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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] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
Xia Anxi is asking the right question, but does he know of the LQ Adventure? :lol:
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants insights into how the ones below her rank think and are. Lady Cai has taught her some things of administration, and in that imperious distance is a sin.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.

We probably could be gentler about things considering the very concept of a superior caring about their subordinates and being nice to them is inconceivable to him but well…it is almost certainly what Meizhen wants from them, and Ling Qi isn't exactly the type to beat around the bush when its not strictly necessary. Also, Ling Qi has been described as a walking tribulation/heart demon inducer, so might as well play into that also.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.

I sense this will be a close vote.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.

Tribulating him right there
 
Hmm, this is an interesting one.

[ ] She wants insights into how the ones below her rank think and are. Lady Cai has taught her some things of administration, and in that imperious distance is a sin.

At first glance, this looks like the less confronting option. And I think that's probably true. But it's probably also more complicated than that?

Xia Anxi has talked about the importance of separating the Low from the High, but I don't think the Middle is exempt from that, exactly. Simply more engaged by necessity. His tier of the mountain has its own business it would prefer to exempt from higher gazes. The framing of this option presents it as more systemic, and provides a structure to understand Meizhen's behaviour that can be viewed in the terms of systems interacting.

...But it also represents a change in how those systems interact. And he's also spoken on change and its impacts. Mainly, as negative for those who live through it. A White Serpent who wants to reduce the distance between her (and by extension her caste) and those beneath her seems like something that Xia Anxi would find startling. Now, he's acknowledged that change can end up positive, so I don't think this is a vision that it's impossible to bring him around to. It's just one he'd want to interrogate more deeply, seeking to understand what exactly Meizhen thinks she's working towards, before he'd sign onto it.

Which could be exactly what this option prompts him to start doing!

I do think that Xia Anxi's loyalty to his caste's interests is a factor that's easy for us to overlook and that it's in play with this kind of approach. Meizhen seeking insights into how the ones below her rank think and are is disruptive to the balance which Anxi views as allowing the lower castes to thrive as they do. White Serpents are something like danger personified, and one removing the blindfold that the current order relies on is scary.

Side thought, but it's funny to think of Anxi looking horrified when Ling Qi mentions that Renxiang taught her administration. A forbidden knowledge the White Serpents should not know of, except indirectly! Oh no!

[ ] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.

This one's a more... personal? peril, and also a lot more out of context for him. It's difficult to really predict how Xia Anxi takes it.

White Serpents are no doubt known to sometimes have personal foibles. Probably, for subordinates, mostly ones that make working with them suck, since softness is perceived as weakness so any cuddliness is kept too close for rumors to circulate. This one, "wanting trust", is oddly cuddly and dangerous at once, with what we know of Bai culture.

Again, it's really hard to know how he takes it. This option frames it a bit more like a peculiarity of Meizhen in particular, not touching directly on the systemic implications for the caste system. That could make it easier, or at least simpler, for him to accept.

But, of course, it's still a pretty major breach of the social order. The White Serpent isn't supposed to have to trust you on a personal level; it's supposed to be possible to disappear into mutual relationship of roles and performance which offers a predictable degree of security. This asks the absurd of Xia Anxi. Though, it also offers the absurd to him.

A White Serpent willing to trust.
 
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[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants insights into how the ones below her rank think and are. Lady Cai has taught her some things of administration, and in that imperious distance is a sin.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
[X] She wants trust. I spoiled her in some ways, I think. I've seen how she's worked on Xiao Fen. It's important for her to know you, so that she can trust you with more important things.
 
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