I agree that Ling Qi simply doesn't have the answers to her heart demons within herself, introspection will further flesh out what the question is but not give answers.
I'm not certain if there is only one large-ish heart demon or if there are multiple with one overshadowing the others, but we know there is one vaguely shaped like "if one's desires alone cannot make a family, what happens when they are not aligned?"
the specific desire we're bumping up against is being greedy and wanting to take all responsibility and risk unto ourselves even when our family would desire that we don't do that.
The desires are not aligned, so what happens?
In our ancestor's case, we were declared illegitimate and in turn we have excluded them from our concept of "family". We have no roots with them, and chose to build new roots with our mother but not anyone further. Is that what happens when desires are not aligned to enough of a degree? They stop being "family"?
Then what about the lesser degrees? How do we arbitrate without losing Family, yes? The conventional domain that is more about blood-family than found-family would probably say something like "family is family, hate the actions not the individual" but uh. No. We can pretty emphatically say that sometimes blood-relatives deserve to be hated. They take shit actions consistently because they are shitty people, blood be damned.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
I'm not sure what the answer is, even if I'm pretty sure what the question is. That said, it seems like we don't have a clear consensus on what the demon is or whether or not there are multiple. Introspection should give an opportunity to explain some things, and outline a plan for how to deal with demons going forward.
The Heart Demons aren't just a mechanic we can sink actions into and fix. It's a narrative issue with our Way, a conflict or unresolved tension which needs an answer. We've been hunting for Arts that might resolve it because we assume that's where we'll get the additional insight, but maybe narratively resolving the demon will alter the existing insight into a more powerful and nuanced form without the need for an Art to slot something new in.
It's interesting. Because like, what would our Way have done when Xiulan nearly killed herself out of her desire to be stronger? If we had found out would we have had to stop her by force or get rent by a heart demon for letting her nearly die and certainly become maimed?
This is interesting, because our protection of those we care about could prevent the destructive flames necessary for new growth to occur. Perhaps our Way would already have resolved this if we were more restorative/healing/regrowth specc'd instead of primarily "you cannot hurt[touch/change/affect] my friends".
[X] Outside the pavilion, where Xia Lin sat beside Zhengui's bulk, staring thoughtfully out into the snow.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
All of the options are attractive, but most of my favorite scenes are Ling Qi alone with Six. The thread has talked a lot about Ling Qi's heart demon, but Ling Qi has not. She's touched on it a couple of times but it would be really interesting to see some thoughts on what insights and heart demons are.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
Because reflection after she opened the scab that was across her heart demon seems like it will provide information to Ling Qi. Furthermore Ling Qi explicitly noted she wouldn't have talked about it in detail to any except Meizhen, and wasn't really able to help with it, which makes the belief that Ling Qi must find the answer from outside somewhat misplaced imo.
If anyone else had asked, she would have said no. She wouldn't have mentioned it at all. Only Sixiang was really properly aware of her trouble, and that was because it was incredibly difficult to hide something from someone living in your head.
[X] Drifting into the conversation between Gan Guangli and Meng Dan on the Mountain folk, where Hanyi sat listening idly. [X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
[X] Outside the pavilion, where Xia Lin sat beside Zhengui's bulk, staring thoughtfully out into the snow.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
[X] Outside the pavilion, where Xia Lin sat beside Zhengui's bulk, staring thoughtfully out into the snow.
I don't necessarily agree with people's takes on the heart demon, it feels more like a continuation of the blood moon dream situation, where despite wanting to become someone who wouldn't sacrifice others for safety, Ling Qi feels like that's what she did again. I voted on logic but I don't actually think that's what happened here, not that Ling Qi would believe so, she is kinda hard on herself.
eh, might be that I am failing at reading comprehension(and/or projecting headcanon), wouldn't be the first time.
[X] In her own mind, with Sixiang, pondering the meaning of insights, and the demon gnawing at her heart.
[X] Outside the pavilion, where Xia Lin sat beside Zhengui's bulk, staring thoughtfully out into the snow.
Mmm, so given Heart Demon discussion it may be worth reflecting on what the Heart Demon actually *is*, as the narrative in story has gotten fairly muddled and confused there.
Perhaps the key thing to note is what the heart demon is not: the Zhengui conflict(s). All the stuff with Zhengui has somewhat drawn attention away from the actual heart demon, and coloured a lot of the development there. This occurred easily because the demon was initially sparked by Zhengui and Hanyi being unhappy about LQ almost getting herself killed. With Zhengui's emotional drama following on from there, it is easy to relate all of that to LQ's heart demon. However, they are not the same thing. Zhengui's teenage rebellion and desire to prove himself, LQ's tendency to solo things with her swolness rather than work with others as we increasingly moved away from support, our poor relation and use of Zhengui in terms of cultivation, LQ's hangups over being Zhengui's mother... all of those are separate (though yes there may be underlying character issues with LQ that inform her behaviour across all areas).
Returning to the inciting incident though, what actually caused the internal conflict for Ling Qi was the demand of Zhengui and Hanyi that she limit her actions, in potentially sub-optimal ways, for the sake of keeping them happy. Doing things to work better with Zhengui and make him happy might be somewhat related to that, but solving that specific problem doesn't actually fix the general conflict.
Somewhat crudely, and lacking all nuance, we might describe LQ's heart demon like so:
The original Zhengui/Hanyi demand was an example of her taking a suboptimal course of action for the sake of not causing her family emotional harm. Henceforth, we shall refer to this as a Type 1 conflict. This recent incident was an example (at least as she interpreted it) of her deciding on a course of action that was correct and optimal, but which resulted in her causing Renxiang emotional harm. This is a Type 2 conflict. Both of these describe different facets of the conflict between her goals of being the best in order to be happy and safe (where her happiness relies on her friends also being fulfilled and happy).
The Renxiang conflict then does not necessarily have the same answer as the Zhengui conflict. Moreover, *specific* solutions also do not solve the underlying issue. Finding a way of making LQ happy with her decision here does not necessarily solve the heart demon, just as making Zhengui happy does not. What is needed is a general philosophical answer that can be applied to resolve all such conflicts like these in a way LQ can be happy with. Specific cases may be useful for informing and testing such ideas, but are not necessarily generally applicable.
