NoxOfUmbra
Shadow of the night
- Location
- Colombia, South América
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
eternal-potato
He who vegetates
- Location
- Moscow
[X] Something fast paced and dramatic.
- Location
- United States
A shame there's no cultivation method that lets people keep their humanity. I think the problem is that cultivation focuses on using qi to replace human organs and parts with spiritual ones. I'm not that familiar with the mechanics of this setting, but I'm guessing it's necessary to create an artificial dantian to refine qi into shen, but the rest should not be necessary.
The cultivators are like transhumanists who choose to upload their brains into the cloud and reprogram themselves rather those who choose to use genetic engineering and stuff to improve their physical forms.
- Location
- At the end of the world
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
[X] Something fast paced and dramatic. [Empowers Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer, shifts technique focus to movement and personal buffs]
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Both look cool so eh.
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Both look cool so eh.
- Location
- France
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
- Location
- Staring into the void
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
Kyaaaa! OTP! OTP! :3
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Also group buffs are better since the other option will just compete with Wind Thief which is already our SCS successor.
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Also group buffs are better since the other option will just compete with Wind Thief which is already our SCS successor.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
- Location
- Upon the back of the Great A'Tuin
I think it is perhaps more accurate to say that the imperial cultivation method does not let people keep their humanity. There might be another way, but I doubt we'll ever learn of it and even if we did it's not like Ling Qi could use it.
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
TimEd
Meteor maker
[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
I want to see Ling Qi grind away at enemies with her Spirit Gang.
Still sad we didnt get the Night Parade for the BGM.
I want to see Ling Qi grind away at enemies with her Spirit Gang.
Still sad we didnt get the Night Parade for the BGM.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
What we've seen of other cultivation methods makes it seem pretty unlikely, though only yrsillar can say for sure. Plus, on a philosophical level, I don't think it makes any logical sense for there to be a cultivation method where you keep your humanity.
Assuming this is anything close to true, what it means to cultivate as a human is to become more and more like pure qi. We see this already at Ling Qi's very low level: while she hasn't opened her middle dantian yet and begun moving her vital functions into pearls, she's become increasingly divorced from the biological nature of humanity. She's casually stronger and faster than a normal human by an order of magnitude, she has almost no need for sleep, she barely needs to breathe, and her mind just works faster than a non-cultivator's, allowing her to learn a language at an incredibly pace. I don't think "becoming superhuman, but retaining your humanity" is a coherent notion, and even if it were I think it would honestly be more disturbing than growing increasingly inhuman as you transcend the human condition.
The actual resolution between Ling Qi and Sixiang feels a little... abbreviated, but it makes more sense when you view it from the perspective of Ling Qi needing to learn to be an adequate partner for Sixiang, rather than Sixiang themself needing to change, which is a nice counterbalance to historical spirit bond handling and continues the resolutions made to and with Hanyi and Zhengui well. In that vein, I feel the events of this update should do a lot to clear up some of the lingering dustbunnies we've been accumulating but not having the opportunity to discharge. However, this PLR vote is undermining my confidence there.
An example. Way back in turn 3, there was a vote option to spend time with the family and help settle in the new help that Qingge had asked us to okay. We didn't end up taking it because of the Zeqing situation, but immediately after the Zeqing situation, we sat down and had a heart-to-heart with Qingge at her house with some spotlight on the new servants(and Ling Qi being awkward), followed by introducing Qingge to Hanyi and Zhengui, which culminated in Ling Qi resolving to spend more time with her family and household. Four months later, Ling Qi is literally thinking of the mortal servants in the household as furniture.
So, the concern I have is with how diametrically opposed some choices we have seem to be. I think most of us thought that the household/servant/mortal issue would be decently handled in the background by the "spend time with household" choice that we made, even if we didn't have that first introductory scene. And this was a solid assumption because the choice we made in lieu of helping the household settle in wasn't opposed to it, it was just spending focus somewhere else. That's obviously not what happened though, and that's concerning. If a binary choice is only additive to one or the other, that's one thing, but the sense I'm getting is that choosing one thing actively subtracts from the other, even if they're not directly related to each other, their only relationship being happenstance or temporal proximity.
Because of this, and the presentation itself, the current PLR vote is an uncomfortable binary.
Fast paced and dramatic is fun! It fits well with the established presentation of a chaotic lunar revel. EDD, however, is a mechanically isolated technique which does its own thing irrespective of the broader technique, exempting itself from the construct dependency constraints of Lung arts, while also being a self-focused technique that leaves others out. It's a party of one, and that makes it a poor thematic choice even just in the context of PLR itself, never mind Ling Qi's Way or her current circumstances. On the other hand, it's the most likely path forwards on the Art's promise to "move with the grace of a trueborn maiden of moonlight", which has been dramatically underdeveloped in the art thus far.
Slow and contemplative is interesting, different from how the Art has been presented in the past; especially so in terms of IPF itself, which is a chaotic explosion of colourful dancers every which way. Considering that IPF is the foundational technique of the Art, this suggests this new tone will leave an impression on most of the Art overall. I don't know if I like that. I don't know if it's true, but I assume the stylistic blurb for either of these choices does have a meaningful impact besides mechanical. In mechanical terms, this choice seems objectively more impactful in affecting battles, while also conforming to meta and character goals so. Better. It's only in the thematic terms, where potentially staining the Art with "slow and contemplative" creates a possible dissonance with the more frenetic motion-y aspects of the Art. And maybe I want my teamwork to be fast paced and dramatic!
Both choices feel like they're cutting chunks off of the Art, when it really ought to be and contain both of these aspects. Except the slow and contemplative part, that's kind of out of left field honestly. The Art's promise, to me, is personal grace and movement in the context of a wild party. Not one or the other. It doesn't feel right to sacrifice a part of the art to get the rest up to snuff during a "true form" reveal, but that's what it feels like I'm being asked to do, so no vote from me.
Edit: If it's a matter of IPF's chaotic sprawl being too difficult to work into scenes, then fair enough. This vote is a relatively elegant way to orchestrate its retirement from that form, either through directly changing it, or shifting the narrative focus of the Art's effects to individual Ling Qi buffs.
An example. Way back in turn 3, there was a vote option to spend time with the family and help settle in the new help that Qingge had asked us to okay. We didn't end up taking it because of the Zeqing situation, but immediately after the Zeqing situation, we sat down and had a heart-to-heart with Qingge at her house with some spotlight on the new servants(and Ling Qi being awkward), followed by introducing Qingge to Hanyi and Zhengui, which culminated in Ling Qi resolving to spend more time with her family and household. Four months later, Ling Qi is literally thinking of the mortal servants in the household as furniture.
So, the concern I have is with how diametrically opposed some choices we have seem to be. I think most of us thought that the household/servant/mortal issue would be decently handled in the background by the "spend time with household" choice that we made, even if we didn't have that first introductory scene. And this was a solid assumption because the choice we made in lieu of helping the household settle in wasn't opposed to it, it was just spending focus somewhere else. That's obviously not what happened though, and that's concerning. If a binary choice is only additive to one or the other, that's one thing, but the sense I'm getting is that choosing one thing actively subtracts from the other, even if they're not directly related to each other, their only relationship being happenstance or temporal proximity.
Because of this, and the presentation itself, the current PLR vote is an uncomfortable binary.
PLR is a big fancy art that never really got its feet under it and does need tweaks, but these feel lopsided in the stylistic prefaces and their relation to the scope of the techniques.
Fast paced and dramatic is fun! It fits well with the established presentation of a chaotic lunar revel. EDD, however, is a mechanically isolated technique which does its own thing irrespective of the broader technique, exempting itself from the construct dependency constraints of Lung arts, while also being a self-focused technique that leaves others out. It's a party of one, and that makes it a poor thematic choice even just in the context of PLR itself, never mind Ling Qi's Way or her current circumstances. On the other hand, it's the most likely path forwards on the Art's promise to "move with the grace of a trueborn maiden of moonlight", which has been dramatically underdeveloped in the art thus far.
Slow and contemplative is interesting, different from how the Art has been presented in the past; especially so in terms of IPF itself, which is a chaotic explosion of colourful dancers every which way. Considering that IPF is the foundational technique of the Art, this suggests this new tone will leave an impression on most of the Art overall. I don't know if I like that. I don't know if it's true, but I assume the stylistic blurb for either of these choices does have a meaningful impact besides mechanical. In mechanical terms, this choice seems objectively more impactful in affecting battles, while also conforming to meta and character goals so. Better. It's only in the thematic terms, where potentially staining the Art with "slow and contemplative" creates a possible dissonance with the more frenetic motion-y aspects of the Art. And maybe I want my teamwork to be fast paced and dramatic!
Both choices feel like they're cutting chunks off of the Art, when it really ought to be and contain both of these aspects. Except the slow and contemplative part, that's kind of out of left field honestly. The Art's promise, to me, is personal grace and movement in the context of a wild party. Not one or the other. It doesn't feel right to sacrifice a part of the art to get the rest up to snuff during a "true form" reveal, but that's what it feels like I'm being asked to do, so no vote from me.
Edit: If it's a matter of IPF's chaotic sprawl being too difficult to work into scenes, then fair enough. This vote is a relatively elegant way to orchestrate its retirement from that form, either through directly changing it, or shifting the narrative focus of the Art's effects to individual Ling Qi buffs.
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[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]