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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights
 
Thor's Twin said:
Furthermore, we are good enough with a bow not to completely embarrass ourselves, and we saved the bow for occasions just like this. It will demonstrate that we have some competence with more traditional weaponry, which will probably help our impression with some more of the staunch traditional nobles. Another benefit is broadening our understanding of the terrain in the area and possibly actually getting some of the cores to feed to Zhengui.
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I'm not convinced it's that kind of hunt. Yes in our world the idea of a noble hunting group brings to mind people riding on horses following hounds and using guns. But in this world it would seem like you'd go hunting spirit beasts, and the challenge of hunting valuable-to-you spirit beasts would force you to use your full power as a cultivator.
 
[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights
 
[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights.
 
Personally, I actually really liked the Ji Rong mention. I liked how it showed that everyone else is making progress and has their own story, and that the fact we beat him once doesn't mean he can't catch up.
 
[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights.
 
yrsillar said:
Yeah he's just such a toxic subject at this point that it's probably better to just write him out of the story
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@yrsillar I think one of the main problems right now is that the framing of the omakes where we actually see anything of him make his achievements seem more contrived, and not less. Perspective plays into this a lot. We don't actually get Ji Rong's perspective, especially of his challenges and hard work. The character whose perspective we're actually seeing things from is a half-capable deliberate schemer who Ji Rong follows after for reasons that also come off as contrived-ish, to the extent that they're even explored. Which is barely because the viewpoint character doesn't, for obvious reasons, focus on that aspect of Ji Rong's motivation, being external and irrelevant to his own pursuits.

Even the only recent time Ling Qi has actually seen the guy in the narrative proper, in the library, then turned out to be the vague machinations of this other character. Ji Rong has limited to no apparent autonomy, though partly an artifact of the lens he's been viewed through, and it hurts his character's reception because it hurts his character as written. If we never see any of the efforts even really alluded to, but do see the profits gained, a character's advancement is going to feel arbitrary to many people. I'd argue that the issue is he hasn't been written into the story. The guy feels like a blank canvas constantly being played up by a painter as an imminent great work who nonetheless persists in preserving the blankness of the canvas.

As for this specific mention, him getting a celestial dragon is fine and fits his aesthetic fairly well and all. It also seems like it must be a pretty interesting story, given what we know about dragon culture(which admittedly isn't a lot). Like, dragons are jealous creatures when it comes to their children, so an abandoned egg or child seems unlikely. Is it an adult then? But still in Green? A runt or mediocre specimen of some kind? Something else? There's a lot of questions inherent to the matter, so the actual pity is in the lack of any opportunity of inquiry, and it's in the negative space of that lack that more accusatory questions fester. Basically, it's weird enough that there's legitimate questions how it's possible, and that's a good narrative opportunity, especially with Ling Qi's own stuff. Keeping it perpetually out of reach or passing it off to someone else to also not elaborate on is butts.

Even more specifically on the issue of a celestial dragon though, it'd make a fight scene between Ling Qi and Ji Rong kind of difficult to write without trampling on some key themes behind Ling Qi's character which would be difficult to justify on a meta level. A flying mount allows Ji Rong to stay with his spirit in a way that's kind of incomparable on Ling Qi's part, which is problematic given the entire direction of her Way and all. This can be bent to positive thematic purpose, but it'd have to be handled carefully or it edges on 'he stumbles into this goal of ours and is better at it right off the bat with no real investment and nothing can ever fix that' issues. The actual state of their reltionship/bond would be irrelevant because we've never seen it, and what we are seeing in terms of combat performance is predisposed towards that kind of imagery/metaphor for closeness. There's arguably similar issues with Ling Qi's robe flight, and its unsuitability in a fight versus Ji Rong + flying dragon; that is to say, having our unique faction reward grounded by something he just kind of found(from our perspective) and never won't be in play.

Apologies for the clumsy and half-assed reference towards literary analysis in lieu of the actual article, my brain's half dead at the moment for reasons I'm not clear on. Maybe the heat. I refuse to apologize for my abuse of commas though.
 
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zinay said:
Personally, I actually really liked the Ji Rong mention. I liked how it showed that everyone else is making progress and has their own story, and that the fact we beat him once doesn't mean he can't catch up.
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We were already seeing that. I mean, Suyin literally just had a breakthrough party.

Honestly, I think this is blowing things out of proportion for one F-ing line. Ji Rong isn't really important to the narrative, which is kinda the issue, isn't it? He's not really a foil. You could argue he's sort of a rival, but his screen time is minuscule.

He's more meme than anything at this point. Not worth getting bent outta shape over, but also kind of superfluous. I'm sure people coming straight from RR would be asking what all the hubub is about.
 
Maybe I like Ji Rong more because I haven't read the omake?

I dunno. Ji Rong being arbitrarily better than us because he's higher talent is not surprising. I'm sure a lot of folks find LQ equally frustrating.
 
Wysteria said:
I have two thoughts about this: LQ gets quite a lot of her resources from adventuring loot. I see no reason he shouldn't do the same. Secondly, the amount of resources given to someone in green just isn't that much to a privileged house, I don't think? If you're thinking about supplying people in cyan and white, one green more or less is going to be a rounding error.
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As I understand things, the only thing Ling Qi's found that's comparable to CRX's support is the mirror which was an exceedingly rare and valuable find (because if it weren't then the sect should be able to afford to better support inner sect disciples). While it's possible that Ji Rong found something similar, it's stretching my suspension of disbelief a bit.

The other idea is that ducal houses can easily afford to (fully) fund a green (even if that green is a mere underling of a mere scion), but for this to be true then Cai Shenhua has to be deliberately severely limiting CRX in a way that seems excessive and counterproductive.
 
Okay so, I want to apologize. I think I had geared myself up for this fight so much when I decided on his spirit beast that I drove myself into a mental corner before comments even started arising. Due to that, and posting while I was at work and thus being irritated by stupid nonsense there, I ended up acting like a big ol' drama queen for awhile there, despite the fact that as we went along some pretty cogent criticisms came up.

Which brings us back to Ji Rong, the guy is in an awkward spot isn't he. For various reasons like most of my other antagonists he ended up badly underdeveloped in the last thread. This is something I'm working on fixing as I rewrite... but that doesn't help in the sequel which we have now, where people only know the pretty lacking development he got in thread. Indeed, i haven't even gotten to the point where I can expand on my antagonists in the rr update and won't for a few months yet.

So yeah, those are all fair criticisms, and I have to up my game regarding my more antagonistic characters. Hopefully I can do so now that the plot proper has started up. Anywho, sorry guys. I got all bent out of shape over nothing like an idiot there.
 
[X] Take care of her tutoring session with Bai Xiao Fen, to ensure her time afterward was free.

I, for one, was amused by the Ji Rong memes in the update. I don't have the impression that discussing him has ever been legitimately toxic in spite of it being framed as such after the latest update-though I do have to admit that him being in a weird character position is a legitimate argument.

I think the main issue is that some people are just annoyed by the memes still being around, but they're never going to die even if there is backlash. Much like how Ashen Shadow Art will never die, really. If he gets written out of the story, people will just end up conjuring wild scenarios he could be participating in offscreen and people who get annoyed by memes will still complain.
 
Erebeal said:
Well, we had Xin's help there.

Otoh, we know other characters find shit exploring. Hell, that's what a number of our socials are based on!
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My impression is that if we hadn't been picked up by the moon, we would have ended up with another spirit patron. By extension, I assume other high talent characters end up with spirit patrons giving them interesting quests. Or burying them in snow storms.
 
Wysteria said:
My impression is that if we hadn't been picked up by the moon, we would have ended up with another spirit patron. By extension, I assume other high talent characters end up with spirit patrons giving them interesting quests. Or burying them in snow storms.
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Xin outright states that another great spirit would've picked up Ling Qi if the Moon hadn't iirc. Just you know a lesser one due to it not being multiple great spirits.
edit correction there was a probably attached to it.
"He has had his fill of scheming, that husband of mine," Xin replied with a musical laugh. "But no more of such things. You've done very well, you know."

Even in her state, Ling Qi could tell when a subject was being gently closed. "Thank you, I couldn't have come so far without you and your sisters."

"Perhaps, or maybe another spirit might have snatched you up," Xin said lightly. "Might I add that I found it adorable when you chose to take my greater self as a patron for my sake?"
"I didn't…" Ling Qi denied, color rising on her cheeks. "Not just for that," she mumbled.
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[X] Take care of her tutoring session with Bai Xiao Fen, to ensure her time afterward was free.
 
Yeah, I've been one of the defenders of Ji Rong's growth, but the main thing that annoys me about him is that he feels like we should have a relationship with him, but we don't. Instead he's rivals with like every boy we know, and if we do fight it's like "so what? Why should I care about you?"


... I wanna rival of our own :(

Ideally someone like Wen Ai, but I'm flexible :p
 
I feel like while we haven't had much interaction with Ji Rong, there's a lot of potential in their different ideologies to play them off each other. Not just 'he's the other protagonist', but the same sort of thing we saw at the library except longer and more in-depth. Ling Qi and Ji Rong don't really like each other or agree with the way they go about things and see the world, and that allows for them to test their ideologies and conviction against each other and come out stronger and more refined.

If such a thing were in the cards, I'd be really interested in a situation where Ling Qi and Ji Rong had to work together, or were opposed to each other on a task or generally had to continually interact for an arc, just to highlight the different paths they took and see how they react to each other.
 
Does Ling Qi even know how to be friendly enemies with someone? She seems to have only friends or obstacles, I'm not sure rivals are a thing she can do at this stage of character dev.
 
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