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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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Since it came up, I will say I was surprised by Ling Qi making the decision to become Cai's retainer. Mainly because they were still relative strangers at that time and up until then Ling Qi had resisted making commitments or even thinking about the future too hard.

Cai definitely did prove "capable of earning loyalty" just like she said, but it's not necessarily what I would have guessed Ling Qi would do at the time.
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
Since it came up, I will say I was surprised by Ling Qi making the decision to become Cai's retainer. Mainly because they were still relative strangers at that time and up until then Ling Qi had resisted making commitments or even thinking about the future too hard.

Cai definitely did prove "capable of earning loyalty" just like she said, but it's not necessarily what I would have guessed Ling Qi would do at the time.
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It surprised me as well, as it seemed a little out of character for her at the time. I was rooting for the Gu Tai route, as that would have been a novelty in today's literature. (Though I didn't have a lot of hope it would happen.) That being said, I understood the move to follow Lady Cai and wasn't put off by it. Once I found out that this was a quest, things she did made a lot more sense. (I still think this would work better as a novel if it wasn't one, but I digress.)
 
SeptimusMagisto said:
Since it came up, I will say I was surprised by Ling Qi making the decision to become Cai's retainer. Mainly because they were still relative strangers at that time and up until then Ling Qi had resisted making commitments or even thinking about the future too hard.

Cai definitely did prove "capable of earning loyalty" just like she said, but it's not necessarily what I would have guessed Ling Qi would do at the time.
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I suspect the math cabal had something to do with it, what with how cultivation materials are expensive and all. (and used to be a lot more complicated)
 
I think it was more the simple understanding that you don't really get a better opportunity than a direct subordinate of a heiress of a ruler of a province as a first-generation noble. Even being Jiao's inheriting disciple would at best be equal, and probably not even that given it still happens in the relatively small pond that is the sect. Given that, and that Ren-Ren wasn't exactly a stranger and gave off good vibes even back then, the choice wasn't difficult to make.
 
We did end up bullying yrsillar to give us more stuff a few times, by the logic that the Renxiang route was highlighted as the highest in terms of material support, juxtaposed with the existence of the Jiao route and the fact that a Prism cultivator's pocket lint should be able to fund an apprentice's cultivation through the fourth realm pretty trivially.

yrsillar said:
"Nutty," Zheng Fu said, stepping up to the foot of her bed. "You wanna visit the ol' dreaming court together when you're fixed up?"

"No thank you," Ling Qi said coolly.

"Hah, figured. Worth a shot though," Zheng Fu shrugged. "Anyway how much did the Xuan guy tell ya?"

"Not too much. We were speaking more personally," Ling Qi replied.

"Ah… guess that's why he blew me off too. Ya'll are so stuffy," Zheng Fu complained. "But… yeah, I figured out there was a cultivation network going on, found the traces to where the bigger nodes were hiding in the dream. Spoke with Mister Inspector and he directed me to Meng Dan."
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Unrelated, and going back a few updates, somehow on first reading I missed that Zheng Fu hit on Xuan Shi.

He asks Ling Qi on a date, and she turns him down. Then, when Ling Qi says her conversation with Xuan Shi was more personal, Zheng Fu clues into the romantic tension between the two. He then jumps off of that as the reason Xuan Shi "blew [him] off too" which neatly references Ling Qi declining his invitation and tells us that Zheng Fu asked Xuan Shi out at some point.

Funny and cute.
 
AbeoLogos said:
We did end up bullying yrsillar to give us more stuff a few times, by the logic that the Renxiang route was highlighted as the highest in terms of material support, juxtaposed with the existence of the Jiao route and the fact that a Prism cultivator's pocket lint should be able to fund an apprentice's cultivation through the fourth realm pretty trivially.


Unrelated, and going back a few updates, somehow on first reading I missed that Zheng Fu hit on Xuan Shi.

He asks Ling Qi on a date, and she turns him down. Then, when Ling Qi says her conversation with Xuan Shi was more personal, Zheng Fu clues into the romantic tension between the two. He then jumps off of that as the reason Xuan Shi "blew [him] off too" which neatly references Ling Qi declining his invitation and tells us that Zheng Fu asked Xuan Shi out at some point.

Funny and cute.
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I wonder how common it is for married couples to have a Zheng "friend" come around now and then to "visit". My guess is fairly rare, but enough to have become a euphemism for poly relationships along the powerful.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
Unrelated, and going back a few updates, somehow on first reading I missed that Zheng Fu hit on Xuan Shi.

He asks Ling Qi on a date, and she turns him down. Then, when Ling Qi says her conversation with Xuan Shi was more personal, Zheng Fu clues into the romantic tension between the two. He then jumps off of that as the reason Xuan Shi "blew [him] off too" which neatly references Ling Qi declining his invitation and tells us that Zheng Fu asked Xuan Shi out at some point.

Funny and cute.
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Didn't think I'd have an OT3 in this story but here we are I guess
 
CedeTheBees said:
Didn't think I'd have an OT3 in this story but here we are I guess
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I kind of want all of LQs boys. They're all cute, in different ways. Bao is the calmer older business who's got an interest in music, Meng is the suave scholar looking for secrets and a love of the past, Xuan is stalwart but withdrawn, but also a lover of stories. I can even get with Zhen as the wild and active one. Hell, I'll even count Xiulan as one of the boys because she seems to have decided she's more comfortable with male gender roles.
 
In the chapter on the Twilight King it says this:
It is impossible to speak of the Cataclysm without delving into the matters of the Second Dynasty. It is agreed among scholars that that by the time of Longshen's rebellion, the Ao family already in its terminal decline. The Imperial family had long since begun to disregard their advisors and select successors to the throne purely based upon force of cultivation, or even worse, on mere seniority or sentiment. The result was a string of weak or ineffectual emperors whose Ways were unsuited to rulership, and a weakening of the bonds which grant us the peace and prosperity of unified rule.
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According to the timeline the Ao lasted for another 2400 years after the Golden Fields cataclysm, which seems an awfully long time for a "terminal decline." I wondered if that was really the case or if the author was sucking up to the Third Dynasty by slandering the Second, so I asked Yrs. The response:
It is definitely a matter of sucking up to the Mu, though the Dynasty's power and legitimacy was permanently damaged by the death of the sun, so it was a period of decline. However it was probably only the last 6-800 years and the last few emperors who really made it 'terminal'/
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Lore chapters written by in-universe people aren't necessarily 100% reliable. The author's biases and politics should be taken into account.
 
There's also obviously the Cultivator bias, because even the period of terminal decline is dozens of generations of mortals. It's just a long-ass time even when the decline is "terminal." Like IRL if you said a country was in terminal decline and someone was like, "When will it fall?" and you said, "Eight hundred years or so" you'd be laughed out of the room. :V
 
It's Not!China. Of course, their scholars would need Imperial favor.

Also, the Ao's decline seems inevitable (as their Sublime Ancestor was ganked), but they could hang on far longer than most would've anticipated. 2400 is like 2&1/2 Maximum Life-spans of White Cultivators, right? So it's not like they were only coasting off inertia. They appear to have made concerted efforts to not fall and not in the Hui sense.

Edit: I know it was discussed before, but what if the Horned Lord was just sleeping in the Wall or somewhere in the Polar Nations? It might be a long shot, but we should ask if they've seen a massive ass Sublime Deer pass through.
 
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It's also funny because before An and Jiao came along the Third Dynasty was super guilty of the exact same stuff they accused the Second of. Appointing weak puppets like An's predecessor Si to the Throne so they could have all the cocaine parties they wanted with no oversight.
 
even the hui lasted a really long time. Ogodai by all account should have been the end of them, but they didn't become dukes by sitting on their ass, and even at their most sitting-on-their-assness they had tricks that let them survive another several hundred years

and would have survived (a bit) longer had it not been for a deus ex tribus
 
Dynasty can limp along for quite a while as a zombie as long as nothing strong tries to usurp it, and a puppet rulers are useful things so people would seek to keep them on the throne if they were not themselves able to take the throne.
So i don't see "terminal decline" and "2400 years" as contradictory necessarily.
Though any official imperial history text should be considered suspect, the question generally is how much and in what direction things are being fudged.
 
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I believe Yrsillar has said previously that the terminal decline bit is pro-Mu propaganda. The Twilight King was at the midpoint of the dynasty, and some of the Ao's best emperors came after it.
 
There is just a lot of inertia keeping the most powerful clans in their position. At that level they have access to enormous resources to fuel the cultivation of their most talented scions. Even if their Way isn't particularly well suited for ruling or combat, fighting high level cultivators is still going to be very dangerous and destructive. So even if they aren't quite up to the standards of their forebears they can last for a ages provided the status quo remains tolerable.

A lot of IRL dynasties survived for a long time on the back of the occassional good ruler who reinvigorated and reorganised their state apparatus. This can let their less competent heirs just coast along ignoring problems, but it not really being a terminal decline for the dynasty. It's only when a serious crisis coincides with one of those incompetent rulers that everyone starts thinking the risk of trying to change things is worthwhile.

This is even more pronounced in the Empire by clans being propped up by all their ancient arts/relics/strongholds, and ultimately their Sublime at the highest level. Things have to be really bad to make the math work out for vassals with ancient rivalries to decide to team up and try and overthrow that. Just look at the Hui, as bad as they were they could just sit in Xiangmen and until Shenhua came along with her protagonist energy there wasn't anything that could really threaten them.
 
weeblypanda said:
Also, the Ao's decline seems inevitable (as their Sublime Ancestor was ganked), but they could hang on far longer than most would've anticipated. 2400 is like 2&1/2 Maximum Life-spans of White Cultivators, right? So it's not like they were only coasting off inertia. They appear to have made concerted efforts to not fall and not in the Hui sense.
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Wait, what?
 
i wouldnt say the PS was the Ao's ancestor, it was the Gu's ancestor who where supporters of the Ao. As the imperial seat the Ao had dragon mom in the tank for them
 
The Ao were related to the Lu rather closely. IIRC, they're the imperial line descended bfromy the Sage's GF wife. So even though they probably had a degree of separation from the Gu, Big Birb go boom affecting them is still possible.
 
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