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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

What wiuld sixang do? Hmmm
 
[X]Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.
 
[X]Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

CRX likely won't take this well, but there's no better chance to say this than now. Waiting a month or two and saying the same thing under different circumstances, after having chosen to encourage CRX here, will lessen the impact. In addition to this option being truer to Ling Qi's character, this is also what I want to see more. I'm looking forward to the character development that results from the fallout of this choice.
 
[] Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.

This would the preferred approach, if not for that sugarcoating of a likely white lie.

[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

y'all are callous as hell. We can bring this up again with her in like, a month when we have PMR? Or when we get MSS in two months? The only people that care about time limit are Shenhua and the math cabal.

Seriously. Meizhen *just* warned us, we've been warned about Social Arts for a long time, we've just gotten lucky with our brazen disrespect and Meizhen told us it was lucky. Like. Can we just wait a month before we try and bring it up? CRX might find it on her own, do we give a damn about how she feels or are we more concerned with "doing the right thing (for us, and her. She'll see. We know what's right)" or do we actually feel like "one person's feelings, alone, do not make a family".

Our SL 4 just told us we're pretty hurtful and incompetent with social, and were lucky to get away with what we did. She warned us that not everyone would recover from the way we selfishly trample on people's feelings just so that our personal conscious is unburdened. Remember when Meizhen was demoted from SL 4 to SL 3 after we fucked up our rejection?

Take the hit for the month or two thread. I don't think we'll recover the SL with CRX in a similar way to Cui being pretty permanently low-SL with us. Trampling her vulnerable feelings with our honesty is a retraumatizing of what her mother did to her. It's real wrong chat. Come on.

Screw that, brazen through!

---

For a moment, Ling Qi grew still, both in thought and in motion--for just as in the last moments of understanding an Art, she felt as if she stood upon a precipice, a point of change. The next words might change everything.

(Meizhen almost certainly thought so, if her look of sudden subtle stabbing warning as any indication. Ling Qi was becoming worryingly adept at interpreting that look.)

"Congratulations, Lady Cai," Ling Qi said, clapping softly in a way she had been informed was still proper and courtly.

(She had always, however, been worryingly adept at ignoring it.)

Renxiang froze. Ling Qi had expected that--or, more accurately, hoped for it. That initial moment of sheer incomprehension might be the only thing that would let her actually finish the next sentences.

"You believe that you are intended to do that which the honored Duchess Cai cannot, by virtue of her Way? Then surely she would ensure you are on the path to do so," she said, speaking quickly as she brought her hands back down to her cup. At any moment Lady Cai would wake from her daze and she had best be well underway by that point. "I would expect her to give you as many of her Arts that are incompatible as compatible, that you might begin to distinguish yourself. Already you prove you are not simply following the path of least resistance, and simply aping her--"

Lady Cai woke up. There was a sudden oppressive pressure.

"Ling Qi."

"Yes, Lady Cai?"

"Shut up."

"Yes, Lady Cai."

(Meizhen frowned without frowning, in that way she had somehow developed, and sipped her tea in the sudden silence. Ling Qi made a mental note to send her a nice apology gift later, if she wasn't executed.)
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

I think she needs to articulate to others and herself why an art not offering an insight suited to her is so distressing, before she can address anything.
"Hello! My name is Hanyi," the young ice spirit chirped, bowing her head low. "Ling Qi mentioned you a lot. Is it true that she got all of her pretty things from you?"

So that was her angle, Ling Qi did her best not to let her eyebrow twitch.

Cai Renxiang's expression was blank. "That is not entirely inaccurate," the heiress replied a touch dryly. Ling Qi hoped that it was a good sign.

"Ah, Lady Cai must be very generous," Hanyi said with a grin. "I wish I could have those kind of things too."

"I will mark down a stipend for equipment expenses," Cai Renxiang said. She turned her head and met Ling Qi's eyes directly.

"I will be happy to advise on the matter," Bai Meizhen cut in smoothly.

Ling Qi met Cai Renxiang's gaze and found it implacable, she glanced to Meizhen and Cui, seeing no pity, and in Hanyi there was only avarice. Even Zhengui only looked on with innocent curiosity. She was alone and outmaneuvered. "Of course, thank you for your generosity, Lady Cai."
Hanyi is entering conspiracies to dress Ling Qi up and making it known she can be bribed!!
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

I am very tentatively voting this, I am very milquetoast about it though, neither side has strong arguments and I cannot think of any of my own. I am almost tempted to use a write in, but that is even more risky, as, considering the QM doesn't give trap choices, I may be making a trap myelf.
 
[x] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
yrsillar, I know you said you can't offer QM guidance, but I am confused about how this statement translates into the metaphysics/mechanics that we understand. Is she saying:
  1. She finished an art and rejected its possible insights
  2. She finished an art and it didn't offer any insights (which I didn't think was possible)
  3. She finished an art and discovered it had become Domain-incompatible along the way, due to an insight she had slotted between starting and finishing its cultivation
  4. Purposeful ambiguity between the possibilities above
  5. QM refuses to specify
Upon reflection, I'm assuming 3, but it's weird that she didn't notice it was Domain-incompatible, because we have explicit awareness of what arts are or are not domain-compatible, and I'd expect her to as well. If she did notice, I'd have expected her to say something like "part of the way through, I realized there was no meaning" instead of "I finished it and there was no meaning in it."
Yrs already answered but it's worth noting that domain insight votes are a meta abstraction in 2 ways; First, IC the insight voted-for is the one that LQ (and others who cultivate arts) arrives at in an "it was always going to be the case" way. Second, as an OOC lever to control the direction of LQ's growth as a person/cultivator, in a way that interacts meaningfully with both choices present and voted during social and action situations and together create character development and sometimes conflict.

EDIT: so in context of CRX not finding an insight in her mother's Art... that's gonna be informative of who she is as a person compared to Shenhua, given we know the arts she cultivates emphasize overwhelming might and superiority.
 
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[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
[X]Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

Both of these options suck.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.

I am very tentatively voting this, I am very milquetoast about it though, neither side has strong arguments and I cannot think of any of my own. I am almost tempted to use a write in, but that is even more risky, as, considering the QM doesn't give trap choices, I may be making a trap myelf.

Are write-ins allowed?
 

The smart reply would be to try to clarify what she meant by saying something like "Why do you think that is?"

One of my biggest frustrations with this quest is that the choices feel meaningless because we don't know either the question or the meaning of our response.

I don't like the first response because it encourages her to continue on her current path. The second doesn't show enough empathy.

I mean, it's CRX's life, we can't decide for her. We should be able to show empathy and suggest that she doesn't need to follow her mother's footsteps without trying to push her toward defying her mother.
 
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[X]Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.

If we push it any further with our rude honesty today, we're going to damage our relationship with CRX almost irreparably. We can do it when/if Six is back online or we have one of our social arts up.
Yes, CRX is traumatized. And as someone working in the social work field while specializing in trauma, I can tell you that confronting these issues (the fact that she's been pressured her whole life to be her mother but better while experiencing horrible types of abuse from said mother) brashly and insensitively can just worsen CRX's current emotional state. And its very likely that LQ will do that, given her social stats.
I also don't think people are appreciating how rude and out of line this sort of thing is in Chinese culture--especially in front of Meizhen. Unlike before, we're not alone with our liege now. While Meizhen isn't exactly CRX's peer, she certainly closer to that than we are. And regardless of the friendship Meizhen and CRX have, it doesn't change how impertinent the second option is.
 
[X]Offer Encouragement. It was only a single art, and everyone knew that a cultivator could not perfectly copy another. Like Ling Qi's own problem, it was only a bump in the path.

I guess that convinced me.
 
[X] Ask her if that is really so bad? The Third realm was where cultivators set the foundations which guided the rest of their road. Of course divergences would appear.
 
Yes, CRX is traumatized. And as someone working in the social work field while specializing in trauma, I can tell you that confronting these issues (the fact that she's been pressured her whole life to be her mother but better while experiencing horrible types of abuse from said mother) brashly and insensitively can just worsen CRX's current emotional state. And its very likely that LQ will do that, given her social stats.

As someone who also works with the mentally ill, I don't like this option though because it encourages her to continue down the self-destructive path. The ideal answer would be to neutrally encouraging without pushing her one way or the other. We need to show we are sympathetic to her doing her own thing so that she knows she has a way out even if she is not ready to take it yet. We shouldn't be pushy, but we should absolutely not encourage her to continue like this.
 
As someone who also works with the mentally ill, I don't like this option though because it encourages her to continue down the self-destructive path. The ideal answer would be to neutrally encouraging without pushing her one way or the other. We need to show we are sympathetic to her doing her own thing so that she knows she has a way out even if she is not ready to take it. We shouldn't be pushy, but we should absolutely not encourage her to continue like this.
We can continue along that path with future private sessions, instead of bringing it up in front of Meizhen like @Lena27 said already.
 
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