SilverTiger

I so agree. That book either curses, blasphemes, or both every page. I do not get how that is appropriate for teenagers to be reading.

I just started a reread of Jonathan Moeller's The Ghosts series... There are 21 books in it total. The 21st just came out, and the 22nd will be out soon too (December I think). It is a good series, ebook only, with a neat set of characters. Sword-and-sorcery fantasy, with a female main character. There is also a bunch of short stories. The first book, Child of the Ghosts, is free, if anyone's interested. Just to note, the series is technically split into three series (The Ghosts, Ghost Exile, & Ghost Night), but they all follow the same main character.

I think that you'd actually need to inscribe multiple Aons + modifiers to get the intended effect.

Query: Do we know that the term God-King is specifically a masculine term, or a neuter term that has been translated to English as a masculine term? Meaning, that some of the God-Kings were actually women, but called the same thing? Although I agree that the priests probably preferred having a King over a Queen, because it is easier to fake a child that way (it would show on a Queen). However, that does not necessarily indicate a cultural patriarchy. Perhaps the government of Idris can provide further evidence?

I think yall are taking explanation of Darwin Award wrong. A Darwin Award goes to someone who dies a stupid death, because of their own stupidity (i.e., walking across the (busy) street without looking both ways at o'dark thirty in the morning, when it is foggy, while wearing navy blue). The death itself is not necessarily stupid. Also, I would nominate Sadeas for a Darwin Award, b/c taunting someone who hates you while there are no witnesses, in an unexplored area of tunnels, is dumb.

To add my two spheres: Ranger's Apprentice was not bad, but not great either. I haven't heard of Harry Potter having a toxic fandom. But then, I thought it was meh. However, the Fantastic Beasts movie was better than the series. The book, Catcher in the Rye, was one of the absolute worst things I have ever read. I felt soiled by association after reading it. How it become required summer reading is baffling. Also, teenagers shouldn't be allowed social media. Rap is not music.

I will likely be dressing up as a witch again this year and sitting in the driveway to hand out candy. My costume is pretty basic, but I make it better with a live prop: my pet cat is black, so I'll be putting her on a leash & harness and bringing her outside with me. (hopefully, she won't freak out again)

But seriously, it and other bad words need to be filtered. @Chaos? And why can't it be replaced with "rotting chasmfiend carcass"? That phrase is going to waste now that negative ranks aren't possible anymore.

Ehh... the nickname could be an attempt at friendly teasing; I have called a sister a nickname that she absolutely loathes plenty of times. But that's what siblings and close friends are for. If you really want the sort-of friend to stop, I recommend that you don't answer to the nickname at all, just ignore it. The bane of high school students: that one assignment that is just killing your grade. I completely sympathize, being in (senior year) high school myself. Don't be too worried, they could have lost or broken their phone. I had a friend who stopped answering suddenly, and it turned out she'd washed her phone. In the washing machine. Just be patient. That is scary, seeing a friend hurt badly. At least it was a broken bone; those are fairly routine injuries, so little chance of complications. Try bringing him some cosmere books for hospital reading in case he gets bored :)

Sorry if this is a necro, but neither [bad nickname for Richard] or [bad nickname for Richard]head are being filtered. Edit: also, a [mangled form of negro] needs to be filtered. May I suggest it be replaced with "rotting chasmfiend carcass"?

The official names for different coat colors of house cats includes: black, chocolate, cinnamon, blue, lilac, fawn, red, cream, caramel, apricot, silver, gold, and sunshine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but HxC arrived on Roshar well before the humans did. Maybe by the time the humans arrived, the alteration of the sprens by HxC had caused issues between the spren and the Singers? As in, the Singers would only bond with the 10 Surgesprens, and were forbidden to bond with Surgesprens that HxC had altered. Or the powers the arriving humans had were not the Surges, but rather the Ashyn-magics. Here's an idea: the power-granting diseases of Ashyn are symbiotically bonded with spren (ones that are endemic to Ashyn). The early humans brought the diseases with them at first, but the diseases failed to survive on Roshar. Or (option 2) the Stele is referring to Voidbringers specifically, and the conflation of the appearance of the first Voidbringers and the arrival of the humans is due to the Stele being written/carved after the Desolations had begun. Edit: a third option is that the Surges as used by the Singers was not only very different from how the Surges are used by Radiants, but the effect was much more subtle.

Ideas rewritten and reorganized: Original Singers: around before humans, HxC. They had access to the 10 Surges (which were laid down by Adonalsium) via a set of 10 spren, the Surgesprens, each of which granted a single Surge and had an associated Singer form. The Surgeforms may or may not have been available to all Singers, but Surgeform Singers could switch between forms normally (including the Surgeforms). Original Spren: created by Adonalsium, shaped by the Singers; around before humans & HxC. These were the natural sprens (flamespren, windspren, etc.) and the most basic emotion/feelings sprens (painspren, sorrowspren?, lustspren?, etc.). The original Singers may have revered them as minor deities/spirits. None of these spren were intelligent. This group includes the Surgesprens. God-spren: around before HxC; like the original spren, but each was unique. I.e., the spren/god of highstorms, the spren/god of Roshar, the spren/god of war. The Singers definitely worshiped them. These spren may or may not have been intelligent. The arrival of HxC, humans, and the Odium has altered the spren in various ways. HxC and humans produced: The Radiantsprens: a group of 10 intelligent spren that are associated with abstract concepts. They derive from the 10 Surgesprens, but each Radiantspren grants 2 Surges, the bond between Radiantspren and Knight-Radiant (essentially a Surgeform human) is permanent. The Nahel bond is also more complicated that the Surgespren-Singer bond. *Note: the 10 Surgesprens did not evenly morph into 10 Radiantsprens; rather, the 10 Surgesprens morphed, merged, and divided into 9 Radiantsprens. The 3 Oathbringer spren: these are former god-spren that were drastically changed by HxC. Stormfather= god-spren of highstorms, for example. They are intelligent and unique. Odium managed to cook up: The Voidsprens: these derive from the 10 Surgesprens, via Odium's corruption. They produce both voidforms for the Singers and Voidbringers among humans (also thunderclasts and things). The intelligence level of these sprens, as well as what Surge(s) they grant access to is unknown. The 9 Unmade: also former god-spren, but ones that were drastically changed by Odium. The Voidsprens actually come before the Radiantsprens; their appearance, along with resulting Voidforms, Voidbringers, Fused, etc., caused Honor & Cultivation to cook up the Honorblades, which granted each Herald access to 2 Surges (the use of the 10 Surges, and the number of Heralds, stems from Adonalsium's fundamental 10-centric magic system). The Radiantsprens were subsequently shaped by the humans and their views of the Heralds (which is why the Radiantsprens give powers that so resemble the Heralds' powers).

I am referring to the Singers who were around before humans, possibly before HxC. Presumably, the length of time meant that Singers' Surge-forms were forgotten. Also, it is possible that the Surges had somewhat different effects back then. The fundamental principles of the Surges has remained the same (the 10 Surges were laid down by Adonalsium) but the way the Surges are used, their exact effects, and how they are viewed, has changed. This might also explain the difficulty the Fused had when wielding the modern Surges. The voidform spren of the Parshendi, subsequently, are Odium-corrupted variants of the original Singer-Surgesprens. This is more tenuous, though, since I have no idea what the voidforms are.

I've always pictured Kelsier as lean and with brown hair. And the Inquisitors are all like 8 feet tall, and the koloss never have cracked skin. Also, Jasnah has pale skin in my mind. I get all the other Rosharan characters correct, but not her.

Idea: The original spren (pre-HxC) were mostly natural spren (flamespren, windspren, etc.) and the basic-emotion spren (shamespren, painspren, etc.). They were shaped by the Singers' perception of the world around them and the original/basic songs of emotion. There were also a few monstrously powerful spren that represented certain things that the Singers felt were very, very important: the highstorm, Roshar/the continent/the world, that sort of thing. Let's call these spren the god-spren. Part of this idea is that the Singers had a rather different/simpler view of the world. Later, when Honor & Cultivation arrived on Roshar, they/their power messed with the spren a bit, especially with the god-spren (creating the Stormfather from the highstormspren, etc.). And then, when the humans arrived on Roshar, they brought with them some abstract concepts that further messed with the spren, slowly creating honorspren, justicespren, etc. as well as slightly reshaping existing spren. Idea 2: The original Surges used by the Singers came from different spren. Each Surge came from a different spren, with a different form, and each Singer "Radiant" could only use one Surge at a time (one per form). There were ten forms, and the Singers could switch between forms. I also think that the Surges themselves were slightly different (in use and effects). Between the arrival of HxC and the humans, the Surges and the spren that granted them also changed. Idea 3: This is a weird one, but what if certain confusions are the result of mistranslations? Also, a brief theory of spren "evolution". For instance, the Singers called the spren that granted the gravity surge "bondspren", referring to how the spren manipulated the force that bind everything to (on) Roshar. This was a descriptive term that did not necessarily refer to how it was used. When Honor arrived, his power altered it slightly to focus more on bonds and bindings as to how it worked. Then the humans arrived, bringing with them concepts like oaths, promises, and honor. Humans also spoke a different language. A (mis)translation meant that humans thought that the "bondspren" name was referring to bonds as in oaths (a binding promise, vow, etc.), and came to associate the "bondspren" with oaths and then with honor. Over the course of centuries, the "bondspren" slowly morphed into honorspren. Idea 4: Building on the previous ideas, I propose that the Unmade are also former god-spren that were later corrupted by Odium. Odium also corrupted/created other spren (let's call those the voidform spren). The Unmade were god-spren that the ancient Singers associated with themselves and their songs and concepts, hence their relation more to the emotional spren than to naturespren. The corruption of the Unmade is part of the betrayal of the Singers. And when I say god-spren, I mean that the Singers actually worshiped them as deities: the god of the highstorm, the god of stone/the land, the god of war (Thrill-causing Unmade), etc. And this is my long, convoluted theory about spren. Please rip into it with WoB's and textual evidence now

A guy in my chorus class has apparently decided that I'm racist. It is rather annoying. While the guy in question is dark-skinned, and I am very pale, I am definitely not racist. The reason he seems to have decided it (from what I can tell) is that one day during class, I informed the teacher that he was eating something. I did that because one of the biggest rules in chorus is that there is absolutely no eating or drinking (except water) in that room. If another teacher found out that someone had been eating in the classroom, then there would be repercussions, and our chorus teacher would likely be reprimanded (more like reemed out). So I quietly went up to the teacher and told her that so-so was eating, then returned to my seat. Now so-so has started calling me racist, because I clearly dislike him. *Sigh*

I am just starting Magic Triumphs. It is the last book in a 10-book series, so I can't wait to figure out how they deal with the main villain of the series. Especially since there seems to be another major villain in this book. Btw, Magic Triumphs is a urban fantasy/post-apocalypse cross, written by Ilona Andrews. Basically, magic suddenly flooded the world in the modern era (event is called the Shift), and it causes tech to break/stop working. It also switches between magic waves and tech waves on an irregular but frequent basis. I really like the series, but it is an adult series. Also, there is a spin-off series that the first book just came out, and what is super interesting is that the main character of the spin-off, was a major villain of the main series. And the first book was really good, which isn't always the case with spin-offs.

What kind of lifeforms might evolve to live on floating islands, given that (a) these evolved from Earth animals, (b) atmospheric conditions are roughly similar to Earth's, (c) the islands have their own weak gravity field, and (d) there is magic.

I'm planning on going into computer science (programming), with the occasional foray into cats, paleontology, and story-writing.

@Barbarian AL, there are spiders who burrow in real life, but they burrow into soil, not solid stone. @ScarletSabre, I think that was a frog, not a cremling. And that probably wasn't webbing, like spider silk, but an entirely different substance. Spider silk doesn't dissolve when wet or harden. Also, spider silk is proportionally stronger than steel, but it is so thin that that doesn't really mean much IRL. On Roshar, however, where the spider-things might be bigger, and if they'd adapted to making exceptionally thick threads, it could be much different... Also, look up some prehistoric creatures (like eurypterids and Pterygotus) which were related to spiders. They couldn't spin webs, but they were aquatic. And they'd also fit Roshar perfectly.

Actually, no, the likelihood of them being able to make pure is silver is highly unlikely, given the equipment and knowledge necessary. We have no idea where all the Threnodite's silver is coming from, except that it is being mined in the mountains. It is possible that all the silver is coming from a single, massive deposit below ground. Or, all the silver on Threnody, or that continent of Threnody, could have naturally formed containing a certain trace element. It is possible- most silver metal that naturally occurs on Earth in a metallic form, that is recognizably silver, contain traces amounts of gold and copper. No, it is not less valid. We have no evidence to the contrary. I have repeatedly read Shadows for Silence, nothing in it contradicts this theory. It is a theory, nothing more. It is reasonable and possible. Yes, I'm relying on it all containing a certain trace element to work, but it is entirely possible that all the silver on Threnody contains a certain trace element, while silver not found on Threnody does not contain said trace element.

Ugh. What I am attempting to point out to you, is that the Threnodites do not have pure silver. Zip, zero, zilch. Why? Because they don't have the technological level to make pure silver. Also, they would sure as hell notice tarnish. Tarnish is like rust, or green patina on copper. It turns silver a blackish color, which they would definitely notice. And didn't Silence walk into a room/hideout that was plated with shiny silver? That kind of thing would tarnish is a week. Less than. Yes, the silver that they are using is effecting the Shades. My THEORY is that the silver they use, the silver present and naturally occurring on Threnody, has trace amounts of another material in it that is giving the Threnodite silver its strange properties. Since this mystery material is only present in trace amounts (say, 3% or less), it does not have much effect of the silver's appearance or other properties. No, I'm not at all sure. It is a theory, just like every idea we have about Threnody's silver, Shades, great evil, etc., is a theory. And it no more or less valid than other theories. The silver on Threnody could be Ambition's godmetal for all we know.

That's because duralumin is an allomantic metal, and therefore needs a name of its own. Most of the things people have that are made of silver, are actually made of sterling silver, which is 92% silver and 8% copper (or nickel, or zinc), and yet we still call it silver. Moreover, pure silver is much too soft to be made into a viable weapon or tool. Also, silver tarnishes. In Shadows for Silence, it never mentioned silver tarnishing (sterling silver tarnishes, too). Since it tarnishes pretty quickly, then they would have had to spend a lot of time polishing it. A lot of time (hours, even).

What I'm trying to get at is that all the silver on Threnody naturally occurs with trace amounts of a specific substance that is not present on other worlds, therefore giving Threnody's silver its special property of Shade-killing. If it is mostly silver (trace amounts=very little), then it is still silver and has the properties of silver. And it is only a theory. We have no idea what idea is correct, only theories and ideas. This theory of mine is reasonable. I have suggested it to help the overall discussion on Threnody's Shades, silver, and strange properties of both.