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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] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
Yep, 2hrs past, time to vote.

[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[x] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)

my vote always loses so....
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)

We know that muses "die" and have their individual parts reused and remade into new muses all the time. Here's the passage, with things I find relevant bolded:
yrsillar said:
In Dream Ling Qi was surrounded by kin. Through the currents of thought and great abyss of conciousness, she swam with countless millions of her kin, forming patterns of color and brightness of incomprehensible beauty and complexity. In and out of Dream did her kin swim, individuals breaching briefly into the alien realm of the Real. Each time they carried a hint of Dream's Spark, and returned themselves, enriched by new droplets of thought to add to Dream.

In Dream, Ling Qi was born and died a thousand times. She emerged wriggling from the hide of great leviathan [Grandmother/Emerald Dancer/Sister Brightsong/Dreaming Moon Local Avatar &*^*&%^(&)] to dance and play and sing with her siblings, in the churning wake of the leviathan's passage. To breach the surface and the Real with dreams and hope and creative sparks. Then when she had swum and danced and played, and gathered the hopes, creativity, and desires of the real onto herself until her belly bulged and her eyes sagged with exhaustion, she returned, the shed scale resuming its place, and dying so that a new dream could take its place.

It was beautiful, a system without loss, old ideas and abandoned thoughts falling into Dream to be renewed and returned to the Real, subtly different than before. The people of the Real fed the Sea of Dream, and the Sea of Dream buoyed the Real, urging them to new heights of creation.

Here, Ling Qi knew not fear or sadness. Though she touched thoughts of those kinds in every cycle, never did they cling to her. They were often the seeds of creation, but the feelings themselves could not take root in a being without permanence. Without context, such things were meaningless.

And so Ling Qi experienced a thousand thousand cycles, and never learned a single thing. Each momentary existence, each creative spark, each muse passing and fading like a waking dream. With each passing cycle, Ling Qi felt her own mind diverging from the experience she was following, until at last she felt like an observer, rather than a participant.
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So I think that getting Six back on track as a muse will make them less scared of death, and therefore less touched by the feelings of others, but also more alien and less human. I don't think it will make Six likelier to return to their greater self, because that would be kind of a dick move by @yrsillar to flag it as "higher chance of positive outcome" if so, but I expect that Sixiang will be more... changeable. Less of an enduring personality, and more likely to go through cycles of personality change themself.
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)

Still not 100% sure, but we did pick the option last turn with long term solution and succeeded, so one of the options being a trap would be... weird quest design. So going with this as I think it is about Six handling their fears.
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
I think thinking about either as a "trap" is the wrong way to manage it.

Ultimately, if the choice was just between "option with bad chance" "option with better chance" then it would be kinda pointless.

The thing I think we have to think about here is what the long term outcomes are likely to be, and whether or not they're something we want. And to examine the trade-offs there.
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
We've talked about the problem, we decided to not talk about US, but let's talk about Six.

[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
Erebeal said:
I think thinking about either as a "trap" is the wrong way to manage it.

Ultimately, if the choice was just between "option with bad chance" "option with better chance" then it would be kinda pointless.

The thing I think we have to think about here is what the long term outcomes are likely to be, and whether or not they're something we want. And to examine the trade-offs there.
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I agree.

My belief is that the Wind option is going to make Sixiang more... well, more like Ling Qi. She's got a set of people she cares about and has strong empathy for, and mostly ignores the rest. It's an option that helps Sixiang limit their empathy from the all-encompassing nature of the muse and become closer to human:
yrsillar said:
"Heh, looks like you were paying attention to the art stuff after all," Sixiang chuckled. "But, yes Ling Qi, I understand people, I can feel what they feel. Do you understand?"

Ling Qi had difficulty imagining it, she had trouble enough with her own emotions, the thought of having the feelings of others flooding her head at all times was… unpleasant. She knew intuitively that Sixiang was not just speaking of their allies, and it fed certain threads of unease that had wound through her thoughts since the day when she had killed the Bai traitor and the bandits. She lowered her eyes as the dirge rose higher. "I stand by what I said earlier. You should save your understanding for the people you care about. You have to choose what to value more and less."
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And the Moon option, as I detailed above, I think makes Sixiang less human, more detached from people, and fundamentally more alien. Which is fine by me. We've got one Ling Qi; I don't need another. I want her to have an alien-minded partner, because I think that's interesting.
 
Erebeal said:
I think thinking about either as a "trap" is the wrong way to manage it.

Ultimately, if the choice was just between "option with bad chance" "option with better chance" then it would be kinda pointless.

The thing I think we have to think about here is what the long term outcomes are likely to be, and whether or not they're something we want. And to examine the trade-offs there.
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We don't have enough information to examine the trade-offs.
What we do know however, is that we just had a vote with higher change of success for temporary fix, and lower change of success for permanent one.
And we picked the permanent fix.
Assuming that either option available would not fix the issue at hand feels uncharitable at best.
Now, either option will have their own problems down the line, but that's just part of being a person with wants and needs and opinions living in a world with other people who have their own wants and needs and opinions.
 
[X] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)

Maybe its the transhumanist in me, but I want to try and help her become more then she is.
 
Dunno if it would make them (Six) less human tbh, it is hard to say. Ultimately spirits becomes more/changes when interacting with humans especially when they are bound. But even spirits like Zeqing changed a lot by her interaction with LQ.

So even in an option about reclaiming some of her nature of a muse... it is still through LQ's actions and advice that it is is happening. So by how we been shown how the world works... would they really just become closer to their origins?
 
Nolrai said:
[X] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)

Maybe its the transhumanist in me, but I want to try and help her become more then she is.
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Do they want to be more than they are?
And how do we define "more" in this case? Less like a muse? More like a human? Both options make them "more" in one way or another.
 
[X] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)

Not willing to vote for a yang art
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)

Yusss cute boy!Six dancing with Ling Qi :3

picklepikkl said:
I agree.

My belief is that the Wind option is going to make Sixiang more... well, more like Ling Qi. She's got a set of people she cares about and has strong empathy for, and mostly ignores the rest. It's an option that helps Sixiang limit their empathy from the all-encompassing nature of the muse and become closer to human:

And the Moon option, as I detailed above, I think makes Sixiang less human, more detached from people, and fundamentally more alien. Which is fine by me. We've got one Ling Qi; I don't need another. I want her to have an alien-minded partner, because I think that's interesting.
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I don't see why I'd say it just means Six likely grows to understand the "there are things that you care about more than the possibility of death" mentality that humans have that Six is so confused by because they can't comprehend why we aren't fretting about our deaths every moment we live.

Tapping into their nature as a muse can mean Six can start to appreciate stuff like life goals or projects that humans pursue even if it means risking pain or death because they think it's worth it (since that's what many passionate artists feel and many great artists pursue danger to hone their craft).
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
I'm okay with the themes from either.

[X] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)
 
[X] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)

My read on this choice is:


Extreme empathy is bringing Six pain and fear. Being a Muse, empathy is greatly amplified. What do we do?

Wind: Work on fixing 'Empathy', understand it, limit the fear and pain it causes on Six. Maybe learn to selectively limit who gets empathy from six to make the feelings more manageable. Fear of things remains something Six is vulnerable to, but we're removing the source of her current fear.


Moon: Work on coping with that 'Fear' without involving Empathy into the mix. Focus on the handling of fear itself, develop courage or acceptance. We don't remove the source of her fear, but we give her tools so that she can overcome the emotion of fear.

Ultimately, both options seem good to me, but I don't care for learning MoSS, and I really want PMR as soon as possible, so going to vote for that.
 
[x] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)

The way i see it, this will try and teach her how to cope with her empathy problems i think reinforcing her nature is teaching her apathy, cus from what it sounds like, thats what most muses are and that apathy is also what can make spirits more dangerous in general. I think that what this vote really breaks down to is how we are teaching sixiang to deal with negative emotions, coping or apathy. Personally i think coping is more healthy and important even if it is more "human".
 
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