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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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[X] Ending is absolute, all things fall and wither and rot in time. The greatest folly is conflating impermanence with meaninglessness

Gotta go with this one. Partially because it encourages a positive view on endeavour without the potential downside of viewing all efforts as acceptable fuel for the fire.

Partially because it serves as a promising component of Project: The Hui Can Get Fucked Forever.

This insight encourages LQ to say that even small things matter, which is good for keeping her grounded and not losing perspective and thinking that mortals are irrelevant.
 
LightLan said:
The last time this Clan tried to mess with Qingge they got schooled by the Senior Judge-Magistrate for the entire central region.

They are most likely in ass covering mode.
Might even have taken care of their offending members entirely on their own.
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I doubt they've done so with sufficient finality. They may have purged the servants but they're not gonna execute actual family members on spec. Now, if we went and confronted them, they might hand him over nicely gift-wrapped, but they aren't gonna execute an actual family member unless they have to.

sergit said:
Huh, so we don't need to pursue comeuppance with them any further then? Since Ling Qi already caused them to get taught a lesson via de Senior Judge-Magistrate.

Of course, we can be petty and decide it isn't a satisfying enough of a punishment. We can push to see these folk bleed even further.

But I don't think it's worth it, really. Qingge is safe, those guys got in trouble with the law, and everything is resolved neatly. As long as they don't try to get back at us and escalate in some way, I have no problems leaving it there.
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The guy is almost certainly a serial rapist, and all the Magistrate did was keep them off Qingge and maybe look into the fake debts thing, not the long term problem. The guy responsible needs to be dealt with permanently. We don't need a major vendetta with the whole family, but that particular scion needs to not be a problem for anyone by the time we're done with him.
 
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sergit said:
Huh, so we don't need to pursue comeuppance with them any further then? Since Ling Qi already caused them to get taught a lesson via de Senior Judge-Magistrate.
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It's difficult to judge whether the matter has been resolved, because we haven't looked into it much. They might have been torn out, root and branch, or just told to turn away from Qingge. We'll have to see.
 
qwolfs said:
It's difficult to judge whether the matter has been resolved, because we haven't looked into it much. They might have been torn out, root and branch, or just told to turn away from Qingge. We'll have to see.
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I strongly doubt that an actual noble has been executed or imprisoned for life offscreen due to an investigation we started without us being informed. And if it was anything less than that, the matter is not resolved.

This is a guy who had a reputation for being rough on women, and responded to one refusing him by forcing her into prostitution. He's a sexual predator and needs to be permanently dealt with.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I strongly doubt that an actual noble has been executed or imprisoned for life offscreen due to an investigation we started without us being informed. And if it was anything less than that, the matter is not resolved.

This is a guy who had a reputation for being rough on women, and responded to one refusing him by forcing her into prostitution. He's a sexual predator and needs to be permanently dealt with.
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I would be, too. However, until we look into it, we won't know.
 
The Magistrate just told off some money-lenders that were claiming fake interests to Qingge after she started getting silver from Ling Qi. Now, they could have done so under the Liu's orders, but the Liu themselves didn't suffer any reprimand.

I agree that something shouold be done about the Liu. It's not even a matter of a personal vendetta. It's simply that people like them shouldn't rule over people, and they should be made accountable of all the crimes they have committed.
If Qingge's case and the incident with the corpse immortal are any indication, the whole clan has to be quite terrible.
 
[X] Ending is absolute, all things fall and wither and rot in time. The greatest folly is conflating impermanence with meaninglessness
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I'm saying that the problems of lack of social support and corrupt nobles abusing people are separate issues and we shouldn't treat them as one problem...there is a difference between malice and neglect.
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They're both cruelties from those with Power against those without. Whether that cruelty is born of Malice, born of Apathetic negligence, or born of Puritanical Zeal, it's still the same issue of those in Power treating those without Power cruelly.

This point of view is, of course, predicated on the idea that those with Power have a responsibility to those without Power. That neglect can be considered abuse in certain power dynamics. That the impermanent and frail are still meaningful even in the face of Cultivated Power.

I think what's important is to not treat the Liu cruelly, but still making sure that they end up fully audited and held to account. One of the issues that Shenhua has is that once she gets involved, she's a bit too powerful to attempt to salvage or recover pieces of the entities that earn her ire. How many servants were obliterated when she handled the Chu? How many mortals suffered in the vacuum left behind? How long has it taken for the region to begin to recover from the abuses of the Chu and the violent measure of their removal?

Being able to steal and salvage as much as possible from that sort of obliviating purge is a valuable skillset to cultivate. How much uglier would Emerald Seas be without Diao Linqin shading so many from the scouring light? How many more regions would be broken?

The Summit is the project we're doing to show our ambitions in absence of existing power structures, when we're given control of a project and the associated spaces to accomplish it. Later we're going to need to show how our administration is going to handle existing power structures as the rulers of them. The Liu plotline is likely going to be relegated to that point in time, much later in the story.
 
JowKeen said:
How many mortals suffered in the vacuum left behind?
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Er...from what we know pretty much none? Per Gang Guanli the mortals of the area in question pretty universally approve of Shenhua's actions in getting rid of the Chu. That would not be the case if she hadn't handled the transition's aftermath well. Now, collateral damage in destroying them is possible, though I wouldn't say it's a given based on her behavior in her own capitol.

I'm not saying Shenhua as a solution doesn't have problems and collateral damage, but you're overstating them significantly.
 
IIRC the Liu are a Count Clan(maybe?) , that means that they have guys in the cyan to indigo to violet range. Getting into a personal feud with the Liu's at this time is only going to cause trouble for CRX , and as mad as we are, we are simply not strong enough to (visibly) mess with the Liu (mom probably won't want us to take any risks against the Liu as well).

On the other hand:drevil:
I seem to remember a chapter, where the Liu were heavily implied to have hired a Undead guy to be the point-man/fall-guy in running shady experiments on the mortals in their city.(Can someone give a link to the chapter please? I think there was a monk in the story?)
After the international negotiations are done , and circumstances permitting , if we should come across any evidence against the Liu (say from a DreamWalk of our old city), we might be able to steer the MoI their way (or really any official agency, as long as they can do quiet investigations).

But right now we need to focus on our current projects.(there really is a lot going on right now)
 
Jimmy040 said:
IIRC the Liu are a Count Clan(maybe?) , that means that they have guys in the cyan to indigo to violet range. Getting into a personal feud with the Liu's at this time is only going to cause trouble for CRX , and as mad as we are, we are simply not strong enough to (visibly) mess with the Liu (mom probably won't want us to take any risks against the Liu as well).

On the other hand:drevil:
I seem to remember a chapter, where the Liu were heavily implied to have hired a Undead guy to be the point-man/fall-guy in running shady experiments on the mortals in their city.(Can someone give a link to the chapter please? I think there was a monk in the story?)
After the international negotiations are done , and circumstances permitting , if we should come across any evidence against the Liu (say from a DreamWalk of our old city), we might be able to steer the MoI their way (or really any official agency, as long as they can do quiet investigations).

But right now we need to focus on our current projects.(there really is a lot going on right now)
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They are a viscount clan. Meaning their patriach is likely Cyan and their elder is Indigo. Still too much to mess with personally of course
But we really need to get someone to take care of them.

[X] Endings come and Endings go. To create, what came before must end. Knowing that your works too are but the materials for the next beginning is wisdom.
 
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Jimmy040 said:
IIRC the Liu are a Count Clan(maybe?) , that means that they have guys in the cyan to indigo to violet range. Getting into a personal feud with the Liu's at this time is only going to cause trouble for CRX , and as mad as we are, we are simply not strong enough to (visibly) mess with the Liu (mom probably won't want us to take any risks against the Liu as well).
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They're Viscounts in charge of a single city. We can't take them in a fight, it's true, but we don't need to do that in order to, like, audit them. Connections trump personal power in that regard. We also don't have to go after the whole clan to see one minor scion punished. Like, as I've said before, we're important enough that if we went to their leader laid out the scenario to them and explained that we don't bear the Liu as a whole any grudge just that one specific guy, odds are they'd gift wrap him for us to settle the grudge.

We probably aren't gonna do that, but we likely could.
 
If roads had been safe she could have just move to another city and be fine. Among the social supports there needs to be freedom of movement to ensure this doesn't happen again.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
They're Viscounts in charge of a single city. We can't take them in a fight, it's true, but we don't need to do that in order to, like, audit them. Connections trump personal power in that regard. We also don't have to go after the whole clan to see one minor scion punished. Like, as I've said before, we're important enough that if we went to their leader laid out the scenario to them and explained that we don't bear the Liu as a whole any grudge just that one specific guy, odds are they'd gift wrap him for us to settle the grudge.

We probably aren't gonna do that, but we likely could.
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It'd cost political coin we can't spare, what with having committed much of it to our projects.

If something happens to them it'd have to be Random Chaos
 
veekie said:
It'd cost political coin we can't spare, what with having committed much of it to our projects.

If something happens to them it'd have to be Random Chaos
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It really wouldn't. I'm not saying we need to go after them right now but it's not some impossible far off dream either. We can mess up that guy's life whenever we choose to put in the time and effort. Which we should do at some point.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Er...from what we know pretty much none? Per Gang Guanli the mortals of the area in question pretty universally approve of Shenhua's actions in getting rid of the Chu. That would not be the case if she hadn't handled the transition's aftermath well. Now, collateral damage in destroying them is possible, though I wouldn't say it's a given based on her behavior in her own capitol.

I'm not saying Shenhua as a solution doesn't have problems and collateral damage, but you're overstating them significantly.
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we have to make an argument to deposing Shenhua, do you think that pursuing a "we do less collateral damage because we're in an era/context that allows for greater room for renewal/change" argument is the wrong way to go about it?

Because as long as the answer for "how many of those with lesser Power were harmed in the disposal of the Chu" is "more than our methods would deal" the argument is alright.

if you're right and somehow the collateral for mortals was pretty much none, then like. What's our argument to deposing Shenhua even look like? "we can salvage more nobles than your outright violence can" ? "We do the same thing but we're kinder about it" ?
 
[X] Ending is absolute, all things fall and wither and rot in time. The greatest folly is conflating impermanence with meaninglessness.
 
Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on Jun 11, 2023 at 8:17 PM, finished with 169 posts and 105 votes.
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I think it's important to properly highlight the power disparities in play. The Liu are Viscounts, and they own/run the city of Tonghou. They are, as far as mortals are concerned, a divine pantheon at whose grace the city and its inhabitants are suffered to exist.

The gulf is so broad that we can be essentially certain the Liu clan took no interest in Qingge's affairs, and probably didn't know anything about it outside of gossip about that weird cousin with questionable hobbies. The scion's name alone was enough to accomplish everything he did. What followed is explainable by opportunism. She'd been branded an acceptable target. Whatever mortal agents acted against her with more direction than that would have been the scion's personal lackies, or lackies of his personal lackies, that he keeps around for his weird gutterdiving habits.

The matter is so far below any real institution of the Liu's attention it's comical. Until that regional magistrate popped up and did his thing, I'm sure the Liu had no idea who Ling Qi was, where she came from, or why they should care. And then suddenly there's a direct underling of the provincial heir who may or may not have a grudge against you. Pretty alarming. Especially when the misfit goes on to do strange things like hire mortal prostitutes from your administrative center. Is this some weird commoner insult? What is even happening? Truly, the noble Liu deserve our sympathy.

Jokes aside, the affairs of mortals really just aren't on the radar for Viscount clans.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I think it's important to properly highlight the power disparities in play. The Liu are Viscounts, and they own/run the city of Tonghou. They are, as far as mortals are concerned, a divine pantheon at whose grace the city and its inhabitants are suffered to exist.
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Not compared to Qingge's family they aren't. They're way above them, but not quite that far. Qingge's family were, in fact, a Cultivator Clan in service to the Liu, just a weak one who only had the resources to support a couple of cultivators. Qingge had already been determined to not be one of those, so she was a mortal and thus a relatively minor asset to the family, so of course they agreed when a Liu asked for her.

The rest of what you say is largely correct, because by the time it happened she'd been kicked our of her family and really was, both legally and socially, just a nameless commoner, but it's a worthwhile note that her family were not strictly commoners. It makes how they treated her even worse and makes some of her skills and knowledge make a bit more sense, so it's useful context.
 
My stance on Liu is just...."if it comes up, it comes up." If CRX or Shenhua decides for us to take care of the Liu, then we'll take care of it. Until then, I'm just meh on the subject Ling Qi getting back at this one viscount clan who're, chances are, keeping their heads low atm.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Not compared to Qingge's family they aren't. They're way above them, but not quite that far. Qingge's family were, in fact, a Cultivator Clan in service to the Liu, just a weak one who only had the resources to support a couple of cultivators. Qingge had already been determined to not be one of those, so she was a mortal and thus a relatively minor asset to the family, so of course they agreed when a Liu asked for her.

The rest of what you say is largely correct, because by the time it happened she'd been kicked our of her family and really was, both legally and socially, just a nameless commoner, but it's a worthwhile note that her family were not strictly commoners. It makes how they treated her even worse and makes some of her skills and knowledge make a bit more sense, so it's useful context.
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Well, yes and no. The He aren't really a cultivator clan so much as a clan that happens to have a few cultivators, and they are commoners. There's commoner clans with far more cultivators, even, in the form of clans that focus on being part of city guards or the army. The Chu were reduced to such a clan, for example. We're not really sure what the He clan's role was/is iirc, just that they're under the the Liu seemingly directly. Probably some kind of functionary or administrative duty within the city.

You're right that the He were, and presumably are, high status mortals. Their specific status was probably a bit of a double-edged blade for Qingge, though. Being directly under the Liu meant that they had a lot to lose from even unassuming exercises of authority. Very under the thumb kind of situation, they were in. But yes, it would have been scandal to hand out the kind of punishment the scion did to a member of the He. Their clan's status likely would have shielded her from that much. ...If it weren't for the scion's passive pressure on the clan leading to the He disowning Qingge. Consequence of all your clan is owing itself to your lords' whims.

The situation was pretty bad for the He. 😕
Though it'd probably be a mistake to view the He as, hm, purely motivated by ass-covering. I'm sure there was some genuine outrage at Qingge from some corners of the family for taking a golden opportunity and turning it into such a liability. From our perspective, her autonomy and safety trumps other concerns and she fundamentally didn't do anything wrong. From her clan's perspective, her duty was to do as she was told for the betterment of the clan, despite any... unpleasantness. The heavens can be cruel, but that's all the more reason to secure the future of your family against the storms of tomorrow, yadda yadda. It's the culture.

And I... think I forgot what my original point for this post was. Oh well!
 
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