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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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yrsillar said:
"If Big Sister wants to be a sister, then she should let Zhengui be a brother," Gui said lowly, he seemed to have lost the energy to shout, as he had previously.
Ling Qi flinched. Those words stung, because her own treacherous mind wouldn't let her ignore the implication. It hurt to try, a deep ache that emanated from her core. Balling her hands into fists, Ling Qi had to look away.

"I never meant it that way," she said quietly. "It.. it would just be strange for anyone to call me mother, you know?"

"Zhengui does not want to hurt Big Sister, so she is Big Sister," Zhengui agreed, scuffing at the ground with his foot. "Even if Big Sister cannot trust him to be the brother."

"I trust you, " Ling Qi said.

"It is easy to say words," Zhen said glumly.

Ling Qi closed her eyes. It really was different, she had to admit to herself. Just not in the way she had been trying to think. She simply didn't see Hanyi the same way she did Zhengui. Her first impression of that girl was a brat, messing with her on a high mountain pass. Her first impression of Zhengui was… She remembered seeing his shell split open, and his heads poking out. He was tiny and weak and utterly, utterly dependent on her in a way that no one had ever been.

That had changed, and she had changed with it. She had cultivated his strength, made him practice, made him get strong. But she could never really shake that initial feeling. The thought of Hanyi getting hurt filled her with cold anger, the thought of Zhengui getting hurt made her feel frighteningly empty, in a way that caused the meridians aligned to the Frozen Soul Serenade to thrum with resonance.
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Ling Qi has already had her moment of, "Your children will always be six years old with pig tails and skinned knees."

But this I think will always be the conversation that made me go, "Oh yeah, Ling Qi is already his mother no matter what."

yrsillar said:
"You didn't do it by yourself, but I was relying on you all the same," Ling Qi replied, looking down. "I… Zhengui, please understand. I am not a very good Big Sister, or… anything else. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just… always afraid of losing things."

"Zhen understands that Big Sister is like Miss Zeqing," the serpent hissed.

"But Gui will not leave, or disappear, no matter how fast Big Sister goes," Gui finished. "Big Sister should not always act like we will."
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No matter how high we climb, he will be there. Even as Ling Qi climbs the heights of cultivation Zhengui will never be far behind.

No son could be more dutiful.
 
[X] He is MY child, whatever his origins or secrets, and whatever his choices.

If I was given the choice to choose what LQ feels I would go for brother but that is not what the vote is about. we know what LQ feels so the choice here is to accept or deny it and can't see a path where denial works.
 
Fuck it, history (that's what the Hui are to Ling Qi's generation. History.) has taught us that sometimes even the most comforting lies must burn. Sometimes you just have to emulate the monster who rules us until Blumenkranz starts playing.

[X] He is MY child, whatever his origins or secrets, and whatever his choices.
query said:
Ling Qi has the most amusing ability to mentally censor herself mid-thought.

She doesn't lie to herself directly but seems to rather exploit a loophole in the self reflective nature of her cultivation by not allowing herself to even finish thinking about issues that that are too personal.
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All too human of her, really. I suppose I'll miss that when it's gone.
 
Adhoc vote count started by CoatRackRanger on May 29, 2024 at 9:07 AM, finished with 202 posts and 133 votes.
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MY BOI
 
weeblypanda said:
13 Heretics...13 pyres to be built.
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Jokes aside, I think the people voting against this are doing so for understandable reasons related to how guardianship and being a parent is defined. They object to the idea that Ling Qi must be a mother simply because she is raising Zhengui, and I actually agree with that.

The reason I think they're wrong on this and voted with the majority is that this is not an abstract question about all guardians, it is about Ling Qi specifically and we have already seen that based on her own thoughts on the subject she really does view herself as Zhengui's mom, she's just too traumatized to admit that normally.
 
PowerLeca said:
[X] He is my precious kin, my brother, my family, in every way that matters.

I'm less interested in LQ claiming the role of mother than I am in her claiming her role in raising him, loving, and caring for him as more than just an asset, as family. I don't think it's an exact overlap with "mother" and I don't think she should be forced to use a word she doesn't want.

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb egg. Kohatu can't claim to have taught him a single lesson, taken a single action for his benefit his entire life.

She has had clarifying conversations with Zhengui where he says to let him be the little brother, and I think she's worked towards that. However she stumbled through it in the beginning, she has mutually defined its current incarnation with Zhengui.

Families can be whatever set of folk show up to do the work, and it's okay for someone not to have a "mother"
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But she isn't defining herself as his mother explicitly. She's admitting that he's her child, and while those things are related it doesn't mean she has to identify with the word mother. I think that they are on the border between siblings with a large age gap and mother and son, but I don't think that either answer fully collapses that superposition. It just narrows the range their relationship exists within.

For example, I work with preschoolers in my day job, and I will often refer to them as "my kids" and make jokes about not wanting to have a child of my own because I already have a dozen of them. This doesn't mean that I am literally a parent to them, just that I'm performing a lot of the same actions that a parent would within the context of being a teacher. Similarly, Ling Qi performs many of the roles of parenthood even if she defines her relationship with him as being a big sister. In that context, I think it's very reasonable for her to refer to him as her child and I don't think that it necessarily means she sees herself as a mother.
 
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She's a very sisterly mother or motherly sister. She's something in between. He's her child even if she's not a mother in the typical sense. Time for her to face the music aka her denial.
 
Ling Qi DOES see herself as a mother to Zhengui, she's just too PTSD about romantic and physical relationships to accept the implied relationship. And adoptive parentage isn't really in her instincts, so when she thinks of "mother" she thinks of a person who bore a child. Which terrifies her.

She's got a lot of baggage all tied up in what a mother is and how she sees herself. But I do think she sees herself as Zhengui's parent. She just took a long time to get there.
 
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