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

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AbeoLogos said:
I'm going to float a probably controversial opinion. Liao Zhu is not a reliably beneficial contact in either the short or long term, and we should reprioritize the time seeking him out elsewhere if things continue on the same trajectory as they have.
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Oh, I agree. I think he works well in his current role, which is a commander/occasional mentor figure to LQ that there is inescapably a certain degree of distance from. I don't really see any need to try to pursue matters beyond that, or try to increase his narrative presence.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I'm going to float a probably controversial opinion. Liao Zhu is not a reliably beneficial contact in either the short or long term, and we should reprioritize the time seeking him out elsewhere if things continue on the same trajectory as they have.

Let's look at what we know about the man. He's a lunar cultivator who adheres to the Bloody and Twin moons, he believes strongly in justice, he's at the end of 3rd realm, a stealth and assassination specialist, he's highly ranked in the Outer Sect and presumably on track for Core Sect, and he belongs to a Viscount clan of physicians in the capital. Liao Zhu has a positive disposition towards Ling Qi.

As a lone agent he is quite skilled, but it is unlikely that we can take advantage of that for our own purposes except insofar as we are engaged in Sect missions. In the short term anyway. Though in the long-term, his ability to personally lend a hand outside of sharing rumors is probably even more limited since we'll be leaving the sect relatively soon, and he'll be tied up with duties to either the sect or his clan or both. He's almost certainly out of the age-range for the inter-sect competition. In terms of 1-on-1 benefits, I would rank him as unimpressive. This isn't because he's a bad teacher, but because we were always going to have an assigned mentor for field training, and nothing he's offered is remarkable. If all he's offered us is the baseline in tutelage we were always going to get from the sect, I see no reason that we should gamble on investing our time in him in the hopes that he offers more than he ever demonstrably has.

In terms of clan politics, his is already tightly within the orbit of the Cai. It's unclear how this would be useful, considering that is the arena where Cai Renxiang holds most sway, unless Cai Shenhua wants to deny that to her for some reason, in which case no relationship we form will prevail over the prohibition. A connection with a scion of the Liao doesn't offer Cai Renxiang a new resource, so far as I can tell. Flipped around, however, and Ling Qi's position at the ear of Cai Renxiang could be a big benefit to a guy with Liao Zhu's aspirations. We've seen him show curiosity in and test Ling Qi's character, which makes sense for him to do politically. However, I fail to see how this benefits us. At no point has Liao Zhu given any indication of furthering our political standing. What is he offering in return for the potential influence he can wield through us?

Of course, Liao Zhu is also influential in the sect due to his rank, at least in the Inner Sect, which needs to be taken into account. At no point have we become aware of him opening any doors for us though. Our access to and performance in our Sect military exercises is completely down to our own merit, without any substantial contribution or even relevant guidance on his part. There's no way he got us in on this mission, since we had Su Ling float our name, we're a sneak and it's a sneak mission, we already have relatively high knowledge of the underground among Inner Sect disciples, and Ji Rong got on the mission. Liao Zhu has not even introduced us to a single person in the Sect. In terms of short-term political advantage, he has yet to provide anything.

As far as I can tell, Liao Zhu hasn't provided Ling Qi with any benefit that wouldn't be expected of any trainer, he's shown no sign he really intends to, and the political prospects of befriending him are marginal given closeness of his clan to the Cai. Meanwhile, there's a lot of obvious benefit for him to cultivate the relationship, but he's only offered scraps of information and ambiguous insights. Remember, the one time we voted to go to him for advice, his response was that he didn't have an answer to our query. Heck, he hasn't even mentioned the ice women he spied to us, despite all the reasons we'd obviously find the subject extraordinarily interesting.

Liao Zhu is a skilled and effective disciple of the Argent Sect, but he isn't making it worth our time to invest in the relationship past the mandatory collaboration, during which he has provided us with very little of lasting substance. Further, it seems really unlikely that anything relevant and promising is going to come up in this conversation with Su Ling. We're just about to head off into the deep, there's few ways anything productive beyond the immediate circumstances can come up. Now, the conversation ought to address our immediate circumstances pretty well, but past that I expect it was a waste of time.
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Hot take. Next caller.
 
No, no, I agree with Abeologos. Look, Ice Mom could be chalked down to coincidence, but ever since Mount Muscles bit it, I've been counting down the days until the rest of our mentor figures croaked. That's just three more elders and our favorite tutors. Liao Zhu is too close to us to escape unscathed but having lost that arm it's possible he won't die if we don't stay too close to him.

*clutches fist dramatically close to heart* For the sake of Liao Zhu's continued health and well-being... *opens it and stares up into the sky, or rather ceiling* we must set him free!
 
We must get rid of bian ya , and ruan shen too I'm afraid. Too many senpais. They are right, all these unnecessary SL are just clogging the screen.

I'm sorry shen hu, guitar girl, fefe and wolf princess girl, your all useless now. We gotta prioritize. No more screen time for you.

It's a good thing too, more xuan screen time will allow us to break his heart. And we need to make sure bai only has time for us and not her new scary mean girlfriend *nods sagely*
 
Mr.rodent said:
We must get rid of bian ya , and ruan shen too I'm afraid. Too many senpais. They are right, all these unnecessary SL are just clogging the screen.

I'm sorry shen hu, guitar girl, fefe and wolf princess girl, your all useless now. We gotta prioritize. No more screen time for you.

It's a good thing too, more xuan screen time will allow us to break his heart. And we need to make sure bai only has time for us and not her new scary mean girlfriend *nods sagely*
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Bian Ya has actually backed us up in social situations, and the political situation concerning her family is in flux which makes it potentially useful. She's also actively looking for links to a wide variety of younger clans, which we could potentially piggyback/collaborate on while at the sect. Heck, we could be trying to score brownie points with her right now, but we chose to poke someone else to the exclusion of that.

Alingge represents a link to the tribes that could be valuable to Cai Renxiang because her links to them are few. We could potentially end up relatively close to them geographically post-sect too, though we have no way to really know.

The subplot Xiao Fen was introduced for regarding the Outer Sect and conflict with Sun Liling's faction ended up slipping through the cracks, so yeah there's no real reason to spend time with her moving forwards, at least until she hits the Inner Sect. We at least materially aided her in support of Meizhen.

Shen Hu, Ruan Shen, and Yu Nuan are low-level priorities, yes. If they pop up in some local matters, cool it's great to have them along, but otherwise they're neither strong, political, and/or connected enough to warrant a lot of focus. It's a bit off to bring up Shen Hu though when we already decided to not collaborate with him the last time we crossed paths. Wasn't even in preference to another SL.

We aren't at the sect just to mess around. We're supposed to be pursuing our own advancement, and in the past expanding our social circle has tended to help us offensively, defensively, materially, politically, or culturally/socially. Our relationship with Liao Zhu hasn't really advanced any of those.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
We aren't at the sect just to mess around. We're supposed to be pursuing our own advancement, and in the past expanding our social circle has tended to help us offensively, defensively, materially, politically, or culturally/socially. Our relationship with Liao Zhu hasn't really advanced any of those.
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I mean, I think he's been a good senpai in these military matters, which goes back to my point - that's fine. That's good. It works well. He doesn't need to be anything more than that.
 
I don't really mind Ling Qi making relationships because she enjoys such relationships. Moon sempai represents a lot of "what could have been" for Ling Qi, after all.

In this specific case however he is a bridge toward Su Ling's own issues. Given Su Ling is likely to be staying at the inner sect for at least a decade or so when it comes down to her time in the sect army, I feel like introducing them to each others is something that could help the both of them, as even as a new core disciple Liao Zhu would still probably find someone with Su Ling's particular skillset interesting to know (and Su Ling would benefit greatly from knowing him).

However, yes, trying to maximise time to see people who are relevant for our goals is important, but also trying to see people who actually are interesting is equally important to my mind. Even if Liao Zhu never actually helps Ling Qi or becomes someone who opens door to her and stay relevant post sect, he is still someone who shares things with Ling Qi and whom she appreciates.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I'm going to float a probably controversial opinion. Liao Zhu is not a reliably beneficial contact in either the short or long term, and we should reprioritize the time seeking him out elsewhere if things continue on the same trajectory as they have.

Let's look at what we know about the man. He's a lunar cultivator who adheres to the Bloody and Twin moons, he believes strongly in justice, he's at the end of 3rd realm, a stealth and assassination specialist, he's highly ranked in the Inner Sect and presumably on track for Core Sect, and he belongs to a Viscount clan of physicians in the capital. Liao Zhu has a positive disposition towards Ling Qi.

As a lone agent he is quite skilled, but it is unlikely that we can take advantage of that for our own purposes except insofar as we are engaged in Sect missions. In the short term anyway. Though in the long-term, his ability to personally lend a hand outside of sharing rumors is probably even more limited since we'll be leaving the sect relatively soon, and he'll be tied up with duties to either the sect or his clan or both. He's almost certainly out of the age-range for the inter-sect competition. In terms of 1-on-1 benefits, I would rank him as unimpressive. This isn't because he's a bad teacher, but because we were always going to have an assigned mentor for field training, and nothing he's offered is remarkable. If all he's offered us is the baseline in tutelage we were always going to get from the sect, I see no reason that we should gamble on investing our time in him in the hopes that he offers more than he ever demonstrably has.

In terms of clan politics, his is already tightly within the orbit of the Cai. It's unclear how this would be useful, considering that is the arena where Cai Renxiang holds most sway, unless Cai Shenhua wants to deny that to her for some reason, in which case no relationship we form will prevail over the prohibition. A connection with a scion of the Liao doesn't offer Cai Renxiang a new resource, so far as I can tell. Flipped around, however, and Ling Qi's position at the ear of Cai Renxiang could be a big benefit to a guy with Liao Zhu's aspirations. We've seen him show curiosity in and test Ling Qi's character, which makes sense for him to do politically. However, I fail to see how this benefits us. At no point has Liao Zhu given any indication of furthering our political standing. What is he offering in return for the potential influence he can wield through us?

As far as I can tell, Liao Zhu hasn't provided Ling Qi with any benefit that wouldn't be expected of any trainer, he's shown no sign he really intends to, and the political prospects of befriending him are marginal given closeness of his clan to the Cai. Meanwhile, there's a lot of obvious benefit for him to cultivate the relationship, but he's only offered scraps of information and ambiguous insights. Remember, the one time we voted to go to him for advice, his response was that he didn't have an answer to our query. Heck, he hasn't even mentioned the ice women he spied to us, despite all the reasons we'd obviously find the subject extraordinarily interesting.
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I wouldn't dismiss the internal politics of those clans close to the Cai as irrelevant outside of what Shenhua says. Yes, we've been told repeatedly that 'there are no shadows' or 'she sees all', but the very existence of Linqin tells us that there's at least one person within that orbit who could act against us outside of Shenhua's own wishes.

I think you're ascribing a bit too much to CRX's sway and (ironically enough considering what you've previously said) too much to how much Shenhua cares about us. Just because CRX has more sway than us, doesn't make our own addition irrelevant. If Shenhua decides to limit Renxiang's power for a task, our relative ability to help should increase unless Shenhua for some reason explicitly limits our ability as well.
And if she doesn't, then CRX's status as a young master by definition limits her sway, enough so that we can still be relevant, even if only by the connections we've made.

Basically fuck you, Moon senpai best senpai. :V
 
I'm not terribly attached to Moonbro, so I wouldn't mind spending less time on him. But I disagree that our relationships need to be judged by how beneficial they are to us. Relationships for relationships' sake are worth something, too.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I'm going to float a probably controversial opinion. Liao Zhu is not a reliably beneficial contact in either the short or long term, and we should reprioritize the time seeking him out elsewhere if things continue on the same trajectory as they have.

Let's look at what we know about the man. He's a lunar cultivator who adheres to the Bloody and Twin moons, he believes strongly in justice, he's at the end of 3rd realm, a stealth and assassination specialist, he's highly ranked in the Inner Sect and presumably on track for Core Sect, and he belongs to a Viscount clan of physicians in the capital. Liao Zhu has a positive disposition towards Ling Qi.

As a lone agent he is quite skilled, but it is unlikely that we can take advantage of that for our own purposes except insofar as we are engaged in Sect missions. In the short term anyway. Though in the long-term, his ability to personally lend a hand outside of sharing rumors is probably even more limited since we'll be leaving the sect relatively soon, and he'll be tied up with duties to either the sect or his clan or both. He's almost certainly out of the age-range for the inter-sect competition. In terms of 1-on-1 benefits, I would rank him as unimpressive. This isn't because he's a bad teacher, but because we were always going to have an assigned mentor for field training, and nothing he's offered is remarkable. If all he's offered us is the baseline in tutelage we were always going to get from the sect, I see no reason that we should gamble on investing our time in him in the hopes that he offers more than he ever demonstrably has.

In terms of clan politics, his is already tightly within the orbit of the Cai. It's unclear how this would be useful, considering that is the arena where Cai Renxiang holds most sway, unless Cai Shenhua wants to deny that to her for some reason, in which case no relationship we form will prevail over the prohibition. A connection with a scion of the Liao doesn't offer Cai Renxiang a new resource, so far as I can tell. Flipped around, however, and Ling Qi's position at the ear of Cai Renxiang could be a big benefit to a guy with Liao Zhu's aspirations. We've seen him show curiosity in and test Ling Qi's character, which makes sense for him to do politically. However, I fail to see how this benefits us. At no point has Liao Zhu given any indication of furthering our political standing. What is he offering in return for the potential influence he can wield through us?

Of course, Liao Zhu is also influential in the sect due to his rank, at least in the Inner Sect, which needs to be taken into account. At no point have we become aware of him opening any doors for us though. Our access to and performance in our Sect military exercises is completely down to our own merit, without any substantial contribution or even relevant guidance on his part. There's no way he got us in on this mission, since we had Su Ling float our name, we're a sneak and it's a sneak mission, we already have relatively high knowledge of the underground among Inner Sect disciples, and Ji Rong got on the mission. Liao Zhu has not even introduced us to a single person in the Sect. In terms of short-term political advantage, he has yet to provide anything.

As far as I can tell, Liao Zhu hasn't provided Ling Qi with any benefit that wouldn't be expected of any trainer, he's shown no sign he really intends to, and the political prospects of befriending him are marginal given closeness of his clan to the Cai. Meanwhile, there's a lot of obvious benefit for him to cultivate the relationship, but he's only offered scraps of information and ambiguous insights. Remember, the one time we voted to go to him for advice, his response was that he didn't have an answer to our query. Heck, he hasn't even mentioned the ice women he spied to us, despite all the reasons we'd obviously find the subject extraordinarily interesting.

Liao Zhu is a skilled and effective disciple of the Argent Sect, but he isn't making it worth our time to invest in the relationship past the mandatory collaboration, during which he has provided us with very little of lasting substance. Further, it seems really unlikely that anything relevant and promising is going to come up in this conversation with Su Ling. We're just about to head off into the deep, there's few ways anything productive beyond the immediate circumstances can come up. Now, the conversation ought to address our immediate circumstances pretty well, but past that I expect it was a waste of time.
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You aren't technically wrong, but this calculative way of seeing relationships as pros and cons literally goes against Ling Qi's Way. (also, basic human instincts, which influence votes, but I am arguing in character here). Dropping someone because they are no longer useful is literally more dangerous and harmful than the average battle for Ling Qi.
 
He's ascribing too much importance to it. Liao Zhu only shows up in the context of military exercises and training; it's not like we seek Liao Zhu out for SL scenes, and in fact, he's not available as an option. It's pretty clear that the Su Ling and Liao Zhu vote isn't for the benefit of Ling Qi (or even Liao Zhu). It's a short-term and potentially long-term benefit for Su Ling.
 
It never hurts to have friends in odd places and moon bro is in the inner circle of Cai so I don't see the reason to cut him out of our life, plus we can always trade some secrets now and then since he's a super sneak and the name of the game here is to forge bonds in Threads.
Also he can teach us more about the barbs and soul bonding with our spirits.
As for seeking out advice from him last time, Qi was obviously scarred by the experience of killing multiple people from the bandits he handled it extremely well imo giving her advice by getting her to think if the lives she takes are worth it for a cause.
 
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Karnax626 said:
I wouldn't dismiss the internal politics of those clans close to the Cai as irrelevant outside of what Shenhua says. Yes, we've been told repeatedly that 'there are no shadows' or 'she sees all', but the very existence of Linqin tells us that there's at least one person within that orbit who could act against us outside of Shenhua's own wishes.

I think you're ascribing a bit too much to CRX's sway and (ironically enough considering what you've previously said) too much to how much Shenhua cares about us. Just because CRX has more sway than us, doesn't make our own addition irrelevant. If Shenhua decides to limit Renxiang's power for a task, our relative ability to help should increase unless Shenhua for some reason explicitly limits our ability as well.
And if she doesn't, then CRX's status as a young master by definition limits her sway, enough so that we can still be relevant, even if only by the connections we've made.

Basically fuck you, Moon senpai best senpai. :V
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It's in keeping with my broader Cai stances. Ling Qi is directly politically subordinate to Cai Renxiang. If Shenhua decides to place a block on information to Renxiang, nobody handed that prohibition is going to tell Ling Qi anything either, because she is so very clearly and closely synonymous to Cai Renxiang's intel apparatus. The situation with the Bao and Wang is something we can help with because it's not Shenhua telling the Bao and the Wang not to tell us anything, she doesn't have that authority and it doesn't make sense in context, it's her telling Cai intel resources not to share anything with Renxiang. Renxiang could also seek out clan scions for information perfectly fine, she just delegated the tasks to us. A capital-based Viscount clan is much more firmly under Shenhua's thumb, it's not a comparable situation.

Katreus said:
He's ascribing too much importance to it. Liao Zhu only shows up in the context of military exercises and training; it's not like we seek Liao Zhu out for SL scenes, and in fact, he's not available as an option. It's pretty clear that the Su Ling and Liao Zhu vote isn't for the benefit of Ling Qi (or even Liao Zhu). It's a short-term and potentially long-term benefit for Su Ling.
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While I think it's a shame that we're not using this opportunity to deepen our understanding of any of the more relevant characters present who are going to be in our more kind of relevant orbit moving forwards over the next year plus, I'm actually speaking more broadly than the immediate situation. I do hope Liao Zhu continues to not be available for SL scenes. The one time he was, it was a waste of our time.

The idea that Su Ling gains a lasting contact out of this conversation strikes me as possible but implausible.
 
Hmm. Can't say I find "This option doesn't provide long term use" super persuasive here, that's not really what this choice is about.
 
If Su Ling and Liao Zhu hit it off in an enduring way, that would be nice, but it's a stretch goal. Moon Team hangouts seemed like a good way to help Su Ling chill, because she seems to be one of the people who, under stress, mostly wants to talk about something else while she processes it internally. We're her friend, and he's a senpai who has provided us with relevant guidance (and also eye candy). They're both tied to the Bloody Moon, after all; it makes sense to make the introduction and talk Moon-shop for a bit.

Also, if they hang out, Justice Bat might come out to fangirl at him, and that would be adorable.
 
I'd kind of expect the bat to be particularly wary around Liao Zhu, honestly. Someone whose whole deal is passing judgement on others isn't really less of a threat, after all.
 
Actually, when I went back to check on stuff, I found a continuity error. In Forge of Destiny, Su Ling's bat is male:
yrsillar said:
"What an adorable little guy!" Sixiang gushed, as her friends new spirit popped his head up out of her hair. The spirit, a black furred bat with red markings, it's whole body no bigger than her hand, had apparently taken a liking to clinging to the back of his binders neck, hidden underneath the vulpine girls somewhat untidy tresses.

"Is that why you've been growing out your hair?" Ling Qi asked, amused at the picture that had been presented to her.
"No, he's just a stubborn little fuzzball," Su Ling grumbled. "He doesn't like staying in spiritual form, and he won't go off on his own either," she continued. A moment later, her ears twitched, and she sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You want to watch my back."
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But in Threads, Cibei is female:
yrsillar said:
"Please do not shorten my name Master, I am proud to be Cibei, the mercy which raise up those trodden upon by injustice!" The little bat said with a frustrated squeak. Though she early second realm now, the spirit hadn't grown much larger, wasn't the type for it, and that suited Su Ling just fine.

"Just fuckin with ya," she snorted, looking back down at her sword. With a sigh, she tucked the whetstone away, she was just going to damage her blade if she kept going. "I know we helped people, don't need you being my hype girl."
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Pinging @yrsillar for attention to this.

Anyway, my read was that the bat would like him because of this:
yrsillar said:
"Avenging Crescent Bats are paranoid little guys," Sixiang mused. "Your friend must have a pretty strong sense of justice to snag one."
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And given that Liao Zhu's whole deal is "I want to ascend so that I can bend the Bloody Moon closer to the concept of justice," that seemed like a beautiful friendship in the making. But I guess it could go the other way, if their senses of justice are sufficiently distinct or his attitude towards fulfilling it doesn't suit the bat.
 
picklepikkl said:
Actually, when I went back to check on stuff, I found a continuity error. In Forge of Destiny, Su Ling's bat is male:

But in Threads, Cibei is female:

Pinging @yrsillar for attention to this.

Anyway, my read was that the bat would like him because of this:

And given that Liao Zhu's whole deal is "I want to ascend so that I can bend the Bloody Moon closer to the concept of justice," that seemed like a beautiful friendship in the making. But I guess it could go the other way, if their senses of justice are sufficiently distinct or his attitude towards fulfilling it doesn't suit the bat.
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Yeeeeaaaaahh, about that.

We also noticed that too when Su Ling's interlude came up. Pretty sure yrs forgot about that small detail so now he confirmed that Cibei's a girl now

Edit:
Discord stuff about Cibei said:
sexy mouse:
Wait wasnt cibei a boy

Fallen and Heretical Banana:
That's what Cibei wants you to think

sexy mouse:
No I mean when it was first introduced it was a boy spirit i thought

Yeah he was a boy that got gender swapped lol
Yrs made a booboo

Eternal_Observer:
@ Yrsillar is Cibei officially a boy or a girl? (continuing mouse's inquiry)

Yrsillar:
I was worried that I'd changed gender there
I'll edit the FoD stuff
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