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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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I wanna vote for Gan! Though, I wonder how it'lll be for a follower of the Moon to spend time among the learned of the Sun. I halfways expect Sixiang to be lik "Gyaaah, it's too bright in here!"
 
I'm not sure why everyone suddenly got so stressed, to be honest. There was a misunderstanding, it's being cleared up, things are pretty even keeled. I feel like I'm missing something.
 
Erebeal said:
Mmm, yeah Gan or Meng I think.

Give the other two some space, as well as more of a focus on the cultural questions. Also if Renxiang is trying to talk to Ilsur then us going over there and potentially outnumbering him might throw out the dynamic, while sparring stuff just isn't as interesting here.
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Agreed, though I lean more towards Gan and the Priests. Priests tend to have the most consistent access and understanding of history and tradition enough to be able to explain it, and often are used to being asked tough/tricky questions about their beliefs. Gan also is someone that we know is both surprisingly introspective as of late, taken together with the good head he has on his shoulder and his personal knowledge about non-City based Imperial living I think that we can learn a lot from taking part in that situation as well as potentially see how well Gan has grown from his time as the leader of the Cai faction in the Outer Sect.
 
I want to get IC info about the fight against the stars down here. Confirm our current theories about it
 
qwolfs said:
I'm not sure why everyone suddenly got so stressed, to be honest. There was a misunderstanding, it's being cleared up, things are pretty even keeled. I feel like I'm missing something.
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It's introducing a problem that didn't need to be a problem. Ling Qi has pulled attention away from the Non-Aggression/Trade Deal due to bringing up specifically her relationship with Zeqing and Hanyi whereas previously the White Skies people would have likely assumed it was something we had well in hand and didn't need to be discussed. So now it's going to be just less "on-topic" to bring up the original purpose of this mission immediately which pushes back the general schedule.
 
Ling Qi understood their discomfort, it was not often a thing talked about, but sometimes the lines between spirit blooded and spirit could be a little blurry, and sometimes that led to… problems. Attempting to perform some form of the beast binding ritual on another cultivator was naturally a crime, successfully doing so required rituals that were also crimes.
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Hm. This makes me wonder if whatever binding ritual Alingge didn't want to talk about might involve this blurred line, and whatever the implications of Six statement awhile ago about the Weilu.
 
[] To the Sun Shrine, to see how Gan Guangli is getting along with the… priests.
Let's go see how Gan is doing.
 
[] To the Sun Shrine, to see how Gan Guangli is getting along with the… priests.

I'm really interested in learning more about the Sun part of their culture
 
yrsillar said:
The woman nodded, looking deeply uncomfortable. "My aunt, she has a child like such. They are older than I, yet have the mind of a child and the hunger of a great wolf… it is not shameful, but sad, yes. Most are worse and must be given to the care of the maiden and the voices. I truly mean no offense."
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This is an interesting revelation in the context of a line from the previous update.
yrsillar said:
Jaromila furrowed her brows in confusion, shooting a look at Hanyi. "You were taught directly by your godmother? Did your mother pass in the… complications then."
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Taken together, the implication is Jaromila thought Hanyi ate her human mother, probably shortly after birth, when the mother would be weakened.

It's to Jaromila's credit that this seemed like something she'd take in stride. Though it makes sense for an Emissary, who deals most directly with the raw nature of spirits of cold, to be accepting towards that kind of thing.
 
Pathos said:
It's introducing a problem that didn't need to be a problem. Ling Qi has pulled attention away from the Non-Aggression/Trade Deal due to bringing up specifically her relationship with Zeqing and Hanyi whereas previously the White Skies people would have likely assumed it was something we had well in hand and didn't need to be discussed. So now it's going to be just less "on-topic" to bring up the original purpose of this mission immediately which pushes back the general schedule.
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That isn't what happened, though. Ling Qi was directly asked to clarify her position as Emissary, which lead directly to her relationship with Zeqing and Hanyi. Unless she lied or refused, which they wouldn't have liked either, there was no way around explaining things to them.
yrsillar said:
As Ling Qi pondered this though, she found Jaromila's eyes back on her. "I think, before we go on however, you should explain yourself Emissary Linchee, or I will be troubled by my superiors."
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Warning, extremely cursed insights follow:

Does this plot development remind anyone of Breaking Dawn, the final Twilight book? How there was a magic half-vampire baby that everyone thought was one kind of magic half-vampire baby that was already known and is extremely bad news, but it turns out she was actually a different kind of magic half-vampire baby that was not bad news and which nobody knew about/everyone assumed was impossible, and there was almost a giant showdown about it but then the ending was an anticlimax of hugging it out?

You're welcome, and now we've all learned something about my, and possibly yrsillar's, taste in literature.
 
picklepikkl said:
Warning, extremely cursed insights follow:

Does this plot development remind anyone of Breaking Dawn, the final Twilight book? How there was a magic half-vampire baby that everyone thought was one kind of magic half-vampire baby that was already known and is extremely bad news, but it turns out she was actually a different kind of magic half-vampire baby that was not bad news and which nobody knew about/everyone assumed was impossible, and there was almost a giant showdown about it but then the ending was an anticlimax of hugging it out?

You're welcome, and now we've all learned something about my, and possibly yrsillar's, taste in literature.
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What.
 
This seems to suggest that mutual bonds are not a thing the empire allows, which is interesting.

qwolfs said:
That isn't what happened, though. Ling Qi was directly asked to clarify her position as Emissary, which lead directly to her relationship with Zeqing and Hanyi. Unless she lied or refused, which they wouldn't have liked either, there was no way around explaining things to them.
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She could have played silly games with the truth. There was no chance of LQ actually doing that but she could have.
 
picklepikkl said:
Hunh, interesting.

One thing, yrs:

This kind of reads like Hanyi and LQ are being grumpy at the guard for being rude to Hanyi... but the guard didn't say anything to Hanyi. Ling Qi leaves, meets the guard, asks her a question, the guard answers, and then Hanyi tells her off. Did something get deleted in editing? It feels like something is missing from this exchange.

[] To the entrance hall, to see what stories Meng Dan is managing to extract.
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I did miss a sentance its been fixed now
 
[] To the training hall, where you can even now hear the sounds of blunted weapons and the thump of fists on flesh

It was too long since we had a spar, and I want to see how Ling Qi will fare against other ice cultivators, possibly even equipped with frozen soul serenade. It can be a very useful experience
 
"I think I would like more time to focus on examining the mural in the garrison hall," Meng Dan mused. I am sure I can manage to draw some of our fine hosts into discussion on their tales."
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This seems like the sort of thing you'd get a lot more out from having someone to weave it into a independent medium like a song, and use that to garner insight of their culture from the how they weave their tales.

[] To the entrance hall, to see what stories Meng Dan is managing to extract.
 
Since we last spoke to Gan, we have gone dungeon diving with Xia Lin, sorted the loot with Meng Dan, and had a traumatic Inception dive with CRX, so it's Gan's turn to be social linked.

Also, if we buddy up with Gan during our free time, there's a non-zero chance that the White Sky people will slot him in as Ling Qi's husband.
 
I favor going to see what Meng Dan is doing because he said he's going to something very similar to the intent behind the Songseeker Ceremony. Finding stories in hidden places is central to Ling Qi's cultivation.
 
GG MY BOY IT IS TIME!

I think it's important to figure out this nation's relation to the Moon. Because we are very blessed of the Moon, and seeing which faces they see would be interesting. We all worship the same moon, but probably not the same faces. I'd like to know more of that

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oh

Godmother blessings seem to be able to result in:
Human Child with LQ-esque traits such as Crystal Blue Eyes. Maybe a pre-disposition to certain elements, or a minor talent. We're not spirit blooded, but assumed to be of a lineage. Perhaps we look like a great great great great grandchild of a Spirit Blood?

Spirit Blooded. Someone with more traits of the Spirit but more "quirks" of being half-that-spirit.

Tragedy. Spirit child that is a spirit, and thus has a very slow development period and limited social complexity

Mega-Tragedy. Spirit Child eats the mother immediately and has to be raised by Godmother personally
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certain Chinese music has "quarter steps" that aren't typically noted in western music. If the Empire only notes "Non spirit blood" "spirit blood" "spirit" then it's possible that the reality is more complicated and it'd get real weird if that complexity was widely known by the public. So they stick to the simple script.

We know that the Cloud Tribe meld with their Mounts into Human-Mount-Hybrid souls

We know Red Garden can meld various bits and bobs of the jungle into their souls

We know Spirit Blooded are melds of Human and Spirit

so, uh. Are these different expressions of the same Soul Alteration premise? That a Soul can be melded with . . . if the Soul King was melding other human souls onto his and overriding their ego with his own as a Spirit who had a purview of Domination/Subjugation . . .

so Soul Qi is banned, and the manipulation of Souls in the "work directly on other's Soul's" sense is banned, and these examples of Barbs are seemingly doing things with Soul that would be proscribed in the Empire.

mutual understanding with Cloud Tribe might be impossible because their work with Soul is unable to be understood by an Empire that has banned the use of such techniques (as well as the study of them)
 
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ichypa said:
Also, if we buddy up with Gan during our free time, there's a non-zero chance that the White Sky people will slot him in as Ling Qi's husband.
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Thanks to this, I had a knee-jerk reaction to vote for Xia Lin instead of the boys, but we could potentially clear up the misunderstanding if we actually encounter it again
 
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