie lian loves him.

because, pre-canon, the last he'd seen of xie lian was when he was going around as white no-face, threatening to disperse wu ming just for calling him the wrong name. and hua cheng loved that xie lian, and dying for him was his greatest honor, but im sure he was under no illusions that xie lian cared for him in return.

and even after he'd gained eight hundred years of confidence, become the mischievous flirt we meet as san lang, its clear that he's so desperately afraid of coming on too strong. i was red-stringing like crazy trying to figure out why he didn't tell xie lian he was wu ming after the cave of ten thousand gods, but in retrospect I think it was that simple: not wanting to overwhelm him, not wanting to ask for too much.

and we see this cracking at the very end, with his genuine surprise that xie lian would be just as upset over hau cheng jumping into the lava as he was over xie lian falling.

but the transition from the barely dawning realization of "i would be your stepping stone, but i know you wouldn't want that" to the trust and confidence of him having become a spoilt-rotten bully because he knows that xie lian will give him what he asks for, that he actually *loves* to give hua cheng whatever he wants?

i love that for him, i love that for them, and it makes for a wonderful ending.

#tgcf #tgcf liveblog #well not technically but i think it makes a good cap on this #hualian

[unforth]

People who know more about Chinese culture and history than I do! Can anyone who knows TGCF give me an idea why Lang Qianqiu is dressed this way?

I am very curious.

#unforth liveblogs #tgcf liveblog #tgcf #lang qianqiu

[skygemspeaks]

Maybe i've read too much YA and romantasy but it's actually so refreshing to have two romantic leads who get along from the beginning and actually seem to enjoy spending time with each other. Xie lian and hua cheng have so much chemistry with each other!

#tgcf liveblog #don't get me wrong i like enemies to lovers #but friends to lovers is nice too!

[raylin-creates]

Watching season 2 of the TGCF donghua right now :D

I have a feeling I am not prepared to see the Fangxin arc animated.

#tgcf donghua #tgcf donghua season 2 #tgcf season 2 #raylin liveblogs tgcf donghua