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

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[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
With Soaring, it feels like LQ is joining a revolution, giving up individuality but becoming more connected to those around her. That would allow for change to her way that skulking wouldn't. But she wouldn't be in control.
With skulking, we'd be embracing isolation and our individuality, seeming like more of the same Ling Qi.
But with revolution, Xia Ren explicitly doesn't care about the past and wants to force people to share the same vision she has of the world, not caring about history itself. Ling Qi would be Soaring without regard to what's happening below her. That's definitely bad.
With skulking, at least, LQ'd be able to hold onto ourselves and fight back against SWD's influence since we aren't actively embracing anything. Also, LQ would probably see what turned SWD into what he became, looking at his history. Both choices have their pros and cons, but I'd rather skulk.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

I really don't want to stand by the crucible unless absolutely necessary.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

I do worry about the other option being something of a trap. I think this choice is more about our Way going forward and this feels less influenced by Xia Ren, which is a major point in its favor. The other option is also defensible, of course.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.


We are the Thief of Names, we become what we need to be for the moment.
 
Vanguard_D said:
I mean, first thing that comes to mind to me when I hear voice in this context is Emissaries and their role of speaking for the high realms.
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Yea, that tracks, but do we want to be the voice for Xia Ren? Being a voice for someone seems to be a pretty tight connection.
We are working with her and that's great. Our goals align at the moment, but our methods are just too different.
 
[ ] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.

Time to spit in the eye of a god. SWD thinks he is honouring Tsu's legacy by sabotaging diplomacy with the polar peeps? The Diviner brought men together. He even reached out to the Cloud. He would be appalled with what SWD is doing.
 
yrsillar said:
"I already said it, but you were right, you know," Ling Qi said quietly. "You were right, but I don't regret it, following Renxiang, diving into these politics. Because no one else would do it right!"

A hint of the frustration that had been building in her over these last months, seeing how even those most aligned with them were… condescending at best. What would have happened if she had left the matter of her meeting to the Sect to report? What would have happened if she and Renxiang had simply gone on to the Intersect tournament, and left this whole horrifyingly complex endeavor to at best a well meaning courtier, and at worst an outright disinterested bureaucrat.

And it was only the first hurdle, the first hurdle to seeing that this beautiful mess of a province, her home didn't fall in when the lynchpin at its center cracked. She wanted to scream sometimes.

Elder Jiao's expression went flat. It wasn't an expression, not really. Every muscle in his face went slack. "Too clever girl. Are you really trying to manipulate me?"

His lips didn't move at all, neither did his eyes, blank and dead and glassy. He looked like a mannequin, a posed figure. They eyes in the dark were not though. They glared down at her.

"You know she's not Jiao, as if you can't read a child's intentions clearly," Xin scoffed, looking up not at the empty seeming figure, but at the darkness that swirled around. "Honestly husband, all humor aside, I am disappointed in you."

"I know we are not the same. I only have the barest knowledge of what you have done, and who you are," Ling Qi said. "..We aren't the same, I know that even with what little I can… I-" Her senses wavered.

A knife. A knife that was a man. Cruel Virtue, the blade to carve out the rot, that the body might live and breathe healthy again. Each cut revealed a new tumor, it ran so deep, deeper than the foundations themselves. RotrotrotrotrotrotrotROTROTROTROT-

"Feh, what obnoxious eyes you are cultivating. Have you been training her in secret?"

The awful, crushing despair that Ling Qi felt passed as swiftly as it had come. The flash of vision had been even briefer than the others, but where Xia Ren had left her unsettled, and Elder Ying had left her sad, now she just felt sick. Nauseous and drawn, like the victims of the red fever when it had swept through Tonghou. She felt as if her body was tied down with immense weights. Her head pounded and even her qi felt sluggish and dull.

"Of course not."

"Hmph, no it wouldn't be. Too unpolished, an undefined domain feature."

Ling Qi's vision swam and returned.

Elder Jiao regarded her silently. His body seemed animate again, the shadows less dark. "You know I was listening girl. Here is another answer for you. Power is delusion. It is what men fool themselves into believing they have, that they may move the world. The true secret? They can't. Peasant, Lord, and Emperor alike, mortal, immortal ascended. Nothing fundamental changes anymore, not since the end of the age of myths, when the great laws were set. The pieces get shuffled around, the names change, the words change, but humans are humans and the world is the world. It always comes back to the same pattern, the formulation set by cultivation itself."

He sounded bitter, incredibly bitter. Ling Qi stared. Xin sighed.

"...We are definitely different," Ling Qi murmured.

"Why, because you will succeed?" Elder Jiao said sardonically.

"No," Ling Qi said. "Because I never believed I could change the world in the first place."

He paused, furrowing his brow.
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Leadership isn't about being an icon leading people on. It's about living your values. But the thing is, when you do that, people tend to notice and follow you, and then you end up a leader and a driver of change, without even meaning to.

Like with LQ here. Remember when we talked to Jiao in Paying Respects? She doesn't want to do what she thinks is right, even if she's the only person doing so. She's not an icon or a voice of fire or steel, but simply someone trying to do what they think is right, all the way back when she and Renxiang met the WS and thought "No. the AS will mess this up and cause war" and went to Shenhua to ask if they could lead the summitinstead. We were a voice unseen then. Everyone thought we'd mess up and fail.

Now. people, whether for or against the summit, are getting convinced because she's sincere and fair in all her dealings. They're getting pulled along. We're not the only unseen voice singing now, because others are starting to get convinced that, yeah, the summit can succeed too.

Ling Qi is, at her core, someone who's usually unseen, except her exceptional work and values are driving people to notice her and care about what she does. It's made her more powerful. It's made her more prominent. It's brought her to the forefront. But that's just by her being one of the few, people sticking by her nature and deciding that, "Yeah, we should give Communication a chance here."

[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.

Let's not replay the Bloody Moon tribulation, when we decided to side with a higher power with values against ours and join a horde of violence out of fear.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
 
[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.

I really think the "Soar is about giving up identity" posters are really missing the point. There are many analogies that can and have been made to showcase how both options are valid. Soar is all about owning the outcomes of one's choices, because power, to Ling Qi, is represented by and empowered through choice. But it's also about working in concert with those who's actions benefit your goals.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
Zeful said:
Soar is all about owning the outcomes of one's choices, because power, to Ling Qi, is represented by and empowered through choice. But it's also about working in concert with those who's actions benefit your goals.
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I don't see it really, besides she already has an insight about something similar I believe.
 
[X] She would skulk as was her wont, her nature. In the boiling mist and the burning labyrinth, she would be as a shadow, a voice singing unseen.
 
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