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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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yrsillar said:
"Good thing too. What a lewd bunch they are. Wouldn't want your ears catching fire," Sixiang chuckled. "So this is the lovenest huh."
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i'm not sure why that is so. Cocoons are the transition into adulthood for moths, they alerady have lived a significant part of their live as larva/caterpillars.
I would have assumed you'd find a lot of eggs rather than cocoons in a lovenest.
 
While there's a lot of excitement about training oodles of human social arts, I'd like to speak in defense of Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (aka MoSS.)

Ever since the very early days of Ling Qi's career, she has made both her fortunes and her reputations on dealing with spirits, and not just in the violent way involving death and destruction, but the measured way involving words and exchange. Ling Qi's allies and even acquaintances will frequently look to her in situations involving Spirits, and having a tool appropriate to assist her in working with them is going to pay dividends in the long term, reinforcing that part of her skillset.

Secondly, MoSS isn't just any Spirit social art, but in fact a very good fitting one for Ling Qi. With some Heart meridians and one tech that already helps allies it's likely to allow us to assist our whole group in this esoteric practice, and with its techs scaling off musical skill Ling Qi will get extreme bang for her buck from it. It's not even impossible to believe that it may eventually bring direct benefits to music used socially in some future tech, and that's also something we're doing a lot of already.

In conclusion, don't give all your attention to the humans, give the spirits a chance too by voting for MoSS. After all, they've given Ling Qi plenty of chances already.
 
DeAnno said:
While there's a lot of excitement about training oodles of human social arts, I'd like to speak in defense of Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (aka MoSS.)

Ever since the very early days of Ling Qi's career, she has made both her fortunes and her reputations on dealing with spirits, and not just in the violent way involving death and destruction, but the measured way involving words and exchange. Ling Qi's allies and even acquaintances will frequently look to her in situations involving Spirits, and having a tool appropriate to assist her in working with them is going to pay dividends in the long term, reinforcing that part of her skillset.

Secondly, MoSS isn't just any Spirit social art, but in fact a very good fitting one for Ling Qi. With some Heart meridians and one tech that already helps allies it's likely to allow us to assist our whole group in this esoteric practice, and with its techs scaling off musical skill Ling Qi will get extreme bang for her buck from it. It's not even impossible to believe that it may eventually bring direct benefits to music used socially in some future tech, and that's also something we're doing a lot of already.

In conclusion, don't give all your attention to the humans, give the spirits a chance too by voting for MoSS. After all, they've given Ling Qi plenty of chances already.
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The intent is to get MoSS, but we need to triage our limited AP as effectively as we can, and PMR and MSS collectively can be useful immediately, while MoSS won't hit it's niche until our next field mission.
 
For next months plan I strongly encourage people to choose:

[][CDE+] Roaming Moon's Eye
[][Social] Moonless Saboteur's Smile
[][Social] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers

as your options. RME seems more suited to Ling Qi as an art that doubles up for both scouting and information gathering (the eyes use Ling Qi's stealth as per WOG). As we are going on a sect scouting mission this term, this would help us to perform better on that mission, and in the longer term, when we take command of our own demesne, will help us ensure that we are aware of everything that goes on in it. It would also be a fitting way to mark the touch of elder Jiao and Xin on us.

For the social options, MSS seems to be much more fitted to Ling Qi as she currently is. She is not comfortable socially, and to take a socialite's arts seems out of place. MSS on the other hand provides us both with an art to defend us from the social attacks of others (and we should expect that those will start to become more frequent as people realise our weakness in the social arena), and also allow us to support Cai Renxiang by identifying those who are plotting in her court.

MoSS is to my mind the art that is most in keeping with who Ling Qi is, and allows us to further develop our signature expertise - spirit interaction. It is highly likely to be useful in the coming turn (scouting means a much higher likelihood of spirit interactions, and we saw from the last scouting arc how flawed our spirit communication arts are), and gives us the option of developing a focus in spirits in the future which both suits our own needs (our three spirits form a major part of our power after all), and a skill to gain influence and income for the future.
 
In defense of MoSS, actually, Ling Qi still needs to do some spirit wrangling for Yu Nuan. So MoSS has some human social applications potentially coming up, though...

Maladictus said:
It is highly likely to be useful in the coming turn (scouting means a much higher likelihood of spirit interactions, and we saw from the last scouting arc how flawed our spirit communication arts are)
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This isn't true. Yrs confirmed on discord that the scouting arc will preceed any cultivation this time.
 
Maladictus said:
For next months plan I strongly encourage people to choose:

[][CDE+] Roaming Moon's Eye
[][Social] Moonless Saboteur's Smile
[][Social] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers

as your options. RME seems more suited to Ling Qi as an art that doubles up for both scouting and information gathering (the eyes use Ling Qi's stealth as per WOG). As we are going on a sect scouting mission this term, this would help us to perform better on that mission, and in the longer term, when we take command of our own demesne, will help us ensure that we are aware of everything that goes on in it. It would also be a fitting way to mark the touch of elder Jiao and Xin on us.

For the social options, MSS seems to be much more fitted to Ling Qi as she currently is. She is not comfortable socially, and to take a socialite's arts seems out of place. MSS on the other hand provides us both with an art to defend us from the social attacks of others (and we should expect that those will start to become more frequent as people realise our weakness in the social arena), and also allow us to support Cai Renxiang by identifying those who are plotting in her court.

MoSS is to my mind the art that is most in keeping with who Ling Qi is, and allows us to further develop our signature expertise - spirit interaction. It is highly likely to be useful in the coming turn (scouting means a much higher likelihood of spirit interactions, and we saw from the last scouting arc how flawed our spirit communication arts are), and gives us the option of developing a focus in spirits in the future which both suits our own needs (our three spirits form a major part of our power after all), and a skill to gain influence and income for the future.
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We asked in discord, Scouting mission is going to be the first arc of the next month, we won't get any training first, so MoSS will come online after the prime time to use it.
 
Ayashi said:
i'm not sure why that is so. Cocoons are the transition into adulthood for moths, they alerady have lived a significant part of their live as larva/caterpillars.
I would have assumed you'd find a lot of eggs rather than cocoons in a lovenest.
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I mean, they're not just normal moths, but spirit beasts, so, while I have no idea how precisely it works for real moths, shortly after getting out of their cocoons is when they're all adolescents who for the first time suddenly have, err, funcitoning equipment and I'd expect the kind of things teenagers tend to get up to to happen.
 
Delaying MoSS because a mission that would use it is coming up first is short sighted. Opportunities to interact with Spirits are happening all the time for Ling Qi, we could easily miss Yu Nuan's arc at the end of the turn or some other Spirity arc at the start of the next turn after if we delayed, not to mention that the delay might take multiple months even! I think filling this important strategic role in our build should be a bigger concern than trying to spike certain purely tactical timings.
 
DeAnno said:
Delaying MoSS because a mission that would use it is coming up first is short sighted. Opportunities to interact with Spirits are happening all the time for Ling Qi, we could easily miss Yu Nuan's arc at the end of the turn or some other Spirity arc at the start of the next turn after if we delayed, not to mention that the delay might take multiple months even! I think filling this important strategic role in our build should be a bigger concern than trying to spike certain purely tactical timings.
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And Ling Qi is fine dealing with spirits now though, it's not a magic wand that we wave and then she achieves great power.

Yes, MoSS is on the list, but just because it's on the list doesn't mean we have to get it at the nearest opportunity, when there's other glaring holes in our setup that have to be plugged first.
 
Alectai said:
And Ling Qi is fine dealing with spirits now though, it's not a magic wand that we wave and then she achieves great power.
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You are always fine dealing with spirits until the one time you aren't.

And I'm not saying to only patch spirit social at the expense of everything else, I'm just saying to commit as many resources to LQ's specialty as she is to the more general domain of human social.
 
DeAnno said:
You are always fine dealing with spirits until the one time you aren't.

And I'm not saying to only patch spirit social at the expense of everything else, I'm just saying to commit as many resources to LQ's specialty as she is to the more general domain of human social.
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And what I'm pointing out is that this logic is a hole that never ends, because you can always stack a bit more resources into something even after the point of diminishing returns.

When AP is tight, you want to spend it to get the maximum gain in the least investment. 2 AP gets Ling Qi from 'Garbage social' to 'Functional if not exceptional' social if we commit to that. While her Spirit Ken is already above most of her peers and generally adequate for ordinary use. Adding MoSS level 1 at the cost of PMR or MSS is making us go to "Mediocre Social" and "Marginally better spirit ken"

Small investments have a greater impact when the baseline is already limited, Ling Qi's spirit ken has shown itself to be fine outside of outliers like the maddened dying poisoned mountain. Yes, harder situations will exist, but are unlikely to crop up literally this month.
 
yrsillar said:
"Perhaps. Master does not know regret in the way that you or I might. She does not and cannot hold back, her nature does not allow it, and so a child has the full weight of her expectations carved into their bones, before they can even comprehend such concepts fully, but Master does recognize the need for support. Diao Linqin, Wang Jun, Jia Hong; without them, Master could not have accomplished her coup."
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I can't help but love the bolded section as the great and terrible thing that it is. Unrepentantly being yourself, allowing neither expectations nor personal hesitation to hold you back from what you can do.

I can see now why she so frequently has the MAXIMUM OPPRESSION AURA going nonstop, why she dresses the way she likes, why she doesn't care for norms regarding PDA with Minister Linqin, and why she is so very straight forward with her expectations, punishments, and rewards. Being herself in all situations has been ground into every layer of her personality or, to put it differently, "Shenhua don't give a fuck."

Adding on the, apparant, belief in the importance of supporting figures that does mean that we likely are viewed as filling an even more sought after roll because right now Ling Qi is the only retainer of CRX that has consistent access to her presence. Some people are certainly comparing the power wielded by the Diao, Wang, and Jia in their relationship with Shenhua and likely are wondering what kind of influence we are having or going to have on CRX. It does explain why the other nobles are so annoyed and frustrated by the circumstances.

Varder said:
Poor fool. She knew exactly what would happen.
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"What must be done, must be done. To shelter a child because it is kind does her a disservice by leaving her unprepared for what is to come."
 
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Yeah, I strongly agree with Alectai. We need to patch a major hole in our competence, and we need to patch it yesterday. We're our liege's bard, for crying out loud.

[x] Alectai
 
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I for one want the PMR+MoSS combo to win for social. I want that the narrative for Ling Qi's first human social art to be purely about PMR. I also like the narrative idea that when Ling Qi starts cultivating social arts, she would choose to focus both on humans and spirits. Also, I just like the theme of MoSS, so that is clearly a plus for me too
 
Aimed at the people who really want MoSS, I'm going to advocate why I think Playful Muse's Rapport is the best art for Ling Qi to start with in learning how to approach social stuff, and it really boils down to what arts are. Arts are lessons. The lesson Ling Qi needs is how to square the circle of needing to socialize despite not being able to put on a mask, when a lot of who she is or what she represents inherently makes people dislike her. MSS, despite its excellent qualities, doesn't really deal with that. It's focus is on disrupting and sabotaging other people's social plays, but as the art description says its users are those who "[seek] no glory." MSS helps Ling Qi function in the social sphere in a combative sense, but still doesn't help her when she has to represent herself directly, and doesn't really directly teach her anything about "being Ling Qi in this strange social landscape."

PMR does, in that the art seeks to teach how to convey sincere intent, cutting through any preconceptions (something something upstart commoner) to ensure that she's heard. Wearing who she is as a mantle, making it into a social tool (you can't use who I am against me, I'm using it against you!), and hopefully in doing so Ling Qi learns to be a bit more comfortable in who she is and the place in the world she is carving out for herself. It's the very fact that she's uncomfortable about the whole social thing that PMR and the lesson it is teaching is much more sorely needed than MSS.
 
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Indeed, while I'm on the side of "we want both", PMR is what I think should be prioritised first. What Ling Qi really needs as much as anything is to gain confidence and become comfortable with herself in social situations. PMR is ideally suited to that.

With regards to MoSS vs. get both social, I'm fine either way. I think a strong argument can be made that getting MoSS sooner rather than later is a good idea. At the same time, getting both PMR and MSS locked in immediately would also be nice, and would round out our social suite well.
 
DeAnno said:
Delaying MoSS because a mission that would use it is coming up first is short sighted. Opportunities to interact with Spirits are happening all the time for Ling Qi, we could easily miss Yu Nuan's arc at the end of the turn or some other Spirity arc at the start of the next turn after if we delayed, not to mention that the delay might take multiple months even! I think filling this important strategic role in our build should be a bigger concern than trying to spike certain purely tactical timings.
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I agree with this.
Nothing says that the next turn won't also start with a mission/social /whatever that makes use of the skill...
Besides, fluff-wise it makes sense to have Ling Qi train into it after the mission if she stumbles upon a situation where the art would have been highly useful.
 
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