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ykoriana-imperatrix · 1 year

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SDC Month - December 2022 - Monday #1

Today, we welcome back the "unpopular opinions" project. As I said back in June, said opinions might or might not actually be unpopular; it is difficult to know for sure in a fandom this small. But the name remains just as catchy, and perhaps that is all that matters.

The obligatory disclaimer: if you feel there is the chance you might be even the slightest bit offended by any opinion expressed in this post, you are of course entirely free to avoid it entirely. To quote my June self, perhaps some of my other SDC month projects (or other SDC-related posts) will be more to your liking.

(Cut for content and spoilers for roughly the entire series, just to be on the safe side.)

And now, for my maybe-controversial statement for this fine day: The main impact of the difference between SDC years and ours when it comes to characters is making Aurum's feats for his age seem even less plausible.

Let me emphasise one thing: by no means do I think that said difference is an unnecessary worldbuilding aspect or anything of the sort. No, actually I do very much find it an interesting part of the world as a whole, though for the most part, I think that it does not impact the story and in-universe events all that much... and on that note, what I wanted to address here is how it intersects with out-of-universe perception of the characters (well, one in particular).

This said, the above may be a bold statement still, but think about it. Regarding the really young characters (Ykorenthe, Leaf, Poppy when we're first introduced to her, etc.), the difference the conversion makes is so small as to be (in my humble opinion) practically negligible. Then we have the characters who start the series in their teens, 20s and even early 30s, for whom, yes, there is a bit more of a difference, but is your view of, say, Carnelian as a character changed that much — or at all — when you consider him to be nearly 16 rather than nearly 15 at the start of the series? Or Molochite and Osidian being closer to 15 than to 14? Even the likes of the older Keal, Jaspar, Vennel and Grane are only gaining a couple of years at most via the conversion. (And sure, there can appear to be a big difference between, for instance, 30 and 32 when it is your age that is personally involved, but when considering fictional characters from an outside their world perspective? Not so much.) We do start seeing more of a gap when it comes to the characters over 40, but even then, I'd say it's not the sort of thing that would tend to change one's view of any of them all that much? An age gap is less significant the older a person (real or fictional) is, after all, and I have to say, the actions and motivations of these characters, and the general way I view them, remain the exact same when I take into account that Ykoriana's 41 years at the start of the series would be 44 in our world, or that 42-year-old Sardian would be the equivalent of 45, or that Akaisha's 51 years would correspond to 54 of ours, and so on. And then we get to the characters who are already considered elderly in-universe. To me, Legions and the rest of the centuries-old Wise remain just the same when accounting for their age in real-world years: unbelievably ancient. Others might disagree, but seriously, is someone being closer to 748 years old, already unimaginably old (not to mention, well, impossible in reality) by human standards, that different than them being closer to 700? Within the limit of normal human lifespans, Nurpayahras and Nayakarade's ages at the beginning of the series (81 and 76 respectively), for instance, do become more impressive in real-world years, but then again, we never see them do anything that would be too unbelievably physically strenous for someone the equivalent of 87 or 81 years old? (The staves could help with any mobility issues, for one, and travelling from the Masks forbidden houses to the Chamber of the Three Lands for the election could be completely atypical in terms of their usual day-to-day physical activity, for all we know).

But now we get to the Ruling Lord Aurum, the clear outlier, who — don't be fooled by his birth year on the family tree — has been confirmed by the author as indeed being supposed to be 80 (SDC) years old at the start of the series. And yes, I know that people who are in remarkable physical shape in their 80s and 90s do exist in real life, but in those cases, said people usually maintained constant levels of significant physical activity throughout (most of) their lives. The fact that Aurum endures a cross-continental journey (and the return back not too long after) at that age — and bear in mind that no matter how much he might try to keep physically fit and active, this is for all intents and purposes a pampered nobleman that most likely had never left Osrakum before — is nothing short of mind-boggling. This is a man who keeps up (or at the very least manages to keep up appearances in that regard) with people four to six decades his juniors. And all this, to be quite frank, does already stretch my suspension of disbelief quite a bit — now add to it the fact that at the start of the series, Aurum is supposed to be the equivalent of a real-world 85-year-old. Let me tell you, my fellow fans, either this (fictional) man was blessed with exceptional good fortune and genetics... or at bare minimum, something does not quite add up here. (But fun as that would be, let us leave conspiracy theories for another time, shall we?)

#stone dance of the chameleon #the stone dance of the chameleon #sdc month 2 2022 #sdc unpopular opinions #sdc december 2022 mondays

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ykoriana-imperatrix · 1 year

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SDC Month - December 2022 - Monday #2

Will I manage to maybe mildly offend anyone with the latest installment in this project? Time to find out!

As before, the usual disclaimer: as much as I made light of it above, if you feel you might genuinely be even a little offended/upset/incensed/what have you by anything that could fall under the umbrella of "unpopular opinion", this post probably isn't the best choice of reading material for you. Thank you, and have a nice day.

(Cut for content as always, and also for spoilers from The Chosen through The Third God.)

Possibly-controversial statement of today: Molochite and Osidian being fraternal twins is not by itself enough to prevent Carnelian from putting two and two together regarding the latter's identity.

And yes, before I go into anything else, while those two's zygosity is never actually explicitly stated in the books proper or in the website, the author has indeed confirmed they are fraternal twins. Now, I'm not here to bash our friendly but often-clueless protagonist — by now, you all likely know that I like to poke fun at plenty of concepts and/or characters, but I try to keep any actual criticisms as fair and as balanced as possible given the circumstances, and ensure I make reasonable arguments (again, as much as I can given the subjectivity of some topics).

Facts: yes, the Jade Lord brothers are not identical twins, so it's not like Osidian's face is going to be unmistakenly a near-perfect copy of that of Molochite, only with a birthmark. However, there are passages supporting the fact that even so, they do have a very strong family resemblance (not exactly wildly surprising, given they are still full brothers and their absurd level of inbreeding). For instance, in the chapter "The Election", there is this:

For a moment, Carnelian saw the face he expected—a face twinned to Molochite's. A dark mark on the forehead began his frown.

And yes, one could still argue Osidian is still far enough away at this point for Carnelian not to be able to take full, clear notice of his features, and so would be seeing him as resembling Molochite more than he actually does, but I'd argue the very fact he still thinks this counts for something. Then, much later in the series, when Molochite's dead body is brought before Carnelian and Osidian in the chapter "Murderous Grief":

Molochite's beautiful, cruel face was distorted by a grimace that combined horror and surprise. Osidian gazed upon his brother, eyes bleak. Carnelian looked from Osidian's face to Molochite's, and he marvelled at how alike they were.

This one is harder to argue against, wouldn't you say? One couldn't even say that Molochite's corpse is too disfigured to cause Carnelian to overstate the resemblance or something of the sort, since he is clearly able to describe his expression. No, I feel like evidence points in favour of it being indeed a canonical fact that regardless of zygosity, Molochite and Osidian do strongly resemble one another.

Having gone through these passages, let's travel back in time to the events of The Chosen again. If you think about it, Carnelian meets very few Chosen from the House of the Masks, so how much does he really have to go on in terms of resemblances? He meets Molochite, a little later on the same day the Hanuses and not too long after Kumatuya (whose face, of course, he cannot and never does see), nine days after that Osidian, and fifteen days after that Ykoriana (whose face he does not actually see until several years and five books later, and I'm only considering content relevant to this book here). (I'm basing these temporal references on the Kumatuya reign chronology from the old website, by the way.) Carnelian himself has been told he looks very much like his late mother Azurea, but as he never knew her, and also never, say, sees as much as a portrait of her or anything of the sort, only has others' words to go on. So, combining this with the above, we know his only experience considering resemblances between people with Masks blood would come from his meetings of Molochite, the Hanuses and Osidian. And even if, according to him (from the "Beadcord" chapter), there is some resemblance between the Hanuses and Osidian...

Carnelian realized whence came the resemblance that had been nagging him: his likeness to the Lords Hanus was unmistakable.

...wouldn't one expect the resemblance between Molochite and Osidian to be even more pronounced, or at the very least on the same level? Sure, as the half-uncles of all three boys, the Hanuses are still close relatives (in a highly inbred family, which one cannot reiterate enough), but considering the passages from above and the fact the Hanuses would be more distant relatives genetically, if only slightly (plus, we know they — well, Right-Hanus — have differently-coloured eyes from those of the twins, and eye colour tends to be one of the most striking traits in a person, all the moreso in a society where everyone is bald). On that note, it is odd that one resemblance eclipses the other, or that thinking of the Hanuses does not get Carnelian thinking of the one other person from the House of the Masks whose face he has actually seen. (Though it is possible this happens because since the Hanuses are the first — and only — Chosen syblings Carnelian meets, the impact of that uniqueness is so great it does in fact eclipse the meeting with Molochite (especially considering said meeting preceded the one with the Hanuses), even given how absolutely mesmerising his beauty was to Carnelian? Or perhaps Carnelian just has a short attention span. Or both are true.)

Plus, while he is ultimately mistaken about Osidian's identity, Carnelian does correctly identify him as a son of Kumatuya from the start, he just thinks he's a (divided) sybling and the son of some random Lesser Chosen lady rather than a Jade Lord and the son of Ykoriana. So, by this point, Carnelian has met a total of four Masks individuals whose faces he's actually seen... and he never even vaguely finds himself comparing Osidian to the only other one who is a fellow child of Kumatuya? Not once? Even assuming the divided sybling theory were true (a phrase I never thought I'd find myself writing, but here we are), Osidian and Molochite would still be half-brothers, so I think you might agree it not being brought up, ever, seems at best a curious omission (even being charitable and accounting for everything else Carnelian is dealing with at the time). And if the Chosen syblings Carnelian had met had actually been half-brothers of the twins instead of half-uncles, sure, I would have found it more understandable that the resemblance to Molochite wouldn't have raised any red flags or been given any thought to; Carnelian would have just noted there happened to be a definite resemblance between all these sons of the God Emperor, hardly a surprising thing. But as it is, Carnelian never once meets a single other Chosen child of Kumatuya, sybling or otherwise, so I am sorry to say, I do genuinely think that he had pieces he could have put together to figure out Osidian's identity, and Molochite "merely" being a fraternal twin of Osidian and not an identical one was not the main (or, I'll go further, even a) reason he failed to do so before the election.

My final verdict: it does seem that there is even more truth to the classic meme (an old running joke between me and @suth-sardian) of Carnelian not caring all that much about his family than one might think at first.

#stone dance of the chameleon #the stone dance of the chameleon #sdc month 2 2022 #sdc unpopular opinions #sdc december 2022 mondays

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ykoriana-imperatrix · 2 years

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SDC Month - June 2022 - Wednesday #3

Halfway done.

V. Deora

The promise of greatness, it seems, is now only mere heartbeats away. Her hopes, faded since her youth, have blossomed back into being with jubilant fury. Yes, her line is not destined for obscurity after all — her daughter will rise high. It seems almost unreal, yet no longer impossible, that a great-grandson of hers might wear the Masks one day.

Notes

A second connection to the 2020 fics arises, with Deora being the mother of Juyire. I see her as having a relationship with Tiye (who would be two years her junior) in her youth, which she had high hopes for from a personal and political perspective both, but that ultimately proved short-lived. Over the next few decades, Deora never managed to become particularly noteworthy among her fellow non-main liners, and so in time ended up transferring most of her ambitions to her daughter. Her line's time finally came (or so she thought) in the early years of Kumatuya's reign, since Azurea's death and the animosity between Kumatuya and Ykoriana appeared to pave the way for an additional main line consort… and Juyire, the purest-blooded adult non-main line lady around, would seem to be the obvious choice. (Juyire's close blood ties to Yarexira, who had been close to Kumatuya since the latter's infancy, would certainly not have hurt her chances.) Though ultimately, the rest is history, as despite everything, Ykoriana would remain the only main line consort to Kumatuya, and so Deora's hopes crumbled to dust once more. While her line would not exactly be condemned to oblivion (Juyire eventually marrying into a high-ranked House of the Great), her dreams of a daughter and granddaughter who were main line consorts to God Emperors and a great-grandson (not a grandson, since a son of Juyire and Kumatuya would never realistically be elected over the already-born Molochite or Osidian) who might wear the Masks himself would never materialise.

#stone dance of the chameleon #the stone dance of the chameleon #sdc month 1 2022 #sdc 4 sentence fics #sdc june 2022 wednesdays #house of the masks

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ykoriana-imperatrix · 5 months

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SDC Month - December 2023 - Thursday #2

Still with us?

(Cut for spoilers.)

You Are Welcome at Our Court

Alright, so you might look at this premise and consider it a fact rather than a theory, but, well, you're in your right to do so. Speculation such as this is subjective by nature, and I feel there's just enough ambiguity here for this concept to be able to stand on its own as a theory. Presenting: Molochite never learned about Carnelian's true parentage.

Let's start by establishing a timeline here: I do believe that, even in a hypothetical scenario where he did learn of Carnelian's parentage, Molochite would never have done so before Aurum told Ykoriana about it. He himself would have no reason to suspect it (having never seen his own father's face, and likely being very familiar with strong resemblances among his kin), and it's not like someone in his faction like Jaspar or Vennel (who, unlike Aurum, were never in a position to know what Kumatuya had looked like) would have any suspicions to share with him either.

Granted, he does have this to say in The Chosen (chapter "Syblings"):

'Imago, you spoke truth; he does have the beauty of the Masks. However much it is tainted, our blood breeds true.' (…) 'Son of Azurea, you are welcome at our court.'

But in this case, I feel he's only emphasising Carnelian's strong (as far as most people know) resemblance to his mother and his Masks blood, while being dismissive of his Suth side, not hinting at some suspicion related to Sardian not being Carnelian's biological father.

So I do think that he could only plausibly have learned of it after Osidian and Carnelian were abducted and Aurum decided to throw himself at the mercy of Ykoriana and that of Molochite himself. Now, it's certainly possible Aurum also told him—and not just Ykoriana— Sardian's carefully kept secret in his desperation, but I feel Aurum would have found no use in it? Not only would Ykoriana be the power behind the throne in the Masks at this point, but learning the secret would affect her (hopefully enough not to exile him) far more deeply and personally than it would Molochite. The latter's relationship with his father is a complete unknown (though Kumatuya clearly seemed to prefer Osidian to some degree), he would have no personal history (pre-election, that is) with Sardian and had never known his aunt Azurea. And with Osidian and Carnelian both presumably dead, what value would the secret have to him? No, I really am inclined to believe that when characters mention Aurum told Ykoriana about Carnelian's parentage, he did just tell only her about it.

And even after more factors were at play (Osidian and Carnelian were found to be alive, Molochite started breaking free of Ykoriana's control, Aurum allied with the Wise, etc.), I still think Molochite would have been none the wiser about this particular matter. With so much now going on, who (of the very few who knew) would even find any advantage in telling him about it at this point in time?

Plus, there is the way he addresses Carnelian when he has him captive, which to me, feels like definitive proof he did not, in fact, know. From "The Iron House", The Mirror Breaks:

'How does he draw love to him? (…) 'Always he has vexed me, encompassed me, thwarted me. But now I will destroy him. How could this not be? Have I not crushed them all? Even her.' (…) '(…) We shall regain the absolute power Our ascendant lost to the Wise and to you, the Great—centuries ago!' (…) 'You need not fear that you will miss the battle, cousin: We shall have you hoisted to the roof of this chariot so that you can watch your lover die.'

It is clear Molochite intends to eventually have Carnelian killed, and he freely rants about Osidian and Ykoriana to him. Would he really have any reason to conceal the truth (if he knew it) at this point, especially in his unhinged state (and particularly considering the readers are already aware of it by then)? I don't think so, yet he still calls Carnelian "cousin" (and refers to him as a lord of the Great), just as he did when he first met him. So no, while I do think it would definitely have been interesting had Molochite known about Carnelian's biological parentage, I do genuinely believe that is a topic that would have to be relegated to a what-if scenario.

And with this, we're halfway done with our theories for this month. Did you agree with my points? Or do you disagree and think Molochite actually knew? Whichever the case, I'd love for you to share your thoughts in the comments.

#stone dance of the chameleon #the stone dance of the chameleon #sdc month 2 2023 #sdc theories #sdc december 2023 thursdays

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ykoriana-imperatrix · 1 year

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SDC Month - December 2022 - Wednesday #3

Today, on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, we return for the third instalment in this project. The true question — can I keep the posts in this series from getting ridiculously long? (I think you can probably guess the answer to that.)

(Cut for not only length but spoilers for The Masters through Dragon Fire.)

Not His Sister’s Keeper

(Yes, the title is a biblical reference.)

And I imagine that means you can already imagine what is going to be our topic of discussion for today... Presenting: what if Flama had not been murdered by Molochite and had been around for the election?

Now, let me just make one important point clear: I am convinced Molochite would still have attempted to murder Flama, but any attempt(s) would have been unsuccessful (I feel it's not that wildly implausible a premise; we do see several unsuccessful assassination attempts in the actual books), that being our main point of divergence between canon and this scenario. After all, we do know for a fact his situation was quite desperate:

(...) she had underestimated her other son. Molochite had known that his sister's votes would neutralize those his mother cast for him. His brother was more popular than he—not only in the House of the Masks but among the Great. He had murdered his sister.

So, if everything else remains the same (which is what I'm going with for this scenario), it would just feel out of character if Molochite didn't still at least try to get rid of Flama.

That said, what else does change? According to the chronology for Kumatuya's reign from the old website, Flama died on the 25th day of the 9th month of 14 Kumatuya. The events of The Masters start on the 23rd day of the 9th month of 15 Kumatuya — so we are looking at almost exactly an entire year's worth of potential changes brought about by this divergence. And while Flama herself might be a posthumous character we know little about, in my relatively humble opinion, we do still learn enough about her (mainly, from Ykoriana's POV chapter) to make some good enough guesses (which wouldn't be the case if we were trying to speculate about, say, Aurum's late son). We know Ykoriana was Flama's main adult influence ("Flama she had kept as close as the Law permitted"), so, much as in the hypothetical case of female Carnelian and Urquentha, Flama's personality was likely shaping up to be much like her mother's. We know she was strong-willed and stubborn, and absolutely determined to vote for her favoured brother Osidian (who she was also quite close to according to both Ykoriana and Osidian himself), regardless of how her mother felt about it:

‘Flama promised to vote for me.’

Carnelian caressed Osidian's jaw. 'I'm sorry.'

'We loved one another since we were children. When I am the Gods...'

Headstrong, the girl had fought her over who would succeed Kumatuya. Given enough time, Ykoriana would have been able to gentle poison Flama's love for Nepheron.

In my view, the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt(s) (though I'm leaning more towards there only being the one; Ykoriana was taken by surprise by the murder in canon, I am certain she would act to prevent any additional attempts in this scenario, where the failed attempt would alert her to the danger, and she likely wouldn’t be the only one doing so) would have had a significant impact in Flama's relationship dynamics with her main line relatives. (Well, those we have enough information to speculate on, at least; we have nothing to go on to consider Nurpayahras, Nayakarade and/or Tiye's relationships with anyone within their family that's alive during canon, let alone Flama. How Kumatuya might have felt about her is also a complete mystery (like many other things involving him): my guess is that they most likely rarely if ever interacted (which would also mirror Ykoriana seeing Molochite and Osidian as strangers), as I imagine might be the norm for most Chosen men regarding their daughters.)

No, let's instead focus on the relationships we have actual information to go on. How Flama felt about Molochite is not exactly known, but considering his reputation within (and outside) the Masks and the fact that she so strongly seemed to prefer Osidian, I feel it is a fair assumption that at best, she likely disliked/mistrusted him (if not outright hated him). The fact that he tried to murder her would naturally only intensify these feelings (and possibly make her somewhat paranoid about the possibility of further attempts).

Regarding Osidian, I think this incident would only draw her closer to him — not only would he probably have been left as the only family member she had complete trust in (more on that in a moment), ensuring he won the election would have become even more of a necessity. (And this is Ykoriana's daughter and Osidian's sister we are talking about — I do think she would feel vindictive joy at personally witnessing her would-be murderer's grisly demise at Osidian's Apotheosis.)

Her relationship with Ykoriana would suffer from the attempted murder, I believe. Even if she wasn't at all involved, Molochite would still be her favoured candidate, who she intended to rule through — no matter how close mother and daughter might have been, I can't see this incident not leading to feelings of pain, betrayal and anger from Flama's part, and thus creating a rift between the two. (Now, I don't think it is impossible their relationship could have been repaired to at least some degree eventually (we do know acts of betrayal, intended or not, are not uncommon among the Masks, and who's to say how, for instance, Nayakarade's relationship with Ykoriana evolved before and after Kumatuya's election), but I do not see that happening in the short-term, which is what we are looking at here.) And I think Osidian would take advantage of that (and it is possible Kumatuya would also actively advise him to do so? This would be consistent with how terrible the state of his own relationship with Ykoriana must have been... but again, it would still be dependent on his dynamic and frequency of interactions with Osidian, and involve many factors we have far too little information to go on), despite his love for his sister being genuine — after all, we do know he had apparently always feared Ykoriana, despite the two having had very few interactions throughout his life:

Osidian frowned. 'I've seen little of her: mostly, I fear her.'

So I believe that he would see getting Flama away from their mother's influence as being in the best interest of both of them. For Ykoriana herself, however, this would be a terrible blow on both a personal and a political level: the only one of her children she had ever genuinely loved now deeply mistrusted her, and any chances of that plan of gently poisoning Flama's love for Osidian having a chance (even if remote) of ever working would be gone. No, I feel that despite the situation now looking quite dire for her/Molochite's faction, she instead would cling to the same pragmatism she did in the aftermath of Flama's death in canon, and double down on trying to ensure Molochite's victory, because ruling through him would quite possibly be the only thing she now felt she had left. Osidian would be, if anything, even more determined to have her neutralised and left completely isolated in the depths of the forbidden house, and now Ykoriana wouldn’t even have the slight hope that Flama might try to persuade him to be more lenient towards her (as she might have had they still been on good terms).

(And regarding the possibility of Ykoriana being seen as the culprit in the case of Flama's attempted murder as she was with her actual murder in canon — I feel that Flama herself, unlike Osidian, would know their mother well enough/have a different enough type of relationship with her to be certain that it had been Molochite behind the attempt and not her... Though that said, who can know for sure? While for this scenario, I am going with the idea that Flama did know who was responsible, and told Osidian (and possibly others in the Masks close to her, if she had those bonds) because it feels like the most plausible option to me (and the rift between mother and daughter would already arise regardless), it is also possible that the doubt was such that it led to this even deeper feeling of betrayal, and that Flama actually believed (or came to believe) her own beloved mother had tried to have her killed. A far more tragic sub-scenario, I think, and one where their relationship would likely be left beyond any hope of repair.)

About the election proper, let us consider the state of Osidian's faction as well. The situation by the time in which the faction representatives would have left Osrakum in canon would certainly be much better, with Osidian's victory and not Molochite's now seeming assured... yet I think that said representatives leaving with the intention of persuading Sardian to return could still very much be a definite possibility. Yes, Flama's survival and the added 8000 votes would make an immense difference, so Sardian's support would be far less of a necessity in this scenario, but I do think that (as mentioned in the last what-if post) was never Kumatuya's main goal when first deciding to discuss it with Aurum — he mostly wanted to see Sardian one last time (though that said, even given the very favourable situation of his faction, it's not like what-if!Osidian wouldn't benefit from having further support). How might Flama have felt about her father trying to put this plan into motion? Well, she’s unlikely to have had a positive opinion of Sardian given her (until recently) close bond to Ykoriana, but then again, considering their now-strained relationship, it’s possible she would be more conflicted, and maybe reconsider previously-held views at least to some degree. Though perhaps we should also take into account the fact that despite her young age, she would still be a very pure-blooded (and adult by their standards) lady of the Masks, and so might feel some resentment towards others becoming important players within Osidian’s faction because she wanted that to be her role, and this her time to finally come into the spotlight, away from the shadow of her mother and her status.

And the faction's far more comfortable position regarding the balance of votes makes it even more likely that we would see someone other than Osidian himself in the place of main faction manager/faction leader by proxy. (Flama, despite most likely not being old enough to have to be legally confined to the forbidden house at this point — she would only be 10 (almost 11 in our years) — would, I think, be very much her mother's daughter in this regard and consider it beneath her to handle any negotiations in person. And, of course, she could definitely afford not to show herself.) On that note, I feel like, once again, Aurum would see Sardian's support as a plus; his reputation and abilities would all be beneficial for the faction as a whole, and his lack of ambition/opportunism would make him an ideal partner in faction management in Aurum's eyes, as that way he could reap any rewards solely by himself.

When it comes to the representatives' identities, I feel like those might be changed in this scenario in the cases of Aurum and Vennel (we know little if anything about the Ruling Lord Imago and his motivations, so no reason to believe he wouldn't send Jaspar to the Hold as in canon). As the position of Osidian's faction is significantly more secure, Aurum would, like in the first what-if scenario we considered this month (if for different reasons) be less desperate, so it’s not impossible he might want to remain in Osrakum to further ingratiate himself with Osidian — and thus ensure maximum gain from his eventual victory — and send some lord he trusted well enough in his stead. Ykoriana and Molochite, meanwhile, would be in the reverse position of greater desperation, so I feel the former might not underestimate the representatives' mission as much as she did in canon, and so would want to take greater care when it came to settling on an adequate representative, instead of the canonical half-hearted selection of the first candidate that seemed good enough (my apologies to Vennel, but as I have said in the past, he did not exactly prove himself competent).

I do think the group's journey and its outcome would mostly go as it did in canon, especially if Aurum still decides to go himself — as we know Jaspar did not have the necessary knowledge (or was even old enough) to figure out Carnelian's parentage, and odds would be good that Aurum's hypothetical replacement and Vennel's would not either, there would be no one capable of putting the pieces together and forcing Sardian's hand in the sub-scenario where Aurum stayed at Osrakum. But again, it is possible Sardian still decided to return* just to see Kumatuya one last time, as we considered for last week's scenario... And who knows, it could really go either way with Aurum; the heir-related desperation would still be at play, after all, and he could have thought the risk of the journey worth it just to ensure he got Sardian on his side, and so there would be no other, less-desirable faction management partner potentially taking advantage of any existing power vacuum. (And yes, one could have done so in his absence, but since as far as we know that did not happen in canon, I'm willing to believe it didn’t here either.)

So, assuming the representatives' journey still happened and Sardian and Carnelian did return with them, then I think it almost certain Ykoriana's assassination attempts did as well — why, she has even more motivation for them in this timeline, as the last thing she needs is Osidian gaining even more support, and getting rid of both Aurum and Sardian could be her last chance at dealing his faction a significant blow.

(*Yes, I am aware I've now had three distinct what-if scenarios where Sardian's return still occurs even given the changes at play. What can I say? Maybe it just happens to be something akin to one of the fixed points in time from Doctor Who in the SDC universe.)

There is much more I could speculate on within this particular what-if scenario — particularly involving what happens after/if the entire group makes it to Osrakum unscathed (well, four-fifths of them, anyway) as in canon, and how Flama being alive might or might not affect Carnelian and Osidian meeting and the development of their relationship. As this post is already too long, however, I think I'm going to do the same as I did for the "A Daughter Can Oft More Fates Decide" scenario and potentially have a second part for it during a future SDC month. I will see you all next week for the fourth and last what-if scenario for this month.

#stone dance of the chameleon #the stone dance of the chameleon #sdc month 2 2022 #sdc what-ifs #sdc december 2022 wednesdays

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