Zwobot
Pure Lazy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If you see the issues with the write-in, why did you vote for it?
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.
If you see the issues with the write-in, why did you vote for it?
...Remember how I said both of us are making leaps of faith, with the only difference in how we're doing it is risk assessment?
Edit2: nvm
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Zwobot
Pure Lazy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hah, fair enough. I do think you're cautious about a non-issue. But we've argued that to death now.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
I don't think the write-in is bad, in fact I think both leading choices have its merits and can lead to interesting outcomes.
Seeing thread devolve into madness though as well as the near tie, I've decided that it's about time I voted and to leave my vote to the dice gods since I'm not really committed to any sides
RNG giveth, RNG taketh away
[X] I am the Student of [Winter's Muse][Songstress of Endings], Feel free to join the performance how you see fit
Seeing thread devolve into madness though as well as the near tie, I've decided that it's about time I voted and to leave my vote to the dice gods since I'm not really committed to any sides
RNG giveth, RNG taketh away
Dice gods hath spoken
[X] I am the Student of [Winter's Muse][Songstress of Endings], Feel free to join the performance how you see fit
And that's perfectly fair, I'm just glad we've reached an understanding on that and apologize.for getting short with you
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I don't expect you to apologize, nor will I apologize either. I genuinely respect your skills as a debater. I have often in the past been impressed with your ability to engage with a debate and offer new insights and directions forward. But the fact is that in these most recent debates your extreme aggressiveness and condensation towards almost anyone with an opposing view has taken my breath away. I felt that it needed to be called out because I have seen how good a debater you have been in the past. Hopefully I get to see you argue as well as you have before soon.
Then I hope you in turn forgive me for not taking a backhanded compliment at face value.
Have a good night.
- Location
- Staring into the void
[X] I am the Student of [Winter's Muse][Songstress of Endings], Feel free to join the performance how you see fit
Zwobot
Pure Lazy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Time to beat a dead horse - but the votes are close enough for me to try... Sorry.
The write-in is bad and here's why.
It's designed as an alternative to the option which asks for help in turn for a talk at a later point. The intent is to offer Elsa the option to help, without explicitly asking for such. The reasons for approaching in such a roundabout way can be boiled down to fear.
Fear that making a bargain with Elsa would entail a cost we're not willing to pay. Up to her pulling us into a binding contract via fae magic.
Fear that her aid may not turn out to be beneficial due to her alien mindset. For example, eating/consuming Hanyi to protect her.
Caution is a fair enough reason to pick a vote - as much as I'd like Qi to act more decisive. But the write-in fails utterly at actually addressing the points of contention.
It does not clarify what bargain we would like to make. Instead, it leaves it entirely up to Elsa's choice. Debt can be owed for a favor that wasn't asked for - especially with the alien mindset that's commented on. The write-in assumes a specific way Elsa might act or enforce bargain, which is contrary to the stated reason not to ask for help.
The write-in does not tell Elsa any preference for her behavior. It's like we don't know what form her aid might take, so we tell her to do what she wants. 'Join our performance' is very, very vague. Intentionally I assume, but if the intent is to avoid Elsa acting against us by our standards, it fails at communicating this. If we fear her actions and the uncertainty the vote should be to 'Tell her to leave' - not 'Do what you want.' Or to be more precise 'do what you want, but you're invited to take cues from us'.
The write-in is bad and here's why.
It's designed as an alternative to the option which asks for help in turn for a talk at a later point. The intent is to offer Elsa the option to help, without explicitly asking for such. The reasons for approaching in such a roundabout way can be boiled down to fear.
Fear that making a bargain with Elsa would entail a cost we're not willing to pay. Up to her pulling us into a binding contract via fae magic.
Fear that her aid may not turn out to be beneficial due to her alien mindset. For example, eating/consuming Hanyi to protect her.
Caution is a fair enough reason to pick a vote - as much as I'd like Qi to act more decisive. But the write-in fails utterly at actually addressing the points of contention.
It does not clarify what bargain we would like to make. Instead, it leaves it entirely up to Elsa's choice. Debt can be owed for a favor that wasn't asked for - especially with the alien mindset that's commented on. The write-in assumes a specific way Elsa might act or enforce bargain, which is contrary to the stated reason not to ask for help.
The write-in does not tell Elsa any preference for her behavior. It's like we don't know what form her aid might take, so we tell her to do what she wants. 'Join our performance' is very, very vague. Intentionally I assume, but if the intent is to avoid Elsa acting against us by our standards, it fails at communicating this. If we fear her actions and the uncertainty the vote should be to 'Tell her to leave' - not 'Do what you want.' Or to be more precise 'do what you want, but you're invited to take cues from us'.
- Location
- California
[X] Tell her to help if she's so interested in you, you can talk later.
glyph
completely and utterly fine
I get that we want to offer her the option of helping or not, but why do we tell her "do as you see fit"? That's essentially telling her to go ahead, join the opposing side if you want to, it's not like we care.
EDIT: Screw it, here's my version of the write-in.
[X] I Student of the [Songstress of Endings] would like to talk to you in detail, but this is not the time and place to do so.
+ Approval vote
[X] Tell her to help if she's so interested in you, you can talk later.
EDIT: Screw it, here's my version of the write-in.
[X] I Student of the [Songstress of Endings] would like to talk to you in detail, but this is not the time and place to do so.
+ Approval vote
[X] Tell her to help if she's so interested in you, you can talk later.
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- Location
- his hidden lair
[X] I am the Student of [Winter's Muse][Songstress of Endings], Feel free to join the performance how you see fit
I like the ambivalence of Ling Qi's response because what that ambivalence actually says. It implies she'd personally be interested in continuing this sort of talk (because of the general expectation introductions are reciprocated) and it implies that she doesn't particularly care if the witch stands with her, aside, or against her. Because Ling Qi thinks her position here is just that good. To ask her for help would imply we feel we need it, whereas here we're implying we consider our position secure regardless. Given we have an army about to swoop in to back us up, it even has the benefit of being true. A tone of indifference doesn't necessarily just mean a lack of desire to offer offense, it means you don't consider giving offense or gaining a rapport too concerning.
Unless the witch is an idiot, or assumes that Ling Qi is an idiot- she's either going to lean on helping the person already assured of their own success, or stand aside rather than get swept up against them. If our success here was a dealbreaker in its own right, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
I like the ambivalence of Ling Qi's response because what that ambivalence actually says. It implies she'd personally be interested in continuing this sort of talk (because of the general expectation introductions are reciprocated) and it implies that she doesn't particularly care if the witch stands with her, aside, or against her. Because Ling Qi thinks her position here is just that good. To ask her for help would imply we feel we need it, whereas here we're implying we consider our position secure regardless. Given we have an army about to swoop in to back us up, it even has the benefit of being true. A tone of indifference doesn't necessarily just mean a lack of desire to offer offense, it means you don't consider giving offense or gaining a rapport too concerning.
Unless the witch is an idiot, or assumes that Ling Qi is an idiot- she's either going to lean on helping the person already assured of their own success, or stand aside rather than get swept up against them. If our success here was a dealbreaker in its own right, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
It's a "it lets the witch read whatever she wants to read into it" thing. It doesn't imply she wants to continue to talk unless we are assuming the witch comes from a specific culture about names, and it doesn't imply she doesn't particularly care where the witch stands because Ling Qi is "just that good".
Even if we dismiss the biggest reason for Ling Qi to say that is because she is afraid to actually commit, so it's in fact because she believes her position is actually really bad, the witch can read whatever she wants into it unless Ling Qi's true feelings come through, and in this case she'd know Ling Qi is a coward.
This is basically trying to play wordgames with the QM and hoping they like wordgames.
honestly, i dont know where the fae magic idea came from (and i dont care), but i think that it is a bad argument. We know from the Yan Renshu episode in forge that this type of magical compulsions is fairly restricted and iirc also requires a realm advantage, which elsa doesnt have. I am also not worried that Ling Qi would ever agree to anything involving Hanyi getting eaten. That would be seriouslyout of character, so i dont think this is a good argument for the write-in either.
However, the reason I am still voting for it is that I want our message to be confident without being too arrogant.
I dont want us to show weakness by begging for help as the first thing we do, but i still want the ice ladies plot to advance and ideally her help during this fight.
Trying to be neither too high-handed (we dont want to offend her enough to make her fight us) nor too desperate ( desperation implies weakness and that might make her less willing to switch sides) and neither too curt (as that might be seen as us not wanting to talk to her at all) nor too open (we kind of want to keep her interested in us) is a tricky balance and while the write-in might not be perfect, I am not confident that i could do better. that is why i am currently voting for the write-in
Zwobot
Pure Lazy
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Gah. This is a mid-battle snap decision. Decisiveness and clarity are needed, not vague diplomatic posturing.
"Here is who I am, now decide how you react" is ultimately the core of cultivator and spirit diplomacy. We've seen this again and again throughout the quest, whether with Zeqing, CRX, the fungus spirit, or whoever. Context can add complexity but we don't have any such context here for lack of information and the core shines through regardless.
So let's present our identity to her and see how she reacts. It gives both of us the most information about each other. Telling her to do something for us right now is rushing the foundation.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
She's confirmed to be "as human as Meizhen," a statement which most of us are interpreting as "spiritblooded from a lineage which deliberately cultivates and expresses their spirit-sourced traits."
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
It's... not? Like, let's ignore for a minute that we are not actually telling her who we are at all but instead telling her of a backer we had.
"Here is who I am" has never been shown to be the core of any cultivator or spirit diplomacy, as this is very much not as important as "This is what we want" or "This is what we can offer you". The foundation would be telling her what we want or what we can offer her, not telling her who we are. Obviously though, we aren't telling her who we are at all in this write in anyway.
Yup, and there is no implication so far that she is about perfomance of any kind, given she uses a mace and has shown no inclination for the arts/music/dance/whatever.
There is a reason why I am comparing this meeting as if Meizhen was meeting a girl using serpent art with a serpent bound spirit in another country.
Beside her not being a spirit, there are so many spirits that don't care about performance would see such a demand as... performative.
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Nameless Mother and Nameless Father => They didn't present each other with their nature and interpreted the other's actions as violence until they slowly learned about each other.
CRX and us => Lots of long discussions about her family as well as her vision for the province, all grounded in her identity as purifying light. Our muddled identity has meanwhile caused her some headaches finding a place for us.
Zeqing and us => The whole "I am a spirit of freedom" talk we had with Zeqing after we realized that she didn't understand our trauma and she almost destroyed our relationship when she tried to help us.
Fungus and us => Because of our low spirit ken roll, there is an implication that we missed something about its nature that would have been more similar to ours. If that's the case we wouldn't have ended up nearly suffering nearly as much at its hands.
Zhengui and us => We just had a discussion about how us not making up our mind on whether we are his mother or his sister hurts him
Meizhen and us => Us refusing to say that we would never be romantically interested in her due to our orientation caused her significant harm. I'm pretty sure Cui still hasn't forgived us about it
Dragons => Any particular demand is less important than whether you are strong or weak.
A purely transactional exchange is extremely risky given the importance of identities. And yes, Elsa isn't going to have the context to understand much of who we are nor do we have the time to explain, but we should at least make an attempt at explaining the part that she would be most likely to understand.
Spirits even use names that explicitly tell each other of their natures and cultivators start using a similar convention once they become powerful enough that they start being like spirits. Spiritblooded nobility even starts off with such a name.
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