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.
Speaking of, Yrs was asked what the guru from the Thousand Princes would think of the Dreaming Way and its offshoots.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Aw dang. Well I missed the vote, but it went the way I hoped.
I love Huisheng so much.
I love Huisheng so much.
- Location
- At the end of the world
[X] The teachers meditations on Exclusion and Isolation and their interaction with Community
Year 45, Month 12 Arc 5-3
This student would hear the teacher's thoughts on Truth and Choice, the interaction with sincerity and clarity.
It was something she had been pondering, trying to resolve in her head. She had come to an answer.. But she wanted to test that answer further, find its limits and where it cracked apart.
A strange question to ask a storyteller, a thief, and a heretic.
Ling Qi bowed her head silently, feeling the amused surprise in his words.
"You gotta know the truth to make a convincing lie?" Sixiang ventured.
Debatable. Very Debatable. The target's perceptions are the anchors of a good tale. One must know what will be accepted as true.
"But there are things that simply are true, can you really effectively communicate when you're twisting and obscuring such things?"
Are there?
She accepted the leading question for what it was. There are. Simple things, maybe. But true things. 'I am Ling Qi. You were jailed here. Xiangmen stands'
One could make arguments otherwise. Is the nature of the world truly so much more solid than the dream? One could tease and dance around your words, but toying with semantics is not useful here.
All of those statements could be made untrue in theory and twisting of meanings, but she was glad he was not engaging with her words on that petty level.
"I… I wonder where choice lies when deception flies. How much of a choice is meaningful if the one making it is deceived or ignorant?" Ling Qi spoke breaking her silence to speak aloud
Choice is choice. Without the eyes of He Who Was, who can truly say all that could affect their thoughts past and future can be known, clear and true? A thing which is untrue when spoken may be made true if it is convincing.
That is true, our summit… it was only a story, until it was not…
Ling Qi frowned to herself. No one really believed in them until it was done. Even their allies treated it like… the play of a child, a bit of indulgent training for Cai Renxiang. At most, they saw some chance at a quick material grab.
But it was done now, They had made it real, made it true. They had made it advantageous for the nobility of the southern Emerald Seas to make it true, and so they did.
But Huisheng was not done.
Truth… I feel what She Who Walks in Radiance has done. She is an eternal scouring moment. That is the pitiless truth in radiance, which your thoughts skirt around, why you fear and are drawn toward such absolutes. But it is not your battle.
She glanced up at him in surprise.
That is for another to confront, and break upon the wheel of their own understanding. The little thief chose rightly, breaking that brick to pieces before it was too deep set. Your eyes are on should and will be, not is.
Clarity that your words are understood. Sincerity, that they are trusted.
Abandon the scraps of radiant truth.
"Well, I ain't gonna argue with you when you're saying what I was thinking," Sixiang said quietly. "But you haven't actually answered the question."
Huisheng's goal echoed with the spiritual silence. The skull of the remnant spirit shifted petals falling as it tilted down toward them.
The Truth which matters lives in the eyes and hearts of men. Will, belief, intent, agency. These things make a human from a doll of mud. The Truth of the Radiant is a thing outside the Thief of Hearts. It is a mindless thing of dust and turning gears and forces beyond men. It is the paring blade which trims away all threads which might spoil the tapestry. This is not wrong, for a choice to be made, for one thread to spin on, others must be clipped away, scattered scraps left on the side of the road. This is choice, the sacrifice of Sovereignty, the path the Nameless left us to adjust our broken cradle.
Sincerity, the disciple wears better. For a storyteller to matter, the audience must not only hear but Listen. This is the foundation to the Way of Speaking, as sure as a swordsman learns how to plant his feet.
Truth cuts away choice, truth arises from choice, what you make real in their hearts, when your words steal their doubts the way forged from that decision will become truth. This is a thief's answer.
Ling Qi looked up at him, frowning. She had seen what she could do with words, with them she had brought down a Sovereign. Evidence mattered, truth mattered… but only because, for a multitude of reasons, she was believed.
Sincerity I->II
Sincerity moves mountains, because the mountain itself chooses to move.
I don't know that I can turn my eyes fully from what you call Radiance. There must be a solid foundation upon which my words are built… else. Else she risked the delusion which had gripped the province before the Duchess had come.
This too I have heard. You were not my first student in this age. Your choice was not unique. Few are.
The patriarch of Jia.
Let that be your assignment disciple, when you meet your senior upon shining Xiangmen's crown, ask him of the nightmares which nearly drowned the truth, the final gambit of the Supreme Master of Lies.
Ling Qi batted away the probing qi which made a play for her meridians, redirecting it to flow out and away along the curve of her spine. And if he does not wish to tell
Then you will tell him he cedes the rhetorical ground to his poor abandoned teacher. I will tell you then.
"I feel like you're buying her some serious trouble here," Sixiang said dryly.
The first probe had been obvious, the next three were no less so, predatory, plucking whirls of qi forming and decompiling, grasping at her respiration, using her breath to sneak through into her body. She adjusted her breathing, cycled her qi in the counter direction.
The more subtle hooks brushed her skin, and she barely had the width of thought to disrupt them before they could sink into her meridians and steal her qi away.
It is fine, Sixiang. I don't think any of the Duchess' inner circle will be unaware of what we must do.
Overcome the Duchess. That was her challenge. From what she knew of her histories, Shenhua's followers, those spoken of as the Emerald Seas Heavenly Kings… they had been her retainers, as Ling Qi was to Cai Renxiang.
Heron General Xia Ren, The Crucible, Blade who Rends History
Matriarch Wang Jun, The Builder.
Patriarch Jia Hong, The Orator.
And her wife, Prime Minister Diao Linqin.
No, she did not think any of them were unaware of the Duchess' ultimate intentions. Not anymore than they were unaware of Renxiang's.
This one knows his student. This question will not meet reprisal.
She took a deep breath, and parried the latest flurry of infiltrations, twisting wind qi into whorling trapping loops, she sought to snatch the droplets of qi from his scattered hooks even as they dissolved.
A student may change much in two centuries or more.
Huisheng's bones creaked, petals falling. She squeezed Sixiang's hand, and the muses qi slid over her skin like a blanket of static, the disruptive, dissolving qi scattering the hundred of feinting attempts at access, leaving Ling Qi the freedom to twist and deflect the three true attempts hidden among their number. One hook broke apart into viscous droplets, stolen by her wind, the second deflected into the stone beneath her and died, the third… skirled around her cycling wind and snatched away a hearty mass of her qi, vanishing back beneath the lake of liquid darkness before she could muster an attempt at recovery.
Ling Qi grimaced, resetting her defenses for the next round, and tried to push down the deadened pins and needles ache which now covered her lower ribs on the right.
Less than one might think, when years becomes as months and decades as years.
She would just have to trust Huisheng here, not that she was deeply invested in fear in the first place. In the end, taking into account their positions… there simply wasn't much that could go wrong. A sovereign familiar with him would notice Huisheng's mark on her spirit whether she hid it or not. If they were both at the wedding… she would be noticed. The worst he could do was brush her off.
Teacher, it will be done. I accept the assignment, in the spirit given. This one hopes she will learn more of the limitations of Truth.
You will seek, now that the hook is baited.
She tilted her head. Should you use that suspicious phrasing?
Will you not seek the knowledge hinted at?
She lowered her head, accepting the point. She was still conflicted about many things but she could not and would not rely on Huisheng for all answers. She needed to contemplate things herself.
Does Choice truly arise, even in ignorance, in deception, in lies though?
It does. Your path is a brighter one, and yet, one on the path of multitude must accept much lies beyond their reach.
How does this square with the domination of Sovereignty?
No Sovereign rules all things, even under their own feet. Achieving dominion, yet knowing where its borders end, where its borders cannot expand. Will absolute, knowing weakness, knowing reliance.
A teetering balance.
The light glinting off his skull and the shadows hiding between his jaws seemed awfully stark. It can be done.
"I can see why it isn't," Ling Qi said quietly. "The appeal of the Peak, of power which cannot be contested in your realm… it sands away at that shining goal."
She had once thought of the peak of cultivation as absolute security, the end of fear and uncertainty. Only when she stood on a peak so high that none could loom overhead would the frightened girl with a growling stomach and ragged clothes disappear. Only when none could contest her choices would she be free.
…How childish.
She rose and clasped her hands before Huisheng
Choice III->IV
Choice blossoms in plenty, in solidarity, in empathy. To accept Choice is to accept uncertainty, fear, the end of your reach
The student thanks the teacher. I will try not to be absent for so long next time.
Wise is the one who makes no promise they cannot keep. Huisheng was clearly amused by her phrasing. The storm around you will not abate.
"I would be alarmed if it did." Ling Qi said wryly, bowing her head.
She clenched her hand, crushing one last dart of seedling qi, infiltrating through the meridian that exited in her palm.
"We done already?" Sixiang asked warily.
"We are, I will get in contact with the Senior Disciple, Teacher." She answered, turning away. Huisheng was silent as they mounted the stairs and emerged back in the garden that lay above the depthless lake below.
"You satisfied Qi?" Sixiang asked, stopping next to her by the little shrine to the moon.
The discs within cast a burning silvery glow. Ling Qi observed them. She had more teachers to speak to, soon enough. She wondered when their directives and lessons would fully collide. "As much as I can be. There's still too many questions… but I'm satisfied. I think I may wish to talk to Shu Yue about him as well."
"That wise?" Sixiang asked.
"Is anything I do?" Ling Qi teased.
"Can't believe you went out of your way to get more schoolwork, right before the party of millennium. Where've I gone wrong here?" Sixiang lamented.
"Oh stop that, there will be plenty of time for fun. Probably."
"See I don't like that word at the end," Sixiang shot back, poking her in the shoulder.
Ling Qi laughed quietly as she took Sixiang's hand and they stepped back through the veil into her office.
It was time for another journey now.
It was something she had been pondering, trying to resolve in her head. She had come to an answer.. But she wanted to test that answer further, find its limits and where it cracked apart.
A strange question to ask a storyteller, a thief, and a heretic.
Ling Qi bowed her head silently, feeling the amused surprise in his words.
"You gotta know the truth to make a convincing lie?" Sixiang ventured.
Debatable. Very Debatable. The target's perceptions are the anchors of a good tale. One must know what will be accepted as true.
"But there are things that simply are true, can you really effectively communicate when you're twisting and obscuring such things?"
Are there?
She accepted the leading question for what it was. There are. Simple things, maybe. But true things. 'I am Ling Qi. You were jailed here. Xiangmen stands'
One could make arguments otherwise. Is the nature of the world truly so much more solid than the dream? One could tease and dance around your words, but toying with semantics is not useful here.
All of those statements could be made untrue in theory and twisting of meanings, but she was glad he was not engaging with her words on that petty level.
"I… I wonder where choice lies when deception flies. How much of a choice is meaningful if the one making it is deceived or ignorant?" Ling Qi spoke breaking her silence to speak aloud
Choice is choice. Without the eyes of He Who Was, who can truly say all that could affect their thoughts past and future can be known, clear and true? A thing which is untrue when spoken may be made true if it is convincing.
That is true, our summit… it was only a story, until it was not…
Ling Qi frowned to herself. No one really believed in them until it was done. Even their allies treated it like… the play of a child, a bit of indulgent training for Cai Renxiang. At most, they saw some chance at a quick material grab.
But it was done now, They had made it real, made it true. They had made it advantageous for the nobility of the southern Emerald Seas to make it true, and so they did.
But Huisheng was not done.
Truth… I feel what She Who Walks in Radiance has done. She is an eternal scouring moment. That is the pitiless truth in radiance, which your thoughts skirt around, why you fear and are drawn toward such absolutes. But it is not your battle.
She glanced up at him in surprise.
That is for another to confront, and break upon the wheel of their own understanding. The little thief chose rightly, breaking that brick to pieces before it was too deep set. Your eyes are on should and will be, not is.
Clarity that your words are understood. Sincerity, that they are trusted.
Abandon the scraps of radiant truth.
"Well, I ain't gonna argue with you when you're saying what I was thinking," Sixiang said quietly. "But you haven't actually answered the question."
Huisheng's goal echoed with the spiritual silence. The skull of the remnant spirit shifted petals falling as it tilted down toward them.
The Truth which matters lives in the eyes and hearts of men. Will, belief, intent, agency. These things make a human from a doll of mud. The Truth of the Radiant is a thing outside the Thief of Hearts. It is a mindless thing of dust and turning gears and forces beyond men. It is the paring blade which trims away all threads which might spoil the tapestry. This is not wrong, for a choice to be made, for one thread to spin on, others must be clipped away, scattered scraps left on the side of the road. This is choice, the sacrifice of Sovereignty, the path the Nameless left us to adjust our broken cradle.
Sincerity, the disciple wears better. For a storyteller to matter, the audience must not only hear but Listen. This is the foundation to the Way of Speaking, as sure as a swordsman learns how to plant his feet.
Truth cuts away choice, truth arises from choice, what you make real in their hearts, when your words steal their doubts the way forged from that decision will become truth. This is a thief's answer.
Ling Qi looked up at him, frowning. She had seen what she could do with words, with them she had brought down a Sovereign. Evidence mattered, truth mattered… but only because, for a multitude of reasons, she was believed.
Sincerity I->II
Sincerity moves mountains, because the mountain itself chooses to move.
I don't know that I can turn my eyes fully from what you call Radiance. There must be a solid foundation upon which my words are built… else. Else she risked the delusion which had gripped the province before the Duchess had come.
This too I have heard. You were not my first student in this age. Your choice was not unique. Few are.
The patriarch of Jia.
Let that be your assignment disciple, when you meet your senior upon shining Xiangmen's crown, ask him of the nightmares which nearly drowned the truth, the final gambit of the Supreme Master of Lies.
Ling Qi batted away the probing qi which made a play for her meridians, redirecting it to flow out and away along the curve of her spine. And if he does not wish to tell
Then you will tell him he cedes the rhetorical ground to his poor abandoned teacher. I will tell you then.
"I feel like you're buying her some serious trouble here," Sixiang said dryly.
The first probe had been obvious, the next three were no less so, predatory, plucking whirls of qi forming and decompiling, grasping at her respiration, using her breath to sneak through into her body. She adjusted her breathing, cycled her qi in the counter direction.
The more subtle hooks brushed her skin, and she barely had the width of thought to disrupt them before they could sink into her meridians and steal her qi away.
It is fine, Sixiang. I don't think any of the Duchess' inner circle will be unaware of what we must do.
Overcome the Duchess. That was her challenge. From what she knew of her histories, Shenhua's followers, those spoken of as the Emerald Seas Heavenly Kings… they had been her retainers, as Ling Qi was to Cai Renxiang.
Heron General Xia Ren, The Crucible, Blade who Rends History
Matriarch Wang Jun, The Builder.
Patriarch Jia Hong, The Orator.
And her wife, Prime Minister Diao Linqin.
No, she did not think any of them were unaware of the Duchess' ultimate intentions. Not anymore than they were unaware of Renxiang's.
This one knows his student. This question will not meet reprisal.
She took a deep breath, and parried the latest flurry of infiltrations, twisting wind qi into whorling trapping loops, she sought to snatch the droplets of qi from his scattered hooks even as they dissolved.
A student may change much in two centuries or more.
Huisheng's bones creaked, petals falling. She squeezed Sixiang's hand, and the muses qi slid over her skin like a blanket of static, the disruptive, dissolving qi scattering the hundred of feinting attempts at access, leaving Ling Qi the freedom to twist and deflect the three true attempts hidden among their number. One hook broke apart into viscous droplets, stolen by her wind, the second deflected into the stone beneath her and died, the third… skirled around her cycling wind and snatched away a hearty mass of her qi, vanishing back beneath the lake of liquid darkness before she could muster an attempt at recovery.
Ling Qi grimaced, resetting her defenses for the next round, and tried to push down the deadened pins and needles ache which now covered her lower ribs on the right.
Less than one might think, when years becomes as months and decades as years.
She would just have to trust Huisheng here, not that she was deeply invested in fear in the first place. In the end, taking into account their positions… there simply wasn't much that could go wrong. A sovereign familiar with him would notice Huisheng's mark on her spirit whether she hid it or not. If they were both at the wedding… she would be noticed. The worst he could do was brush her off.
Teacher, it will be done. I accept the assignment, in the spirit given. This one hopes she will learn more of the limitations of Truth.
You will seek, now that the hook is baited.
She tilted her head. Should you use that suspicious phrasing?
Will you not seek the knowledge hinted at?
She lowered her head, accepting the point. She was still conflicted about many things but she could not and would not rely on Huisheng for all answers. She needed to contemplate things herself.
Does Choice truly arise, even in ignorance, in deception, in lies though?
It does. Your path is a brighter one, and yet, one on the path of multitude must accept much lies beyond their reach.
How does this square with the domination of Sovereignty?
No Sovereign rules all things, even under their own feet. Achieving dominion, yet knowing where its borders end, where its borders cannot expand. Will absolute, knowing weakness, knowing reliance.
A teetering balance.
The light glinting off his skull and the shadows hiding between his jaws seemed awfully stark. It can be done.
"I can see why it isn't," Ling Qi said quietly. "The appeal of the Peak, of power which cannot be contested in your realm… it sands away at that shining goal."
She had once thought of the peak of cultivation as absolute security, the end of fear and uncertainty. Only when she stood on a peak so high that none could loom overhead would the frightened girl with a growling stomach and ragged clothes disappear. Only when none could contest her choices would she be free.
…How childish.
She rose and clasped her hands before Huisheng
Choice III->IV
Choice blossoms in plenty, in solidarity, in empathy. To accept Choice is to accept uncertainty, fear, the end of your reach
The student thanks the teacher. I will try not to be absent for so long next time.
Wise is the one who makes no promise they cannot keep. Huisheng was clearly amused by her phrasing. The storm around you will not abate.
"I would be alarmed if it did." Ling Qi said wryly, bowing her head.
She clenched her hand, crushing one last dart of seedling qi, infiltrating through the meridian that exited in her palm.
"We done already?" Sixiang asked warily.
"We are, I will get in contact with the Senior Disciple, Teacher." She answered, turning away. Huisheng was silent as they mounted the stairs and emerged back in the garden that lay above the depthless lake below.
"You satisfied Qi?" Sixiang asked, stopping next to her by the little shrine to the moon.
The discs within cast a burning silvery glow. Ling Qi observed them. She had more teachers to speak to, soon enough. She wondered when their directives and lessons would fully collide. "As much as I can be. There's still too many questions… but I'm satisfied. I think I may wish to talk to Shu Yue about him as well."
"That wise?" Sixiang asked.
"Is anything I do?" Ling Qi teased.
"Can't believe you went out of your way to get more schoolwork, right before the party of millennium. Where've I gone wrong here?" Sixiang lamented.
"Oh stop that, there will be plenty of time for fun. Probably."
"See I don't like that word at the end," Sixiang shot back, poking her in the shoulder.
Ling Qi laughed quietly as she took Sixiang's hand and they stepped back through the veil into her office.
It was time for another journey now.
Flower Man continues to have the best conversations
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wow I was very happy with that chapter. Love the insights a lot, especially Sincerity, which is super important to me. That is Ling Qi's path, she needs to keep a tether to the Radiant Truth so she doesn't spin sideways into a dreamworld but it is her sincerity that can connect to people.
And we have a homework assignment to get a personal conversation with one of Shenhua's elite four, spectacular. Huisheng seems to be referring to this event:
Believe this was (correct me if I'm wrong) the Hui's final defense striking at the emotions of the rebels in a way that was really difficult for Truth to actually defeat, and then Linqin saved the day by using her own wood-based empathy domain to connect Shenhua's Truth to those hearts and banished the fear, which caught Xiangmen's attention so much it stopped protecting the Hui. It's the big narrative climax of Shenhua's own xianxia epic webnovel and I'm looking forward to an extended rendition of it. Great thematics there.
And we have a homework assignment to get a personal conversation with one of Shenhua's elite four, spectacular. Huisheng seems to be referring to this event:
Believe this was (correct me if I'm wrong) the Hui's final defense striking at the emotions of the rebels in a way that was really difficult for Truth to actually defeat, and then Linqin saved the day by using her own wood-based empathy domain to connect Shenhua's Truth to those hearts and banished the fear, which caught Xiangmen's attention so much it stopped protecting the Hui. It's the big narrative climax of Shenhua's own xianxia epic webnovel and I'm looking forward to an extended rendition of it. Great thematics there.
Ling Qi about to rock up to the Jia Patriarch, call him Senior Brother, and ask why he's such a poor student.
- Location
- USA
Alright, so we need to plan a heist.
Because I want those antlers.
Because I want those antlers.
- Location
- United States of America
Glad that uncle Skelly didn't choose to argue the semantics of what "truth" is. That can get really annoying and fruitless really fast.
It's interesting that he pivoted to distinguishing between two truths, the one that matters and the one that doesn't. It's also interesting, and likely based on his biases, that he calls the truth that people perceive to matter more than the truth that exists outside of human hearts.
It's interesting that he pivoted to distinguishing between two truths, the one that matters and the one that doesn't. It's also interesting, and likely based on his biases, that he calls the truth that people perceive to matter more than the truth that exists outside of human hearts.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
To be fair, one kinda becomes the other. That's literally in one sense what Ascensions are.
People can (theoretically) 'vibes' themselves into changing the "facts" of reality. Or at least the most flexible ones.
- Location
- CA
I really enjoyed that update, and I'm very happy to have gotten that Choice concept level from Huisheng. His spark of qi pushing her to quote his "the benefit of multitude is multitude, the cost of multitude is multitude" got her most of the way there, conceptually, but having a Sovereign of Choice speak authoritatively about how it is possible to balance Sovereignity with respect for the Choice of others? Excellent.
I wonder if the other choice would have also meant a quest to speak with the Jia Patriarch, and if so, on what topic. I'm not sure the inclusion-exclusion-Community has as much relevance to him and to the overthrow of the Hui.
I wonder if the other choice would have also meant a quest to speak with the Jia Patriarch, and if so, on what topic. I'm not sure the inclusion-exclusion-Community has as much relevance to him and to the overthrow of the Hui.
It's possible to contest even the rigid facts to some degree.
Yrsillar said:
Plus when dealing with politics perception of truth and reputation can have an outsized impact. Getting people to perceive that helping you will benefit them and trusting your judgement can be more important to succeeding than just telling them the objectively true benefits.
He's amused by the irony.
They made it real and that matters.
I like that he isn't going to talk about Truth it's not really his specialty so he'll leave it to another.
I like that answer and it makes sense that a Storyteller and Thief would think that way.
Huh that's interesting, nice to have another level in this.
Meeting the Patriarch of the Jia will be interesting.
The previous generation knows 100%.
That's true the older they are the harder it is to change.
Thus Speaks the Sovereign of Choice.
This is why I love this quest so much, it deconstructs and analysis cultivation tropes so well.
I really like this insight into Choice.
It's going to be great.
Who's the best talking skeleton full of black lotus flowers, isolated in a lake of his own tears? You are!
I think it would have, yeah:
"Breaker of kinship" sounds like something that would involve insights relevant to inclusion-exclusion-Community. Who is kin, who is not, what does it even mean to be kin, etc.
BagFullOfLizards
Some bag, mostly lizards
- Location
- A bag
The concept that Ascension is a deliberate mechanism added to allow humans to build on a reality the creators were not able to finish is such a cool idea.
- Location
- Space between realms
- Pronouns
- He
It puts a lot more importance on the idea of True Immortals. Cultivators become so powerful they become living Ideas, Laws, and Functions of the World instead of just more powerful and childish people. It makes so much sense for the troupe of Cultivators to be super stubborn, only someone with a will that strong can change the world and imprint, only someone so sure can cut away all else for their ideal.
As the great Ichiro Oda once said, "Only Haki can Transcend all." Only a truly great Will can force the world to change.
As Miquella the Kind did, divest yourself of all to become the god you wish to see.
Last edited:
I'm glad Huisheng thinks Truth is dumb, but I'm pretty bleh that we've doubled up on delving the Hui's legacy during the xiangmen arc. Shu Yue's excursion to the nightmare of the roots to master the poisons which kill minds and hearts. Now, inquiring to Patriarch Jia on the last nightmares unleashed by the Hui.
It feels... same-y. Crowded.
The throughline for what we're meant to be interrogating with the Patriarch is also kinda vague. From context, something involving finally smothering the last embers of Truth in Ling Qi's mind/finding a final resting place for the dead thing. And the vaguery is smart from a writing perspective, because it lets Yrsillar craft whatever tale is needed for the moment when it reaches us. But the lack of definition looms.
Maybe something about the limits of Truth and how even its pinnacle upon this world, Cai Shenhua, required the softer touch of Diao Linqin's understanding of the human condition to prevail in any context that matters? In this case, a contest for who would rule the world of men. Whose principles would.
If that's the play, it could actually line up with the Shu Yue stuff decently. Kind of a two sides of the same coin deal. Some playing around with scope re: individuals vs collective society, and where each breaks down under stressors.
I really hope the Thief of Names mindbreak tech doesn't get slapped with a big, tacky Truth tag through all of this, though.
It feels... same-y. Crowded.
The throughline for what we're meant to be interrogating with the Patriarch is also kinda vague. From context, something involving finally smothering the last embers of Truth in Ling Qi's mind/finding a final resting place for the dead thing. And the vaguery is smart from a writing perspective, because it lets Yrsillar craft whatever tale is needed for the moment when it reaches us. But the lack of definition looms.
Maybe something about the limits of Truth and how even its pinnacle upon this world, Cai Shenhua, required the softer touch of Diao Linqin's understanding of the human condition to prevail in any context that matters? In this case, a contest for who would rule the world of men. Whose principles would.
If that's the play, it could actually line up with the Shu Yue stuff decently. Kind of a two sides of the same coin deal. Some playing around with scope re: individuals vs collective society, and where each breaks down under stressors.
I really hope the Thief of Names mindbreak tech doesn't get slapped with a big, tacky Truth tag through all of this, though.
Last edited:
NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
Based on this lesson and accompanying concept upgrades, I'd say that a Sincerity or maybe Clarity tag is more likely than Truth there. After all, as Jiao and Xin demonstrated in the interlude where they killed the would-be bandit emperor, when it comes to cultivator Way Breaking the truth itself isn't quite as important as convincing them to believe it.
No, I mean, I don't want those there either. It'd be a lodestone around the neck of an otherwise reliably cool art.