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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Year 45 Month 10 Arc 1-8
"We'll go further," Ling Qi said. "Down into the center of the spirit's power here."
"Of course," Hanyi said with a haughty sniff.
"Of course," Bao Qian said with a sigh and chuckle.
It would be dangerous, but it was important, she thought to present herself as a peer rather than a supplicant. Even she wasn't quite there yet…. She would be, and that was what any contract or rites would have to be based on. In the end, they had made Snowblossom theirs, and their neighbors would have to acclimate to that.
"I assume attempting to light that up would certainly make things worse," Bao Qian said, peering down.
"...I'd think so. That would probably be over the line of politeness," Ling Qi said, peering thoughtfully into the inky, impenetrable darkness. It wasn't just a lack of light down there. She could hear something like a whisper, or… no. It sounds like a woman, softly weeping. An awful, melancholy grief, that left her vision going grey. Distance yawning, all she loved was….
Ling Qi flared her qi, removed herself from the stream of qi flowing out of that unmoving blackness. "Do you have anything which would help us stay together against spatial tricks?"
Bao Qian frowned and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Something of the sort, let's see…"
He clenched his fist, and there was a small pop, when he opened it there were a handful fo rings in it, bands of polished iron, each set with a little chips of something slate gray, that wasn't quite stone and not quite metal. " Seven Star Lodestone Rings, I've been marketing them to foresters in some of the more hostile depths, they anchor you relative to their fellows, prevent distances from getting slippery… May not have the potency for the full force of this."
"And I will be able to speak to either of you no matter the obstruction," Ling Qi said, plucking a pair of rings, sliding one onto her finger and passing the other to Hanyi. Circulating a little qi into the ring, she could feel a pressure pulling her hand toward the other rings, solid and reliable. "If attacks go active, we have other problems."
Hanyi regarded the ring with a frown, even after the put it on, then looked up at Big Sis. "Maybe we should hold hands too."
She was a little surprised to hear Hanyi say that, only…
She took Hanyi's hand, remembering the last day in Zeqing's home. Holding her hand might not have been enough then, but they were both stronger now.
Hanyi let out a childish huff and squeezed her hand. "You too! I'm not getting my driver eaten by some dumb jerk!"
She reached out to Bao Qian, making a grasping motion with her free hand.
Ling Qi let out a snort of laughter before she could catch herself. Bao Qian looked aggrieved, sending the remaining bands back into storage. "Really, young Miss?"
"I mean I guess you to other stuff too," Hanyi said. "C'mon, just take my hand okay?"
"Please," Ling Qi said lowering her head.
He sighed and took her junior sister's hand. Then, together, the three of them advanced down into darkness. The very first steps were cloying, and slow, it felt like walking face first into a pool of mud, sticky, choking and heavy. The darkness of the stairwell did not just cling, it dragged and it pulled and it suffocated, threatening to choke and flood her lungs. It was cold in a way that transcended anything physical, a want so dense it had congealed into something near solid.
But it was not directed at them. It was not a hunger for light and warmth, seeking to devour the spark of their lives. It was a yearning for something much further away than that, and so, though it was difficult, Ling Qi was able to put one foot in front of the other and advance. She could feel Hanyi doing the same, though her shoulders were hunched, and through her a sense of Bao Qian's qi.
…His art was of gold. Something near worthless to cultivators…. Save for its neutrality and inability to hold qi. The cloying cold nor the sobbing underlying it reached him at all she thought. He was closed to it, inviolate and numb under the mantle of his art. It was not what she would have expected from someone so gregarious.
But then, he was almost always smiling a professionals smile rather than his own.
Through the murk, they descended, step by shallow step, and the low sussurrus of sound beneath the darkness grew in volume. It was unending weeping, not the beautiful dramatic thing an actor in a play might show, but the ugly wracking sobs of a person in the very depths of grief, wet and choking and utterly miserable. It bounced and echoed in the dark, layering over itself a hundred times, a distorted cacophony of melancholy echoes that tried to sink hooks into her mind and rip away everything that was bright in her.
But it wasn't hungry for her happiness. It didn't want it. No that awful scraping melancholia threatened to sand away her joy by mere proximity. The lack of intent was the only thing which made it bearable, which let her distance herself from it, and remain untouched.
She squeezed Hanyi's hand tightly.
They emerged from the stair in pitch blackness, only the lack of another step showing they had reached the base.
Or so it should have been, but as they took that final step, the gloom parted. There was no color in the world, the reflective ice of the floor as much a gray monotone as the pillars of ice which surrounded the surprisingly small cavern chamber, it couldn't have been more than a few meters across. The sobs were much louder here, and mingled with the bubbling of the cavern spring which took up the center of the chamber… and the figure which hunched over atop it.
White robes, as pure as the fresh driven snow, but rumpled and unkempt, hanging low around near skeletal shoulders. Her hands clutched the edge of the pool, porcelain skin fading into black frostbitten talons as sharp as razors. Long black hair tumbled down past a hidden face floating and bobbing atop the spring waters, matted and tangled from lack of care.
And the head beneath rose, strands of hair falling to reveal a single red rimmed white eye, and the black tear trail which ran down the sunken grey cheek.
[ABANDONMENT]
Ling Qi reeled backward, it felt as if the very walls were rushing away from, all but fleeing her repulsive sickening presence. She who never rested, she who could never be content, her expectations would flog them all, kin and friend and acquaintance. She would be alone. Alone alone. Alone. Alone. AlonealonealonealonealonealonealonealoneALoNEaLONeALOnE.
It was pulling, pulling on her in every direction, her arms feeling as if they would be wrenched out of their sockets, but, the hand in hers remained, the steady pulse of the lodestone rings remained. Ling Qi's foot slid a single step back, and stopped.
The spirit's avatar rose from the poolside, limbs unfolding like that of a human spider, too long, too gaunt. Like a pale reflection of Shu Yue. And yet the spirit's shoulders shook still with wracking sobs, and the tears poured into the pool of bubbling black waters.
Weeping Mother of Lonesome Streams
All children leave home. The ice recedes, she is abandoned. The waters flow away, she is abandoned. The winds take her children, you take her children. She is forgotten. Mother is always forgotten. They flee. They flee. They flee. Ever eager to leave her. Ever eager to leave you. From you too they will flee, flee, flee. Little winter, little cold. Neither will your hands hold anything. Motherhood is loss.
Abandoned. Empty. Alone.
LIng Qi grimaced, and squeezed Hanyi's hand tightly. Her junior sister looked like she was about to cry. She understood implicitly that Hanyi's mind did not translate the raw pressure and concept of the spirit as she did.
No. She was certainly experiencing it as accusation, as Ling Qi might have just a few years ago. The spirit had not even truly 'spoken' yet.
"Spirit if the frozen peak and the lonely glacier, we offer our respect," Ling Qi said, clasping her single free hand to her chest and bowing her head.
"You're wrong. I go back to Mama whenever I can, and she told me not to stay," Hanyi whispered
Ling Qi squeezed her hand. She needed Hanyi to remain calm, while she was sure now that there would be no easy resolution, the three of them…
Were there supposed to be three of them? Where had that idea come from? She shook it off as dissonance from the spirit.
"Nuh uh," Hanyi shook her head violently. "I don't care how big you are, you don't get to say that to me, just because your daughters are jerks! I didn't tell anyone they couldn't come back to see their Mama!"
The weeping spirit craned her neck forward over the pool, her single exposed eye shot through with veins of red black, and… something moved under the hair, a ripple through the strands, blowing out, a glimpse of a distended jaw and fangs of black ice in frozen blue gums. Even as the frozen breath of the spirit battered Ling qi chapping her lips and spreading frost through her hair, the shuddering sobs did not stop
Little ice, little ice, twinkling bright, 'neath distant stars and over far off vales. Excuse, excuse, the hearth is cold. The shutters dark. In depths of black a heart dies, no wrong, no wrong. Daughters far daughters free, scattered scattered, yet a Mother's heart doth weep. All things go, all winters end, flow, flow little tears, little springs, far away and gone.
And still we weep. And still we weep. And still you weep.
You weep. You weep. It all disappears. sister, mother, husband, brother, father, friend, comrade, child. Winter takes it takes it takes it all one by one plucked from eaves and beds and arms, who dares bar the toll, dares whisper price else but what is taken.
It was Ling Qi's turn to step forward, drawing her qi around herself as she had done at the mountain base, the star of authority blooming on her brow, her mantle deepening to glittering black the field of stars on a clear winter day.
And she met the spirits eye without flinching as Hanyi shook beside her. "I am a singer of snows, and a guardian of my kin and the people of Snowblossom alike. I am Ling Qi, retainer to the Cai, who speaks for the Throne of Seasons, and I dare."
The world struggled to tear away from her, struggled to rip Hanyi out of her grasp, tear and bite and nip at her memories of warmth. Ling Qi let out a hissing breath. The formal rites were less familiar to her, but here and now, they had a power she could not refuse. "I invoke the Bountiful Earth, the Master of Turnings."
The wracking sob and wail made her ears bleed, wetness trickling down her neck. Even so she scented woodsmoke . She had not been wasting these past months. There was a reason she had come up here where the ice was at its coldest, most concentrated. It was only here, before the seasons authority that such words held meaning.
"I invoke Steel Words Binding, Magistrate of Heaven." Fresh ink, the whisper of a brush over a page. The Spirit's hair whipped about its head in fury.
"I invoke the Celestial Dragon, Spark of Civilization, the font of all authority," She felt sparks jump between her teeth and sting her tongue. "I say again. I am Ling Qi, Baroness of the Celestial Empire, and steward of Shenglu and the Snowblossom Vale."
A predator, sullen and watching her, the pressure pressing down on all sides, the grasping emptiness clawing at her spirit to hollow her out. "...And I would speak with you fairly. I do not deny your truth."
All things pass and vanish, fleeting authority shall slip the fingers and flow away, one mistake, one mistake
"All things disappear and go away. But not until their appointed times," Ling Qi said firmly. "And so we will strike a bargain, of what is taken and what is not."
In the black depths of the cavern Ling Qi felt a true Law of Isolation press down on her, and her own understanding…
Isolation IV->V
[ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. From lack and loss is born suffering, in many forms. One soul has but two hands, yet in multitude the chain is unending. The blade Isolation cannot be dulled by one heart alone.
[ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. Thus, the greatest foe is I. No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn. The blade Isolation rends all warmth into cold.
"Of course," Hanyi said with a haughty sniff.
"Of course," Bao Qian said with a sigh and chuckle.
It would be dangerous, but it was important, she thought to present herself as a peer rather than a supplicant. Even she wasn't quite there yet…. She would be, and that was what any contract or rites would have to be based on. In the end, they had made Snowblossom theirs, and their neighbors would have to acclimate to that.
"I assume attempting to light that up would certainly make things worse," Bao Qian said, peering down.
"...I'd think so. That would probably be over the line of politeness," Ling Qi said, peering thoughtfully into the inky, impenetrable darkness. It wasn't just a lack of light down there. She could hear something like a whisper, or… no. It sounds like a woman, softly weeping. An awful, melancholy grief, that left her vision going grey. Distance yawning, all she loved was….
Ling Qi flared her qi, removed herself from the stream of qi flowing out of that unmoving blackness. "Do you have anything which would help us stay together against spatial tricks?"
Bao Qian frowned and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Something of the sort, let's see…"
He clenched his fist, and there was a small pop, when he opened it there were a handful fo rings in it, bands of polished iron, each set with a little chips of something slate gray, that wasn't quite stone and not quite metal. " Seven Star Lodestone Rings, I've been marketing them to foresters in some of the more hostile depths, they anchor you relative to their fellows, prevent distances from getting slippery… May not have the potency for the full force of this."
"And I will be able to speak to either of you no matter the obstruction," Ling Qi said, plucking a pair of rings, sliding one onto her finger and passing the other to Hanyi. Circulating a little qi into the ring, she could feel a pressure pulling her hand toward the other rings, solid and reliable. "If attacks go active, we have other problems."
Hanyi regarded the ring with a frown, even after the put it on, then looked up at Big Sis. "Maybe we should hold hands too."
She was a little surprised to hear Hanyi say that, only…
She took Hanyi's hand, remembering the last day in Zeqing's home. Holding her hand might not have been enough then, but they were both stronger now.
Hanyi let out a childish huff and squeezed her hand. "You too! I'm not getting my driver eaten by some dumb jerk!"
She reached out to Bao Qian, making a grasping motion with her free hand.
Ling Qi let out a snort of laughter before she could catch herself. Bao Qian looked aggrieved, sending the remaining bands back into storage. "Really, young Miss?"
"I mean I guess you to other stuff too," Hanyi said. "C'mon, just take my hand okay?"
"Please," Ling Qi said lowering her head.
He sighed and took her junior sister's hand. Then, together, the three of them advanced down into darkness. The very first steps were cloying, and slow, it felt like walking face first into a pool of mud, sticky, choking and heavy. The darkness of the stairwell did not just cling, it dragged and it pulled and it suffocated, threatening to choke and flood her lungs. It was cold in a way that transcended anything physical, a want so dense it had congealed into something near solid.
But it was not directed at them. It was not a hunger for light and warmth, seeking to devour the spark of their lives. It was a yearning for something much further away than that, and so, though it was difficult, Ling Qi was able to put one foot in front of the other and advance. She could feel Hanyi doing the same, though her shoulders were hunched, and through her a sense of Bao Qian's qi.
…His art was of gold. Something near worthless to cultivators…. Save for its neutrality and inability to hold qi. The cloying cold nor the sobbing underlying it reached him at all she thought. He was closed to it, inviolate and numb under the mantle of his art. It was not what she would have expected from someone so gregarious.
But then, he was almost always smiling a professionals smile rather than his own.
Through the murk, they descended, step by shallow step, and the low sussurrus of sound beneath the darkness grew in volume. It was unending weeping, not the beautiful dramatic thing an actor in a play might show, but the ugly wracking sobs of a person in the very depths of grief, wet and choking and utterly miserable. It bounced and echoed in the dark, layering over itself a hundred times, a distorted cacophony of melancholy echoes that tried to sink hooks into her mind and rip away everything that was bright in her.
But it wasn't hungry for her happiness. It didn't want it. No that awful scraping melancholia threatened to sand away her joy by mere proximity. The lack of intent was the only thing which made it bearable, which let her distance herself from it, and remain untouched.
She squeezed Hanyi's hand tightly.
They emerged from the stair in pitch blackness, only the lack of another step showing they had reached the base.
Or so it should have been, but as they took that final step, the gloom parted. There was no color in the world, the reflective ice of the floor as much a gray monotone as the pillars of ice which surrounded the surprisingly small cavern chamber, it couldn't have been more than a few meters across. The sobs were much louder here, and mingled with the bubbling of the cavern spring which took up the center of the chamber… and the figure which hunched over atop it.
White robes, as pure as the fresh driven snow, but rumpled and unkempt, hanging low around near skeletal shoulders. Her hands clutched the edge of the pool, porcelain skin fading into black frostbitten talons as sharp as razors. Long black hair tumbled down past a hidden face floating and bobbing atop the spring waters, matted and tangled from lack of care.
And the head beneath rose, strands of hair falling to reveal a single red rimmed white eye, and the black tear trail which ran down the sunken grey cheek.
[ABANDONMENT]
Ling Qi reeled backward, it felt as if the very walls were rushing away from, all but fleeing her repulsive sickening presence. She who never rested, she who could never be content, her expectations would flog them all, kin and friend and acquaintance. She would be alone. Alone alone. Alone. Alone. AlonealonealonealonealonealonealonealoneALoNEaLONeALOnE.
It was pulling, pulling on her in every direction, her arms feeling as if they would be wrenched out of their sockets, but, the hand in hers remained, the steady pulse of the lodestone rings remained. Ling Qi's foot slid a single step back, and stopped.
The spirit's avatar rose from the poolside, limbs unfolding like that of a human spider, too long, too gaunt. Like a pale reflection of Shu Yue. And yet the spirit's shoulders shook still with wracking sobs, and the tears poured into the pool of bubbling black waters.
Weeping Mother of Lonesome Streams
All children leave home. The ice recedes, she is abandoned. The waters flow away, she is abandoned. The winds take her children, you take her children. She is forgotten. Mother is always forgotten. They flee. They flee. They flee. Ever eager to leave her. Ever eager to leave you. From you too they will flee, flee, flee. Little winter, little cold. Neither will your hands hold anything. Motherhood is loss.
Abandoned. Empty. Alone.
LIng Qi grimaced, and squeezed Hanyi's hand tightly. Her junior sister looked like she was about to cry. She understood implicitly that Hanyi's mind did not translate the raw pressure and concept of the spirit as she did.
No. She was certainly experiencing it as accusation, as Ling Qi might have just a few years ago. The spirit had not even truly 'spoken' yet.
"Spirit if the frozen peak and the lonely glacier, we offer our respect," Ling Qi said, clasping her single free hand to her chest and bowing her head.
"You're wrong. I go back to Mama whenever I can, and she told me not to stay," Hanyi whispered
Ling Qi squeezed her hand. She needed Hanyi to remain calm, while she was sure now that there would be no easy resolution, the three of them…
Were there supposed to be three of them? Where had that idea come from? She shook it off as dissonance from the spirit.
"Nuh uh," Hanyi shook her head violently. "I don't care how big you are, you don't get to say that to me, just because your daughters are jerks! I didn't tell anyone they couldn't come back to see their Mama!"
The weeping spirit craned her neck forward over the pool, her single exposed eye shot through with veins of red black, and… something moved under the hair, a ripple through the strands, blowing out, a glimpse of a distended jaw and fangs of black ice in frozen blue gums. Even as the frozen breath of the spirit battered Ling qi chapping her lips and spreading frost through her hair, the shuddering sobs did not stop
Little ice, little ice, twinkling bright, 'neath distant stars and over far off vales. Excuse, excuse, the hearth is cold. The shutters dark. In depths of black a heart dies, no wrong, no wrong. Daughters far daughters free, scattered scattered, yet a Mother's heart doth weep. All things go, all winters end, flow, flow little tears, little springs, far away and gone.
And still we weep. And still we weep. And still you weep.
You weep. You weep. It all disappears. sister, mother, husband, brother, father, friend, comrade, child. Winter takes it takes it takes it all one by one plucked from eaves and beds and arms, who dares bar the toll, dares whisper price else but what is taken.
It was Ling Qi's turn to step forward, drawing her qi around herself as she had done at the mountain base, the star of authority blooming on her brow, her mantle deepening to glittering black the field of stars on a clear winter day.
And she met the spirits eye without flinching as Hanyi shook beside her. "I am a singer of snows, and a guardian of my kin and the people of Snowblossom alike. I am Ling Qi, retainer to the Cai, who speaks for the Throne of Seasons, and I dare."
The world struggled to tear away from her, struggled to rip Hanyi out of her grasp, tear and bite and nip at her memories of warmth. Ling Qi let out a hissing breath. The formal rites were less familiar to her, but here and now, they had a power she could not refuse. "I invoke the Bountiful Earth, the Master of Turnings."
The wracking sob and wail made her ears bleed, wetness trickling down her neck. Even so she scented woodsmoke . She had not been wasting these past months. There was a reason she had come up here where the ice was at its coldest, most concentrated. It was only here, before the seasons authority that such words held meaning.
"I invoke Steel Words Binding, Magistrate of Heaven." Fresh ink, the whisper of a brush over a page. The Spirit's hair whipped about its head in fury.
"I invoke the Celestial Dragon, Spark of Civilization, the font of all authority," She felt sparks jump between her teeth and sting her tongue. "I say again. I am Ling Qi, Baroness of the Celestial Empire, and steward of Shenglu and the Snowblossom Vale."
A predator, sullen and watching her, the pressure pressing down on all sides, the grasping emptiness clawing at her spirit to hollow her out. "...And I would speak with you fairly. I do not deny your truth."
All things pass and vanish, fleeting authority shall slip the fingers and flow away, one mistake, one mistake
"All things disappear and go away. But not until their appointed times," Ling Qi said firmly. "And so we will strike a bargain, of what is taken and what is not."
In the black depths of the cavern Ling Qi felt a true Law of Isolation press down on her, and her own understanding…
Isolation IV->V
[ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. From lack and loss is born suffering, in many forms. One soul has but two hands, yet in multitude the chain is unending. The blade Isolation cannot be dulled by one heart alone.
[ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. Thus, the greatest foe is I. No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn. The blade Isolation rends all warmth into cold.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
The second one seems like the base for a very powerful defense, but also a really good way to make yourself miserable.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
No, it's actually saying "Funny thing about turtling up, is it just makes the Blade of Isolation Sharper"
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wait, so we could make it so that Ling Qi's greatest weakness is that she's somewhat less effective against the Power of Friendship?
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Wait, so we could make it so that Ling Qi's greatest weakness is that she's somewhat less effective against the Power of Friendship?
That's always been the case.
Of course, you have to have the Real power of Friendship, shallow bonds of convenience and cooperation aren't enough to deflect the Blade of Isolation after all.
[X] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. From lack and loss is born suffering, in many forms. One soul has but two hands, yet in multitude the chain is unending. The blade Isolation cannot be dulled by one heart alone.
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NoxOfUmbra
Shadow of the night
- Location
- Colombia, South América
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
So, in essence, both insights go the way of "one alone is death". The difference comes in the way you approach it, the first insight seems to be a gradual thing, the more people there are with our enemies the less effective whatever effect we have on all of them is. The second insight is more absolute but less wide, it's a "the more alone you are the harder I hit" to a single enemy.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I vibe so much with it. I am definitely choosing it.
I've really enjoyed getting to see more of Bao boy's kit these past few chapters. There's been a surprising amount of depth/functionality on display.
Is this a Xiangmen reference? Can't recall hearing that title before.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
LQ and BQ are holding hands!
Vikram
!!FUN!! Containment Officer
- Location
- New Delhi
Option 1 has its own counter laid out within in (teamwork, power of friendship, community, etc.), which is the strength of... pretty much all our foes. Jungle, cloud barbarians, and the Ith are all pretty good at working together. So it doesn't really appeal to me. "The blade Isolation cannot be dulled by one heart alone." implies that it can be dulled by many. That's too obvious and common a weakness.
Option 2 on the other hand actually seems to counter these, pulling apart groups and nullifying the team advantage.
Option 2 on the other hand actually seems to counter these, pulling apart groups and nullifying the team advantage.
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Mr.Error
The Clock-Hand that Tampers with Time
- Location
- Not! Khusan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. Thus, the greatest foe is I. No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn. The blade Isolation carves warmth into cold.
Edit-(New Version): [ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. Thus, the greatest foe is I. No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn. The blade Isolation rends all warmth into cold.
I really like the first one, but this one, I like just a bit more. Also It's a very new direction compard to our previous Insights on isolation. Because LQ's Isolation, up till now, has been about external isolation i.e, her Isolation in the streets due to her running away. This insight, however, explores Isolation from within, or Self-imposed isolation. Of being able to reach out, but refusing to do so anyway, due to pride or stubbornness or whatever. This also fits our goals of wanting the clans to Communicate better, by punishing those who refuse to reach out, even when they can.
Edit-(New Version): [ ] As starvation is privation of the body, isolation is privation of the soul. Thus, the greatest foe is I. No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn. The blade Isolation rends all warmth into cold.
I really like the first one, but this one, I like just a bit more. Also It's a very new direction compard to our previous Insights on isolation. Because LQ's Isolation, up till now, has been about external isolation i.e, her Isolation in the streets due to her running away. This insight, however, explores Isolation from within, or Self-imposed isolation. Of being able to reach out, but refusing to do so anyway, due to pride or stubbornness or whatever. This also fits our goals of wanting the clans to Communicate better, by punishing those who refuse to reach out, even when they can.
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- Location
- CA
I don't like the second one because it feels like it's losing track of its own metaphors. "carves warmth into cold"? But Isolation is cold and an isolated person is cold as a result, but the blade Isolation is therefore also itself cold, so you're making them warm by making them colder? How are we making them less isolated by hitting them with Isolation? Is this a hypothermia thing instead, where people that get really cold start to feel as if they're too hot? Are we attacking our enemies with the power of Paradoxical Undressing now? That seems unladylike. And "No hand may reach the one who has clenched and withdrawn"? But if that was true, our attacks wouldn't do anything to them, because we couldn't "reach."
Is the whole idea saying, hey, look, this is real "cold," and you're "warm" in comparison; if you were really "cold" then my "cold" wouldn't do anything to you. You're not actually isolated, you're just delusional. That's quite a good concept and I like it, but I feel like the idea isn't really getting properly communicated in the text that's actually there. So I'm voting for the other one because it at least feels entirely clear and coherent.
Is the whole idea saying, hey, look, this is real "cold," and you're "warm" in comparison; if you were really "cold" then my "cold" wouldn't do anything to you. You're not actually isolated, you're just delusional. That's quite a good concept and I like it, but I feel like the idea isn't really getting properly communicated in the text that's actually there. So I'm voting for the other one because it at least feels entirely clear and coherent.
