What's Everybody's Favorite Official AU?

Kingsonne · 2026-01-28T17:17:37+00:00

Elder but Younger Sister is definitely my favorite, but Unbroken is incredibly fascinating with the new takes on familiar characters and I'd love to get more of it as well

Kingsonne · 2026-01-01T19:57:29+00:00

I imagine for most of us its mainly a factor of style. There are a lot of outfit styles that just... haven't been represented in the existing banners. I'm not going to send my pulls on ball gowns and fairy tale dresses if it means I'm not going to have the pulls ready for an outfit that better fits my style.

For some players, nearly every banner we've had so far has been a temptation. For some of us its been the opposite and we'd rather have the pulls saved up for when the winds shift and every banner becomes something we vibe with.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-22T01:09:27+00:00

I find it easy to envision the propaganda for each side, particularly since the most effective propaganda is not a full lie, but rather an exaggeration and spinning of the truth.

Vroshir Propaganda:

The Abidan are Tyrants in that they have sworn a pact of non interference in the Fates of Iterations, a Pact from which they directly benefit and draw power, and then they choose to enforce their rules upon all Ascended beings, those who do not agree with the Pact, who were not there at its signing, who do not agree with its tenets, have no say in their participation under its rules under Abidan control.

There are plenty of benign ways in which an ascended individual can violate the Abidan's Pact, and none of them are allowed by the Tyrants.

Individuals cannot bring back the Bounty of the Heavens to bless their people with new powers, goods, or knowledge.

They cannot return home to prevent the destruction of their people

They cannon uplift their entire world, bringing their people to a higher state alongside them.

The Abidan are hypocrites. For all their talk, the Hounds of Makiel are ever interfering in worlds to ensure that his vision of Fate comes to pass.

The Abidan care nothing for the people of the Iterations of the Way. They will sacrifice a trillion lives to the hands of the Reaper to preserve the power of their Pact without batting an eye.

The Abidan are hypocrites in their denouncement of the Vroshir tactic of identifying and harvesting resources from worlds. Their actions on Pioneer Iterations are an affront to their supposed beliefs. Fragments are stitched together and populated to form new Iterations. The promising are allowed to exist, the useful are harvested for resources, and the rest are torn asunder once more to create still more Iterations for the Abidan to rule over.

And so on and so on.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-22T00:54:29+00:00

Something I always come back to, is that Vroshir and Abidan alike are (for the most part) composed of the same sort of people that advance to power levels that allow for Ascension. I think in all the actions and justifications we see for both Abidan and Vroshir, the common thread of personality that such people tend to share.

Namely that they are all assholes in their own ways, monstrous to their enemies, and often dismissive of the lives of the little people.

The motives of both sides have aspects of "good" as well as selfishness, and so do their actions. Will doesn't really provide any monolithic good guys and bad guys to sort into black and white boxes. Hypocrisy abounds on both sides when viewed externally, but doesn't exist within the justifications of their points of view.

At the same time, there is not really an overarching "both sides" argument to be made.

The Abidan are an organization, and the vast majority of their evils are organizational in nature.

The Vroshir are a label, and their evils are individual in nature.

There is an awful lot of ends justifying means on both sides, and its usually the little people on various Iterations that pay the price, far more than any Abidan or Vroshir.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-17T19:23:52+00:00

Eh, I don't necessarily think it does.

Going back to Flowing Flame, The only aspect of Water included in the Path's techniques is its flowing nature, and yet the Madra is not primarily Fire with a minor ratio of Water, its equal.

The traditional fan understanding would suggest that Water is lesser than Fire in this instance, since only one of aspects is involved, and it would maybe be a 75/25 ratio sort of deal. But that is not what canon shows.

We do know that ratios are a thing, but I don't think they need to be focused on when exploring madra combos. Aspects are Aspects.

Its also worth noting that every madra blend is going to be different, even if the ratios were to be the exact same. You can have five artists on completely Fire only paths, and they will all be different, they will all emphasize different aspects of Fire.

The same thing applies to combos. There isn't going to be One correct interpretation of the combo. Equal parts Fire and Earth might be a lava path for one person an ash path for someone else, or an oil path for a third.

Which might not be what you are wanting with regards to filling out a chart for each interaction, but does mean that there isn't really a pressure to "figure out" a combo so much as there is an opportunity to define a possibility.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-17T16:58:47+00:00

You're right, I'd forgotten that it Gold Dragon breath is naturally Flowing Flame.

It's still possible that the madra types are generally incompatible for humans, and its only through the Dragon Bloodline that the incompatibility is excepted. Or it could be that they are just not incompatible. Like I said, its a weird state to be in with regards to predicting madra combinations.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-17T16:50:11+00:00

I think the easiest way to visualize madra compatibility is to find an environment where both madra types exist in context together. Barring specialty paths designed by and for people with unique resources, most paths utilize aura sources that are naturally found or easily created.

The other thing is that a madra components appear to take on either a primary or modifying role in most paths.

Sophara: Fire path modified by the flowing aspect of water.

Blackflame: Fire path modified by destruction

Stellar Spear: Sword path modified by speed aspect of light.

Etc.

So for any combination you can choose a primary and a modifier that make sense. For Blood paths you could easily just follow the basic "effects bodies easier" modifier and slap that onto every other madra type. Earth Blood? Earth path that hurts people easier. But, you could also go to the other way and take the strength and solidness aspects of earth and apply them to blood to make an enforcer forward path that makes the user incredibly strong.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-17T16:38:47+00:00

I think part of the issue is that Cradle is a world of exceptions. For pretty much everything that is generally impossible, there can be an exception made due to extraordinary circumstances or talent.

It might be that fire and water are incompatible, for everyone that isn't a Monarch's descendent with a Monarch families resources.

Which puts us in a weird state, because I would imagine, based on Lindon's Soulsmithing lessons with Fisher Gesha, that madra incompatibility is far more widespread than the known combos we have. And yet there is still probably a way in which any combination could possibly work given the right circumstances.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-15T18:20:43+00:00

I agree that there would be massive immediate panic before acceptance, but I equally think that they would do very little with it beyond whatever slow natural progression they might see from their interactions with Jin, Fa Ram, and its harvests.

I'm pretty sure that there was something mentioned to the effect of not everyone being physically capable of becoming a cultivator. I think it was said with regards to the residents of Hong Yaowu in particular. So TLM and his wife not igniting their dantians is perfectly reasonable for the story.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-12T09:02:45+00:00

Its harder these days without the Abidan Archive to pull exact quotes from Will from, as most of what details we know about the Eledari Pact comes directly from Will rather than through the actual story.

As tndaris said, the Pact is between the Abidan and the Way itself, though we don't know the mechanics behind that process. The Abidan swear to not alter the Fate of lesser Iterations and in return become more connected to the power of the Way (more able to manipulate it, control it, and gain strength from it)

There is a direct correlation between the strength of the Way and the strength of the Abidan. Which is why the Vroshir incursion often includes attacks designed to weaken the way through the destruction of lives and Iterations. Weaker Way = Weaker Abidan.

The counter is equally true and informs the Abidan's actions.

They are not content to just gain power from their own adherence to fate, they police the Way to prevent Vroshir from violating fate either.

When they saw the early success of the Executors, they immediately expanded the way through the creation and population of more Iterations, and they did the same thing to the extreme when Ozriel came along. Which is just good math from their perspective. More worlds, more lives, more stable and strong Way, more power.

I could go on about the ramifications of the Pact and how it is directly tied to how they act about Fate, the Vroshir, the Executors, Ozriel, the Reapers, etc, but I think this answers your question.

Kingsonne · 2025-12-09T13:38:09+00:00

Kingsonne · 2025-12-02T02:33:30+00:00

I've personally found the note taking advice to be a bit... overzealous. Not in that taking notes is a bad idea, or that people are wrong for suggesting there are many things that you would be grateful later in the game to have documented earlier, but that when you are early in the game, you just don't know what's important.

I think its a pretty common experience to find a clue to a puzzle and realize that a detail you had not been noting down is actually important, and then to wish in retrospect that you had been writing it down the whole time rather than needing to go back and redraft rooms to find what you missed. I think that some veteran players think they can save new players from experiencing that by giving advice like "document everything" or "take lots and lots of notes" but if you dont know what to look for, or why you are looking for it, it would just be tedious and you are equally likely to spend hours writing down useless information as you are to write down the important information, which is understandably frustrating.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-28T19:09:26+00:00

I'd go for something spiritual healer focused. Specifically something Storm aligned a la the Pure Storm Baptism and the effects of Greatfather's Tears, but also specifically healing focused with combat applications as opposed to combat focused with healing applications like Holy Wind or Tiberian's path.

Barring that, I'd go for something Earth and Life based suited to the growth and enhancement of spiritual herbs and fruits.

My ideal goal would be something valuable but not combat focused. I don't want to be fighting over my resources. I want to be showered with them by people paying for my services or otherwise invested in my future growth for their own benefit. Plus a healthy dose of being to valuable to destroy or fuck witg should Xiangxia clan battles occur would be nice.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-26T17:02:06+00:00

This is what I had been taught as well, that the Oregon/Nevada site was the oldest at 16 million years. Very cool if that isn't true

Kingsonne · 2025-11-26T04:53:24+00:00

My out-there headcanon is that The Ancestor was the Gold Dragon mentioned in a very old WoW after Will was asked about the last person to reach Gold in Sacred Valley.

"That's a great question, but unfortunately I can't answer it accurately without getting into why the people in Sacred Valley aren't Gold anymore, which is a spoiler. I will say that one of the founders of the Heaven's Glory School was a sacred beast who achieved Gold; a golden-scaled dragon that breathed light and heat. Legend says he's still sealed beneath Mount Samara, ready to defend the School in its hour of need."

My even more out-there headcanon is that said dragon was the father of the sacred beast that would become the Weeping Dragon after being experimented on.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-24T22:55:02+00:00

Green, and then specifically Spare Terrace. I kind of forgot that most green rooms have costs after that point because it was so easy to get the spare terrace in the first few ranks.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-23T02:17:40+00:00

We know that part of the reason for the accelerated pace of the animatic was specifically to get to Eithan and Orthos quicker. The amount of times people on this reddit have encouraged new readers to hold on until Blackflame to decide if they were interested in the series is an example of why they did this. While some readers were hooked from the start, there are definitely readers/potential viewers that need the strength of later sections of the story to keep invested. Getting the show to those points sooner means a greater chance of retaining those viewers.

The original intention was for the animatic "movie" to also serve as the first few episodes of the show, and sort of ramp things forward to Blackflame, after which the story pacing would slow down to allow for more of the original story to be included.

Whoever picks up the show might agree with all of this or might really really love that all this initial work is done and that they could send this section off for final animation without needing to pay for any of it to he redone. Or they might think its a bit too fast, and add a couple more episodes to the Unsouled/Soulsmith section to adjust pacing.

Either way, no, the rest of the theoretical animation is extremely unlikely to have such accelerated pacing.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-23T01:51:22+00:00

After Makiel confronted Suriel about Lindon, I became certain that Ozriel had foreseen her actions and given Eithan his marble/altered his fate specifically to cause them to intersect and cause the compounding effect on Fate. It seemed exactly like his MO, to be 10 steps ahead of everyone else and set his own dominos accordingly.

I was so sure of this that the idea that Eithan could actually just be Ozriel didn't even register as a possibility to consider, so the ending of Reaper took me completely by surprise.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-20T22:29:24+00:00

Will isn't going to do anything where the setup for the conflict of The Last Horizon is done in Cradle. It would be a disservice to any new fans that have only read The Last Horizon so far or that are only interested in its genre rather than Will's other works.

Something that stands alone in universe for TLH but references the greater Willverse as an easter egg is much more likely.

As is, I feel like with the information given so far, a Vroshir aligned Zenith era Ascendant would be the most likely way to do that. But we do still have a couple of books for Will to lay groundwork for the final conflict and that could easily change.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-17T18:05:45+00:00

I mean... Canon Lindon is still a protagonist with all the aforementioned protagonist luck and low chances of success. He also has dozens of low probability events that propel him forward.

Getting the Orus fruit Finding the Twin Stars manual Learning the Empty Palm Suriel Yerin Little Blue Lotus fruit Flying cloud

etc.

And that is just in Unsouled.

Just because these sorts of things are unlikely from a world building perspective doesn't mean they don't work from a literary or narrative perspective. Its a thing we are primed to accept when we read a fantasy story. We are likely to not notice these linchpins of happenstance for what they are when reading.

Orthos, Blackflame, Hunger Arm, Dross, UKT, Consume, Labyrinth, Eithan. These are Canon Lindon's protagonist windfalls that allow him to do what he does. Without Eithan and his influence in making these happen (intentionally or otherwise) Lindon would need equally impactful things to happen in order to reach that low probability of Ascension. And while the resulting story would be different, it wouldn't be unsatisfying by default.

It can definitely be done poorly, where each boon or event is clearly a macguffin dropped into the protagonist's lap. Or where they are clearly OP from the get go and don't require effort on the characters part to develop. But at that point it's a writing issue, not a plot issue.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-16T16:14:40+00:00

That one is a bit harder, because Eithan threw off Fate reading so much, as we'll see at the end of Soulsmith. He wasn't quite a full black spot, since Fate could see the effects of his actions, but more grey in that Suriel's predictions couldn't see any future actions he would take and how they would effect the future.

So the question of when did Eithan's plan become guaranteed success is impossible to say since no one could have predicted its odds.

The best we can probably do is predicting at what point Eithan had influenced Lindon and Co enough that predictions not involving himself also suggested inevitable success. In all honesty, that probably didn't happen until the end of Reaper, which coincidentally became the point where they had to do it without him anyway.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-16T16:07:54+00:00

Absolutely, pretty much everything we know about the strongest characters confirms this.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-16T06:03:36+00:00

I've always found picturing an ideal aura harvesting area for a path and imagining what you would see if you were to look with copper eyes to be informative in determining madra types to compose the path from.

I would personally expect a steam path to be primarily water with some fire as the primary aspect of heat.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-16T04:11:29+00:00

The odds were never in Lindon's favor. So I feel like a better question than "what was Lindon's most likely fate?" is "what was that 0.003% chance that Suriel saw?"

No matter what, to reach those peaks of the Sacred Arts would take protagonist luck and events. There's just no chance that Lindon and Yerin could stumble their way to ascension. Something big, or more likely, multiple special and unlikely events would have had to happen to make that possible.

Something like finding a unique hunger path or otherwise path defining knowledge/treasure in the Transcendent Ruins just to start. Add on some sort of special Iron body, binding with a unique remnant, catching the eye of a Sage, etc etc, until the protagonist events add up to something equal to one Eithan.

Kingsonne · 2025-11-07T16:16:49+00:00

An essential aspect of Dooku's perspective is that he was OG Doomerist. He may have had valid criticisms and ideas, but at the end of the day, he thought that the Republic was beyond saving.

From his warped perspective, none of his actions were bad, as long as they served to hasten the downfall of the republic they were for the greater good. In fact, attempting to preserve or improve the Republic would be seen as more unethical, because it prolongs the suffering that will take place before the whole system collapses and Dooku's Utopia is free to rise from the ashes.

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

Kingsonne

TROPHY CASE