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.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
I honestly feel that's the wrong solution. Keep in mind that for all this is a cooperative story, this is yours first and foremost. It's not your job to please everyone, it's to tell a narrative that you want to tell. You want him in the story? Keep him in the story. You want to write him out of the story, write him out.
Doing it in response to certain reader's displeasure just creates this environment where, if someone doesn't like something, they can just try to poison the well thoroughly enough to get it changed.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
Pls don't write him out. He's already there. TehChron already wrote him as well and to throw him away would be super wasteful. Best to just roll with the punches.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Mostly because he makes us seem less special.
- Location
- scrabbling
As far as I can tell this is the first time Ji Rong has been a 'toxic' subject. 
I mean it's yrsillar's choice but I also don't understand why people care if he gets a dragon. A point of the setting is that Ling Qi isn't special, that the things she does are accessible to some segment of the population, even if she does have a definite amount of luck. There are dragons, plural. They're a part of the setting. They're competing with each other and other spirit beasts and humans. They'll want a guaranteed ticket up the cultivation ladder. How does it not make sense?
I mean it's yrsillar's choice but I also don't understand why people care if he gets a dragon. A point of the setting is that Ling Qi isn't special, that the things she does are accessible to some segment of the population, even if she does have a definite amount of luck. There are dragons, plural. They're a part of the setting. They're competing with each other and other spirit beasts and humans. They'll want a guaranteed ticket up the cultivation ladder. How does it not make sense?
I've got to push back on this. He adds a sense of depth to the setting and could be a great slow burn character that crops up here and there until being deeply significant at a later point. Seems to me a mark of strong writing.
- Location
- United States of America
Anyways, let's talk about fictional politics! Most of the fun of real politics, but with little of the angst and anger and devastating real-life consequences! Specifically:
This is important because we really don't have a block that we belong to at this point. We have some connections to clans in the middle and northern sections of the province, but this is the first time we can actually socialize with a specific group of people who represent a specific portion of the province and start entering their confidences. We have some similarities to the Luo, given our moon cultivation, and expanding on that connection will likely be helpful to us in the short and long run.
Furthermore, we are good enough with a bow not to completely embarrass ourselves, and we saved the bow for occasions just like this. It will demonstrate that we have some competence with more traditional weaponry, which will probably help our impression with some more of the staunch traditional nobles. Another benefit is broadening our understanding of the terrain in the area and possibly actually getting some of the cores to feed to Zhengui.
We... really should do this. It will bite into our cultivation, but politics is an important part of Ling Qi's life and refusing the initial invitation is asking to not be invited again. Getting a finger on the pulse of the eastern segment of the Emerald Seas would likely be helpful for Cai, and us, as well as opening up doors and possible friendships/alliances with the more eastern clans.
This is important because we really don't have a block that we belong to at this point. We have some connections to clans in the middle and northern sections of the province, but this is the first time we can actually socialize with a specific group of people who represent a specific portion of the province and start entering their confidences. We have some similarities to the Luo, given our moon cultivation, and expanding on that connection will likely be helpful to us in the short and long run.
Furthermore, we are good enough with a bow not to completely embarrass ourselves, and we saved the bow for occasions just like this. It will demonstrate that we have some competence with more traditional weaponry, which will probably help our impression with some more of the staunch traditional nobles. Another benefit is broadening our understanding of the terrain in the area and possibly actually getting some of the cores to feed to Zhengui.
- Location
- North Carolina
I've a feeling this won't be an AP event, and will instead be a "Minor Action" that we vote on during the course of a month.
- Location
- United States of America
That would be exceptionally nice
- Location
- United States
Hmm, I edited for clarity because your response made me realize it was a bit too easy to misunderstand me as saying Ji Rong shouldn't be able to keep up.
Ling Qi is a privileged underling of a privileged scion of a privileged house, while Ji Rong is a mere underling of a mere scion of a privileged house. Sun Shao's title is "king" but is roughly equivalent to the other ducal families; Sun Liling may have been the heir but was disgraced and is now merely Sun Shao's great granddaughter; and Ji Rong isn't even her retainer, just a dude with a crush. All of which makes it less likely that Sun Shao is funneling a bunch of green stones to Ji Rong.
Altogether it's entirely believable that Ling Qi gets 20% more resources than Ji Rong does, and a tiny bit less believable (but still entirely believable) that Ji Rong manages to keep pace with Ling Qi in resource acquisition (by getting at least 80% as much resources as Ling Qi manages to acquire).
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- Location
- Virginia
Well, partly that yeah, but also because other than occasionally fighting us, the dude doesn't really seem to have a role in the story.
He has all the ingredients of a rival/foil, but he appears so infrequently and has so little interaction with Ling Qi you can't justify calling him one.
It feels like we keep being teased with hints that he has tons of cool stuff going on with him, like his backstory or the trials he's been going through at the sect, but we never ever seem to get to see any of it actually happen.
With the other characters, we see enough of them to get a real feel of their personality and watch as they evolve as characters.
Like Sun Liling for example; we learned more about her and her motivations over the quest, and came to love to hate her for being such a stubborn spoiled brat, who shamelessly draws on her great-grandpa's name and resources to fuel her petty feud with CRX. And how every time she loses, she'll double down and go farther just to try and be able to say she didn't really lose. But she also shows that she really loves her gramps and wants to make him proud and help her family, to show that there's some depth to her.
We see none of that stuff with Ji Rong. We're pretty sure that there is something happening there, but we never actually get to see who he truly started as or what he's been turning into, so it gets extra hard to form a real opinion on the guy beyond general frustration when he fights us and whatever info we learn OoC.
What I'm getting at is it doesn't feel like the dude has a real role or purpose in this story, and never really has even though he's been around since the start of the first quest and has plenty of potential to excite. And that sucks because I've been wanting to explore his character since he was introduced.
But we never seem to get the chance, and honestly the wait is getting tiring. At this point I'd just be happy to know if anything besides fighting will ever be done with him or not.
Edit: Also, sorry if that got a little too long and rant-like, just something I've been thinking for a while, and long before this update.
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- Location
- USA
I have two thoughts about this: LQ gets quite a lot of her resources from adventuring loot. I see no reason he shouldn't do the same. Secondly, the amount of resources given to someone in green just isn't that much to a privileged house, I don't think? If you're thinking about supplying people in cyan and white, one green more or less is going to be a rounding error.
We totes should. Not only getting in good with a count scion but his various viscont and baron entourage is a useful thing. That coupled with the Bao, Bian, and some up and coming barons like Ruan is a nice little starting point for us.
Still wanna drag Lan Lan sometime to throw her at the Luo so she can ditch Fan Yu for a sheep dog boi
- Location
- USA
I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head - part of the thread wants Ji Rong to have a role in the story, and he doesn't, and he actually doesn't seem likely to. He's someone LQ could have been close to or strongly antagonistic with, if she'd gone a different path, but there's only so much time in one's life for allies or enemies, and she has adorable snake people to talk to.
Honestly, I think the system is set up to co-opt and separate high talent commoners, so they don't bunch up and get ideas. Each of them is drawn into vassal relationships or apprenticeships and then those new patrons say 'you can't be his friend, he works for evil sunflower lady.' And that's very frustrating, but that's politics for you! LQ is settling into the system, rather than bucking it, and we outside it are going 'but you could be fighting the power with your bandit friend!'
She is not going to be fighting the power with her bandit friend. She's probably not even going to consider him a key antagonist, she feels too 'he's like me' to really want to punch him in the face too hard.
- Location
- United States
I think it's more like "Ling Qi is special but not uniquely so". The central conceit is, in my mind, that all of these "a few in a generation" talents ended up in the same place.
Now that they're all in the same place challenging each other, they're all forcing each other into becoming talents seen "once every several generations".