[X] Complexity, weaving a smoother song from simpler measures
Leaning this way for now.
Phantasmal Mastery: You have tasted the cruel wine of isolation, and known the pain of loneliness. Is it any wonder then that the arts of conjuring have been core to you since the day that you first took up the melody of the Forgotten Vale. At your direction, phantoms and figments dance more deftly and with more mind, animated by the lingering dreams of a girl who can never forget loneliness. Grants the Phantasmal Mastery Trait, which increases the power and flexibility of summon techniques. Advances Isolation by 1 Step. (0/5)
If you look at the seed narrative suggested by the art project, it ties Ling Qi's loneliness to her growing mastery of constructs. Which is a bit sad(and maybe a bit pat
), but it's a reasonable opening narrative that focuses on the individual in their pursuit of company. Complexity well-suits a kind of... deepening mastery-in-self approach, which matches that origin tale. It resonates with the starting premise and strengthens that, moving in step with that individual focus.
Obviously, the focus doesn't need to stay married to the individual for all of time, but it's a solid stepping stone in the narrative progression you'd want to something else. I'm not eager to try leaping over it, so to speak. It'd be nice to take our time with a kind of self-directed focus on the trait to open with, imo. It can grow into a more communal influence later on, with interplay between different traits and experiences, or even simply contradictions exposed through greater mastery of construct mastery,
In another vein, I'm a bit worried Coordination is more likely to get lost in the noise, because it's arguably attempting a focus that's more challenging in terms of the technical writing and coordination of details in prose it demands in order to actually sell the narrative it promises. Basically, what does cohering the disparate cacophony actually mean, and is it actually a reasonable ask? Lining everything up to flow together well while zoomed out to the big picture sounds a lot harder to do consistently than tooling together an impressive point of focus is.
If that's what these options mean or hint at, which I'm not sure of at all. Anyway, there's where I'm at. Coordination feels harder to write convincingly, consistently. Complexity feels a bit easier to orient on Ling Qi's struggles/advancement, which the last few chapters with Huisheng has me more interested in; digging into the details and discomforts of her story has value that may be lost in a more unified and diverse flow. And "weaving a smoother song from simpler measures" is a compelling ideal in its own right. Making more from what you are is a neat stuff.
