Hostess Lessons doesn't have any of that. Some people say that it's important for our networking, but it isn't? Meizhen is coming with us, and we aren't going to lose contact with Wang or Xuan over it. We have started to move away from talking with whichever scion happens to be at the sect and talking with the clans themselves anyway. And I thought that people didn't like the Luo boy?
We don't like Luo, but we don't need to like him for him to be useful, and at this juncture we would be the ones with the leverage in a negotiation with him. If we can hire him onto the diplo project to run interference on peakaboos or other traditional types that he likes dealing with and we hate dealing with, that's a pretty good deal.
He's not going to be Bond 4 and he's not going to be a point of contact for the ice ladies themselves, but when it comes to socialing normal imperial nobles, he's
far more competent than the thread gives him credit for. He'll never be great at dealing with the LQ's and Qingling's of the world, but we don't need help dealing with
non-conservative factions. There are plenty of people out there who are ill-disposed to our radical moves in the south, and being able to direct their concerns to the moderate noble we willingly hired for the team would do much to mollify them.
And to ensure we don't need to
personally listen to all of them, which, you know, thank god.
And hey, even if hiring him as our designated Peakaboo shield isn't on the table, setting up a lower-stakes deal for him to talk up our project to his conservative pals would not be a bad thing.
Outside of Luo, establishing these get-togethers over the long-term with a host personally indebted to us earns us an ongoing source of rumors (which a spymaster can never have enough of), an ongoing source of pro-Ice Diplo propaganda in the Sect (which helps our long-term goal of encouraging the new generation of nobles to not want to murder all barbarians), and a way for new barons or commoners to hear about the exciting new job opportunities for competent but not named characters in the south over the next few decades.
Less directly, as established, we don't like Luo, but he is the Normal Imperial Noble, and his parties are Normal Imperial Socialization. Propping up our own get-togethers provides another outlet for those not suited to Normal Imperial Nonsense, which I consider a worthy cause on its own. Plus, providing a viable alternative social structure for the new generation may be useful for our longer-term social engineering goals for the Emerald Seas.
And if that doesn't pan out either, well, Wang Chao is a good boy. To protect his smile - and perhaps to earn some more of his family's goodwill - is a fine consolation prize.
doesn't gain momentum I will change for the plan that it's the same, don't remember which one, but with Xiangmen Fortress instead of Laughing Wind, despite not caring for it. Just to get Paying Respects over Hostess Lessons.
Though, are people voting for Xiangmen Fortress only for the TREE meme or do they genuinely think it will be useful?
I can't speak for everyone, but while the meme value is part of it, it's also a source of Tree
lore, and Emerald Seas Deep Lore is relevant both to things happening in story and to many people's personal interests. As for the utility of the project, with UGM being pushed into a corner and told to die quietly and FSS+ being pushed to a turn where it won't eat our only social slot, BKSD is the best offensive tool available for us to cultivate, and between neglect of the relevant arts and the loss of our flute our offense has suffered recently. Plus, a project focused on improving BKSD's summons directly interacts with Phantasmal Mastery, a trait which both provides another in-universe tie-in for the project and increases the value of summon arts like BKSD in general.
