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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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There's one thing that Bai Fuxi was right about: nothing good comes from the jungle. It's drenched in blood and has an unusually active Great Spirit keeping it that way.
If only Bai Fuxi hadn't failed the rest of his response, he probably could have convinced Sun Shao to accept staying out of the jungle.
 
This also seems to stand as a warning of the dangers of cutting the wrong things from your Way. Because the Duke cut away kindness, cut away love, and therefore found himself completely unable to predict the lengths others would go for them.

Also that the core tenets of people's Ways are relatively secret. If the Duke had known Shao's core belief was "family is everything" even he should have been able to predict "don't worry your family is dead, we'll get you a new one" wouldn't go over well.
 
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So Sun Shao's rebellion wasn't just a singular move of anger but a deliberate exploratory action looking for a new worthier liege to serve under. Preferably one that could be bound to the ties of family.

Ji Rong really has his work cut out for him. It's likely that he'll need to actually marry Liling to get the full protection and have the freedom to seek a possible solution to their issue. Being their vassal just isn't going to cut it.
 
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God, that made me irrationally angry at those Bai.

Hopefully, the new generation can wrestle control and keep something like this from happening ever again.
 
Is tragedy a genre in the Empire? Because this has all the markings for it. It is the Bai's tragedy, first and foremost. Of how, in their pride and disdain of all outside of themselves, they turned their greatest servant in their most implacable enemy. It is Duke Fuxi's tragedy, of how the increasingly inflexible and inhuman nature of a higher cultivator's Way prevented him from showing basic empathy and understanding at a crucial moment. Not to mention that he was a product of the system that failed Sun Shao and all of the Thousand Lakes province so utterly, and put the Bai family above the law. And finally, it is Sun Shao's tragedy. He lost everything, and paid a dear price to achieve his vengeance, we already knew that. But this sidestory shows how his personnal motto changed over time. Family Is Everything. At first, he saw the entire province as one familly. Here, he realizes that the Bai only cared for their own, saw most of their subjects as mere tools, and would never punish a member of their own clan for a crime against "ousiders". But in the present day, it is clear that Sun Shao, now litterally set in his Way as all white cultivators are, is taking desperate measures to ensure his family's survival, like what he felt he had to do to Sun Lining. All for family. How long until he or his descendants come to ressemble the very thing they rebelled against?
 
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LucidProp said:
God, that made me irrationally angry at those Bai.

Hopefully, the new generation can wrestle control and keep something like this from happening ever again.
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Suzhen's Way is Prosperity as a weapon, and there is a reason she cultivated the ability to Cut Family Ties.

Because she has correctly identified the greatest foe of the Bai are the Bai.
The rot must be severed, and those clinging to the moldy snake skin cleaned away
 
Rule 2: Don’t Be Hateful
Once again, I must commend Sun Shao's remarkable restraint. If I were him, I wouldnt have cared about Grandmother Serpent nor the 2 whites in the capital. The moment I became a White stage, I would have tortured and massacred as many Bai as I could, from the elderly to the children, destroyed as many of them and their land and infrastructure as I could, before the 3 of them could come to stop me. Even then I would have chosen to self explode as a last spiteful measure to render the Bai's land utterly destroyed and uninhabitable for millenia.
 
Solar Saiyan said:
Once again, I must commend Sun Shao's remarkable restraint. If I were him, I wouldnt have cared about Grandmother Serpent nor the 2 whites in the capital. The moment I became a White stage, I would have tortured and massacred as many Bai as I could, from the elderly to the children, destroyed as many of them and their land and infrastructure as I could, before the 3 of them could come to stop me. Even then I would have chosen to self explode as a last spiteful measure to render the Bai's land utterly destroyed and uninhabitable for millenia.
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[Everything for family.]
Sun Shao loves his family more than he hates the Bai.
 
TimEd said:
So Sun Shao's rebellion wasn't just a singular move of anger but a deliberate exploratory action looking for a new worthier liege to serve under. Preferably one that could be bound to the ties of family.
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That seems like a bit of a leap.

His rebellion started when he decided to keep going west past the river and for all we know his intentions at that point were just to destroy the Red Sun in revenge, regardless of what the consequences might be. The great spirit could have just seen it as an opportunity once he won and offered him a way out of being slaughtered by the Bai in reprisal, and from what we've seen it doesn't seem to have been an association without cost for Sun Shao and his family.

Basically, just because the Bai are baddies, doesn't mean Sun Shao didn't also become a baddie to beat them.
 
Stop: Rule 2: chill out on the murder fantasies
  • Staff Post
    • Solar Saiyan said:
    Once again, I must commend Sun Shao's remarkable restraint. If I were him, I wouldnt have cared about Grandmother Serpent nor the 2 whites in the capital. The moment I became a White stage, I would have tortured and massacred as many Bai as I could, from the elderly to the children, destroyed as many of them and their land and infrastructure as I could, before the 3 of them could come to stop me. Even then I would have chosen to self explode as a last spiteful measure to render the Bai's land utterly destroyed and uninhabitable for millenia.
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    rule 2: chill out on the murder fantasies
    Yo I need you to chill out with the graphic fantasies about murdering children and old people. It's rules violating and as such you have been infracted.
     
  • Staff Post
    • And this sidestory is the perfect illustration of why corrupting Cai Renxiang is necessary.

    Without that it'd be all too easy to have Ling Qi crouching before a robotic and unfeeling Cai Renxiang sealing her own doom out of ignorance to the depths of Ling Qi's dedication to her family and sentiment. And the horrors a desperate Ling Qi would pull into her side might not be so still as a jungle.
     
    AbeoLogos said:
    And this sidestory is the perfect illustration of why corrupting Cai Renxiang is necessary.

    Without that it'd be all too easy to have Ling Qi crouching before a robotic and unfeeling Cai Renxiang sealing her own doom out of ignorance to the depths of Ling Qi's dedication to her family and sentiment. And the horrors a desperate Ling Qi would pull into her side might not be so still as a jungle.
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    We shall call it Qi Deviation
     
    Zaealix said:
    And honestly, I'm saddened we didn't try to reach out to the Princess, to try and hear her out and create some bridge, even if we could not keep it given the thing with Grandmother Flower.
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    You should remember why Sun lost her bid in the first year - because she talked much about honor... and acted like trash instead of one with honor on every turn. Our snake friend is better than most of her family and tries to be even better. While Sun... well...
     
    [x] An open air gala with songs and poetry and a great deal of food, open to spirits in the old style, taking some elements from older traditions.
     
    Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on May 30, 2022 at 3:06 AM, finished with 147 posts and 78 votes.
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    al103 said:
    You should remember why Sun lost her bid in the first year - because she talked much about honor... and acted like trash instead of one with honor on every turn. Our snake friend is better than most of her family and tries to be even better. While Sun... well...
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    I can see where you'd get this impression, but--

    Bai Meizhen and Sun Liling have both been raised to believe that much of the rest of the world is their enemy, and they have personally experienced losses that back up that view, and both of them entered the sect with notable social flaws due to that. Both of them even picked up an uncommonly talented street urchin with their own serious social defects!

    And after all those carefully set up parallels, you think we just happened to blindly pick the one who is more intrinsically good? I'm pretty sure Yrsillar is a better author than that. For all that Hobbes is bullshit, Ling Qi herself has said more than once that the ability to be kind and good is something that desperation and pain take away from you. Bai Meizhen has succeeded in cultivation and in socialization, and as such has had people there to help her rise beyond her own worse impulses. Sun Liling has failed again and again, and so she's only fallen deeper into her own worse self.

    People make choices, but some choices are made for you by your circumstances, and that makes it harder to choose right when you could still correct your course. Don't sell your sense of empathy so cheaply.
     
    The real reason we didn't interact with Liling is due to us failing the roll to room with her (the roll for Meizhen succeeded) during that first day at the sect.
     
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    EternalObserver said:
    Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on May 30, 2022 at 3:06 AM, finished with 147 posts and 78 votes.
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    Have we had a 100% vote before?
     
    Anderein said:
    I can see where you'd get this impression, but--

    Bai Meizhen and Sun Liling have both been raised to believe that much of the rest of the world is their enemy, and they have personally experienced losses that back up that view, and both of them entered the sect with notable social flaws due to that. Both of them even picked up an uncommonly talented street urchin with their own serious social defects!

    And after all those carefully set up parallels, you think we just happened to blindly pick the one who is more intrinsically good? I'm pretty sure Yrsillar is a better author than that. For all that Hobbes is bullshit, Ling Qi herself has said more than once that the ability to be kind and good is something that desperation and pain take away from you. Bai Meizhen has succeeded in cultivation and in socialization, and as such has had people there to help her rise beyond her own worse impulses. Sun Liling has failed again and again, and so she's only fallen deeper into her own worse self.

    People make choices, but some choices are made for you by your circumstances, and that makes it harder to choose right when you could still correct your course. Don't sell your sense of empathy so cheaply.
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    We didn't picked one who is good. We picked one who is not hypocrite. Meizhen is pretty much "I'm evil angry snek, stay away" from the get go and while she got enormously better she still is one. While with Liling we deal both we "I am oh so much honorobu and my honorobu is so honorobu" and all bullshit she pulls while pretending she have moral high ground.

    With Meizhen we need to either adapt to her narrative or go from new angle, we succeeded in that without compromising our newfound morals. With Sun we either need to break her narrative (which is likely to make her our enemy) or to adapt to it (and break our newfound morals).
     
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    al103 said:
    We didn't picked one who is good. We picked one who is not hypocrite. Meizhen is pretty much "I'm evil angry snek, stay away" from the get go and while she got enormously better she still is one. While with Liling we deal both we "I am oh so much honorobu and my honorby is so honorobu" and all bullshit she pulls while pretending she have moral high ground.

    With Meizhen we need to either adapt to her narrative or go from new angle, we succeeded in that without compromising our newfound morals. With Sun we either need to break her narrative (which is likely to make her our enemy) or to adapt to it (and break our newfound morals).
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    Indeed.

    Though arguably Xiulan is in the same league as Liling there.
    We're good friends but she managed to set basically all of her other relationships on fire.
     
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