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
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
"Su Ling puts her foot in her mouth around Wang Chao, or Wang Chao around her, and a personality conflict arises where we can't support our friend without damaging our official task from our liege and vice versa" is the disaster option, which I don't think is guaranteed to happen, but which has way more of a likelihood to happen, given the personalities involved, than I'd like. They're both Mountain cultivators, after all.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
You mean sword boy who will be there?
More seriously, Su Ling isn't a prickly fox girl with a temper. She has and had no issue mingling and interacting with Golden Field group last year, or Xiaofe this year, and so on. She is specifically asking how to learn how to deal with being a noble, but that doesn't mean she is some kind of savage fox. She has been interacting with nobles a lot by now.
There is a reason she was bantering with Fefe.
Wang Chao has actually been shown to have an uncommon view on how to tolerate low noble cultivators, as can be seen with his interactions with Liang He. There is basically no danger of that. As said above, Su Ling also knows how to talk to nobles. She has been doing it a lot. She doesn't know how to be a noble yet.
Like, another example that should easily show how Su Ling actually knew to behave quite well is the recon arc we just did underground.
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Wait, is this the same hunting group? I'm pretty sure we actually could talk Su Ling into going by pointing out that she can practice hunting powerful spirit beasts with them if she gets in good with the group.
Now, the question is if we should do that...
Now, the question is if we should do that...
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Being the specialist vip in a military unit on a deep recon mission behind enemy lines is not the same thing socially as going to a nobles party and equating the two is silly
Bakkasama
There is always a greater fool
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/his
No, this is a new group organized about sparring. Ling Qi wanted to make inroads with Wang Chao because the Wang is one of the Emerald Seas count clans and having good relationships with them help the Cai. To that end, Ling Qi asked him to help her study strategies for fighting around fortified positions to help synergize with Zhengui.
Thing is, the Wang are the youngest count clan and have very few vassals. Wang Chao wanted something similar to the hunting group, since that group is actually an excuse for the organizer to mingle with his clans vassals, business partners and people they want to ingratiate themselves with in general and it would look really good for his clan if Chao can help promote unity and their feudal relationship. So Ling Qi, lerning this and knowing that people who feel like they are doing you a favor feel closer to you, went "Hey dude, I wanted to organize something like that hunting group to expand my social circle since I am new to the nobility in the area but I ran into the problem that I know nobody I can invite. Can you do me a solid and help me co-organize this thing?" only without mentioning the hunting group since Wang Chao is the type who quickly warms up to an idea if he thinks it was his. So he went along with it once he realized it helped get what he wanted and Ling Qi went "Well, I can at least do the paperwork since I would feel terrible if you did all that work to help me"
So first meeting of the group, in which Wang Chao wants it to be succesful so that it becomes recurrent and he can properly hold court while Ling Qi wants it to be succesful so that Wang Chao associates her with said success.
(at least iirc, it has been a while)
- Location
- Canada
Just to chime in on the Su Ling/Party issue, and this is a genuine question, why do we want to bring her? My understanding of the situation is that she doesn't want to get involved in this kind of stuff. I understand the argument of, "it would be good for her", though I think it's slightly condescending. Yet, the feeling I get from Su Ling is being a noble is never going to be a huge part of who she is. She isn't like us, she's not going to get involved in the intricate dance of politics, and, I mean, why does that have to be a bad thing?
If it is about her making friends, could we not introduce her to people who are more likely to mesh with her? I guess I just haven't seen a convincing enough argument advocating she goes yet that answers the "why".
If it is about her making friends, could we not introduce her to people who are more likely to mesh with her? I guess I just haven't seen a convincing enough argument advocating she goes yet that answers the "why".
Bakkasama
There is always a greater fool
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/his
Well, there are two main reasons. The first is that Su Ling admits that while she doesn't like the idea of interacting with nobles, she will have to due to her new position and has to learn how.
The second reason is that we learned that some nobles thought that Ling Qi was "too prideful to mesh with other nobles" due to her avoiding social interactions with them (in the same way Su Ling thinks herself too good to interact with them, since she has her bias against them based on the stuffy/prideful/scheeming noble stereotype) and we want to help Su Ling avoid that pifall, since if she does it too much then she will develop a reputation and people will be less likely to help her when she eventually reaches out.
Basically, her interacting with nobles will happen eventually and it is a balance between giving her time to prepare for her to cause a good impression and that we learned the hard way that delaying a meeting makes an impression on its own.
Edit: Adding to this, of the count kids we interacted with, we have two choices of social gatherings to take her to. The one on the vote is a sparring group with Wang Chao. Wang Chao has the flaw that he can come out as blunt and has easily blunted pride but the interaction we have seen leads us to believe that once he considers you a friend he can be easy going (he took a shine to that swordsman we terrified in one of our advancing duels and is constantly trying to get him out of his shell). We also hope that having Su Ling at the first meeting would breed familiarity, since if the people involved come to see it as normal for her to be present then it will be way easier for them to have her in the 'we are nobles of Emerald seas' in group.
The other option is the hunting group. The organizer is less likely to offend Su Ling by offering insult but when we went there he was very accomodating by letting us choose what to do in order to test us and fit us in a mental slot of how we interact with the others and how he should treat us. Su Ling is no fool so he will probably come off to her as the 'scheeming noble' as opposed to the 'prideful noble' the other might. The other, main disadvantage is that the cliques in the hunting group are already formed so it is harder to integrate her (and they are formed around the political factions within that county so even if she integrates it might send an unintentional message).
Oh, also, while Ling Qi has a standing invitation to the hunting gathering, Su Ling doesn't while in the sparring group Lung Qi is one of the organizers and thus can invite her. That helps.
It also occurs to me that we are leaving the sect in a year and change while Su Ling has her military service so it will be easier to her if she becomes integrated. Save for Li Suyin, who Su Ling already knows, our other socials are either ducals, music focus people, our merchant suitor, Shadow sempai or mud boy. Mud boy might as well be an hermit and is as far out of his deep as as Su Ling, so other than Shadow Sempai to groom Su Ling as a scout for the sect, the sparring group might be our best bet to help her integrate.
Besides... better she dips her toes in a informal setting like this group instead of a CRX's party.
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- Location
- the internet
Can someone provide a link to the chapter in Forge where Li Suyin and Su Ling tried joining the hunting group? I tried looking for it but couldn't find it. I wanna reference Su Ling's last experience with a gathering of nobles that we invited her to...Iirc, it wasn't good.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I got you, fam.
Some choice quotes:
You are correct. It did not go well. Nobody really covered themselves in glory, socially speaking.
- Location
- Washington
It's an invitation. The condescending thing is "oh she's little baby cultivator who can't handle this at all, better not even present her with the option of doing so." If you're right... she declines.
- Location
- Washington
No, we don't have to rush this, but she's also riding high on a very favored entry into the inner sect. It's an opportunity that can't be counted on coming again, if she wants to make use of it, this invitation is one of the better ways to make use of it. If she doesn't want to make use of it, she doesn't have to come.
I mean, if we're planning to have her in this group then this is arguably the best time to do it. Get in on the ground floor before dynamics get established and things get more awkward.
I was thinking more ling qi read it novels and romances like the xuan books Record like an audiobook with sound efects and publish it sell the naration like Song but its not her work
Kinda sad that su ling got to have to say goodbye to fatty.
This is actually the crux of my concerns, but in the other direction. If Ling Qi convinces Su Ling to attend, it will be by making certain guarantees, explicitly or implicitly. And she likely will attend because she trusts us.
But I don't trust our ability to back up those guarantees without potentially sacrificing existing commitments. It's a matter of responsibility.
My concern is that Ling Qi will introduce it as "Here's a little sparring club my friends and I are starting up" and not "Here's a bunch of young nobles playing at holding court". That would make it so that Su Ling wouldn't know what she was agreeing to until she was right there and it would be awkward to leave. The latter would be a valuable experience for her. It is also very much something that she would not want to have sprung on her.
Also I don't think she wants to make use of her reputation and this confusion could make her essentially have to do it.