- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ling Qi (soon™):🌳👍
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.
- Location
- CA
Hmm... I feel like there's a certain resonance there, even if we haven't really gotten more than a surface peek at the Argent Way's deeper philosophy. Here's essentially what we know about the Argent Way, off the top of my head:
1) It uses equal and opposite elements.
2) It uses all the elements--specifically, all the Imperial elements.
3) The Argent Vents in the Sect have energies specifically attuned to Argent techniques. (And it's safe to guess that the Vents came first.)
4) The strongest use of its techniques that we're aware of is their use in a military context, using the buffing and stacking effects with large numbers of soldiers.
5) The Argent Sect is well-established and respected in the Empire.
Synthesize these and I'd suspect the central insight of the Argent Way is something like this: You are in a great system. Rather than seeking to swim against the tide, establish yourself within it and use it. Work together with others. There is strength in being a cog in the great clock.
(I'd suspect the Argent Mirror is truth-focused in part because you can't have unity under a system if you don't all have a certain grounding in the common facts of reality. It's about being able to maintain individual clarity so that you can have group consensus. Consider also that Han Jian starts focusing on cultivating the Argent Way just as he resolves himself to take up the mantle of leadership he's been neglecting, placing himself back into the space prepared for him within the system.)
So many of Ling Qi's insights are about the existence of that system and the nature of being outside it, both the good and the bad. Her Way focuses on the negative space around the Imperial system, the places it overlooks and the places where it fails and the old traditions it excludes. (Why the focus on family? Because if you can't depend on the system, then who CAN you trust?) But since she was cultivating Argent techniques in an Argent environment, then I suspect she still shares certain fundamental Argent principles that form parts of her bedrock understanding of the world, such as the focus on internal unity and balance and seeing those cycles reflected in the world. Her focus is just going to be on the disunity and imbalance within the system.
So yeah, Ling Qi's relationships with Imperials are only going to get worse, because she is a living The Reason You Suck Speech. She is cultivating The Way Of Imperial Inadequacy. That makes her a great counterpart to Cai Renxiang, who is seeking to expand the tent and bring more people into the system so they can be cared for, but it also means that if you like the system, having the Anti-Imperial Diss Track Domain all around you is not going to feel great.
Yeah I suspect the chaotic mix of elements is a reference to Ling Qi's eclectic mix of elements in the total list of Arts she has learned and mastered. More so in her early career than now. Plus Zhengui probably contributes too.
- Location
- Somewhere
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan People's Duchy of the Emerald Seas Edition
- Location
- foraging for beans
IIRC, the Argent Way is specifically about the balance of a storm as framed by the traditional 5 elements. This led to the fun teamwork stuff that made the Argent Sect's military so effective at punching up (wood empowers fire empowers earth empowers metal empowers water empowers fire...). It's just very not Long Qi. At all. LQ's interpersonal stuff is more focused on community and family (either having one or not), whereas the Argent Way is more about forging unity of purpose to build a storm. There was some good overlap between those with the sincerity insight from Argent Mirror, but the rest of the arts were really off theme even then.
Now, it's been a very long time since the last angry screed I wrote about how the Argent Way doesn't fit LQ at all, so I may have mucked up some of the details. But that's about the shape of it from what I recall.
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Perhaps gyres in the sense of a swirl, or gyrating.
Given that Ling Qi has Mastered Argent Soul(gaining Argent Foundation), Mastered Argent Genesis(gaining Argent Domain) and slotted Argent Mirror into her first Insight, its fair to say the Argent Way has a defining influence on her cultivation.
What do we know of the Argent Way?
Going by the Argent Vent, it works with literally anything, but best when there is Balance.
Going by Argent Soul and Argent Genesis, it has a an emphasis on a strong foundation of Qi and spirit binding.
Going by the Argent Arts, its about the synthesis of disparate elements.
Going by Yuan He, it is about dynamic balance, the Storm being his chosen metaphor for how the elements work together, which we've seen a bit of in the Thunder Palace.
As far as I can tell, the union of opposing imperial elements is just the tutorial for the rather simple reason that its easier to balance opposing forces than to balance similar ones.
So, yes, Qi's cultivation is heavily influenced by it. Look at her mastered Arts, and note that Yrsillar said before that cultivation arts have a larger impact on your cultivation because they don't do anything BUT affect how you cultivate.
Couple that with her Insights:
-Expression x3
-Community x3
-Motion x2(Chaos x1)
-Truth x2
-Creation x2
-Causality x2
-Want x2
-Power x2
-Home x1
-Cycles x1
-Ending x1
-Isolation x1
-Freedom x1
-Persistence x1
-Courage x1
-Growth x1
-Mystery x1
And you get a ball of dynamic contrasts. Endings Cycles with Creation. Isolation and Freedom defines and defends Community and Home. Causality's linear cause and effect is churned by Motion and Mystery.
I'm guessing our similar concepts are going to blob together as we go. Its all fitted together in an Argent style layout even though the components are nonstandard.
Funny thing is that Cold is technically not that big an influence right now(FSS turn may change that), its just that its the most tangible influence after Music/Expression, which needs to be a lot more potent to start causing physical effects.
Darkness(and Water) meanwhile are closer to the background lighting - they doesn't define our major concepts, it's just a sub-component of many of them.
Motion and Community are much more subtle things, even if they are relatively important components.
What do we know of the Argent Way?
Going by the Argent Vent, it works with literally anything, but best when there is Balance.
Going by Argent Soul and Argent Genesis, it has a an emphasis on a strong foundation of Qi and spirit binding.
Going by the Argent Arts, its about the synthesis of disparate elements.
Going by Yuan He, it is about dynamic balance, the Storm being his chosen metaphor for how the elements work together, which we've seen a bit of in the Thunder Palace.
As far as I can tell, the union of opposing imperial elements is just the tutorial for the rather simple reason that its easier to balance opposing forces than to balance similar ones.
So, yes, Qi's cultivation is heavily influenced by it. Look at her mastered Arts, and note that Yrsillar said before that cultivation arts have a larger impact on your cultivation because they don't do anything BUT affect how you cultivate.
Couple that with her Insights:
-Expression x3
-Community x3
-Motion x2(Chaos x1)
-Truth x2
-Creation x2
-Causality x2
-Want x2
-Power x2
-Home x1
-Cycles x1
-Ending x1
-Isolation x1
-Freedom x1
-Persistence x1
-Courage x1
-Growth x1
-Mystery x1
And you get a ball of dynamic contrasts. Endings Cycles with Creation. Isolation and Freedom defines and defends Community and Home. Causality's linear cause and effect is churned by Motion and Mystery.
I'm guessing our similar concepts are going to blob together as we go. Its all fitted together in an Argent style layout even though the components are nonstandard.
Funny thing is that Cold is technically not that big an influence right now(FSS turn may change that), its just that its the most tangible influence after Music/Expression, which needs to be a lot more potent to start causing physical effects.
Darkness(and Water) meanwhile are closer to the background lighting - they doesn't define our major concepts, it's just a sub-component of many of them.
Motion and Community are much more subtle things, even if they are relatively important components.
Sun and Moon
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Been meaning to doodle this for a while
Edit: Was told on the discord I should probably ping @yrsillar lol
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- Location
- foraging for beans
Eh, I don't agree with this. The crux of your argument here is that the framing of the storm isn't a core part of the Argent Way. And that's because I think you're misunderstanding what the "Argent Way" is. The Argent Way isn't an abstract cultivation philosophy that stresses balance, the Argent Way is basically the Yuan clan cultivation library. It says so right on the label of the Argent Genesis art: "Created by the ancestors of Sect Head Yuan He." And the Yuan family is clearly about the balance of storms in the same way the Bao are about the wealth of the earth, or the Hui were about weaving dreams, or the Gu are about fiery aggression. See sect head Yuan He as example 1 of this.
I suspect that this misconception arose because of the Argent Soul and Genesis arts don't have that storm alignment, which kinda ruins them as primary cultivation arts, but the Argent Sect explicitly uses them to attract potential students, so that's a fine tradeoff. I'm sure the Yuan clan has a storm themed version they use for their own members.
But all the other Argent Arts we saw were storm themed (I encourage you to reread the descriptions), and LQ very much isn't. They were also all "balanced", and LQ isn't really about balance either, seeing as how she doesn't have a single level in that concept. So yeah, LQ doesn't fit the Argent Way. And aside from the quite generic sincerity insight from Argent Mirror, I don't really see it's influence on her either. I may be misremembering the AG mastery scene, but I'm pretty sure yrs forgot the layer of Argent Qi around her dantian last update, it's been so uninfluential. The Moon and Ziqing really overshadowed the Argent Way in the end.
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BagFullOfLizards
Some bag, mostly lizards
- Location
- A bag
We really are part of the Mean Girl squad!
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
I feel like in the Highschool AU Meizen, CRX and Qi would most loved and most hated trio of girls. Depend who you are.
Or Worse. We seem to have become the Trio from the Worm that toments Taylor early on. Ling Qi being the Sophia/Shadow S. Even powers match. CRX is Emma the redheaded leader and Meizen is cutesy look out.
FriedIce
The Authentic Fake
- Location
- Hyperreality
So what's the average amount of cultivation XP we get a month currently? All I can see is that we get a drip of 100XP a turn in base cultivation from SSC which is nowhere near enough to level us up.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, the only real problem with the 'mean girl squad' thing has always been that none of the three actually do any stereotypical mean girl stuff...basically ever. Meizhen can be cruel (less often now than in the early days, but still), but she doesn't play games with it or target people who haven't targeted her first (in fairness, she would've targeted Sun Liling no matter what...but that's one exception and very much mutual), and the other two just aren't actually very mean.
Like, the whole 'mean girl' thing is about using social power in a very specific way and Renxiang, Mezhen, and Ling Qi have never actually used their social power in that way. They've got a bit of the aesthetic going, but not the reality, and really never have.
Like, the whole 'mean girl' thing is about using social power in a very specific way and Renxiang, Mezhen, and Ling Qi have never actually used their social power in that way. They've got a bit of the aesthetic going, but not the reality, and really never have.
Argent Mirror, Current, Storm and Pulse are created by Yuan He and not integral to the Argent Way like.
All Argent sites and drugs focus on the BALANCE keyword. Storm is just the current most powerful Argent practitioner's metaphor, which naturally occupies every art he makes. The Argent Sect is much older than thr current Head.
FriedIce
The Authentic Fake
- Location
- Hyperreality
Is that the Dreamwalking quest with a big 'Needs Dreamwalking 10 to attempt' sign on it?
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I think we get another turn? I'm pretty sure that we are not going through the nightmare tribulation next turn.
No. It's what Six talked to us about at Xiangman. She has a grandmother and now it's almost time for us meet her grandfather.
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- Location
- Rivendell
I'm talking about this one, which should be possible to attempt now with our Isolation concept upgrade:
- Dreaming Songstress: You walk the twisting way, the realm of divides and barriers. Witness the moon above shining bright! Witness Joy, witness laughter! Witness the night Lunatic, the grand revel 'mongst the stars, the passion in the heart of humankind. Witness the Madness unleashed! Witness fear, witness despair. Witness nightmare, the fear in the heart of humankind, the engine of its drive. -Locked Until Isolation IV
Physical or Spiritual XP = (Cultivation XP + bonus XP) * Talent * [1.5 if all other requirements for next stage meet]
So for last turns Physical plan (100+30)*(6)*1.5.
Re: Dreaming Songstress (Dreaming 3 Tribulation)
Discord pin 2 months ago has us with at least Isolation IV (1/8) at turn 15 end, so it's at least possible. If we can get the Eye of Grudges lesson in time I think it will be useful to the Dreaming 3 tribulation (see how other's fears motivate them, and compare that to how our fears motivate us), but She Yue has to prepare lessons for us and I'll rather do the tribulation early rather than wait more than ~>two turns.
One special thing for the upcoming turn is that the actions to unlock FSS+ creation are Concept neutral, they don't grant bonuses to any concepts nor are they tagged with any. I think the net effect will be that we have more freedom to choose projects this turn since with Concept XP doubling being harder, it's less necessary to try.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
You know thinking back on some stuff from the past I think at some point it is mentioned Li Suyin knew how to perform somesort surgery to get spirit blood out of a person. I am now wondering if reverse is true? Is there a clinical way to give somebody spirit blood via surgery?
Even if not I imgaine it would be exact kind of trangessive stuff that Shenhua would like to invent.
Even if not I imgaine it would be exact kind of trangessive stuff that Shenhua would like to invent.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, we see this done to Sun Liling (in a really terrible way), so it's clearly possible. The question is more how powerful one must be to do it, since the only person we've seen do it is a Goddess. Personally, I'd bet on harder than removal, but not a 'needs a Goddess' level of difficulty.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Investigate how that works.
Figure out an easy to use version.
Create shiny packages for different types off spirit blood.
Sell them like used cars
???
Profit.
