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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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DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I mean, not in regards to the Hui she didn't. Literally everyone who isn't Hui thinks what she did to the Hui was right and good.

It's events thereafter (and particularly her treatment of her daughter), where her behavior becomes problematic.
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This, along with wondering about the fate of those twins, has me wondering about the fate of the Hui following the rise of the Cai, given how uncompromising higher realm cultivators are and Shenhua's cultivation being defined by her opposition to the Hui. Obviously the leading members of the clan would have been killed but what, if any, amount of compromising was Shenhua willing to tolerate?

Young children I could see being adopted by relatives in other clans, or failing that shuffled off to a quiet career in a temple or something similar. But what about low level cultivators who had no influence on what the Hui were doing to the Emerald Seas or just kept to themselves, were they caught up in the purge just for the crime of being born a Hui?

Basically, I'm not really sold on the "Shenhua did nothing wrong" sentiment even with regards to the Hui, beyond her decision to remove them from power. The realities of that type of regime change can be extremely ugly, and from what we've seen of Shenhua she doesn't seem at all the type to balk at harming innocents if it's in service of her goal.
 
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This just makes the turn 13 (Arc 9-3) conversation with Diao Linqin even more interesting. I mean, right away, look at the fact that Linqin refers to Renxiang as "a broken doll [held together] until it could begin to become a woman again," which is as tidy a description of Linqin's past as you can get, and which adds another funny little dimension to Shenhua's joke about she and Renxiang having the same type. After all, there's an argument that the same definition could be applied to Shenhua, in that she had to twist herself into Revolution to take down the Hui; only Linqin has made her able to moderate herself enough to remain a positive influence, even if just for now.

And there's the whole short discussion they had on bounded empathy and not giving of yourself without reserve, which is both her disliking that personally and also her showing concern that Ling Qi is doing that to herself because she feels it's required of her, and... Yeah! She's a really interesting character!
 
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Anderein said:
This just makes the turn 13 (Arc 9-3) conversation with Diao Linqin even more interesting. I mean, right away, look at the fact that Linqin refers to Renxiang as "a broken doll [held together] until it could begin to become a woman again," which is as tidy a description of Linqin's past as you can get, and which adds another funny little dimension to Shenhua's joke about she and Renxiang having the same type. After all, there's an argument that the same definition could be applied to Shenhua, in that she had to twist herself into Revolution to take down the Hui; only Linqin has made her able to moderate herself enough to remain a positive influence, even if just for now.

And there's the whole short discussion they had on bounded empathy and not giving of yourself without reserve, which is both her disliking that personally and also her showing concern that Ling Qi is doing that to herself because she feels it's required of her, and... Yeah! She's a really interesting character!
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When was that again? I vaguely remember that, but not where I saw it.
 
The Hui's musings also give a new perspective to the Ogodei's invasion.

Up until now, we thought that the situation got so bad due to the highest negligence and absolute disinterest. That and an extreme delusional mindset, refusing to acknowledge there was a problem at all.
But now this chapter proves that, at least the upper echelon, the Hui were perfectly aware of the situation at south.
And they consciously and actively let the invasion get to that point in order to "clean" the "muddy" population of the south.

The Hui truly were the worst. No that there was any doubt about it.
 
JENTHULHU said:
It really is staggering how the Hui myopia is so much more... thoroughly complete, compared to the myopia of the Bai.
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I mean, the Bai's was worse before Sun Shao. But yeah, even at their worst they weren't...that. I think it's a flaw of the Hui's approach to Cultivation...their philosophy was directly solipsistic ignoring the reality and personhood of everyone not them. Even the worst Bai tend to at least acknowledge other Bai as having value (or at least other White Serpent Bai in the most extreme cases), but the Hui didn't even do that...all others were only things.
 
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Sieje said:
This, along with wondering about the fate of those twins, has me wondering about the fate of the Hui following the rise of the Cai, given how uncompromising higher realm cultivators are and Shenhua's cultivation being defined by her opposition to the Hui. Obviously the leading members of the clan would have been killed but what, if any, amount of compromising was Shenhua willing to tolerate?

Young children I could see being adopted by relatives in other clans, or failing that shuffled off to a quiet career in a temple or something similar. But what about low level cultivators who had no influence on what the Hui were doing to the Emerald Seas or just kept to themselves, were they caught up in the purge just for the crime of being born a Hui?

Basically, I'm not really sold on the "Shenhua did nothing wrong" sentiment even with regards to the Hui, beyond her decision to remove them from power. The realities of that type of regime change can be extremely ugly, and from what we've seen of Shenhua she doesn't seem at all the type to balk at harming innocents if it's in service of her goal.
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I imagine anyone in question was made to stand in the light of Truth and any who were not destroyed by it were allowed to be redeemed. Iirc we've actually met at least one person who was an official under the Hui, and managed to pass such an examination.

I doubt Shenhua would have just ordered a slaughter based on association. As a high realm cultivator, she has access to tools that us mere mortals do not.
 
BagFullOfLizards said:
I imagine anyone in question was made to stand in the light of Truth and any who were not destroyed by it were allowed to be redeemed. Iirc we've actually met at least one person who was an official under the Hui, and managed to pass such an examination.

I doubt Shenhua would have just ordered a slaughter based on association. As a high realm cultivator, she has access to tools that us mere mortals do not.
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This is true...but what about actual members of the Hui? Like, the three year old child of two Hui parents? It's an interesting question, really. I personally don't think Shenhua would have killed them, but we don't actually know.

I do think it's quite clear that if you had any blood connection to a family other than the Hui, you were 100% forced to be part of that family and renounce all ties to the Hui but were probably fine then if you had no Hui loyalties...like, Diao Linqin's kids would've just been considered Diao rather than Hui even absent her connection to Shenhua, I'm pretty sure. But for kids whose parents were both Hui? Or Hui adults who were just trying to quietly survive in the corners? We don't know what happened to them.
 
The main takeaway I've got is that hiding peer(+) cultivators up your sleeve is hilarious and something we should lean into more. I want Ling Qi to be capable of clown-car nonsense.

Who's gonna mess with Ling Qi when she could at any moment have any number of friends hidden on her person? Only a fool, and not for much longer.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
This is true...but what about actual members of the Hui? Like, the three year old child of two Hui parents? It's an interesting question, really. I personally don't think Shenhua would have killed them, but we don't actually know.

I do think it's quite clear that if you had any blood connection to a family other than the Hui, you were 100% forced to be part of that family and renounce all ties to the Hui but were probably fine then if you had no Hui loyalties...like, Diao Linqin's kids would've just been considered Diao rather than Hui even absent her connection to Shenhua, I'm pretty sure. But for kids whose parents were both Hui? Or Hui adults who were just trying to quietly survive in the corners? We don't know what happened to them.
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Think Linqin killed the childern she had with this Hui, it's pretty much standard revolution tatic to kill all those of old regime, and their close relatives.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
This is true...but what about actual members of the Hui? Like, the three year old child of two Hui parents? It's an interesting question, really. I personally don't think Shenhua would have killed them, but we don't actually know.

I do think it's quite clear that if you had any blood connection to a family other than the Hui, you were 100% forced to be part of that family and renounce all ties to the Hui but were probably fine then if you had no Hui loyalties...like, Diao Linqin's kids would've just been considered Diao rather than Hui even absent her connection to Shenhua, I'm pretty sure. But for kids whose parents were both Hui? Or Hui adults who were just trying to quietly survive in the corners? We don't know what happened to them.
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Most children were shuffled off to various ministries, sects or other bodies without an actual last name. Either ignorant of thier heritage, if they were younger or with the giant hammer of why their family was objectively awful smacked into them by Shenhua's light if they had some inkling of family pride but were not at the point of no return.
For the rest? If such quietude was thier goal they'd approach the authorities and Shenhua at least would probably have mercy on them. Given what we've seen of the Hui and thier own deadly decadence, people who were not objectively awful were probably culled by the ones who were however, or were so weak that they've likely passed on already due to poor cultivation.
 
Some helpful quotes from the chapter where we got the best view of Linqin.
yrsillar said:
"Aided in holding together a broken doll until it could begin to become a woman again, it seems," Diao Linqin said. Her aristocratic voice was measured and neutral. "Has she spoken to you about last evening yet?"

"Lady Cai Renxiang has not yet had the opportunity," despite herself some irritation at her friend being spoken of that way bled through. She really wasn't good enough at this yet.

Slowly, she turned her head to look over her shoulder to see Diao Linqin looking down at her with pursed lips, and an expression of vexation. "It is truly irritating when you see some truth in a jest."

Ling Qi remained silent, recalling last year, when the DUchess had compared her to the Prime Minister and joked of her daughters taste.

"Only a shred of it," Diao Linqin said imperiously. "That girl does not love in that way, and you, though you can, are broken by fear. Leaving aside your tastes."
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yrsillar said:
Ling Qi looked hard at the older woman, or the face she presented at least. She saw the shifting thorns and flowers that spread around and saw the way they curled toward the radiant light cast toward them from above, in longing adulation. She saw the skulls great and small in the dirt below split and grown over by roots wound in thorny vines and crushed, in numbers greater than she could count. She saw shading boughs cast upon tightly grown flowers and shoots, apathetic of their existence but casting life giving shade from the searing light all the same.

[ ] A Matriarch (Community +1 XP)
[ ] A Killer (Isolation +1 XP)
[ ] A Wife (Want +1 XP)
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Linqin is complicated because it appears that she's more of a Wife than she is a Mother.

This doesn't particularly bode well for Renxiang's younger sibling or those who follow. There's still room for second-order tensions between them through the lens of "Wife" though. Of course, we don't have enough info to draw solid conclusions at this time.
 
AbeoLogos said:
Linqin is complicated because it appears that she's more of a Wife than she is a Mother.

This doesn't particularly bode well for Renxiang's younger sibling or those who follow. There's still room for second-order tensions between them through the lens of "Wife" though. Of course, we don't have enough info to draw solid conclusions at this time.
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She's not more a Wife than a Matriarch though, and taking care of her family is what a Matriarch does. I worry about her being unable to protect any kids from Shenhua but not about most other stuff, and I'd worry about that no matter what given what Shenhua is.
 
It does kind of put it in perspective. She was still amazingly rude and rather cruel in practice to say that about Cai Renxiang.

But it seems much more apparent now that this was in no way a judgment.
 
The Laurent said:
It does kind of put it in perspective. She was still amazingly rude and rather cruel in practice to say that about Cai Renxiang.

But it seems much more apparent now that this was in no way a judgment.
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It probably really hurts her that her savior and the woman she loves was responsible for that as well.

... Now that I think about it she'll probably really appreciate Qi's insights from the tribulation that nobody is a puppet. Multitude ensured that.
 
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So, I'm kind of late, but the latest update contained lots of interesting stuff.

Firstly, even though I changed my vote, I feel really vindicated about Stars and Spheres, and how it could connect with SNR.

The Adamant Filter is literally the perfect lake analogue. The Imperturbable lake/adamant filter cannot be disturbed by attacks/radiation and HATE from the Stars.

It kinda embodies the idea of Stillness for protection, without actually being still since it's more about using Mystery (knowledge) and mayhaps Persistence to counter attacks. It can even work a bit with Void and sacrifice.

It'll rely on discount ISM SNR being more porous. It won't have a perfect defense. Rather, it'll mitigate things until they're barely harmful. That kinda fits our latest advanced insight though. There's no perfect safety. You either move (dodging) or persist.

Anyway, there are probably a bunch of holes in this current idea, but it's shaping up into something, and I hope Yrsillar continues this thread of thought for SNR.

Also, Shenhua's definitely interested in this because Xiang has been feeding her schematics from the cleared dungeons and mechas from the strife. She wants to revolutionise talismans and constructs with her antimatter generator. But we're a true girlboss and will gatekeep her at every step of the way, starting with the research :V

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

More seriously though, this feels like the option thay fits better with the narrative. Others have brought up how the MoI's interest doesn't really mean anything in the context of this vote, or how this would make the Meng help us with negotiations, but I want to bring up another thing.

The Meng geomancer. We're getting one after the fief advances to a certain level, and they'll probably need to talk to the beavers to see how to meld their prison and our geomantic efforts. Sending the research to them would help tie things better when this eventually happens, because the geomancer would probably be interested in this, or be told to look into it beforehand.
 
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Doramas said:
Why even use people at that point? Just make a bunch of constructs and surround yourself with them.
That he insists on using humans just proves the that it's the uniqueness of each one that gives them worth, and thus the absurd contradiction of wanting to stripe them of their humanity.
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I don't really see a contradiction. If you don't see other people as people, then using them as a basis for an effective construct is no different to you, than using unliving matter. You are simply starting with more advanced and unique "materials".

I think the closest analogue to the situation are jewels and gemstones. All natural gemstones have actually more flaws than artificial ones, that's how you can tell a difference. Yet natural gemstones are more wanted as carved jewels, for sentimental definitions of "value" and "realness".

He values the uniqueness of people only as the uniqueness and quality of the starting material for his project. Even if he carves them into similar jewels, that value is not lost, because the value of the material will always be an inalienable part of the value of the finished product.
 
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