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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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[X] Jin! (Write In)
-[X] (Wistful, at the loss of the only rival worth a damn in our generation)

Daiyu being so excited for Zhi as he needs out is both adorable and a great trait for a partner. She remains best girl.
 
[X] Jin! (Write In)
-[X] (Wistful, at the loss of the only rival worth a damn in our generation)

Not interested in picking a fight that might prevent the acquisition of more skills in the festival, and not interested in creating yet another enemy without a plan to make the conflict serve us.

MagikarpLvl58 said:
I'm fine with polite winning but wistful is pure pussyfooting revisionism. Others have already gone over how it was anything but a healthy rivalry worth nostalgia, and how it actively insults all of the other charm crafters at our sect, some of whom we actually like and respect.

It reeks of being so desperate to avoid conflict and hurt feelings that it's willing to bend over backwards spinelessly for someone who does not deserve it out of the hopes that some new conversational stranger who's already loyal to that asshole is somehow appeased
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Really?

Because the wistful option reads to me like voting to play Jin Yahzu and his apparent family member like a spirits damned fiddle, turning them to our purposes and making them serve our ends.

See, here's the thing about xianxia settings; acting on emotional claptrap like calling the manipulative option spineless revisionism is a good way to start bloody family feuds. If that's how you want to go, I want some kind of proposal for how we can turn the antagonistic route to profit.
 
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CanYouMeme said:
Because the wistful option reads to me like voting to play Jin Yahzu and his apparent family member like a spirits damned fiddle, turning them to our purposes and making them serve our ends.
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I think that the idea that Jin Yazhu and his cousin can be persuaded to not be antagonistic is laughable. They are already inclined to think poorly of Kong Zhi for no damn reason at all, and people hate admitting that they are wrong about something so they will double and triple down before ever changing. Breaking that impression is flat out not possible in the short time period we have here. The wistful write-in is an out-of-character attempt at conflict avoidance which will not work. This is, as you said, Xianxia, the feud between Jin Yazhu and Kong Zhi already exists and can not be overcome so easily. Especially if Jin Yazhu refuses to admit his own part in causing the feud in the first place, and given his behavior right now I very much doubt he is willing to do such. Frankly, the idea that the wistful write-in will result in peace is so ludicrously over-optimistic that I struggle to see how anyone would believe that it would ever accomplish that.

Furthermore, the wistful-ness is specifically directed to the idea that "having a strong opponent was fun", which, logically extended, is likely to result in Kong Zhi seeking out a new rival rather than avoiding one. As such, wistful is more likely to result in a pointless conflict if it gets everything it wants, not less.
 
We were taking lessons from a Jin?! Clearly this was all a secret plot to get Kong Zhi disowned.

The whole romantication of the Jin rivalry really seems out of character. Out of all the people we have met so far, the despicable Jin creature was the one that wronged Zhi the most. If the Jins initial plan had succeeded, Zhi might have been unable to even form a core and fail his journey early on as a result.

Then there's the Clan rivalry on top. Even if Zhi acts somewhat polite towards the two, their clans will still hate each other. Such family feuds are unlikely to end just because one person acted polite at some point. Jins cousin might be a nice person, but at the end of the day she's still a Jin.
 
CanYouMeme said:
and not interested in creating yet another enemy without a plan to make the conflict serve us.
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See, the thing here is the Kongs and the Jins are pretty well known to each other after a Jin debacle had Aunty Bi called in to fix their crap:

Vesvius said:
you glance over your shoulder before you walk out of the annex and peer closer at the boy who's still at Elder Yixing's table. He looks familiar, but where have you seen him before…

All at once, it clicks. You haven't seen him before! But you've seen someone who looked just like him, down to their faces and strange eyebrows. She was a peddler that wanted to call herself a charmcrafter, but did such shoddy work for the Gardener of the Obsidian Dream that Auntie Bi had been called in to fix her mistakes. Auntie Bi had been in a fine state afterwards, ranting about how poorly the previous crafter had managed beast anam. If it had not been fixed, the consequences would have been dire.

Now what was the name she kept yelling? Which clan had been responsible for such an insult to the art?

Jin. Yes. That boy has the look of a shoddy Jin crafter.
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We're definitely not going to be earning good looks anytime soon after Jin Yazhu brings us up as a Kong.

ImperatorV said:
wistful write-in is an out-of-character attempt at conflict avoidance which will not work.
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And worse, we'll be lying to ourselves about the vitriol, the outrage we'd had for Jin Yazhu in his part in trying to destroy our lad's sect progress by the Jin sic'ing or leading Geng Tu's goons on our house! That then, was beyond what we thought crafters were supposed to act- Jin might've been a shody craftsman; but to resort to this? Suffice to say that incident isn't going away for Zhi any time soon.

Now Zhi has overcome Jin's previous slights culminating in resoundingly beating him in a Crafter's duel. Zhi has no solid reason to go ape shit now.

The Jin's rep to him is trash, but I don't think KZ will humor them by loosing his spaghetti now that he has the metaphorical high ground.

However, even if they don't like us, that doesn't mean we make inroads; one of them can respect our skill even if they'll hate our style and guts: Yazhu is a lost cause at this point since whatever we do will just echo his failings, but Nuan? There's always a possibility.
 
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[x] "Jin." (Polite)

We only mark Zhi as petty, right in front of Mei Daiyu, if we can't muster this level of politeness.
 
[X] "Jin." (Polite)

I seem to recall an incident in which Jin Yazhu took some buddies, including Geng Tu, to try to intercept us on the way home, and we had to hide in Nokai and Mo's home.

Now, it would be rude to actively feud in the Jin's own workshop. But we don't need to pretend like we actually like the guy, or appreciated our rivalry in the sect.
 
I'm pretty sure this event won't erase the crafting rivalry and the bad blood between the Kongs and the Jins. But at the very least I'm hoping Zhi will get out of this a slightly better starting speaking terms with the Jin heir, Nuan.

Like sure she dislikes us for cracking Yazhu's dreams, but at the very least we're civil about it and we can hold actual conversations while not just hurling insults at each other.

Not like that honorless hack, Jin Yazhu.

will408914 said:
I seem to recall an incident in which Jin Yazhu took some buddies, including Geng Tu, to try to intercept us on the way home, and we had to hide in Nokai and Mo's home.
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Oh man.

It just took Zhi responding to Jin's low tier insult on their very first meeting:
Vesvius said:
He cannot have just said what you think you heard. "Excuse me, brother," you say again, layering politeness over venom in your voice. "What was that?"

"Oh, my apologies," the disciple answers. "I did not mean any insult. Your…" he pauses and clears his throat, "charm is… very efficient, I'm sure. You did the best you could with your provincial technique."

His words are arrows that sink deep into your pride. You meet his eyes with a steely glare. "My thanks for your kind words," you bite back. "They are high praise coming from one with such…" you pause as you look over his own work, "...talent."

Now it's the other boy's turn to gain an angry flush. His jaw clenches and his teeth mash together- but before he can say anything, Elder Yixue clears her throat behind you. "Disciples," she calls in her usual lazy tones. "Do you truly think this is an appropriate place?"
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(and it was better couched as a compliment) and on the next turn, he springs up this shit:

Vesvius said:
You decide to take a circuitous route back to the Spire and it's a good thing you do. As you walk, you catch a glimpse of Geng Tu. He's lounging outside of one of the Spire's neighboring buildings. Those tall disciples are around as well. They seem to be busy with some sort of sparring, but they're suspiciously close to your home as well.

It's the sight of Jin Yazhu sitting at the Prospector's Tears that clinches it. The mongrel is cycling anam into his glove, but he has both eyes open and a clear line of sight to your front door. His expression is half focus, half hungry anticipation.
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I mean there's petty and then there's giving up all pretences of honor and Face to go rat us out on that slimeball Geng Tu for a raid party on our lunch money and stuff!
 
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See, *this is my point.*

MoonSerpent said:
A great deal of wisdom
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EXACTLY. We did not, at any point, respect Jin Yazhu. He made mediocre work barring the moonblade chakram thing Mei Daiyu uses, which was competent but that's it. He tried to jump us outside our home. He focused on political power plays over making good work. He insulted the Kong family.

If we want to try and look good in front of his cousin, fine. We can be polite. But *GODS* above, let's not go back and pretend he means something to us.
 
So now that "polite" has a comfortable lead over "wistful", anybody interested in giving dismissive/surprised/angry a chance? (if people actually are, check the tally carefully, since tactical voting is mandatory in this quest)
 
Setting aside all the stuff Jin did, we also kinda can't admit to our own part in it. Like if we really wanted to smooth things over, we could admit to sabotaging him too (even if he started it) but that would mean revealing we're part of the reason Mo was hurt. And uh, that sounds like a good recipe to get Mo pissed at us.

Also, while wistful for a rival sounds fun, it's also pretty condescending towards the rest of our circle. There were a lot of good crafters in our circle -- several people produced charms in the final round that outright impressed Zhi. Maybe they're not on our level, but honestly Jin wasn't either -- Zhi was only begrudgingly impressed with the chakram.
 
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MoonSerpent said:
See, the thing here is the Kongs and the Jins are pretty well known to each other after a Jin debacle had Aunty Bi called in to fix their crap:

We're definitely not going to be earning good looks anytime soon after Jin Yazhu brings us up as a Kong.
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ImperatorV said:
I think that the idea that Jin Yazhu and his cousin can be persuaded to not be antagonistic is laughable.

Furthermore, the wistful-ness is specifically directed to the idea that "having a strong opponent was fun", which, logically extended, is likely to result in Kong Zhi seeking out a new rival rather than avoiding one. As such, wistful is more likely to result in a pointless conflict if it gets everything it wants, not less.
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This is a quest. Kong Zhi will do and think and feel whatever we damn well tell him to with the addition of some QM flavoring, so long as the QM doesn't outright tell us no. Even if you're one of the people who says fuck that, my immersion/"in-character", you ought to be seriously considering that being overly concerned with what was and what is instead of what Kong Zhi can do with it and turn it into, is also against Zhi's previously demonstrated character.

All this stuff about it being impossible for us to make any kind of worthwhile connection? That's what was said about Daiyu when people voted to stab her in the back for a shiny, then other voters had to swoop in and come up with a horribly dishonest, manipulative, retconning piece of shit out of their asses to clean up the mess and prevent another feud. Do you remember the advice QM gave us then, through the proxy of Jai Fa (IIRC)?

Now Daiyu's the waifu, budding Star cultivator, and novice charmcrafter.

I don't give a flying fuck about the Kong-Jin feud. I give a fuck about Zhi, Yazhu, maybe that one cousin if she shows up, and the nice blacksmith teacher willing to give us lessons. I give a fuck about not starting a fight that removes our ability to gain more skills, and setting the ground to hopefully prevent more backstabbing horseshit - for both sides - as long as this week lasts. Anybody basing their decisions on trying to manipulate and/or circumvent the family feud entire is, whether for or against, either ignorant or willfully blind since Vesvius explicitly told us this quest ends after Zhi's first year IIRC.

I'm not voting for polite because I think it doesn't go far enough in preventing future backstabbing horseshit for the rest of the week.

All that's why I told anyone to give me a plan for how you intend to profit off of being rude, if that's your intention - give me a coherent idea for why being dismissive (which is absolutely antagonistic) or any other variant of not exceedingly polite and respectable profits Kong Zhi and the voters.
 
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[X] "Jin!?" (Surprised)

Has my vote. Zhi never liked Jin. And he never will. That being said, finding his former rival doing drudgery instead of staying at the Heart should surprise him.
 
[X] Jin! (Write In)
-[X] (Wistful, at the loss of the only rival worth a damn in our generation)
 
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