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

[Erebeal]

So is anyone else up for some nice, restful, uncomplicated dungeon crawling with Li Suyin next turn?

No trying to work out what the hell is going on and who we should fight with no information. No bullshit moral quandries where suicide that would change nothing is the correct answer, no super enemies, no trap offers or shitty last minute twists to ruin an otherwise interesting character piece. Just Ling Qi, Li Suyin and rooms upon rooms full of traps and things to kill and loot.

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Oh, I'm super in favor of Suyin.

Zeqing I feel could do with having build up and foreshadowing in story. It's possible we'll get some Zeqing this turn to set that up, but I feel a trial from her would work really well as something to do as a "ok, you've mastered FVM and FSS to the limits of your ability - time to test you" kinda thing. Mostly though I just want build up to it to make it stronger in the story.

Suyin and Xuan Shi could both work next, however Suyin has already been set up in story. We know her timetable there - leaving her hanging for months would just seem kinda weird. Xuan Shi otoh hasn't actually asked us that favor yet, and could ask us whenever in narrative. There's nothing pushing for it to happen now.

That being said, after this arc it seems like we're going to be getting Sixiang options, and they would obviously follow on quite strongly here. Sixiang seemed pretty distraught about how this went down.

Hmm, depending on what else is going on and how intense they are I'd probably like to do Suyin and Sixiang in an ideal world...

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

Yeah, no. Trying to do therapy with/under a overemotional person is a bad idea. CRX being less emotional than a rock is a good thing for us in this case.

Obviously, the best option would be if the Sect had some psychological counselors or other help that works as therapists. When you are an organisation that's teaching teens in the middle of puberty how to (ab)use phenomenal cosmic powers to fight against monsters it's probably a "good idea" to have good therapists on hand. I mean with literally supernatural arts for it they would pretty damn effective.

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I mean I didn't say we should go find some emotional basketcase? Second, it's not like CRX is a little cold, she has such a difficult time understanding interpersonal dynamics her equivalent of "lets be friends" is "Be my vassal, your loyalty is ++!"

Again I like CRX a lot but I don't think she is equipped to help us get over something deeply personal like this. She just doesn't have the tools.

If we only get to redo the last decision, I would definitely have asked to spare Shen Hu instead. It might have cost us, but it probably wouldn't have cost us that much, and at least we could come out of it confident in our own principles.

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The king probably would have just laughed and randomly chose for us. From a moral perspective it probably would have been the right thing to do, but Ling Qi stumbling on the road to not wanting to be a street rat anymore is probably better in the long run.

 

[Erebeal]

I mean I didn't say we should go find some emotional basketcase? Second, it's not like CRX is a little cold, she has such a difficult time understanding interpersonal dynamics her equivalent of "lets be friends" is "Be my vassal, your loyalty is ++!"

Again I like CRX a lot but I don't think she is equipped to help us get over something deeply personal like this. She just doesn't have the tools.

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I would say that philosophically discussing these issues with her is really important though. They are very much related to our relationship with her and our goals.

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

Mmmm, I agree that the penalty can't be a punishment.

The shaken status isn't some penalty an outside force is placing on us. It's a contradiction of self. It's a flaw in the way we're cultivating, where way isn't just some concept you're internalizing but the fullness of self. No one penalized LQ, she penalized herself. LQ has deliberately cultivated a mindset that she doesn't have to make choices out of fear or harm other people to preserve herself, and she also has developed an aversion to violence without justification. These were both contradicted by her choices and experiences in the dream.

This isn't to do with justice, with expectations of a cultivator, with Cai, or even with right and wrong as it relates to the world. It's about Ling Qi herself. It's about making choices that affirm who she has been cultivating, because there's nothing more damaging to a cultivator than very literally building yourself one way then breaking yourself a different way. Nothing the king could have done to us would be more damaging than that, if the lesson isn't learned.

And we stand to keep that in mind going forward. This is a very important lesson to learn now, one that's understated by the mere 0.1 penalty.

 

[CallMeIsmail]

"Because I need to understand, if I am to survive," the words came to her lips unbidden. "Even if I am small, my actions can affect the paths of the mighty and draw their attention."

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I don't think this is saying "I am here to influence the King". The important part is "I need to understand, if I am to survive", with the latter sentence being a justification for why knowledge of the greater powers is a matter of survival. Essentially, she's saying that she's there to learn more about the conflict because it could affect her some day if she draws the attention of a power. What it's betraying is that LQ is still in a more Hidden Moon mindset and doesn't really care about the Bloody Moon's ideals. The reason why the Bloody Moon was unhappy with us is because we basically tried to game the simulation by picking all of the pro-Vengeance options despite the fact that neither LQ nor any of the voters particularly cared about that ideal. Shen Hu, on the other hand, stuck to some basic principles and seems to have left it better off.

In terms of what could have been:
Picking the Prince is a huge unknown. Choosing to leave would have been a more overt Hidden Moon action. On one hand, that's not what the Bloody Moon wants, on the other hand it would have a been a more honest decision.
Choosing to go the village could be interpreted as LQ taking an honest and altruistic act for the benefit of the mortals, or it could have actually run into similar issues of honesty. Would LQ have really cared about her duty to the mortals or would she have just been doing what she thought the Sect/Empire wanted her to do? I think it would have been a better option regardless but I'm sceptical of claims that it would have led to a Perfect Run or anything of that sort.
The final vote was pretty straightforward. Voters went for the shiny and justified themselves saying that the choice to save Shen Hu would have been meaningless because he can run away, and that the King would never agree to spare the mortals. Were they right? Maybe. But it was a "cowardly choice" in a lot of respects. I'm kinda in agreement with @Deadly Snark in that voting for Shen Hu probably would have worked out better.

I'm honestly completely bemused by the rhetoric about whether or not we "failed the event". It's quite blatantly not a binary thing, and I'm not sure if any of the events in this quest are. The consequences are quite apparent, we get some pretty textbook boons for doing Vengeance good but are punished for quite obviously not buying into the Bloody Moon despite following its path all the way through. I think whether or not we successfully "learn our lesson" (referring both to the thread and LQ) depends entirely on future development of LQ's trauma. Like, I think @Katreus has a point in saying that if another scenario like this happened right now we'd fuck it up in the exact same way, but I suspect that LQ's upcoming development and responses to this event will affect, if not our judgement, at least the framing of choices (i.e. LQ's narration) and the choices available to us.

Part of the problem here seems to me to be the whole "story vs game" issue that was kinda going on before the update. So if you're occupied with "what's best for LQ" as the goal of your votes and the quest, her obviously backsliding here is quite blatantly a failure and the result of wrongvoting. On the other hand, if you're like me and just want to read interesting shit, this update was great and the choices worked out in a fun way, hence some voters' lack of regrets.

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

I would say that philosophically discussing these issues with her is really important though. They are very much related to our relationship with her and our goals.

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I agree with that, just maybe in a bit when we aren't just done tripping balls on moon vengeance and full of self hatred.

 

[065tdsa]

The shaken status isn't some penalty an outside force is placing on us. It's a contradiction of self. It's a flaw in the way we're cultivating, where way isn't just some concept you're internalizing but the fullness of self. No one penalized LQ, she penalized herself. LQ has deliberately cultivated a mindset that she doesn't have to make choices out of fear or harm other people to preserve herself, and she also has developed an aversion to violence without justification. These were both contradicted by her choices and experiences in the dream.

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And you think a great spirit can't do that to us deliberately? The traumatic event and subsequent conversation where the ones that created the enduring contradiction, not our actions in a simulation.

 

[Erebeal]

I agree with that, just maybe in a bit when we aren't just done tripping balls on moon vengeance and full of self hatred.

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Yeah, she's definitely not the first person I'd want to talk to about this.

 

[Timewinders]

Honestly I feel pretty sour about this whole sequence. Too much grasping for any sort of information with no actual clues and only getting any real info when it's too late to do anything about it.

So is anyone else up for some nice, restful, uncomplicated dungeon crawling with Li Suyin next turn?

No trying to work out what the hell is going on and who we should fight with no information. No bullshit moral quandries where suicide that would change nothing is the correct answer, no super enemies, no trap offers or shitty last minute twists to ruin an otherwise interesting character piece. Just Ling Qi, Li Suyin and rooms upon rooms full of traps and things to kill and loot.

It sounds wonderful to me.

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Agreed. And then Ling Qi gets gaslighted by Bloody Moon into believing she's a bad person or something. Even though the people in the dream weren't real, Shen Hu realistically should have been able to take care of himself, and it would have just been plain irrational to piss off a white-level shade. I would have voted to ask for Shen Hu to be pardoned if I'd had the chance to vote this time around but let's face it, LQ was in a no-win situation and she doesn't deserve to be shamed, tortured, and humiliated by an evil spirit for making the "wrong" choice in a difficult situation where she had next to no information. Like would it have killed the King to explain what his blessings actually were?

This whole experience has only left me with one lesson: Aside from the ones bound to humans, spirits simply cannot be trusted or relied on. Even the most tyrannical humans like Cai Shenhua are less capricious. Maybe the Weilu guy was in the right all along.

 

[Alectai]

Agreed, talking to RenRen is something we want to do in this particular character arc, but not the first thing we should do.

The whole disconnect between Ling Qi and Cai Renxiang is that RenRen doesn't really know how to explain herself, she talks about Justice, but has a hard time articulating why this is a good thing to others when it just comes innately to her. Ling Qi likes the idea of Justice but doesn't know what it actually means, because she's not really seen it.

For any conversation on the topic between the two to be fruitful at all, Ling Qi needs to have an embyronic idea of what "Justice" actually means to her. Ideally, it can't be identical to the highly legalistic view Renxiang has (Which is pretty good on the whole, but tends to fail in the face of externalities--which is exactly what she hopes us to help with)

But we're actively thinking about it now, which means that it should be coming up in other interactions.

I will say this though. Bai Meizhen is absolutely the last person we should talk to on the topic. She is very firmly on the Traditional Interpretation of Vengeance, and as we just saw, that doesn't work for Ling Qi.

 

[minimap_op]

So I think the idea that Ling Qi should've asked to spare at least Shen Hu as part of her attempt to steer the greater being like she said learning to was her reasoning for meeting the King is correct in terms of getting the most out of this dream or trial or whatever. That said I think it's pretty clear that the reasons the thread didn't vote to do that was a combination of not thinking Ling Qi is socially skilled enough that she could succeed and thinking Shen Hu wouldn't be too fucked up by the end of this, so a matter of capability and risk assessment on the part of the thread. Ling Qi and thread divergence in terms of reasoning is pretty normal so seeing that not being her reasoning is pretty normal though I think most didn't expect this degree of split. The people telling the rest of the thread that they voted based on cowardice are basically just stirring shit and should stop telling other people why they made the decisions they did.

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

And you think a great spirit can't do that to us deliberately? The traumatic event and subsequent conversation where the ones that created the enduring contradiction, not our actions in a simulation.

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I do think our actions created the enduring contradiction, yes. It was very clear from Ling Qi's own thoughts that she chose to take an action along the mindset of a street rat out of fear. I don't see what the Bloody Moon has to do with that choice.

The great spirit said herself that it's up to us to find meaning, which includes this kind of introspection. You can see that Shen Hu reinforced his own way through his actions, even though those actions did not succeed. The great spirit created a situation in the dream, but both Ling Qi and Shen Hu navigated it through their choices, not through being forced to do anything.

 

[CatOnTheWeb]

I liked the update. I think it went well. It was a very clear outline of how far Ling Qi has progressed, and how far she has yet to go.

A year ago, when Ling Qi confronted the spider spirit during Zhou's second test, she made this argument.

"I'd make those decisions again if the situation was the same," she added in a slightly more subdued voice. "That doesn't mean I'd do the same if I had more choices."

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The thing is that, with time to think on it, her argument is somewhat wrong. She had more choices back then, they just weren't real to her. Back then, her choices laid on two axes: Chance of Survival and Effect on Others. When she was a street rat, others didn't matter to her. It was only survival. The rest of her time after the test was spent working on caring about others, and so that second axis gained more weight in her decision making. She stood by an injured Bai Meizhen when they were ambushed by others. She gave up a potential reward for her friend without a second thought. She rushed to Gu Xiulan's aid during Sun Liling's attack. But, when it came to the lives of others, of people who she didn't actually know, they still meant nothing to her.

Had she really changed at all?

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No she hasn't, because when faced with the King of the Forests her choices again laid on two axes: Chance of Survival and Effect on Others. But Effect on Others was small, with barely any weight because it only valued a rank 0 acquaintance and a bunch of nameless villagers.

Ling Qi's not Su Ling. She's not Gan Guangli. She's not Shen Hu. She's not as noble as Li Suyin sees her to be. She's a little girl still learning to care about others.

But, from every failure she can grow, and take the lessons of failure with her.

 

[CallMeIsmail]

So I think the idea that Ling Qi should've asked to spare at least Shen Hu as part of her attempt to steer the greater being like she said learning to was her reasoning for meeting the King is correct in terms of getting the most out of this dream or trial or whatever. That said I think it's pretty clear that the reasons the thread didn't vote to do that was a combination of not thinking Ling Qi is socially skilled enough that she could succeed and thinking Shen Hu wouldn't be too fucked up by the end of this, so a matter of capability and risk assessment on the part of the thread. Ling Qi and thread divergence in terms of reasoning is pretty normal so seeing that not being her reasoning is pretty normal though I think most didn't expect this degree of split. The people telling the rest of the thread that they voted based on cowardice are basically just stirring shit and should stop telling other people why they made the decisions they did.

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I think "cowardice" is a loaded but not inaccurate interpretation of the winning vote's logic. The consensus was basically "Oh shit this White is not to be fucked with, let's just go with the flow, I'm sure Shen Hu will be fine and it's not like we can do anything about it anyway". Given the circumstances, it's an entirely reasonable and realistic conclusion to make but it's not very brave. Cowardice isn't really a bad thing.

 

[Varder]

Because LQ isn't suited to the Bloody Moon, her personality and opinions on stuff are a straight up terrible match for it. So rather than let LQ ruin herself slowly she showed her the end of the path straight off and saved her from it.

Shit, I'm probably reading too much into it, but that's my take on it at least.

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Soo... should we now treat every Blood Moon follower as a person who would willingly, happily and repetitively take part in wanton slaughter started by some slight/insult/transgression?

 

[Ayashi]

I mean I didn't say we should go find some emotional basketcase? Second, it's not like CRX is a little cold, she has such a difficult time understanding interpersonal dynamics her equivalent of "lets be friends" is "Be my vassal, your loyalty is ++!"

Again I like CRX a lot but I don't think she is equipped to help us get over something deeply personal like this. She just doesn't have the tools.

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Heh, it's more an issue of what other options we have.
Trying to solve it alone is a usual trope for stories but is a horrible choice in real life, it's the option that leaves you with the trauma for years if not your whole life. Not sure which option yrsillar will pick here...
Then of our other friends we have :
Bai Meizhen: Rank 4 : Bai meizhen ? yeah no.
Gu Xiulan: Rank 4 : overly emotional right there. Thinks borderline suicide is great for a power up.
Li Suyin: Rank 3 : for all the meek mouse image she gives she is also extremely vicious in her revenge. she would have no issue siding with BM here. Maybe an option but she borderline worships Ling Qi so ... no.
Ling Qingge: Rank 3 : entirely cut off from our world. And was never in a position to even pretend being able to inflict anything as vengeance upon others so kind of pointless too.
Shen Hu: Rank 1 : i think we already know his point of view on the issue and it's not really helping.
Xuan Shi: Rank 1 : maybe ? if he can stop talking in riddles for a few minutes, but i doubt it.
Zeqing: Rank 3 : in outer sect but we can meet her. She's a spirit too, we already pushed her a lot and i'd rather not push further since (for some reason) the thread wants to take her daughter. As i see it her responce will mostly be "spirits be spirits, mon".
Zhengui: Rank 4 : clueless son isn't going to help here. if anything it'd inflict an other trauma upon him instead. Good for some cuddling ? sure. But not for psychiatric help.

unavailable due to being in outer sect
Gan Guangli: Rank 1 :
Han Jian: Rank 2
Su Ling: Rank 2

So yeah, of our friends i think CRX would be the best option. Not a "good" option, simply the best we have in regards of vengeance, justice and the effects of

Better yet would be a sect therapist that's actually trained for this and has arts relevant to the issue.

Soo... should we now treat every Blood Moon follower as a person who would willingly, happily and repetitively take part in wanton slaughter started by some slight/insult/transgression?

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That's actually a good question.
But i think Shen Hu disproves this idea.

 

[PrimalShadow]

So you'd want to change further back if possible then?

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I think the best option would have been to take the neutral choice at the beginning and go look at what was going on with the mortals immediately. Other acceptable options would have been to avoid the King encounter in the first place, or ask to spare Shen Hu if that option was available. What we did was probably not the worst option (something like the "ask to spare the mortals" choice had the risk of being that, I think), but I definitely wish we had done something else at any step before this.

 

[Zaealix]

Soo... should we now treat every Blood Moon follower as a person who would willingly, happily and repetitively take part in wanton slaughter started by some slight/insult/transgression?

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That's not even what the Blood Moon HERSELF likes, I think. Though that might be what she's been molded into nowadays.
Her thing is about Righteous Vengance, and the problem is we just went along with the slaughter instead of trying to stand against the tide of death, I'm pretty sure.

It might also be that Ling Qi goes to talk to someone knowledgable like Elder Sister Mountainmoving (I forgot her name again...) And while letting Ling Qi cry out the tears from the incident, she gives a way to make sense of the whole 'rat race of destruction' thing that isn't as unpleasant for Ling Qi to stomach.

 

[DeAnno]

That being said, after this arc it seems like we're going to be getting Sixiang options, and they would obviously follow on quite strongly here. Sixiang seemed pretty distraught about how this went down.

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I am much more pro-Sixiang. This was a pretty surprising take on things by Sixiang to me, and I think if anything is going to help Ling Qi resolve this it'll be Sixiang since she actually has some idea what's wrong. After being relatively distant all the time we've known her this is the first time we've seen Sixiang really open up and I think exploring it is going to not just be key to her arc but to keeping her around long term.

I would be pretty averse to any of the other options, honestly. This seems to take precedence.

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

Soo... should we now treat every Blood Moon follower as a person who would willingly, happily and repetitively take part in wanton slaughter started by some slight/insult/transgression?

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How many crunches do they do a day?

 

[Floom]

I mean, we could try and see if our Moon Tutor is available.

He's a follower of both the Bloody and Twin Moons, so if anyone could at least offer some insightful commentary on just what the Bloody Moon was doing, and how to deal with it, he's probably ideal.

Problem is, he's probably Core Sect by now, so we'd need to get tutoring from him. Luckily, he's pretty easy to get as a Tutor thanks to him being one of the only other Moon Cultivators in the Sect.

 

[Timewinders]

So I think the idea that Ling Qi should've asked to spare at least Shen Hu as part of her attempt to steer the greater being like she said learning to was her reasoning for meeting the King is correct in terms of getting the most out of this dream or trial or whatever. That said I think it's pretty clear that the reasons the thread didn't vote to do that was a combination of not thinking Ling Qi is socially skilled enough that she could succeed and thinking Shen Hu wouldn't be too fucked up by the end of this, so a matter of capability and risk assessment on the part of the thread. Ling Qi and thread divergence in terms of reasoning is pretty normal so seeing that not being her reasoning is pretty normal though I think most didn't expect this degree of split. The people telling the rest of the thread that they voted based on cowardice are basically just stirring shit and should stop telling other people why they made the decisions they did.

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Yeah, I didn't even vote this time around but if one choice is always going to be the "right" choice and one choice is always going to be the "wrong" choice then why even have a vote at all? Yes, there can be a series of choices which when made in sequence are counterproductive. But here we were working with limited information and had no truly good choices available. So I don't really appreciate the lecturing both in-story and in-thread on how people made the "wrong" choices. It's like lecturing to someone who made the "wrong" choice on the trolley problem (whatever you think the wrong choice was); it's just a matter of perspective, and honestly the outcome sucks either way.

Like here's a really easy way to make even the most moral person in the world doubt themselves like Bloody Moon did to Ling Qi here. Tie them and one of their acquaintances up, give the person a gun, and tell them to either shoot themselves or their acquaintance or else you will kill both of them. Regardless of choice made, someone's going to die, and if anyone lives they will regret it. A utilitarian would choose to shoot one of them. A deontologist would choose to either shoot themselves or not shoot anyone. Either way someone's going to die. Did Ling Qi make a selfish choice here? Maybe. But a) she just wasn't that close to Shen Hu and b) she has a survival instinct just like every other person does. Expecting people to always risk their very life for others is dumb. You can call it cowardice, but that's not really fair.

Like the first rule you get taught as an EMT or other first responder is that you always protect yourself first because if you don't then you can't help anyone else in the future. It's common sense, and if you asked every first responder to risk their lives then pretty soon there would be no first responders at all. Ling Qi has a real complex about how she always put herself first in the past in order to survive, but that's just guilt speaking, not reason. Without resources it's difficult for anyone to choose "correctly".

Meanwhile most of the people in this sect act selfishly even though they have much more resources and family support than Ling Qi and much less to lose. So why is LQ the one getting criticized for it? She's one of the only ones who even has enough morals to feel guilty in the first place.

 

[archangis]

I have been toxic quite a bit on the discord, understood that at this point it doesn't matter wether people admit they were wrong and this was a failure because they are never going to.

So let's cut the chase.

Can we at least agree to never vote to abandon a friend/someone we are befriending ever again ? Just this. Don't ever abandon a friend just because we are scared of the white/cyan/whatever.

 

[Varder]

On an unrelated note: if we treat LQ as a person, not as a game character, the decision to not argue for villagers/Shen Hu doesn't mean that LQ hasn't developed as a person during the last year. People don't have two states "good/bad", "lawful/chaotic", they are not machines, they operate from the position on the scales.

A year ago, LQ wouldn't even think about arguing for Shen Hu&mortals. Does this decision to value personal safety mean that she's cold-hearted bitch with no consideration for others? No. It means that she's not suicidal and she values her life. Being ready to sacrifise everything you've worked yourself to half-death for more than a year for barely anything? It's not a sign of someone who's happy in what they've achieved during that time.

And Blood Moon's dissapointment (if we can even trust LQ's read of her) doesn't mean much. I, for one, was never too keen on the assassin build, I'm content with her being the shadow-y song spy lady of the court, leaving stabbing people as a regular job to someone else. And aside from the assassin path, we haven't lost much (if anything at all) - it's been repeatedly said that moon faces are different and it's very unlikely that LQ likes every single one of them. When we picked Grinning Moon and Hiding Moon, we were not forsed to follow/like/tolerate any of her other faces anymore than we were forsed to like Sun Liling (read, not even a little).

Can we at least agree to never vote to abandon a friend/someone we are befriending ever again ?

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We didn't abandon a friend. As for someone we are befriending - no, I don't agree. I value LQ's character.

 

[Ayashi]

Can we at least agree to never vote to abandon a friend/someone we are befriending ever again ? Just this. Don't ever abandon a friend just because we are scared of the white/cyan/whatever.

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Never split the party ?
Sadly, i fully expect the next time a potential shiny pops up the result will be the same.