- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I do. She's one of my new favourites. Such a loving aunty 💕
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
If anyone's wondering what Dao Linqin was talking about, she was eyeing this insight of Ling Qi's:
The insight essentially functions by creating a code of conduct and an in/out-group dichotomy governed by that code. This has... a lot of implications. But the ultimate logical consequences, arguably, are that the insight makes it easier to label others as alien/outsider and makes it substantially harder to be forgiving towards 'neighbours' who trespass the code, because it defines membership of the group by adherence to the code of conduct. And the insight doesn't do much else?
It's important to remember that insights aren't just priorities or default instructions for Ling Qi to follow. They're deeply ingrained axioms relating to Ling Qi's interaction with and view of the world and its inhabitants. And this one's focused on the conduct of others very directly. And the impact it has on Ling Qi is basically to make her less tolerant of disparate social approaches, because she's cemented a particular set of values as Required, and less forgiving, because there's a concrete set of disqualifying conduct.
Like, if another noble does some light routine espionage to confirm the details underlying some theoretical dealing in the future, by the terms of this Insight, Ling Qi is obligated to take offense. Or if Ling Qi encounters somebody with a hostile or dismissive bearing, this Insight, if it means what it says, makes it exponentially more difficult for Ling Qi to extend patience or good faith to them instead of writing them off as an "other" barely better than an outright enemy.
I get that we've been cautioned against shaping ourselves purely for our job, but this isn't just about awkward compatibility with our roles as spymistress, diplomat, and foreign emissary. It's about awkward compatibility with the goals stretching behind those roles. The impact we want to have on the world and its future and the opportunities we need to be able to grasp in order to get there.
I also get that we do, actually, need some guidelines on how and when to draw the line between "us" and "them" if we're going to turn opportunity into anything tangible, long-term. Decisions need to be made, loyalties set, etc. The problem here is that this insight is bad at it. It's simultaneously too rote and too vague. We give up a huge amount of agency with it, shackling our toolset, and the prize we buy with that sacrifice is cruder, stiffer, more reactionary, and less forgiving mindset. Where's the benefit?
It's hard to take Linqin's appreciation for the capacity to Other seriously, because we were never going to install some kind of 'universal love' insight in the first place. The cost/benefit doesn't work. Linqin was wrong on something else too; it doesn't make Ling Qi fragile, it makes her brittle. The fundamental stiffness she's saddled herself needs to be appreciated. She's not just vulnerable to harm, she's been made broadly more incapable. And, like, limitations are fine, but again the issue here is that the hit Ling Qi took was directly to her burgeoning brand. The insight makes her fundamentally less able to engage with the weird, scary, or ill-meaning. It's legitimately catastrophic, and worse, pointless.
The weirdest thing is, I don't even know why we were given this option in the first place. The art we got it from's claim to fame was/is allowing negotiation between minds and forms so alien that one's mere presence can be existentially harmful to the other. I sincerely don't get how the art about semi-safely poking radically alien modes of existence provisioned us with a "be a stick in the mud who gets mad and takes their ball home" insight. And the whole "neighborliness" framework sprang out of essentially nowhere, with no narrative buildup (or follow-up), which makes it that much harder to figure out how much any of this is actually a problem, much less how to mitigate it.
I honestly think this insight is worse than our original Truth/Sincerity Insight, with how it's practically tailor made to be the antithesis of all our long-term aspirations, once you peel of the surface level illusion of feel-good platitudes and examine what it logically requires of Ling Qi. It's just wonky and bad. It limits us in practically every direction and gives us squat. It's a particularly unhelpful lens when it comes to the kinds of things we want to achieve with the kinds of tools we've committed ourselves to.
Cultivating a thinner skin is the last thing we should be doing, and that's the primary effect this insight has. That's the mechanism through which it asserts itself.
Edit: The other problem is just when do we poke around with this stuff? Neither of the fronts of war are very useful. The enemies are Other and that's that, basically. The Ith bureacratic tangle coming up could be a good opportunity to pick at some of this stuff, but a one-off arc taking place over a maximum of a few days probably isn't going to give us anything decisive. That leaves Imperial/Emerald Seas politics as the only realistic option, but we keep bouncing off of that pretty consistently. It just seems too scattered to actually probe our dumb insight properly.
Obviously, Dao Linqin has her own biases skewing her view of it, which is why she approved of the insight's role in othering in the previous update. Unfortunately, I think she's actually being too generous to the insight, here?
The insight essentially functions by creating a code of conduct and an in/out-group dichotomy governed by that code. This has... a lot of implications. But the ultimate logical consequences, arguably, are that the insight makes it easier to label others as alien/outsider and makes it substantially harder to be forgiving towards 'neighbours' who trespass the code, because it defines membership of the group by adherence to the code of conduct. And the insight doesn't do much else?
It's important to remember that insights aren't just priorities or default instructions for Ling Qi to follow. They're deeply ingrained axioms relating to Ling Qi's interaction with and view of the world and its inhabitants. And this one's focused on the conduct of others very directly. And the impact it has on Ling Qi is basically to make her less tolerant of disparate social approaches, because she's cemented a particular set of values as Required, and less forgiving, because there's a concrete set of disqualifying conduct.
Like, if another noble does some light routine espionage to confirm the details underlying some theoretical dealing in the future, by the terms of this Insight, Ling Qi is obligated to take offense. Or if Ling Qi encounters somebody with a hostile or dismissive bearing, this Insight, if it means what it says, makes it exponentially more difficult for Ling Qi to extend patience or good faith to them instead of writing them off as an "other" barely better than an outright enemy.
I get that we've been cautioned against shaping ourselves purely for our job, but this isn't just about awkward compatibility with our roles as spymistress, diplomat, and foreign emissary. It's about awkward compatibility with the goals stretching behind those roles. The impact we want to have on the world and its future and the opportunities we need to be able to grasp in order to get there.
I also get that we do, actually, need some guidelines on how and when to draw the line between "us" and "them" if we're going to turn opportunity into anything tangible, long-term. Decisions need to be made, loyalties set, etc. The problem here is that this insight is bad at it. It's simultaneously too rote and too vague. We give up a huge amount of agency with it, shackling our toolset, and the prize we buy with that sacrifice is cruder, stiffer, more reactionary, and less forgiving mindset. Where's the benefit?
It's hard to take Linqin's appreciation for the capacity to Other seriously, because we were never going to install some kind of 'universal love' insight in the first place. The cost/benefit doesn't work. Linqin was wrong on something else too; it doesn't make Ling Qi fragile, it makes her brittle. The fundamental stiffness she's saddled herself needs to be appreciated. She's not just vulnerable to harm, she's been made broadly more incapable. And, like, limitations are fine, but again the issue here is that the hit Ling Qi took was directly to her burgeoning brand. The insight makes her fundamentally less able to engage with the weird, scary, or ill-meaning. It's legitimately catastrophic, and worse, pointless.
The weirdest thing is, I don't even know why we were given this option in the first place. The art we got it from's claim to fame was/is allowing negotiation between minds and forms so alien that one's mere presence can be existentially harmful to the other. I sincerely don't get how the art about semi-safely poking radically alien modes of existence provisioned us with a "be a stick in the mud who gets mad and takes their ball home" insight. And the whole "neighborliness" framework sprang out of essentially nowhere, with no narrative buildup (or follow-up), which makes it that much harder to figure out how much any of this is actually a problem, much less how to mitigate it.
I honestly think this insight is worse than our original Truth/Sincerity Insight, with how it's practically tailor made to be the antithesis of all our long-term aspirations, once you peel of the surface level illusion of feel-good platitudes and examine what it logically requires of Ling Qi. It's just wonky and bad. It limits us in practically every direction and gives us squat. It's a particularly unhelpful lens when it comes to the kinds of things we want to achieve with the kinds of tools we've committed ourselves to.
Cultivating a thinner skin is the last thing we should be doing, and that's the primary effect this insight has. That's the mechanism through which it asserts itself.
Edit: The other problem is just when do we poke around with this stuff? Neither of the fronts of war are very useful. The enemies are Other and that's that, basically. The Ith bureacratic tangle coming up could be a good opportunity to pick at some of this stuff, but a one-off arc taking place over a maximum of a few days probably isn't going to give us anything decisive. That leaves Imperial/Emerald Seas politics as the only realistic option, but we keep bouncing off of that pretty consistently. It just seems too scattered to actually probe our dumb insight properly.
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- Location
- Beneath a pile of leaves
Oh don't get me wrong, I'd love to read that.
I'd also cry, is the thing.
[X] Plan: boatyard infrastructure
- Pronouns
- Ae/Aer
[X] Plan: boatyard infrastructure
- Location
- Beneath a pile of leaves
While I do agree that the dichotomy presented may cause issues further down the line (and we should probably work on that), I don't think the insight, itself, is quite as unforgiving as you're portraying it. For me, it comes down to the wording:
"Respect" here is a mutual thing, and as you said, it can be twisted into her writing off anyone who comes off as hostile or dismissive. But it's coupled with "speaks without demanding," and "takes without dominating", both of which preserve choice. LQ can neither demand full adherence to her "neighborly code" nor dominate another into following it. The insight also requires that she "listens without spying", and while the "without spying" part is a bit ambiguous, if we take it to mean "listen without ulterior motive/suspicion", it would require her to listen to critiques in good faith, just as one of our other insights:
Still preserves room for LQ to compromise, while holding fast to her beliefs. It is also further tempered by:
Which demands that LQ consider other people's wants and needs. (Though admittedly, this probably only applies to "family" currently, so this might be a bit of a stretch on my part. They do both share the Communication concept, though).
Also, I wouldn't say the whole "neighborly" concept came out of nowhere. LQ had been contemplating on community and her role within it for a very long time, and also on the concept of "neighbors" (though I don't recall them using that word exactly) since the option to treat with the Polar Nations showed up. I saw this insight as a further consolidation of her lessons from the summit.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]Plan: Laying Groundwork
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X]Plan: Laying Groundwork
[X] Plan: More Infrastructure! More!
[X] Plan: More Infrastructure! More!
[x] Plan: Laying Groundwork
The issue is that exact wording does matter. And this insight says too many, too specific, things. None of the words are or can be dispensable or waved away.
The neighborliness issue is more significant than you're making it out to be, too. The time to explore a framework's meaning is prior to searing terminological baggage into your soul, not afterwards. And it just bluntly wasn't a thing. The continuity is weak and gives us barely any context to work with.
Finally, the insight flatly does not self-moderate in the way that you're suggesting. It just can't do that. The foundational principles of the insight aren't subject to being suspended because having principles and holding others to them, internally, would be "domineering". The consequence to falling short of her standards is, firstly, that she metaphorically walks away, which is hardly domination. But secondly, if somebody doesn't merit the status of "neighbor", then dominating them is not wrong.
That's the whole point of the insight! If somebody falls outside of her terms, they are not subject to her consideration or limitations. The insight is very strongly geared towards downward spirals of dismissal, with fairly little in the way of safety rails. Once somebody slips in Ling Qi's eyes, the insight offers them almost no consideration, by its nature.
Again, this is the main thing it does and how it works, as phrased and logically constructed as it is.
I see where you're coming from, and I agree with most of the facts you've brought up, but I think I'm looking at the whole thing from another angle. I believe that the insight doesn't restrict Ling Qi's behavior, but actually acts as a safety valve on her behavior. I'll explain below, but I think Diao Linqin is seeing the same thing, and is criticizing that Ling Qi's safety valve isn't going to actually work when she comes up against a real problem.
If each bond Ling Qi builds brings new attendant bonds with it, and it is the love of those bonds that builds a community, then any community she builds will be built on love, a necessity that constrains her through obligations.
If the goal of communication is to guide the many towards a harmonious future, and if the way to accomplish that is to seek parallels between different people and not unite disparate people in a single vision, then Ling Qi's must be deft and accommodating, not forceful.
Again we see that Ling Qi's chose family, her community, is an obligation, that it limits her potential options and paths forward. She must be careful and conscientious in her actions.
Taken as a whole, the three concepts combine to create what might be a path towards universal love and acceptance. The people Ling Qi chooses as family and home constrain her actions, they each bring attendant bonds that constrain her actions furthers, the love that binds them is what creates the home Ling Qi desires, and the only path towards the future she desires relies on accepting people's differences and seeking to find something that works for everyone. And it's here that the insight comes in. By putting limits on what a neighbor may do and still be a neighbor, Ling Qi gives herself a way to remove people from her community if they become dangerous or work against her, snipping the strings of obligation tying her hands together.
I think what Diao Linqin's saying here is "that's a nice verbal sidestep, but it's not gonna hold up for shit when the rubber hits the road, come up with something better before you wreck yourself." Of course, despite what Diao Linqin is seeing, I don't think Ling Qi's actually going to go down a path of universal love, especially based on her past and other beliefs, but I think it's enough for Diao Linqin to mention it when she sees it, given that it's the basis of her Way.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is only true if you take the insight in absolute isolation, which is not correct at all. Insights feed into each other as do conceptual definitions and Ling Qi has several other Insights and Definitions that make this an extremely small risk if it is one at all. I actually agree with Linqin that the risk mostly goes the other way.
Like, this is something to keep an eye on in the sense that if she changed all of the many things she currently has that prevent that from occurring without changing this specific Insight it could theoretically happen, but that's so far from the situation she's currently in I don't think it's worth criticizing the insight as it stands in the tapestry of Ling Qi's Way.
Taking Insights to extremes in isolation without taking into account the rest of the Way in question is almost always the wrong way to look at it. Most Insights wind up with really awful implications if they were literally your whole personality, which is why you need a bunch of them interlocking in the right way to be a functional cultivator.
Nothing else Ling Qi has really mitigates the issues I'm raising. The insight is just constructed wrong for it. The fact that the insight is almost certain to splinter and then explode spectacularly at some point is a separate matter.
The insight is the gatekeeper to other insights and concepts related to community. They don't do a lot to cure the deficiencies with the insight, because of where it's placed itself in the collective dynamic.
The insight is the arbiter, and it's also a half baked burden. It's not great.
The insight is the gatekeeper to other insights and concepts related to community. They don't do a lot to cure the deficiencies with the insight, because of where it's placed itself in the collective dynamic.
The insight is the arbiter, and it's also a half baked burden. It's not great.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is just flatly false. For one thing, having literally anyone she cares about to tell her other people matter stops her dead due to:
To say nothing of all of these, which strongly encourage changing people from out groups to members of the in group:
And so on. All strongly encourage building new ties. Ling Qi's way doesn't obligate one to make strangers into neighbors (and it would be bad if it did), but it sure encourages it.
Now, would an Insight about how to treat strangers be useful? Sure. But that doesn't mean that without it any Insight that specifically only deals with neighbors is inevitably an invitation to dictatorship and genocide and other stuff like that. That's a load of crap, frankly, and it's a perfectly reasonable Insight. It's not flawed in the way you're trying to say it is, it's incomplete in that it needs other Insights to make a full picture, but that's true of literally all Insights.
We don't need to do anything to change or get rid of that Insight, we maybe need a new Insight to govern how Ling Qi is to react to strangers and enemies, but we'd need something about that either way. The 'good neighbor' Insight is entirely fine in its own right as long as you don't expect one Insight to institute universal morality (which you shouldn't, any single Insight doing that is bound to be overly restrictive and do a bad job of it).
That's a load of crap you're taking on my doorstep, because I didn't say any of that.
My issue is with the way the insight approaches and encourages alienation, and no somebody we like chiming in does not halt somebody's progression out of the ingroup for falling afoul of our standards, that's not how standards work. The treatment of those in the outgroup is besides the point. I'm not saying we're doomed to hypermurder everyone outside our sphere of cuddles. I don't care about that.
It's the loss of collaborative potential which I take issue with, because it's arranged opposite to our long-term goals.
It feels like people are treating the final clause of the insight as its core meaning and purpose, which is true, and the first section as fluff, which is incorrect. That first section is very much actionable standards Ling Qi can't compromise on, which bind her actions and expections of others. And they're poorly formulated. As lines in the sand, which they necessarily are, they're bad ideas.
This extends past the realm of direct in-universe character interactions, it's a lodestone around the neck of narrative freedom. The ways that Ling Qi is obligated to respond to people/challenges constrains what can exist in the narrative without twisting off into distraction.
The very fact of having this insight distorts the kinds of reality we can be permitted to interact with at any given point, if pacing and story beats are to stay on track. It directly makes Ling Qi more difficult to challenge as a character because she's made less capable of navigating challenges to her interpersonal worldview without shooting herself, her goals, in the foot.
Either the insight gets ignored when inconvenient, which is bad, or there's entire categories of characters and their context which has to be preemptively scrubbed from the narrative because Ling Qi (apparent diplomat) can't handle the interaction without the story's pacing going completely to shit, which is worse.
It's very similar to the issues cause by the Truth insight. It's not tension which enhances the narrative and character development, it's tension which is inoperable and therefore cannot be allowed to exist.
My issue is with the way the insight approaches and encourages alienation, and no somebody we like chiming in does not halt somebody's progression out of the ingroup for falling afoul of our standards, that's not how standards work. The treatment of those in the outgroup is besides the point. I'm not saying we're doomed to hypermurder everyone outside our sphere of cuddles. I don't care about that.
It's the loss of collaborative potential which I take issue with, because it's arranged opposite to our long-term goals.
It feels like people are treating the final clause of the insight as its core meaning and purpose, which is true, and the first section as fluff, which is incorrect. That first section is very much actionable standards Ling Qi can't compromise on, which bind her actions and expections of others. And they're poorly formulated. As lines in the sand, which they necessarily are, they're bad ideas.
This extends past the realm of direct in-universe character interactions, it's a lodestone around the neck of narrative freedom. The ways that Ling Qi is obligated to respond to people/challenges constrains what can exist in the narrative without twisting off into distraction.
The very fact of having this insight distorts the kinds of reality we can be permitted to interact with at any given point, if pacing and story beats are to stay on track. It directly makes Ling Qi more difficult to challenge as a character because she's made less capable of navigating challenges to her interpersonal worldview without shooting herself, her goals, in the foot.
Either the insight gets ignored when inconvenient, which is bad, or there's entire categories of characters and their context which has to be preemptively scrubbed from the narrative because Ling Qi (apparent diplomat) can't handle the interaction without the story's pacing going completely to shit, which is worse.
It's very similar to the issues cause by the Truth insight. It's not tension which enhances the narrative and character development, it's tension which is inoperable and therefore cannot be allowed to exist.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well that just falls apart in the face of the fact that 'good neighbor' and 'neighbor' are not synonyms. One can be a neighbor (part of the 'in group') without being a perfect one, or even a good one. Ling Qi can also certainly eject people from the neighbor category, it's true, but she is not obligated to do so because they fail to live up to that Insight's standards. It's aspirational, more than a hard requirement, and that's not about it being 'fluff', it's about how it's worded.
Pots of Chillgrasp Clay, probably. Which we could actually build this turn, if we wanted to:
[x] Plan Cold Fish
-[x] Experimental Chillgrasp Pottery
-[x] Fishing Boat Construction
I've got an answer to this, but I can't think of any good way to phrase it politely.
But while you might have questions about why Ling Qi might have taken that insight, there shouldn't be any about why people voted for it; there were plenty of statements during the vote as to why people were picking it.
- Location
- Staring into the void
[X]Plan: Laying Groundwork
I'll try to be clearer what I'm mainly driving at.
It's a bad insight because it makes it harder to challenge Ling Qi constructively. Like, on a structural level.
I'm not worried about her inevitably tripping over some in-group betrayal of her values which challenges the foundations of her beliefs, and with this (and others) insight, her very soul. It's going to happen, it'll be a big thing when it does. Okay, sure. Looking forward to it, frankly.
And not even out of spite, that's been a story beat Ling Qi's been working towards eventually hitting given her core concepts for ages.
The problem I'm annoyed by is how it affects treatment of those not already in the ingroup, and how this can and can't be portrayed effectively. To portray this, Ling Qi needs to bounce off of opportunities because of her hangups. But that has deep issues.
First, due to her biases, it'll be extremely difficult for Ling Qi, our perspective character, to appreciate that's going on because she'll discount the value of those interactions she dismisses. The friction with the insight basically self-censors, which isn't productive.
Second, from a writing perspective, this is structurally unrewarding for both audience and author. It's doing not-things, in a way which is inaccessible to expansion.
Third, Ling Qi as a character is practically defined by reaching out to take odd opportunities from dubious circumstances. An insight which steers her away from that should be viewed with suspicion. Like, under this insight, making friends with Gu Xiulan probably isn't a thing that happens, as an example. This stuff matters.
This is what I mean when I raise concerns that the insight either gets ignored or it gets in the way in ways we can't do much of anything with. The insight does introduce tension, but it's tension in the meta narrative rather than on the level of character interaction. It's... disheartening.
The insight doesn't offer what many wanted it for. It totally makes sense people saw it and thought, "Hey, I want to be neighbourly!" Just not really the effective result.
It's a bad insight because it makes it harder to challenge Ling Qi constructively. Like, on a structural level.
I'm not worried about her inevitably tripping over some in-group betrayal of her values which challenges the foundations of her beliefs, and with this (and others) insight, her very soul. It's going to happen, it'll be a big thing when it does. Okay, sure. Looking forward to it, frankly.
And not even out of spite, that's been a story beat Ling Qi's been working towards eventually hitting given her core concepts for ages.
The problem I'm annoyed by is how it affects treatment of those not already in the ingroup, and how this can and can't be portrayed effectively. To portray this, Ling Qi needs to bounce off of opportunities because of her hangups. But that has deep issues.
First, due to her biases, it'll be extremely difficult for Ling Qi, our perspective character, to appreciate that's going on because she'll discount the value of those interactions she dismisses. The friction with the insight basically self-censors, which isn't productive.
Second, from a writing perspective, this is structurally unrewarding for both audience and author. It's doing not-things, in a way which is inaccessible to expansion.
Third, Ling Qi as a character is practically defined by reaching out to take odd opportunities from dubious circumstances. An insight which steers her away from that should be viewed with suspicion. Like, under this insight, making friends with Gu Xiulan probably isn't a thing that happens, as an example. This stuff matters.
This is what I mean when I raise concerns that the insight either gets ignored or it gets in the way in ways we can't do much of anything with. The insight does introduce tension, but it's tension in the meta narrative rather than on the level of character interaction. It's... disheartening.
This is mainly why my dismay's as sharp as it is. It's a huge bummer when people don't get what they think they're voting for, and that's the case here, imo.
The insight doesn't offer what many wanted it for. It totally makes sense people saw it and thought, "Hey, I want to be neighbourly!" Just not really the effective result.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think this is great as an example of the core of my profound disagreement with you: Why in the hell would the Insight in question mean that Ling Qi doesn't make friends with Gu Xiulan?
Her whole rest of her way is about the ability to change people via proper communication, why would you think that one or two examples of 'bad neighbor' behavior would result in refusing to be friends rather than result in trying to guide the person in question to being a better neighbor? Like, she's not obligated to do so, but it's sure more in line with her Way as a whole than suddenly cutting someone off is, assuming she has any reason to believe changing them is possible.
Betrayal is a whole different thing, but absolutely nothing about the neighbor insight at all disincentivizes trying to make bad neighbors into good ones, or even strangers into good neighbors. Quite the opposite, if anything.
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