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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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storryeater said:
A very low bar to pass in this story, but yes, he just set that much higher, surpassing Meizhen's dad as best dad quite handily.



Villain inspired characters being heroic is nothing new in this story, We have CRX, Gan Guangli, Xiulan, and maaaaaaybe Shenhua depending on whether she is indeed lacking in certain mental faculties due to her ascension, as yrsillar has implied (if she has calculated everything like CRX claims, she is villainous though and though though.)

On another note... I think Xiulan is closer to Zuko than Azula tbh. Maybe Yanmei is the Azula, we should be careful around her. (not a serious suggestion, Yrs characters, even when they are clearly expies, are unique and distinct characters very different from their stylistic inspirations)
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Yanmei is Itachi
I'm not even joking, that is her character inspiration/who she is a reference of
Observe
yrsillar said:
Xiulan's lips twisted into a wry smile. "The only reason I am truly valuable to the family is the risks I have taken. Will you gainsay that, Elder Sister?"

Silence answered her question, and Xiulan lowered her eyes, only to jerk to the side as her Elder Sister's metallic fingernails impacted her temple in a perfectly executed flick.
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yrsillar said:
For the first time Yanmei paused, a flicker of some emotion surfacing in her cool gaze, gone too fast to be recognized. "Foolish little sister, you are not some hero from a child's tale, fighting the world alone," Gu Yanmei said softly.
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Xiulan's more like Azula if she weren't the child prodigy of the family, and wasn't taken under the wing of an abusive sociopath
She has some of Zuko's circumstances if the comparison must be made, but her personality is very much like Azula's, she just has a healthier family and was given a more sociable direction during her childhood
 
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Kai Merah said:
... Huh. I just realised, is Xiulan what Azula might have been if raised to be a Proper Lady while competing with older, far more ladylike sisters?

Now that Not-Ozai is taking an interest in her development and leading her down the martial path, might Xiulan become more like Azula?
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No. Azula is Azula because no one in her life loved her enough for her sense of self-worth to develop healthily. In so far as Xiulan maps onto Azula, that's the character arc that Xiulan had over in Forge.

With this interlude, Xiulan's principal family members — her mother, model of femininity; her elder sister, Yanmei, principal rival for rank; and now her father, arbiter of martial approval — all demonstrated that they love her and care about her well-being and desires. If we were to map this onto an event in Avatar, Xiulan's father taking her on campaign is the antithesis of Ozai leaving Azula behind during Sozin's Comet — an affirmation of love in contrast to the rejection of it.
 
angelofwhim said:
i dread the background survival dice rolls on lanlan survival in a campaign if they exist
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Probably less daunting than the survival rolls for named characters here. She's in her family's heart of power with her father giving her special attention explicitly so she does not die. Frankly at this point Meizhen and Suying probably have harder survival rolls than she does.
 
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OK maybe that awful tribulation roll I made paid off after all. I do find her and her family to be my favorite characters in this.
 
Current tally, collapsing functionally identical plans into single blocs:
Adhoc vote count started by picklepikkl on Sep 9, 2020 at 7:31 PM, finished with 189 posts and 71 votes.
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Varder said:
To be fair, for a long time we thought Sun Shao to be a good grandfather as well. But I'm hopeful for Xiulan still.
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There's a big difference in humanity between someone who's 8th realm and someone who's 5th - 6th realm. Considering the only other White we had seen was a Ragyo Kiryuin expy, the other shoe dropping with Sun Shao should not have surprised us as much as it did.
 
[X] Purposeful Design with Bling
-[X][bonuses] Combat Perception 20, Social Perception 10, Physical Avoid 10
-[X][meridian] 5 head, 1 heart
-[X][techniques] CB (6TP)
 
memoryofglory said:
There's a big difference in humanity between someone who's 8th realm and someone who's 5th - 6th realm. Considering the only other White we had seen was a Ragyo Kiryuin expy, the other shoe dropping with Sun Shao should not have surprised us as much as it did.
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We have seen a 7th on elder Jiao and even a 9th (greater spirit) on the phasses of the moon, and despite the purging, they aren't exactly,.. so alien as to be inhuman.

The lesson here is that we have to be very careful in what we discard, because a wrong move can turn us into a broken mess or a monster or a paperclip maximizer or an eldrich being,not that all Whites are categorically monstrous in their monomania (although it is an easy trap to fall into)
 
In Grandpa Sun's case, I think its less due to what he discarded, and more to do with what he accepted into himself (that Plant spirit thing).
 
lan lan withdrew from from the sect war on barbarians to fight war against the undead armies. ironic.

just to be sure, bian ya credits ling qi a favor for blanket shielding her hubby from the sacrifice bomb?
 
angelofwhim said:
lan lan withdrew from from the sect war on barbarians to fight war against the undead armies. ironic.

just to be sure, bian ya credits ling qi a favor for blanket shielding her hubby from the sacrifice bomb?
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Xiulan didn't withdraw, but was withdrawn. She didn't want to leave and in fact had wanted to protest the move but relented due to the circumstances and the confirmation that she wouldn't be relegated to a lesser position in terms of Cultivation support.
The Gu wanted to avoid having both their high-prospect members in a single theater of war, so this ensures that if something happens to Yanmei that Xiulan will remain capable of continuing her climb up the ranks in a manner that is concerning to the Han and the Fan.
 
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angelofwhim said:
lan lan withdrew from from the sect war on barbarians to fight war against the undead armies. ironic.

just to be sure, bian ya credits ling qi a favor for blanket shielding her hubby from the sacrifice bomb?
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Also yes Bian Ya did say so in one of the recent updates, jokingly saying how she owed us for saving Ruan Shen so may as well help us with our art modding.
 
Axel Fones said:
Oh hey it's like the people who claimed Xiulan's family would know how to help her and keep her alive and we didn't need to interfere were right.
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I mean--this feels like a case of that argument winning the battle and losing the war? "This family is sharply split by gender lines and making her Way work requires treating her more like a man, in a universe where the male/female split is so ingrained in reality that even ascending nigh unto Spirits doesn't let gay people make children" feels like it's going to have some pretty important metaphysical consequences. If there was some easier solution in the branch of the Gu Ways tree that Xiulan had been sent down before, then they would probably be doing that instead!

I mean, this probably isn't going to give Xiulan the spiritual equivalent of testosterone therapy side effects, but I'd expect complications, if just from the result of subconscious self-image. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Random12345 on Sep 9, 2020 at 9:37 PM, finished with 203 posts and 75 votes.
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tally
 
Anderein said:
I mean--this feels like a case of that argument winning the battle and losing the war? "This family is sharply split by gender lines and making her Way work requires treating her more like a man, in a universe where the male/female split is so ingrained in reality that even ascending nigh unto Spirits doesn't let gay people make children" feels like it's going to have some pretty important metaphysical consequences. If there was some easier solution in the branch of the Gu Ways tree that Xiulan had been sent down before, then they would probably be doing that instead!

I mean, this probably isn't going to give Xiulan the spiritual equivalent of testosterone therapy side effects, but I'd expect complications, if just from the result of subconscious self-image. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
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Yeah that's fair, in hindsight I probably jumped the gun to grab some satisfaction. Doesn't excuse anything, but the thread was heated at the time the topic was relevant. I shouldn't have been aggressively smug about it though.
 
Anderein said:
I mean--this feels like a case of that argument winning the battle and losing the war? "This family is sharply split by gender lines and making her Way work requires treating her more like a man, in a universe where the male/female split is so ingrained in reality that even ascending nigh unto Spirits doesn't let gay people make children" feels like it's going to have some pretty important metaphysical consequences. If there was some easier solution in the branch of the Gu Ways tree that Xiulan had been sent down before, then they would probably be doing that instead!

I mean, this probably isn't going to give Xiulan the spiritual equivalent of testosterone therapy side effects, but I'd expect complications, if just from the result of subconscious self-image. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
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...I'm pretty sure you're connecting dots that aren't there

Yin Yang leaning is not determined by gender, Xiulan was already way Yang to begin with, and I don't see how training in fields that the Gu traditionally consider male dominated would cause any cultivation complications
Let alone the spiritual equivalent of testosterone therapy

This isn't going to be any more complicated than it'd be for any woman taking to field not traditionally associated with her gender
Less actually, since Yrs has specified that while it does lean a bit one way or another depending on local culture discrimination based on gender never gets as bad as it does IRL
A woman trained in war is not going to blow any minds, or cause any cultivation issues
 
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CrimsonOddball said:
...I'm pretty sure you're connecting dots that aren't there

Ying Yang leaning is not determined by gender, Xiulan was already way Yang to begin with, and I don't see how training in fields that the Gu traditionally consider male dominated would cause any cultivation complications
Let alone the spiritual equivalent of testosterone therapy

This isn't going to be any more complicated than it'd be for any woman taking to field not traditionally associated with her gender
Less actually, since Yrs has specified that while it does lean a bit one way or another depending on local culture discrimination based on gender never gets as bad as it does IRL
A woman trained in war is not going to blow any minds, or cause any cultivation issues
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Pretty much yeah.
Yin and Yang describe behavioral attributes, which are male and female only so much as they map to traditionally male or female archetypes.

Note the traditional beast representing men is the Dragon, unrestrained, but impulsive power. The dragon is the storm sweeping the land, the river bursting its banks, it is hard to deal with simply because of the power behind it.

The traditional beast representing women is the Phoenix, symbolising the balance of Yin and Yang, tightly controlled power that brings life, sometimes depicted as sorting out the mess the Dragon leaves.

They're social roles, not sexual or biological roles, save for the action of childbearing.
 
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