Has anyone noticed that Sanzu sounds very similar to Senju?
It might be my delusional ass, but I find it curious that out of all fake names he could've come up with, he made up one that sounds like his sister's but with displaced letters.
Sanzu. Senju. Sometimes I'm writing their names and the bar automatically translates them to the other, or it pops out the "Don't you mean Akashi Sanzu/Senju?"
They're close enough for Google to get confused.
If it was accidental, it's kinda bittersweet because it means that, even when he was trying to cut off ties with his family and leave them behind, his conscience still brought up Senju in someway and he kept it. And if it was on purpose, then it only makes it more beautifully tragic, because even when he left his family, he still decided to carry a piece of it in his new identity. The one he forged and stuck to for the rest of his life (excluding the final timeline ofc).
This hits deeper if you remember that Senju’s fake surname, Kawaragi, sounds like “Sai no Kawara”, riverbed of death, which is the shore of the Sanzu river. She's literally "right besides Sanzu".
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What if Hua Cheng had memorialized the temple?
I don’t think he did, canonically. I imagine that was a memory he wasn’t keen to linger on, especially not to such an extent as to record it, to hover over the details in his mind and commit it to physical imagery. But I could see where he might - maybe catharsis, so that night can exist somewhere outside of his head. Maybe twisting, spiteful justice, so the world won’t be allowed to forget what it did to his god. Maybe just desperation, to record every shard of Xie Lian that he has in an effort not to lose a single piece while he searches.
It wouldn’t be graphic; I think it would be something more stylized, more symbolic. Xie Lian is tied to his own altar. He has replaced the divine statue that should be there instead, the god made present the way he was for Hua Cheng once, the way he was for all of his people once. He is surrounded by blades, but they aren’t piercing him yet. Hua Cheng can’t do that to him even in paint. Bai Wuxiang is not featured, because Hua Cheng would not force any version of Xie Lian into that monster’s presence, but there is a ghost fire hovering near. There is a small, crushed flower on the ground at the foot of the altar, like it was dropped from the Flower Crowned Prince’s hand moments before. The entire tableau holds its breath in the anticipation of something horrific.
It’s painted in a shadowed corner, with a cloth hung in front of it. Not out of shame, or even because of Hua Cheng’s own trauma - out of respect for the prince’s privacy, unwillingness to make a moment of such incredible, painful vulnerability a spectacle to anyone else without the prince’s say-so.
That doesn’t stop Mu Qing from finding it.
Mu Qing, who was already horrified, Mu Qing, who was looking for Xie Lian to drag him out of the caves immediately because he’d seen a statue that suggested things he would rather not think about in regards to his former prince… Mu Qing brushes the curtain aside in that tucked-away corner and stops.
A hundred blades are pointed at His Highness. A hundred faces leer and sob and stare. And Xie Lian sits at the center of it all, head lowered, waiting for the slaughter.
Is it so unreasonable that Mu Qing takes it for a threat? Is it so unreasonable of Mu Qing to drag Feng Xin to what he’s found, for the both of them to slip an arm around each of the prince’s own and pull him away from wherever that altar is somewhere in the complicated network of twisted, obscene worship? That thing painted on the wall - it can’t have ever happened. They would know. Mu Qing and Feng Xin, who spent every day of their early lives with the prince, beside the prince, trailing along behind the prince… they would know. They would have been there; they would have prevented it. This is the fantasy of a ghost king who laid ruin to thirty-three heavenly officials and found his thirst still unslaked.
(Mu Qing does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. Feng Xin does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. It’s a habit they’ve grown skilled at, over eight hundred years.)
They don’t explain to Xie Lian, so Xie Lian has no opportunity to explain to them what they saw. And Mu Qing isn’t wrong, when he concludes that Xie Lian has been stalked and watched and hunted since he was seventeen. He isn’t wrong. He just doesn’t know, yet, what direction the threat is coming from. There’s no time for anyone to tell him, or Feng Xin, who tied the restraints and provided the sword.
They’ll find out. Masks are made to be removed.
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Be so fucking for real my firesetter plushies got here and like an hour after they arrived i went to the mail room to grab them and they grew legs and WALKED AWAY because that package was NOWHERE to be seen . I turned the whole room upside down and asked the staff and no one knows where it is.
I think some lady grabbed it thinking it was hers bc i guess were just gonna grab packages without actually making sure the information is accurate. Ok
Hopefully they track her down and figure this out cuz thats so annoying . I spent 70 bucks and waited for months and i SWEAR i knew something was gonna go wrong the whole time and it DID . The worst part is theyre limited edition so i cant just buy them again and ill never be able to get them . All because the package evaporated ig.
Now i get mad every time i see the plushies i swear why is my luck with packages and merch so bad lately .
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Hi!!! I saw the tcwg relationship chart and noticed that sulluvan has a white arrow pointed to mochi! I always thought that he just wanted to marry her bc of his own interests, but does this mean that he actually loves her? Hope you're doing well!
OOF.......,,,. YA KNOW.....MAYBE.....
in my head its always been one of those things that for a majority of the series it is just him wanting the cat witch trophy wife without any feelings involved. after all, how can a 15000 (give or take) year old entity (??) possibly get feelings for this...human?? its like developing feelings for a picked flower, it just wilts so fast theres no way
but i think over the series (and especially in the timeskip half) he does gain a lot of respect for her. and its one of those things that isnt brought up until the very end when someone else (most likely the merchant or madam springs) asks him "You didn't really care for her, did you?" and he just stays quiet
(i hope youre doing well too!!! its almost finals which means i get summer relaxation soon ;; )
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