Pretty sure that according to his own philosophy, the Seth should be dead, unless he was born very strong à la Freeza from DBZ and never knew weakness even when he was a child.
I mean so far as I can tell, step one of his philosophy should be killing everyone in his entire empire, and never having any children.
Since he hasn't done that, we can rightfully call him a hypocrite and move on to exited speculating on his downfall.
I'm hoping that it will somehow be caused by one of those cannons that require thousands of truegolds working together, either distracting him or outright landing the killing blow at a critical moment
Having only one Icon is pretty common for a Sage. Not actually sure on the full list of icons for the Monarch. Malice had Shadow, Crown, Strength, and Bow. I think Emriss only has one which I think is Oracle. Miara, Shen, and Seth all have the Crown Icon but have others as well. Fury had the Strength Icon when he ascended.
I don't think the people of Cradle care for such thing enough to care that they are actually sapient and not animals. And the dragons themselves probably doesn't care enough to make it a point, since they still consider might make right, so if some of them want to protest the pronouns usage, they can do it by themselves, in the most obvious way possible (e.g. kill the offenders)
In dialogue they're almost always given a feminine or masculine pronoun, that I've noticed. It's the narration where you see them being referred to with it/its. Seems to imply the people of cradle give them normal pronouns, just that our third person narrator does not, barring a few exceptions.
I mean so far as I can tell, step one of his philosophy should be killing everyone in his entire empire, and never having any children.
Since he hasn't done that, we can rightfully call him a hypocrite and move on to exited speculating on his downfall.
I'm hoping that it will somehow be caused by one of those cannons that require thousands of truegolds working together, either distracting him or outright landing the killing blow at a critical moment
I mean for all his incredible power he's little more than a broken child. Everything he does is because he never recovered from how his adopted brother died. Everything.
Of course he's a hypocrite. If he actually faced it he'd probably just shatter completely. So he refuses, even now.
It's an extremely uninteresting trope to read from the PoV of one of the people involved, because it's repetitive, generally distracting from whatever else the story is doing, and rarely demonstrates anything resembling a realistic relationship. Wish fulfillment by someone trying to relitigate their slowly realized coming out through fanfic is valuable psychologically, but it inevitably makes for poor reading.
It's more than fine from the outside because we don't have to watch the awkward fumbling or twee commentary, we just get to see them happy with each other! At that point it's just them being regular people but gay, which is like...I can't imagine why you'd be upset about it outside the obvious, especially when Mercy demonstrates attraction to essentially no one in canon and Miara isn't really there enough to do otherwise.
In dialogue they're almost always given a feminine or masculine pronoun, that I've noticed. It's the narration where you see them being referred to with it/its. Seems to imply the people of cradle give them normal pronouns, just that our third person narrator does not, barring a few exceptions.
It's not like the people trying to kill them see them as people while they're rampaging with an animal bodytype and trying to murder them, rather than in social situations or in cases where their gender identity is expressed or even known. Dehumanizing pronouns make perfect sense when describing an angry pitbull running at you with teeth bared, even if it's shouting imprecations about your mother along the way.
She did demonstrate slight attraction to Lindon, but it seemed crippled by the fact he already had a thing going on with Yerin, and I vaguely remember she was slightly jealous at what they had going for them (a loving relationship), she also married him in some possible futures shown to him by abidan.
It doesn't discount her also being attracted to girls, but it would be false to say she didn't show any inclination to romance in canon.
I was about to bring that up. Even though we don't see the context behind those futures I doubt Lindon would enter that kind of relationship without a mutual attraction, especially since there were futures where he and Yerin split up.
Personally, I want to see how Mercy and Miara's relationship develops because I think it will be fun. I'm a bit worried that a power imbalance beyond Miara being a Monarch could arise, if they have to constantly lean on her to protect Moongrave from Sesh. It's an inherently unequal dynamic, which could warp their relationship into something Mercy feels obligated to do for the safety of her family and people.
Hope they hire the 8-Man Empire soon so we can avoid that. Or Mercy and Taylor could advance.
A bunch of interesting POV's! I really liked shen's just, utter disregard for anything but his plan, with the exception of absolutely loathing Taylor's inability to die against unbeatable odds.
Seeing all this though, really makes me wonder where the heck Eithan is during all of this. I know he was staying out of the way of the dreadgod battle, but there's obviously something more than what we've been told going on with him. The fact he's even aware that Taylor isn't just what she seemed before the unveiling of Hera when the Silent King attacked increases the intrigue about him.
(Yeah I know people have posted what his deal is before in this thread, however, it's spoilers so I haven't looked.)
Continuing from the others, Shen also had the Lion Icon, and presumably another Icon related to space. The deceased Arelius Monarch Tiberian had the Storm and Spear Icons.
In dialogue they're almost always given a feminine or masculine pronoun, that I've noticed. It's the narration where you see them being referred to with it/its. Seems to imply the people of cradle give them normal pronouns, just that our third person narrator does not, barring a few exceptions.
This is just a thing that the original canon of Cradle has. Random snippets from book 11, where it's most noticeable, bolding mine and every new line break here is me skipping some, but all in order:
Meanwhile, the Silent King could crush every one of her workings and match her own techniques with its own.
Malice pushed against him, clawing for any advantage.
It had no fur, only smooth pale skin with black stripes like slices into a moonless night.
The frustrated Dreadgod tries to flee, but he's cornered by land-ravaging techniques that send dust clouds billowing into the sky.
Push one too far, and it called for its brothers.
The Silent King was considered the weakest of the Dreadgods, but this did not disturb him.
This way, the King had the greatest chances at the prizes he really wanted.
And a limb of potent hunger madra that the Silent King couldn't find without devouring one of its siblings.
Then something shifted in Fate, and he saw it as clearly as a symbol projected across the sky. His own severed head. The Dreadgod growled, low in its throat. It had been killed before, and this was an indignity it would not suffer again.
Nonhuman characters in Cradle tend to have this issue a lot. For a lot of readers, this wouldn't even register: a dragon or Dreadgod will swap back and forth between 'it' and one of 'he' or 'she' pretty easily. I just tend to be hyper-aware of this, for trans reasons.
Basically, derivativeoflife is closely mimicking the actual style of the books; there's a prominent section of book 5 where Yerin is also fighting gold dragons that mixes pronouns exactly like this update does. I'm not sure Will Wight, the original writer, was ever really aware of what he was doing, but it's close to consistent that 'something not-human-shaped is doing a thing with its non-human body' is an 'it' while 'something not-human-shaped is talking and planning' is 'he' or 'she'.
The only major exception is Orthos, who is basically always 'he'. I don't recall offhand if Orthos is ever called 'it', and given that he's pretty prominent in eight books, I'm not going to scan that much to check if he's ever refered to like this.
This is one of the few Cradle bits I don't emulate on my own Cradle quest, which has resulted in the kind of funny case of a nonverbal tree having a stronger gender identity than the protagonist.
More Icons isn't necessarily more better. Protagonist luck aside, getting any Icon is a tremendous undertaking with no guarantee of success, but even outside that: Emriss, for instance, is called out in narration as deliberately only sticking to the two and just going for depth of control over everything associated with the two she has.
Charity is a specialist, who until very, very recently was probably of more benefit to the Akura clan with a focused skillset (that Fury and Malice didn't share) than as a generalist whose powers have a lot of overlap with what the unusually powerful Herald Akura Fury already handled.
Let me get this straight. You believe that the Shadow Sage, someone with a well-documented history of punching above her weight class already, is also an agent of the incredibly powerful being that introduced itself last chapter by beating a Dreadgod with another Dreadgod. And your plan is to attack this person? Good luck.
Let me get this straight. You believe that the Shadow Sage, someone with a well-documented history of punching above her weight class already, is also an agent of the incredibly powerful being that introduced itself last chapter by beating a Dreadgod with another Dreadgod. And your plan is to attack this person? Good luck.
He does not have the Icon of "Good and reasonable planning", and to be fair Taylor has not seemingly punched THAT hard out of her weight class over the course of this story (until the "Just took over a Dreadgod, and has made the mind control specialist dreadgod TERRIFIED" thing), at least not to Shen's knowledge (he doesn't know that Taylor gave trouble to Grace when she was a rank below her, etc...).
Let me get this straight. You believe that the Shadow Sage, someone with a well-documented history of punching above her weight class already, is also an agent of the incredibly powerful being that introduced itself last chapter by beating a Dreadgod with another Dreadgod. And your plan is to attack this person? Good luck.
It's a death world she doesn't want to deal with burying kids and Fury pushed her hard to become a Sage and she's worried about doing the same to someone else.
The Yerin and Lindon powerup is kind of long overdue. They are a fair bit behind their canon selves. And Taylor just controlled a Dreadgod to make another Dreadgod flee during what was definitely a more pivotal moment for their survival. Giving the other characters a chance to shine as well does not make Taylor a useless side character. We had a whole bit from Shen how dangerous he considers her.
Yerin and Lindon are kinda behind their canon selves do to various events. Taylor basically has a connection to 3 Icons right now Shadow, Oracle and Crown. Also even without going full Khepri she was able to run special ops at the highest level to the point she played a pivotal role in one of the biggest battles in history.
Fast update! Great update! Good to see the aftermath from not-Taylor perspectives. It was pretty obvious that the battle for the Silent King's prison was going to be the thing that Shen used to enter the Labyrinth. Also, where is Eithan‽
Glad to see I was kinda right about how the Akura would hold and the losses (in Territory) that they would take. Though in true Cradle fashion it seems that we're getting a "Not as bad as it could have been" award for the rest of the Ashwind continent. And huge congrats to Yerin, our newest Sword Sage!
Taylor having connections to 3 Icons while very impressive isn't out of context, though I'd say she has a very impressive connection to her own Icons. Shadows is connected to her whole whole using subterfuge and reputation which is a big part of her, Oracle is connected to her being a sensory monster, Crown is due to her connection to QA, her running a gang and will 100% increase as she's basically one of the three thing holding up the Akura faction.
Honestly I can really only think of three more icons that Taylor could be connected to, Insects because her old power and her modeling her stuff off insects, Hunger possibly due to her technique, understanding a Dreadgod through controlling it and her hungering for a better life, and the possibility of her picking up Heart due to being a social expert and student of Charity.
I was about to bring that up. Even though we don't see the context behind those futures I doubt Lindon would enter that kind of relationship without a mutual attraction, especially since there were futures where he and Yerin split up.
Personally, I want to see how Mercy and Miara's relationship develops because I think it will be fun. I'm a bit worried that a power imbalance beyond Miara being a Monarch could arise, if they have to constantly lean on her to protect Moongrave from Sesh. It's an inherently unequal dynamic, which could warp their relationship into something Mercy feels obligated to do for the safety of her family and people.
Hope they hire the 8-Man Empire soon so we can avoid that. Or Mercy and Taylor could advance.
A bunch of interesting POV's! I really liked shen's just, utter disregard for anything but his plan, with the exception of absolutely loathing Taylor's inability to die against unbeatable odds.
Seeing all this though, really makes me wonder where the heck Eithan is during all of this. I know he was staying out of the way of the dreadgod battle, but there's obviously something more than what we've been told going on with him. The fact he's even aware that Taylor isn't just what she seemed before the unveiling of Hera when the Silent King attacked increases the intrigue about him.
(Yeah I know people have posted what his deal is before in this thread, however, it's spoilers so I haven't looked.)
Shen is just really salty about Taylor messing with his plans and being so damn hard to kill. Also Eithan is 100% cooking something up in the background.
More Icons isn't necessarily more better. Protagonist luck aside, getting any Icon is a tremendous undertaking with no guarantee of success, but even outside that: Emriss, for instance, is called out in narration as deliberately only sticking to the two and just going for depth of control over everything associated with the two she has.
Charity is a specialist, who until very, very recently was probably of more benefit to the Akura clan with a focused skillset (that Fury and Malice didn't share) than as a generalist whose powers have a lot of overlap with what the unusually powerful Herald Akura Fury already handled.
Oh yeah specialization and depth of connection really matters. Charity is the social and intrigue expert of the Akura Clan and did really well in that role.
Let me get this straight. You believe that the Shadow Sage, someone with a well-documented history of punching above her weight class already, is also an agent of the incredibly powerful being that introduced itself last chapter by beating a Dreadgod with another Dreadgod. And your plan is to attack this person? Good luck.
He does not have the Icon of "Good and reasonable planning", and to be fair Taylor has not seemingly punched THAT hard out of her weight class over the course of this story (until the "Just took over a Dreadgod, and has made the mind control specialist dreadgod TERRIFIED" thing), at least not to Shen's knowledge (he doesn't know that Taylor gave trouble to Grace when she was a rank below her, etc...).
More Icons isn't necessarily more better. Protagonist luck aside, getting any Icon is a tremendous undertaking with no guarantee of success, but even outside that: Emriss, for instance, is called out in narration as deliberately only sticking to the two and just going for depth of control over everything associated with the two she has.
Charity is a specialist, who until very, very recently was probably of more benefit to the Akura clan with a focused skillset (that Fury and Malice didn't share) than as a generalist whose powers have a lot of overlap with what the unusually powerful Herald Akura Fury already handled.
It's also worth noting that Monarchs seem to be a bit of an exception, not the rule. AFAIK most Sages actually seem to only have one Icon. Off the top of my head, the only Sage I remember explicitly having more than one is the Winter Sage (Winter and Sword).
Maybe that's because Monarchs can connect to new Icons easier, or it's just that Will thought Monarchs having a bunch of Icons was cool.
As mentioned, most Sages only have a single Icon. Monarch Icons are mostly not mentioned in canon, but we are told Emriss is considered slightly unusual for only having two Icons. This is the list I've sort of been assuming for this fic:
I know from reading spoilers in thread that Lindon got the Void Icon in canon, so Shen might have it too, but with a different interpretation?.
Unrelated, but the way Miara's Monarch inheritance thing works, is it by death of the predecessor only? If she ascends, would that end the line, or would she somehow pass some part of the mantle onto whoever is next?
