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.
Isn't the predecessor Art's Insight
That suggests that we would be teaching it to "act, change, move, think, and grow" beyond what it is now.
Or, to put it another way, we would be using the Wind Thief Art to steal the Cai dress and make it ours.
I think the thing that bugs me most about the vote, on a meta level, is that feeding potential insights/inspiration/etc into (future) spirits to buff them at, inescapably, personal opportunity cost feeds directly into the most toxic attitudes that Ling Qi has about working with other people.
And it doesn't make sense as something to do on principle here, because the expected role of the dress spirit is to empower Ling Qi; if she's sacrificing to make the dress stronger... so that the dress can make her stronger, she's just standing still with pretensions.
Fundamentally, that approach doesn't make them stronger as a team. It's the same amount of strength, molded into a vaguely teamwork shape. It doesn't pay any respect to the actual value and benefits of working together. It's a lie.
And it doesn't make sense as something to do on principle here, because the expected role of the dress spirit is to empower Ling Qi; if she's sacrificing to make the dress stronger... so that the dress can make her stronger, she's just standing still with pretensions.
Fundamentally, that approach doesn't make them stronger as a team. It's the same amount of strength, molded into a vaguely teamwork shape. It doesn't pay any respect to the actual value and benefits of working together. It's a lie.
If that's the intention, then it's poorly handled in this case and I reject the question.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Given what happened to the horned Lord when he tried that I don't think that is the direction this vote goes.
The horned Lord wasn't the object of the dress's jealous affections and given it freely by the Cai.
Having one's heart stolen isn't actually larceny and is generally not resented by the target as long as the relationship is healthy. This also isn't going to be a one time event or anything, its just that our path is sort of corrosive to coercion based control and walking it with us is going to result in a fairly independent dress.
Here's what I think should happen:
Ling Qi takes off the dress, does her training, gets her insight and uninterrupted philosophical exploration of the art's lessons. Then, she puts the dress back on and while heading home, using Wind Thief, the dress Reacts.
Everyone wins. Everything makes sense. Ling Qi influences the dress's development by being really good at a thing. There is constructive interaction between independent but like entities. The fundamental basis of spirit bonding is vindicated.
Worrying about the Cai, in either direction, seems a bit silly to me though. The issues at play are annoyingly vague, but they definitely don't include abstract Cai standing/control stuff.
Ling Qi takes off the dress, does her training, gets her insight and uninterrupted philosophical exploration of the art's lessons. Then, she puts the dress back on and while heading home, using Wind Thief, the dress Reacts.
Everyone wins. Everything makes sense. Ling Qi influences the dress's development by being really good at a thing. There is constructive interaction between independent but like entities. The fundamental basis of spirit bonding is vindicated.
Yeah, that's the other thing. If the dress is CAI PLOTS, and I don't think it's productive to entertain the notion in the context of this vote so whatever, then we're not going to be effecting any change of substance with our dinky Green 3 art. We're not gonna be able to corrupt the dress properly without direct Moon help; the art doesn't even have the Moon keyword yet.
Worrying about the Cai, in either direction, seems a bit silly to me though. The issues at play are annoyingly vague, but they definitely don't include abstract Cai standing/control stuff.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah; the notion that you can only empower your teammates by sacrificing your own potential strength is exactly what she has been working to reject.
Her domain conflict is rooted in the fear that fighting alongside others, taking their preferences into account and letting them handle things, will cause her to sacrifice her own potential for growth. And that is literally what is going on here! It's a really awkward framing.
I would dig that.
- Location
- Europe
I don't want to have to deal with more ZhenGui like thematics, where our way and arts don't fit with our spirits. Taking this chance to empower our spirit dress and tying it into our themes is only to the good. Further, giving the dress insight into Family as this Art might would go a long way to shaping a jealous spirit into something healthy and workable.
The thing is it doesn't really make sense for the spirit to not be influenced anyway. We aren't going to not be using Wind Thief while wearing the dress. We're going to be wearing the dress within minutes of concluding our cultivation, then using Wind Thief to jet around along with the dress!
Removing external aids to practice the movement art has a rational basis. The idea that the dress won't be influenced by the art if we don't jump on it now... basically doesn't. The very nature of arts requires the underlying philosophy to be present in the use of the art. There's no reasonable way the art doesn't influence the dress's development regardless.
There's no reasonable argument that the dress Ling Qi wears 24/7 and actively uses on a daily basis won't fit with her way and arts. It doesn't even make sense. Awkwardly transplanting issues analogous to those with Zhengui onto this situation does a disservice to Ling Qi, the dress, and Zhengui, and I really hope that's not what's going on here.
Removing external aids to practice the movement art has a rational basis. The idea that the dress won't be influenced by the art if we don't jump on it now... basically doesn't. The very nature of arts requires the underlying philosophy to be present in the use of the art. There's no reasonable way the art doesn't influence the dress's development regardless.
There's no reasonable argument that the dress Ling Qi wears 24/7 and actively uses on a daily basis won't fit with her way and arts. It doesn't even make sense. Awkwardly transplanting issues analogous to those with Zhengui onto this situation does a disservice to Ling Qi, the dress, and Zhengui, and I really hope that's not what's going on here.
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Pretty much, yeah. All the arguments for spirit/art integration and working to synergise with our dress and the dress reacting make just as much if not more sense as something to occur later, and as something for us to pursue once we've grasped the basics of the art.
If we had someone/thing informing us that doing it right from the start was a unique opportunity to create something new and special, then that would be one thing. But, uh, we don't. And what we know about, say, Meizhen's art integration is kinda the opposite.
If we had someone/thing informing us that doing it right from the start was a unique opportunity to create something new and special, then that would be one thing. But, uh, we don't. And what we know about, say, Meizhen's art integration is kinda the opposite.
- Location
- Earth
Sure, but mine wasn't. I wasn't arguing it would sabotage the cultivation. I was arguing it would influence it. And Cai is the current heir. See expected timeline for reaching White and other heirs being comfirmed on the way already.
Sure it does. You just have to understand it as the difference between playing as a team and playing on the same side. If Ling Qi learns to fly with the dress, her art will be integrated with it. Codependent and reinforcing.
That kind of flight will depend on the dress to work and work with the dress so both cooperate.
If she learns to fly on her own, then puts on the dress, she's flying on her own and carrying the dress.
In one case, two modes of flight mix into something else. In the other, you have two different, separate modes of flight. Get it?
It's the difference between building a twin engined craft, and two single engine craft. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
I disagree with this logic completely, because it applies completely different standards to Ling Qi and to the dress.
This is saying if the dress gets a bonus to flight, then it's teamwork, but if Ling Qi gets a bonus to flight, then it's not teamwork. It's silly.
The entire construction of only one or the other getting "the thing" is toxic to the notion of cooperation in the first place, and that's what we're faced with. The meta-framing right here and now is just terrible for it. The current context does not build towards a coherent narrative of mutual contribution.
But she's literally the community formed by her friends and family. One's Domain eventually becomes a more important part of them than one's own body and hers is her connection to her friends and family. Not taking their preferences into account and not letting them handle things is causing her to sacrifice her own potential for growth for an illusion of control.
She's not used to thinking in those terms but we have repeatedly been told this. Alingge came straight out and said it.
Of course that doesn't mean that the dress is either friend or family. She could just be a retainer given to us the Cai.
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His argument isn't even teamwork related. He's saying that you can't use two unrelated flight systems at once and expect them to work. Which is correct for any mundane aircraft. Learning the art separately from using the dress is like adding a new different engine on top of the one the plane already has.
At least I think that's what he's saying. If he's actually saying that having two separate engine systems on one plane is a good idea then he fully deserves your contempt.
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The dress's flight already operates on handwavium where the user's speed, regardless of its source, applies equally to flight modo.
The idea that it'd be less capable of working with its wearer after becoming significantly more powerful on awakening strikes me as unlikely to reflect reality.
That isn't what I wrote though? What I wrote is that the dress probably isn't capable of working with a flight art without teaching it how, since it has never done it.
Complementing its user's efforts is intrinsically part of its nature, though. I pointed to it already doing this natively with the speed of its flight as an example. If you know an art that lets you run fast, the dress can fly faster because of it. There's zero reason to expect a flight art to be any different. It naturally works with its user, that's what it's for, core to its purpose.
- Location
- Lost!
[X] Train Wind Thief while wearing your Cai Dress (-0.2 multiplier. Dress Reaction)
The Dress feels longer term than Wind Thief, to me. Renxiang slipping a thread of Liming into the dress feels...er, long term, and not a simple boost or whatever. Plus it'll carry all the way to Cyan, at least, so may as well strengthen our signature talisman.
The Dress feels longer term than Wind Thief, to me. Renxiang slipping a thread of Liming into the dress feels...er, long term, and not a simple boost or whatever. Plus it'll carry all the way to Cyan, at least, so may as well strengthen our signature talisman.
Moreover, "we'll probably want to spend time practicing using LFWT and our dress together" != "we have to do that right from the start before we even have a good grasp of how LFWT works".
Like, you might as well flip it around, and argue that by learning to use our dress's flight before training LFWT we've made our ability to use them together so much worse.
Like, you might as well flip it around, and argue that by learning to use our dress's flight before training LFWT we've made our ability to use them together so much worse.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Right, but my point is that the heart demon's narrative payoff is likely to be some sort of realization that "my strength or my family's strength" is a false dichotomy, as you said. Except that this vote is about trading off "my strength" vs "someone else's strength," at least if the people arguing that the dress will gain some sort of bonus are correct (the vote option is "art bonus"vs "dress reacts," so that's not guaranteed, but it does seem likely). And as Erebeal said:
Uh, I don't think that's correct? Both are pretty permanent to LQ. The dress is going to grow with us for pretty much forever, and same goes for SCS/LFWT/LFWT+. The themes present in those arts are pretty fundamental to Ling Qi and her domain, and we will presumably be building successor arts off them forever.
Both of them are going to stick with her until she ascends or dies.
- Location
- the internet
Well we won't be building a successor to this successor art but yes, they extremely important and essential to Ling Qi and her domain. They have been a huge narrative focus and the insights from those arts will likely last her until she ascends or dies.
Edit: Also who said that the just because the dress would be reacting, the art will definitely influence the dress? Or that the dress will be eating the cultivation bonus? Or that its deff gonna wake up this turn? None of this has been confirmed. All we know is its gonna "react" and we don't know what that will entail. People are making way too many assumptions. I thought it was implied that we wouldn't see the dress actually become a conscious spirit like Liming at least until the end of the Sect or the end of the year. Why are people talking about stuff like teamwork right now? Or the dress being offended by our not relying on it for flight? When I read the options, I imagined that the "reaction" would just be a preview or glimpse of the spirit that's to come. As if its stirring in its sleep. I've seen no reason to believe otherwise.
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- Location
- Staring into the void
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