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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I've not got time to follow all the discussion, but I'm surprised by how many people equate not cultivating with stillness. Since when is it so for Ling Qi? If anything, she's been steadily learning that merely having power does nothing for a person without the reason to wield it. Interacting with her family, being friends with people, following her justice concept - that's not stagnation, it's the opposite. It's actually applying her power for something.
Interacting with family, being friends with people, and following her justice concept aren't the issue at play here. Rather, the worry is that "stop and smell the flowers" will become even more foreign to LQ than it already is.
 
[X][SCS] Darkness knows no barriers, and neither should your desires
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][CDE] Ignorance is no better than blindness.
 
[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][TRF] Each scar is merely another ring in the making, from past pain arises new strength
[X][CDE] Do not slot Curious Diviners Eye
 


Sable Crescent Step Insights

[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][SCS] Darkness knows no barriers, and neither should your desires


Thousand Ring Fortress Insights

[X][TRF] Each scar is merely another ring in the making, from past pain arises new strength
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.



I am conflicted because I feel that if SCS2 is slotted it would benefit from TRF2 giving firm limits to desires.

SCS1 and TRF1 both seem to be about learning. TRF1 is more about slow accumulation through experience whereas SCS1 is more about never stopping to accumulate those experiences.

SCS1 and TRF2 seem incompatible in that SCS1 seems to be about neverending search and TRF2 about having firm boundaries.

SCS2 and TRF1 seem compatible.

All in all I feel like I would like to vote against SCS1 and TRF2, but am not against other combinations.

Curious Diviners Eye Insights
[X][CDE] Ignorance is no better than blindness.
[X][CDE] Be always watchful. Foes and treasures alike may hide in the gaps in one's perceptions.

I appreciate both of these.
 
Sable Crescent Step Insights

[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][SCS] Darkness knows no barriers, and neither should your desires


Thousand Ring Fortress Insights

[X][TRF] Each scar is merely another ring in the making, from past pain arises new strength
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.



I am conflicted because I feel that if SCS2 is slotted it would benefit from TRF2 giving firm limits to desires.

SCS1 and TRF1 both seem to be about learning. TRF1 is more about slow accumulation through experience whereas SCS1 is more about never stopping to accumulate those experiences.

SCS1 and TRF2 seem incompatible in that SCS1 seems to be about neverending search and TRF2 about having firm boundaries.

SCS2 and TRF1 seem compatible.

All in all I feel like I would like to vote against SCS1 and TRF2, but am not against other combinations.

Curious Diviners Eye Insights
[X][CDE] Ignorance is no better than blindness.
[X][CDE] Be always watchful. Foes and treasures alike may hide in the gaps in one's perceptions.

I appreciate both of these.

I can see how taking both SCS1 and TRF2 could be concerning but there is no contradiction here. Having a bottom line and refusing to retreat when this line is reached isn't emptiness, stillness, or stagnation. It's making a decision to stick to your ideals even when it might be easier not to. Such decisions certainly involve thought, often involve action, and sometimes serve as impetuses for growth. While it's true that the two insights don't directly reinforce each other, I don't think it's necessary for them to do so. In my opinion, they both complement each other fairly well while developing our domain in novel ways. As I've said in a previous post, I believe this is a better way to develop our domain over continuous reinforcement of a small set of beliefs.

Also, mechanically speaking, SCS1 and TRF2 won't be literally incompatible or we wouldn't be able to choose them at the same time here.
 
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[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][CDE] Ignorance is no better than blindness.
 
[X][SCS] Darkness knows no barriers, and neither should your desires

[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.

[X][CDE] Be always watchful. Foes and treasures alike may hide in the gaps in one's perceptions.
 
@yrsillar I have some questions about insights and domain.
Are the insights from better arts better than insights from lower quality arts?
Since insight can cause an art to be incompatible, can they bluff arts that have similar themes?
Since domains shape a cultivator to his/her ideal from can they increase talent? If not why?
Is there any other source of insights(Not advanced) except art completion?
 
@yrsillar I have some questions about insights and domain.
Are the insights from better arts better than insights from lower quality arts?
Since insight can cause an art to be incompatible, can they bluff arts that have similar themes?
Since domains shape a cultivator to his/her ideal from can they increase talent? If not why?
Is there any other source of insights(Not advanced) except art completion?

My impression so far is that higher quality arts aren't 'better insights' but that they're more flexible in nature. They can adapt to a wider variety of people studying it because their ideas are broad enough that you can interpret them in more ways, while simpler arts only really profess a single idea and thus can only really be slotted into Domains that are already highly compatible with them.
 
So far I haven't seen a single math cabal member froth over this choice in particular. SNR is just so suitable to Ling Qi's fighting style that the consensus seems to be "that would be mildly inconvenient, oh well."
I'd be hugely annoyed. It's just that it's fairly up in the air as to whether or not it will actually happen.

Like, one of the big draws of SNR is that it looked like it could be a TRF replacement that would be compatible with SCS's "turn into shadow" style. To have it then be rendered incompatible would be a huge pain, and suggest we're just wasting our time. Like what about advanced skills? What about the knowledge and insights we gain from arts to inform our later art development? We want those things to be coming together as a mutually compatible whole. If SNR ends up incompatible as well, then despite how good it might be, it would make it just another short term stop gap that we can't really learn too much from, and we're going to want to be replacing with something that fits us properly eventually.

Also, yeah, domain incompatible arts not being harder to train really makes no sense.
 
[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][TRF] Each scar is merely another ring in the making, from past pain arises new strength
 
@yrsillar I have some questions about insights and domain.
Are the insights from better arts better than insights from lower quality arts?
Since insight can cause an art to be incompatible, can they bluff arts that have similar themes?
Since domains shape a cultivator to his/her ideal from can they increase talent? If not why?
Is there any other source of insights(Not advanced) except art completion?

Not necessarily, no.

Your not going to increase talent from just training your domain, though any event that ups your talent will probably either give a fuckton of domain xp or result in other domain effects, talent ups pretty much only come from extreme tribulations.

In theory, sure, but probably not for somebody using the imperial system

In any case, we'll be locking up in two hours. Update will be out tomorrow and I'll be aiming for more rapid updates once this arc starts
 
Fun Fun Fun.

But yeah, I figure between the quality involved between the two Arts, and the second TRF Insight acknowledging that there's a line in the sand that none should cross, should just about bridge the gap and let us get Domain XP from SNR.

It'd just be that Ling Qi focuses more on the Void and Absorption aspects rather than the Stillness ones.
 
[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][CDE] Do not slot Curious Diviners Eye
 
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][CDE] Do not slot Curious Diviners Eye


Really unsure what I want from SCS so abstaining for now
 
[X][CDE] Do not slot Curious Diviners Eye
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][SCS] There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.
 
[X][SCS] Do not slot Sable Crescent Step
[X][TRF] Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.
[X][CDE] Do not slot Curious Diviners Eye
 
So it doesn't really apply in this vote, but I think I figured out a way to game our Domain a little.

If we finish two incompatible Arts in the same action, we might be able to slot Insights that would normally invalidate each other.

Might be good to get an Insight from that Contrast Cold-Fire Art first.

Note: OneArmedYeti is not responsible for any cultivation bottlenecks, Dao shattering, or Dantian explosions suffered as a result of following any suggestions.
 
So it doesn't really apply in this vote, but I think I figured out a way to game our Domain a little.

If we finish two incompatible Arts in the same action, we might be able to slot Insights that would normally invalidate each other.

Might be good to get an Insight from that Contrast Cold-Fire Art first.

Note: OneArmedYeti is not responsible for any cultivation bottlenecks, Dao shattering, or Dantian explosions suffered as a result of following any suggestions.

No, I imagine Yrsillar just would not give us incompatible insights.

Ling Qi isn't finishing these arts at the same time in universe after all.
 
No, I imagine Yrsillar just would not give us incompatible insights.

Ling Qi isn't finishing these arts at the same time in universe after all.

Reasonable, but the Insights also aren't instantaneous but rather slowly building understandings that manifest as a moment of clarity.

The currently winning TRF Insight for example has been building since last thread.
 
So it doesn't really apply in this vote, but I think I figured out a way to game our Domain a little.

If we finish two incompatible Arts in the same action, we might be able to slot Insights that would normally invalidate each other.

Might be good to get an Insight from that Contrast Cold-Fire Art first.

Note: OneArmedYeti is not responsible for any cultivation bottlenecks, Dao shattering, or Dantian explosions suffered as a result of following any suggestions.
Yrs will just ask us to choose one of the two insights since they're incompatible
 
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