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

[TimEd]

There just is not anything in it for LQ to gain

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This duel is Ji Rong's way to show that there aren't any bad feelings between the two of us personally. That means a back door for diplomacy between Cai and Sun.

Dont forget that this exact thing, is what CRXwas contemplating as where our actual strength lie. Diplomancy is an art in itself considering how the Cai faction has a need to seem strict and uncompromising.

 

[Arkeus]

This duel is Ji Rong's way to show that there aren't any bad feelings between the two of us personally. That means a back door for diplomacy between Cai and Sun.

Dont forget that this exact thing, is what CRXwas contemplating as where our actual strength lie. Diplomancy is an art in itself considering how the Cai faction has a need to seem strict and uncompromising.

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That's, huh, a weird way to interpret this duel. I don't think either Ji Rong or Ling Qi are Nanoha, here.

 

[Vanguard_D]

This duel is Ji Rong's way to show that there aren't any bad feelings between the two of us personally. That means a back door for diplomacy between Cai and Sun.

Dont forget that this exact thing, is what CRXwas contemplating as where our actual strength lie. Diplomancy is an art in itself considering how the Cai faction has a need to seem strict and uncompromising.

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This is wrong tho, the reason for this duel is JR going "ducals are to strong, you are closest so I want to test my strength."

"Why?" she asked, giving him a wary look.

"Cause you're the only one whose beat me without being years ahead or a damned ducal," he spat.

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This got nothing to do with clearing bad feelings or anything like that, it is entirly JR wanting to indulge his pride and see his own strength.

Backdoors diplomatically is just a daydream people has dreamt up because they like JR and want to assign more value to a pride duel then there actually is.

 

[Varder]

So from what I am seeing people want to go into a duel with a pretty high chance of losing, where we wont gain anything and might lose alot. For what? Ji Rong´s pride? I know he is weirdly popular but why potentially hurt LQ image and work just to indulge him?

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Spars are the best way to find holes/drawbacks in your strategy.

 

[Vanguard_D]

Spars are the best way to find holes/drawbacks in your strategy.

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Not a spar tho, this is a duel. Spars are for training, duels are matters of pride and prestige. Which is what JR want to indulge in.

Spars is something we do with Meizhen, CRX and soon Wang and co every month. Probably several times depending, we got permission for that pretty much as soon as we hit the inner sect.

 

[Arkeus]

It's worth noting that while Ling Qi has nothing to gain and everything to lose, she also can't exactly refuse the duel without CRX losing face, either. Ji Rong just showed himself the better diplomat here, and Ling Qi just has to hope she doesn't humiliate herself too much.

 

[Vanguard_D]

It's worth noting that while Ling Qi has nothing to gain and everything to lose, she also can't exactly refuse the duel without CRX losing face, either. Ji Rong just showed himself the better diplomat here, and Ling Qi just has to hope she doesn't humiliate herself too much.

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Technically she could due to the war. Considering the Cai rose up on a platform of not being the Hui and ignoring the war effort in favor of fighting among themselves you can argue that LQ refusing the duel to continue fighting the war is in line with the Cai agenda. Not refusing paints it like LQ is not doing it all to support the war effort in favor of the pride of someone that will soon leave the war.

It is easy to paint JR as the bad one here if we want to get out of the duel as he wants to have a pride duel and then run away from the battlefield for several months.

 

[Arkeus]

Hmmm.

Not sure it would be easy at all, but I guess that if Ling Qi played her cards well it could be possible. It's actually a lot of effort into doing something interesting, too. Could be fun.

 

[Vanguard_D]

Would be a good time to actually use her new social suite and skills if anything.

 

[veekie]

Unless Ji Rong got massively more manipulative than he was he probably didn't plan such a masterstroke, he's too direct.

 

[Arkeus]

Unless Ji Rong got massively more manipulative than he was he probably didn't plan such a masterstroke, he's too direct.

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Ling Qi is literally learning how to weaponize honesty in social conflicts. Ji Rong learning how to use his directness is so obvious the twist would be him not doing it (and it would be a poor twist).

 

[Varder]

Not a spar tho, this is a duel. Spars are for training, duels are matters of pride and prestige. Which is what JR want to indulge in.

Spars is something we do with Meizhen, CRX and soon Wang and co every month. Probably several times depending, we got permission for that pretty much as soon as we hit the inner sect.

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Then what is the difference between a duel and a spar for you?

 

[Asael]

It's worth noting that while Ling Qi has nothing to gain and everything to lose, she also can't exactly refuse the duel without CRX losing face, either. Ji Rong just showed himself the better diplomat here, and Ling Qi just has to hope she doesn't humiliate herself too much.

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Are you sure about that though?

I doubt we really have to accept every duel that comes out way. And his challenge wasn't exactly in the town square either. It was during a briefing, stacked mostly with people who count as friends and friendly acquaintances.

 

[Vanguard_D]

Then what is the difference between a duel and a spar for you?

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A spar is like I said, training. Something without consequense because the reason for it is to train and test yourself. See our spars with Meizhen and CRX in FoD and ToD for examples of it or what Wang and Sword boi was doing when we met them and setup the training thing or what the Zhengui and Wang fight was about. The goal in itself is not to win but to gain something in the training.

A duel is something else. It got weight due to being an actual combat. It is not casual as one or both of the participants seeks to win something from the other, be it prestige, pride, righting a wrong or insult. See the end of the year tournament, Suyin´s duel with the girl that took her eye and the usual sect duels for examples. The goal is to win and gain something over the other be it Pride and Prestige or levrage.

JR in this case it seeks to win Pride and Prestige. Pride in his strength and showing that he has gotten stronger then the one that started at the same point as him and beaten him in a duel before. It also got the sidebenefit for Sun in proving that her supporter is stronger then the Cai´s retainer. Hurting LQ´s position.

 

[Arkeus]

Are you sure about that though?

I doubt we really have to accept every duel that comes out way. And his challenge wasn't exactly in the town square either. It was during a briefing, stacked mostly with people who count as friends and friendly acquaintances.

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That's part of why it's so hard to refuse. Ji Rong is almost certainly considered to have the same place to Liling as Ling Qi has to CRX, and he politely asked for a duel for the next month in presences of people friendly to her but also 'neutral' enough (barring Bian Ya, I guess) when having a good reasoning for said duel. It will come out, and he did tick all the cases for outwardly honourable challenge here.

It's possible to turn it on his head, I think, but it would need both effort and luck.

 

[Asael]

That's part of why it's so hard to refuse. Ji Rong is almost certainly considered to have the same place to Liling as Ling Qi has to CRX, and he politely asked for a duel for the next month in presences of people friendly to her but also 'neutral' enough (barring Bian Ya, I guess) when having a good reasoning for said duel. It will come out, and he did tick all the cases for outwardly honourable challenge here.

It's possible to turn it on his head, I think, but it would need both effort and luck.

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It'd be honorable if he had a grievance. What he has is a need to stroke his own ego.

 

[Random Shinobi]

The biggest change brought on by our improved nobility would be if he actually has to work to keep up with us, and doesn't just get to count on "I hit every single time", which forces us into that ridiculous damage race.

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Ling Qi has certainly exhibited a lot of upwards mobility, but so has Ji Rong. In fact, they are both Barons. Sure, LQ has perfected her haughty noblewoman act, but I would argue that despite his crass behaviour, JR has actually a more traditional mindset for a noble.

 

[Varder]

A spar is like I said, training. Something without consequense because the reason for it is to train and test yourself. See our spars with Meizhen and CRX in FoD and ToD for examples of it or what Wang and Sword boi was doing when we met them and setup the training thing or what the Zhengui and Wang fight was about. The goal is not to win and gain something.

A duel is something else. It got weight due to being an actual combat. It is not casual as one or both of the participants seeks to win something from the other, be it prestige, pride, righting a wrong or insult. See the end of the year tournament, Suyin´s duel with the girl that took her eye and the usual sect duels for examples. The goal is to win and gain something over the other.

JR in this case it seeks to win Pride and Prestige. Pride in his strenght and showing that he has gotten stronger then the one that started at the same point as him and beaten him in a duel before.

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So you're saying that a difference between a spar and a duel is a prize to the winner of a duel, like a higher rank, vengeance or an opportunity to humiliate your opponent.

But we can prevent that from happening here, yes? Just book a private training ground and we're good to have our spar without a croud. We do the same for Wang and Renxiang.

I also think you misjudge what Ji Rong wants to win here. Unless he suddenly specced hard into a socialite, he was being truthfull to us: he expects to loose the spar. There's no way he'd want it to be a big political duel. He wants to judge his progress against someone who was ahead of him some months ago.

 

[Vanguard_D]

So you're saying that a difference between a spar and a duel is a prize to the winner of a duel, like a higher rank, vengeance or an opportunity to humiliate your opponent.

But we can prevent that from happening here, yes? Just book a private training ground and we're good to have our spar without a croud. We do the same for Wang and Renxiang.

I also think you misjudge what Ji Rong wants to win here. Unless he suddenly specced hard into a socialite, he was being truthfull to us: he expects to loose the spar. There's no way he'd want it to be a big political duel. He wants to judge his progress against someone who was ahead of him some months ago.

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I think you are seriously underestimating peoples ability to gain information here. If the retainer of the Cai and the (all but in name) retainer of the Sun officially seeks to have a duel (this has to go through the sect to gain permission, even more so then usual due to War times). Official duels need witnesses and a referee (most likely an Elder) to go in if something goes wrong (see LQ using CtE on sword boi).

People will notice, people are going to talk there is no hiding something like this.

JR also wants to win and is not dumb, as seen with his interludes he dislikes losing and getting more then one up against someone he lost to before that is also a servant of CRX that had him locked up twice is probably not something he is going to think twice about.

 

[Arkeus]

So you're saying that a difference between a spar and a duel is a prize to the winner of a duel, like a higher rank, vengeance or an opportunity to humiliate your opponent.

But we can prevent that from happening here, yes? Just book a private training ground and we're good to have our spar without a croud. We do the same for Wang and Renxiang.

I also think you misjudge what Ji Rong wants to win here. Unless he suddenly specced hard into a socialite, he was being truthfull to us: he expects to loose the spar. There's no way he'd want it to be a big political duel. He wants to judge his progress against someone who was ahead of him some months ago.

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I don't think him having the duel be a political play means he was dishonest or lying to us, though. He has nothing to lose by losing, so it doesn't really matter so much if he loses right now, but he has a lot to gain by winning.

He can be completely truthful about wanting a duel to know his progress, and also want to hopefully score diplomacy points for Liling. That's how people work.

I think you are seriously underestimating peoples ability to gain information here. If the retainer of the Cai and the (all but in name) retainer of the Sun officially seeks to have a duel (this has to go through the sect to gain permission, even more so then usual due to War times). Official duels need witnesses and referee (most likely an Elder) to go in if something goes wrong (see LQ using CtE on sword boi).

People will notice, people are going to talk there is no hiding something like this.

JR also wants to win and is not dumb, as seen with his interludes he dislikes losing and getting more then one up against someone he lost to before that is also a servant of CRX that had him locked up twice is probably not something he is going to think twice about.

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Something to note is that Guan Zhou was favoring Liling heavily, so it's reasonable to assume Guan Zhi also has a good rapport with her. This should have already gone out.

 

[Varder]

I think you are seriously underestimating peoples ability to gain information here. If the retainer of the Cai and the (all but in name) retainer of the Sun officially seeks to have a duel (this has to go through the sect to gain permission, even more so then usual due to War times). Official duels need witnesses and a referee (most likely an Elder) to go in if something goes wrong (see LQ using CtE on sword boi).

People will notice, people are going to talk there is no hiding something like this.

JR also wants to win and is not dumb, as seen with his interludes he dislikes losing and getting more then one up against someone he lost to before that is also a servant of CRX that had him locked up twice is probably not something he is going to think twice about.

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Well, people will know that they are dueling. So what? They won't see it, they won't know how serious and close the fighting was, they won't know who the winner was. They will only be able to speculate and they will speculate regardless, even if Ling Qi refuses a re-match. Actually, don't you think that Ling Qi (and CRX) would loose more face if she refuses to fight him?

The bolded part makes little sense to me. When I spoke about him being truthfull I didn't mean that he wouldn't want to lie to us, the question is, could he?

Ling Qi has raw Empathy skill rating of "C" which is firmly average, but there are probably some techs and arts she uses to help with finding lies and social cues (@Black Noise help me out here please? Front page is scary). She constantly notices things CRX would very much prefer stayed hidden and CRX has much better poker face than Ji Rong.

Basically, I belive Ling Qi is a better face reader than Ji Rong is a liar and Sixiang is better than her still and they didn't find anything suspicious afaik either. Your concerns that this is some kind of standart young master (TM) vengeance set-up on Ji Rong's part are unfounded.

I don't think him having the duel be a political play means he was dishonest or lying to us, though. He has nothing to lose by losing, so it doesn't really matter so much if he loses right now, but he has a lot to gain by winning.

He can be completely truthful about wanting a duel to know his progress, and also want to hopefully score diplomacy points for Liling. That's how people work.


Something to note is that Guan Zhou was favoring Liling heavily, so it's reasonable to assume Guan Zhi also has a good rapport with her. This should have already gone out.

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Maybe. But setting youself for a public loss is... well, I wouldn't be able to do it to myself. I also can't imagine someone as driven and fiercely proud as Ji Rong to go for it, especially considering OOC knowledge that he's a standart shounen archetype.

 

[Asael]

I dont really believe that we have to duel Ji Rong. We aren't obligated to accept duels, least of all if he doesn't have a legitimate grievance. Even the sect doesn't make you do that, and the sect is set up to get it's students to fight often.


If that's what you want to do, well, that's OK. I'm fine with it as long as we don't lose actions as a consequence.

 

[storryeater]

Not really that fond of this duel personally tbh. There just is not anything in it for LQ to gain and if she loses (which got a higher chance pf happening then people are assuming) then there is just more negatives piled onto a already bad social situation.

The fact is, we already beat JR before. LQ wont win prestige or points with anyone for winning against him again, especially as he is a lower rank in the sect rankings. There is also a war going on so conecentrating on a pride duel instead of the war effort looks bad in itself. Calls back to the Hui where people where busy fighting among themselves instead of concentrating on Ogodei. So if we lose then we only give people more ammunition to point out that LQ is a bad retainer for CRX to have. We are only just starting to work on the social angle and getting another hit to that is just bad at this point in time.

So from what I am seeing people want to go into a duel with a pretty high chance of losing, where we wont gain anything and might lose alot. For what? Ji Rong´s pride? I know he is weirdly popular but why potentially hurt LQ image and work just to indulge him?

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Problem is, we are actually losing from refusing him. Do not forget that he is part of the Liling faction, us refusing to fight can be seen as a weakness of our castle if he tells it to his boss (and he is especially likely to do so if he is indignant). If we insist on keeping the duel private, however, he may not reveal our weakness to his boss even if he wins. On the other hand, if one does not care about Ji Rong social (which can end up surprisingly useful, seeing as he is the one non ducal that has the skill to not fall behind us, making him always relevant), it offers us a diplomatic backdoor to Liling's faction. Which is very useful to the Cai faction.

 

[Asael]

Problem is, we are actually losing from refusing him. Do not forget that he is part of the Liling faction, us refusing to fight can be seen as a weakness of our castle if he tells it to his boss (and he is especially likely to do so if he is indignant). If we insist on keeping the duel private, however, he may not reveal our weakness to his boss even if he wins. On the other hand, if one does not care about Ji Rong social (which can end up surprisingly useful, seeing as he is the one non ducal that has the skill to not fall behind us, making him always relevant), it offers us a diplomatic backdoor to Liling's faction. Which is very useful to the Cai faction.

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The factions aren't actually fighting right now, and the sun are being recalled. Frankly, this "weakness" boils down to nothing.

 

[storryeater]

That's, huh, a weird way to interpret this duel. I don't think either Ji Rong or Ling Qi are Nanoha, here.

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Ji Rong is a very shonen idiot, what are you talking about?

The factions aren't actually fighting right now, and the sun are being recalled. Frankly, this "weakness" boils down to nothing.

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Its not about the factions being oppossing, it is about politics. Cai wants as many political hooks as possible. Sun will use any hooks she'll get, evntually.