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.
- Pronouns
- They/It
[x] Join Alingge with the Beasts. [Actively help Zhengui be more social. Advice on the vagaries of raising spirit beasts, Influence Alingge bond.]
- Location
- Staring into the void
Inserted tally
You characterize it as if she leaves him on the side of the road in the sect with a half a bag of doritos and a juice box every day. LIng Qi only allowed him to speak with others in very specific instances and was mixed feelings about allowing him to visit Hanyi. It's been shown she has had to get over fretting and getting involved when he has childish arguments with Hanyi and had to be talked down by Sixiang. Otherwise he has to stay at home. Ling Qi has been involved with training Zhengui, from getting him to hide and ambush rabbits to snaring worms with his roots to skeet shooting rocks to being invovled when he developed eating the ground and spitting a blob of molten glass. None of these are characteristics of Zhengui being some latch key kid who goes out in the world on his own.
I don't know where you come up with this reasoning it's really out of left field.
I guess my point was I saw it wasn't so much leaving him to fend for himself as actively curating and denying social contact before aside from Hanyi who was our mentors kid and Cui. By the time he was old enough to not nip at tails and talk we weren't hanging out with the Golden Fields aside from Lan Lan whom we saw Linhao hadn't seen Zhengui in awhile.
I'm not sure how much socializing lower realmed spirits and beasts do as the only time we've really seen evidence of that is Spirit Lady Tea Party Club which Zeqing was the lowest at cyan.
[X] Join Wang Chao in the pavilion. [Make yourself more approachable, influence Wang Chao Bond. Give Zhengui room to act on his own, for better or worse.]
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
[X] Join Alingge with the Beasts. [Actively help Zhengui be more social. Advice on the vagaries of raising spirit beasts, Influence Alingge bond.]
1) I want to talk to Alingge about her unique perspective about Spirit Beasts
2) We get the whole Zhengui shenanigans out of the way (sounds like exp for Beast Handling)
3) I like Alingge anyways
4) it's (surprisingly) the minority option (this time around)
That said, not sure how much I like the arguments on my side (bringing up Zhengui issues from the last Wang arc)
1) I want to talk to Alingge about her unique perspective about Spirit Beasts
2) We get the whole Zhengui shenanigans out of the way (sounds like exp for Beast Handling)
3) I like Alingge anyways
4) it's (surprisingly) the minority option (this time around)
That said, not sure how much I like the arguments on my side (bringing up Zhengui issues from the last Wang arc)
[X] Join Alingge with the Beasts. [Actively help Zhengui be more social. Advice on the vagaries of raising spirit beasts, Influence Alingge bond.]
[X] Join Wang Chao in the pavilion. [Make yourself more approachable, influence Wang Chao Bond. Give Zhengui room to act on his own, for better or worse.]
Uh, Zhengui's angsts stems from his feelings of inadequacy and weakness from his inability to protect his mom when she dives face first into a buzz saw like Liling or an assassins blade not out of trying to catch her attention to show he's deserves attention?
- Location
- Staring into the void
Looking back at previous interactions, Zhengui has always wanted Ling Qi to be "mom", Ling Qi has always gone "nope nope nope, brother". Brother is still close family, but not the same. Zhengui wants to be mothered, but Ling Qi has held that at arms length due to her own hangups.
Boiling it down, my concern is basically that building narrative momentum with Zhengui consistently gets muddled by the framing of votes. I hate contrasting things with Hanyi because it can come off like I'm arguing for less Hanyi or complaining about her, but really she's the golden example of things done right with a spirit.
So here's the stuff she's got going for her, narratively. There's all the overlap between her cultivation and Ling Qi's. She had a full post-Zeqing-separation arc laser focused all on her own shit(plus Yu Nuan, but not in a way that was actually obtrusive). She seamlessly wormed her way into the dealings with Bao Qian which were until then primarily focused on Zhengui. There's been multiple off-screen commitments to her inclusion in activities, like dancing with Sixiang and getting pointers on composition for her work for Bao Qian. And now in this update she's apparently going off to further refine her own issues in quiet independence, with decent odds she comes back with power-ups.
When you look at Zhengui, we don't see that same ease of narrative progression. There's a lot of false starts and potholes that force the narrative to slam on the breaks, and sometimes even change direction. Like, let's look at what's been going on with him ever since he woke up in the Inner Sect:
-awakening is sidelined by (valid) Hanyi and broader family drama
-basically leave him behind in bandit fight
-chose a zhengui-centric route in the second military exercise | run around without him as more optimal choice instead
-didn't pick the teamwork option with Shen Hu which would have mirrored aspects of fighting with Zhengui tactics-wise
-due to choices, basically got back too late to actually fight with him pushing past his limits
-organize feel-better hangout with Meizhen + Cui for Zhengui | turns into an event focused on Cai Renxiang's cultivation angst
-use Zhengui as premise for approaching Wang Chao | immediately broaden the scope, minimizing his role and attention
-art vote overwhelmingly targets his keywords | mixed results lead to mediocre compromise art
-flubbed roll on adventure results in choosing notable harm to his mood and advancement
It's like a gear that won't stop slipping. A few of these weren't votes, they happened automatically, but they form the backdrop against which further choices are made. There's also been events that he's been present for, like the Xuan Shi temple adventure and EPC-moon dream vision, but he was really just window dressing for those. Same as Hanyi who was also present, really.
There's been a consistent pattern of Zhengui's engagement being easily derailed by stuff that comes up, and he doesn't have the same narrative safety nets in place that Sixiang and Hanyi have with the way they share significant cultivation touch points with Ling Qi. Zhengui only has the narratives of the events that keep getting interrupted. It's a serious issue that Zhengui keeps getting stacked up against what are basically Main Questline objectives, where we have to choose to pursue one or the other. Sixiang and Hanyi haven't gotten the same treatment. It's incongruous and especially worrying because, again, we lack the more diverse touchstones for engaging with him.
I'm not sure if there's an actual reason for this, honestly. Like, is there a broader narrative being deliberately pushed relating to Ling Qi and Zhengui's relationship that we're just continually falling prey to, or is it the result of more or less random choice and oversights in planning? I can't really tell. And as a concession to the folks voting for Wang Chao here, I have to confess that because Zhengui's gotten sandwiched in with, and against, these Official Job Goals again, it's probably right to argue that just smacking the "Zhengui!" button during the event won't improve things. It certainly didn't help underground post-fungus.
But then that leaves us in a place where there is no option for improvement, because these are the only circumstances in which meaningful engagement with Zhengui actually rears its head at all!
It's a frustrating set of circumstances, for sure.
What has happened, I think, is Ling Qi saw social engagement as this Scary Thing, that she braved, as she braves most dangers, independently. But that's not the same thing as deliberately shielding her spirits, it's a continuation of her broader aloof tendencies. With a side order of "But don't nobles not respect spirits, so wouldn't it be a liability?" aversion. Which, for the record, I'm happy to see Ling Qi biting her thumb at with including Hanyi at Renxiang's parties.
So here's the stuff she's got going for her, narratively. There's all the overlap between her cultivation and Ling Qi's. She had a full post-Zeqing-separation arc laser focused all on her own shit(plus Yu Nuan, but not in a way that was actually obtrusive). She seamlessly wormed her way into the dealings with Bao Qian which were until then primarily focused on Zhengui. There's been multiple off-screen commitments to her inclusion in activities, like dancing with Sixiang and getting pointers on composition for her work for Bao Qian. And now in this update she's apparently going off to further refine her own issues in quiet independence, with decent odds she comes back with power-ups.
When you look at Zhengui, we don't see that same ease of narrative progression. There's a lot of false starts and potholes that force the narrative to slam on the breaks, and sometimes even change direction. Like, let's look at what's been going on with him ever since he woke up in the Inner Sect:
-awakening is sidelined by (valid) Hanyi and broader family drama
-basically leave him behind in bandit fight
-chose a zhengui-centric route in the second military exercise | run around without him as more optimal choice instead
-didn't pick the teamwork option with Shen Hu which would have mirrored aspects of fighting with Zhengui tactics-wise
-due to choices, basically got back too late to actually fight with him pushing past his limits
-organize feel-better hangout with Meizhen + Cui for Zhengui | turns into an event focused on Cai Renxiang's cultivation angst
-use Zhengui as premise for approaching Wang Chao | immediately broaden the scope, minimizing his role and attention
-art vote overwhelmingly targets his keywords | mixed results lead to mediocre compromise art
-flubbed roll on adventure results in choosing notable harm to his mood and advancement
It's like a gear that won't stop slipping. A few of these weren't votes, they happened automatically, but they form the backdrop against which further choices are made. There's also been events that he's been present for, like the Xuan Shi temple adventure and EPC-moon dream vision, but he was really just window dressing for those. Same as Hanyi who was also present, really.
There's been a consistent pattern of Zhengui's engagement being easily derailed by stuff that comes up, and he doesn't have the same narrative safety nets in place that Sixiang and Hanyi have with the way they share significant cultivation touch points with Ling Qi. Zhengui only has the narratives of the events that keep getting interrupted. It's a serious issue that Zhengui keeps getting stacked up against what are basically Main Questline objectives, where we have to choose to pursue one or the other. Sixiang and Hanyi haven't gotten the same treatment. It's incongruous and especially worrying because, again, we lack the more diverse touchstones for engaging with him.
I'm not sure if there's an actual reason for this, honestly. Like, is there a broader narrative being deliberately pushed relating to Ling Qi and Zhengui's relationship that we're just continually falling prey to, or is it the result of more or less random choice and oversights in planning? I can't really tell. And as a concession to the folks voting for Wang Chao here, I have to confess that because Zhengui's gotten sandwiched in with, and against, these Official Job Goals again, it's probably right to argue that just smacking the "Zhengui!" button during the event won't improve things. It certainly didn't help underground post-fungus.
But then that leaves us in a place where there is no option for improvement, because these are the only circumstances in which meaningful engagement with Zhengui actually rears its head at all!
It's a frustrating set of circumstances, for sure.
Again, we had vote options for poking our nose into his hanging out with Hanyi or his rivalry with Heizui, but we didn't ever pick those. Ling Qi isn't a super helicopter parent. We didn't do those things that one would do. All I'm saying is that any argument that rests on the notion that Ling Qi has historically smothered Zhengui socially is based on a false premise.
What has happened, I think, is Ling Qi saw social engagement as this Scary Thing, that she braved, as she braves most dangers, independently. But that's not the same thing as deliberately shielding her spirits, it's a continuation of her broader aloof tendencies. With a side order of "But don't nobles not respect spirits, so wouldn't it be a liability?" aversion. Which, for the record, I'm happy to see Ling Qi biting her thumb at with including Hanyi at Renxiang's parties.
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That's the only time we've let him go out on his own at the time and there wasn't any evidence of him interacting with Heizui outside of when we were there, otherwise he sat at home with Cui and ate the porch.
- Location
- Staring into the void
@Sparkle from discord:
Probably part of why Zhengui really wants to impress her is probably due to LQ not taking up name of Mom and Zhengui feeling that makes him inadequate.
He isn't a good enough son yet to be called son.
While there might not be any amount of interaction that will fix this, we should still try.
Edit to add sources
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We've never stopped him from going out on his own either. There's simply no evidence for the position that Ling Qi helicopter mum'd him. Ling Qi's, as far as I'm aware, basically just never given a serious thought to it. Out of sight out of mind, and we sure never went looking.
- Location
- World
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Join Alingge with the Beasts. [Actively help Zhengui be more social. Advice on the vagaries of raising spirit beasts, Influence Alingge bond.]
oh man, i'd love to see alingge! that fantastic crimson cloak is a look. we get to learn more abt the old tribes, spirit beasts, and zhengui potentially forms the beginnings of his own crew (rivals, buddies, jokesters & aliens), what's not to like?
that said, wang chao is surprisingly fun, so i don't mind interacting with him, but i do prefer focusing on a core ensemble cast rather than spreading attention thin. the latter gets intriguing worldbuilding, while the former gets deep, emotional narrative arcs. i think alingge could become a friend!
edit: lmao ling qi as a helicopter parent? that's sure not the read i get from her
oh man, i'd love to see alingge! that fantastic crimson cloak is a look. we get to learn more abt the old tribes, spirit beasts, and zhengui potentially forms the beginnings of his own crew (rivals, buddies, jokesters & aliens), what's not to like?
that said, wang chao is surprisingly fun, so i don't mind interacting with him, but i do prefer focusing on a core ensemble cast rather than spreading attention thin. the latter gets intriguing worldbuilding, while the former gets deep, emotional narrative arcs. i think alingge could become a friend!
edit: lmao ling qi as a helicopter parent? that's sure not the read i get from her
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Question? Who said that. Because the weight I give to the statement will change based on who you are quoting.
It wasn't yrsillar.
If you mean we've never put a chain around him then no but leaving him at home is not a license to go wander off by himself as when he did that he almost fell into an argent vent.