Claincy

One question for Matt

I thought I'd leave them on the list for the sake of historical curiosity. But I'm just as happy to remove them if that's mod preference.

So you're telling me that's been spelt wrong for 7 years. Oops. Thanks for fixing it.

Hey, I’m sorry it’s taken me such a long time to respond. I had another health issue crop up and that ended up making my RSIs worse and it was all a bit of a mess that sapped most of my spare capacity for a while. I’m getting things a bit more under control now and I’ve got some good voice typing software so hopefully this is better late than never. (Sorry for reviving an older topic mods.) Include disabled characters, preferably multiple. There are a lot of disabled people in the real world, probably more than you think. I don’t recall the exact statistic but it’s something like one in five people are disabled. So if you have a cast of a dozen or more characters, having a couple of disabled characters in the mix is actually quite realistic and it makes it much easier to avoid token representation and some negative tropes. They don’t all need to be main characters by any means, though it helps if they’re not *all* extremely minor characters. Avoid bad tropes. Pretty simple, but it is worth noting that many tropes are mostly bad because of being overused/predominant. For example: if the only disabled character in your story is a villain that’s bad. But if you have a number of disabled characters and one of them is a villain (and they aren’t a villain *because of* their disability) that’s fine. Just try to avoid connecting physical abnormality to villainy. We should have disabled villains on occasion, the issue is in linking disability to villainy and in using it as a shorthand for villainy. Following on from that thought; disabled characters should appear in all sorts of different roles and positions, as we do in real life. There are, of a certainty, some occupations/roles/actions that certain disabilities make extremely hard. But just as often the reason a disabled person can’t do something is more down to a lack of accessibility and accommodations (or people just assuming that a disabled person couldn't do it and not giving them the opportunity). A very simple example relevant to the current times: right up through early 2020 many disabled people were refused jobs or positions studying because they would need to work/study from home much of the time and many employers and universities/colleges/schools said that wasn’t possible. I.e. they weren’t willing to bother dealing with it. (There are legal rights about accessibility in many places but they are often ignored. And fighting for them often takes money and energy that many disabled people don't have.) Then the pandemic starts and suddenly these “impossible” accommodations are commonplace because nondisabled people needed them. And you can be certain many of these places will go right back to considering such accommodations impossible as the pandemic wanes. (There’s an extensive rabbit hole here about how disabled people have been ignored, left behind, and otherwise severely impacted by the pandemic (including being refused treatment based on “quality of life”/perceived value and such). But that is a whole other topic and I've already gone on enough of a tangent.) Read about disability representation and the experiences of disabled people. There are a bunch of resources out there that go into a lot more depth than I have about representation. And if you’re writing about a character with a specific disability there are plenty of people who have written about their experiences with that disability. Even as a disabled person I have a lot to learn if I want to write characters with other disabilities well. Get feedback/get disabled people involved. If you’re writing a book, having disabled alpha/beta readers is extremely helpful, as can be disability consultants. For a film or TV show you really want to have disabled people involved in the production and, crucially, to listen to what they have to say. So disabled writers/consultants/actors/etc. I don’t remember the exact numbers but the proportion of characters in American film and TV who are disabled is a fraction of the ~20%+ proportion of people who are disabled in real life. And of the characters who are disabled somewhere in the region of 5% are actually played by disabled actors. Seriously. That number might have improved a little bit now but it’s still ridiculously low. Also “fun” is seeing how many nondisabled actors win awards for playing disabled characters. Just because they won an award for it doesn’t necessarily mean their portrayal was accurate or positive. It means they did a great job of portraying how the critics and a lot of the general audience like to see disabled people in film/tv. Which means even if the performance was good, often the surrounding story and themes were quite problematic. Just doing 1 and 2, including disabled characters and avoiding the negative tropes, is sadly enough to be well above average. But it isn’t hard to do a lot better if you put some effort into doing so. I hope that’s of some use, late as it is.

@Kingsdaughter613 Sorry for the slow reply. I haven't actually read those comics so I don't have a strong opinion on that specifically. But I suspect if I was reading it now I wouldn't exactly be delighted. Oh right, yeah I forgot about that. With Kel I think it's more emotional trauma + a desire to itch them than outright pain, the physical pain doesn't seem to really have much of an effect/impact. But still. Marsh I definitely should have thought of. Reflecting on it now; we don't get to see much of his perspective (or much of him at all really) after being inquisified until HoA when Ruin's complete control takes centre stage. That's not really a complaint, just noting that we don't really get to see him living with his pain or how it might effect him when not being directly controlled by a much more powerful entity. Spook is more a "has parallels to disability" than "is a disabled character" I think. I don't think hypersensitivity comes up much in media, but it certainly can be a major difficulty. Here it's taken more as a part of a super power, or turned into one. I thought it was worth mentioning the connection, but yeah, I'd hesitate to firmly call him a disabled character. I had completely forgotten about that. That's..hrm. I see *why* and I can see Sazed doing that. But any time you get a setting or situation where you remove all disability, whether through technology or magic, that's...yeah. Not a huge fan. On a more practical consideration, if you have a group of people rebuilding society from the ground up following an apocalypse and none of them are at all disabled that would likely lead to a society even less accessible and more ableist than our own. Not intentionally of course. But if the foundation & default assumption is of a complete lack of disability, I think that's highly unlikely to turn out well for future disabled people.

Exciting update time: I finally gathered the nerve and energy to share the letter on the Brandon subreddit as well. There's a bunch of thoughtful discussion in the thread. And Brandon responded! It's probably best to read the posts with the context of what he was directly replying to, but I'll drop the text here as well for anyone who doesn't want to visit reddit. 1st response 2nd post (I asked him if we would see assistive technology using fabrials, and commented on a poor choice of wording when Hobber is healed that I noticed in my Oathbringer reread.) 3rd post (In response to a post talking about autism and Renarin) In summary, Brandon is great. (Not exactly news, I know.)

No worries, I think koloss control was something I was thinking about on my last reread as well.

They can feel the connection, though mostly just when they think about it. It doesn't seem to require any effort to maintain control as Vin maintains control without issue while unconscious and heavily drugged. The exception we see is when the koloss start to frenzy and Elend briefly loses control of them (when the surprise attack with the siege weapons drives them into a frenzy outside Fadrex city). It didn't break the connection, but they did stop following his orders for a short period.

I'm not sure I'm understanding you properly sorry. Are you asking if a mute or nonspeaking person would be able to swear radiant oaths? If so, I'm reasonably sure that they can. It seems that the acceptance of the oath is more important than actually speaking it. Saying the words without embracing the meaning doesn't accomplish anything. Oathbringer: Edgedancer: It is quite possible that to seal the oath properly requires communicating the oath in some way. But if so I expect that could be accomplished through written language, sign language or other means. @Scriptorian That sounds pretty cool to me. So long as the author writing it was taking care to handle the topics seriously/get sensitivity reading. Which it sounds like you are.

Yeah I had both of those WoBs in there. They are potentially problematic but not definitive. The different one is too vague to tell us much of use. I mean, Renarin is a different radiant right? With his 'corrupted' spren. Venli, as presumably the only Listener on that path and perhaps the only proto-highspren-bonded-singer currently could easily be considered different to the others, and that's only scraping the surface of possible differences. I think the time in Aimia is a larger concern for the theory. Brandon didn't give any indication of the actual time spent there though I would lean toward guessing a longer time than a shorter one. If it was years or decades it's not an issue. If it's centuries? That'd certainly make it less likely. There are ways around that of course. We've seen age manipulation/non-aging, a form of spren-based reincarnation with the fused, and time dilation before. Or it could, in theory, be a singular spren and a lineage of singers. Are any of those likely? Eh, perhaps not. But there are possibilities. I think the set number of dawnshards is another possible issue. Though it's not entirely clear if that's because there only ever could be a set number, or if there are just a specific number that exist currently. If there is a set limit, it could be due to the particular spren required, as with bondsmiths, or due to cultural or religious reasons, or a secondary requirement for the bonding, etc. But in general a set number does imply something more definite/lasting.

The announcement of Dawnshard's title got me thinking about the nature of the dawnshards (like everyone else here I imagine ) and I think there's a possibility we may not have considered. (I didn't find any older threads talking about this idea, but I apologise if there is one.) We may have made some assumptions about the nature of dawnshards that we shouldn't have. Of the little information we have about dawnshards most of it is 2nd hand and of dubious veracity. In particular I'm not wholly convinced that dawnshards are actually objects. I'm wondering if they're simply dawnsingers who've bonded with highspren. Or a specific order/group thereof. (If that is the case, Venli would be a proto-dawnshard.) Let's review what information on the Dawnshards we actually have. The poem of Ista is probably based on real events, but to a very limited extent. I'd assume there's an element of truth in there or Brandon wouldn't have put it in the book. However, I doubt the in-world author has any idea what dawnshards actually are. Even taken as written it only very loosely implies that the dawnshard is an object and not a person or creature. He could easily be accompanied by or carrying a person. I would guess that it is accurate that dawnshards could bind things, but that's all I'd say with any confidence. It does seem that they are commonly thought of as objects in mythology. But without any actual knowledge it's only natural that people would think of something named x-shards as objects of power. I don't think this quote does much to help or hinder the theory. It tells us the dawnshards seem to be gone or unavailable in some manner and that they would be very helpful in defeating Odium. But that makes sense whether they are objects or singers. Singers bonded with spren of honor & cultivation instead of voidspren or lesser spren are more likely to oppose Odium I would think. This is far and away the most useful quote we have. But even this one could be a little misleading. The Stormfather is relating something Honor said while dying and "raving". And the Stormfather was still coming to full consciousness and says his memories of it were "strange". I don't doubt the direct truth of what the quote says, but it could be misleading beyond that. Firstly, it is unusual but not unheard of to refer to dangerous/powerful people as weapons. So even taking it at face value I don't think this confirms the dawnshards are objects. More interesting is "used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls." and the promise that surgebinders would do the same to Roshar. If my theory is right (which it may not be) that would mean that some Dawnshards had traveled to Ashyn prior to it's destruction, and were involved in that destruction. Which seems a bit of a leap at first, but thinking further it seems likely that some humans or singers had traveled between the worlds before the destruction of Ashyn. I'm not saying the dawnsingers were responsible for Ashyn's destruction; I do think Odium influenced humans were responsible. But these dawnsingers could have been used/participants in what happened. And/or the humans could have attempted to reproduce their powers. If this was the case, that would help explain why Honor and Odium both thought human surgebinders might destroy Roshar. This might be the strongest point against this theory. Though we don't know how biased the account may be. The singers were forbidden to touch those powers, presumably by Honour and/or Cultivation. But we don't know when they were forbidden, they may have been forbidden because of the destruction of Ashyn and have used them before then. We also don't know how long after Ashyn's destruction/the human arrival on Roshar this was written. Though from the little we know it was probably many years. I have to guess that the powers being forbidden happened before the wars and the oathpact. There isn't as much need to forbid it when the spren have already joined the humans, using Odium's power/voidspren is presumably worse. And I doubt the singers cared much what Honor/Cultivation might forbid them from doing after they felt they'd been betrayed by them and started serving Odium. The last line in particular strongly suggests that the higher spren had bonded with singers in the past. I'm not supremely confident in this theory, but I do think it's possible. It also just feels to me like something Brandon might do. Do you think the theory has merit? Or am I way off base. Some other relevant wobs

@Rushu42 I don't mean to discourage you from writing disabled characters by any means. I'd much rather authors included disabled characters and did well sometimes and poorly others, than not write them at all. Even just keeping in mind the major points I mentioned would set you above average. I can't give you any specific advise on writing a deaf character (or most other disabilities for that matter). My own knowledge is fairly limited past my own experience and I don't want to speak for others' experiences outside of some common tropes/issues. I would say that, speaking generally, a superpower that cancels out some of the difficulties of being deaf isn't necessarily bad. I think it could be good, bad or neutral all depending on the details of how it works, limitations, character and story. But you'd really need to talk with some deaf/hard of hearing folks to get a real idea of what is and isn't helpful. There are people who specifically do consulting/sensitivity reading for disability in media (and for other minorities). If you are able to, consulting with them might really help. They ought to have a much broader and deeper understanding and be better practiced at providing useful insight. You could also probably learn a lot from blogs/articles/social media written by disabled people, or through conversations with disabled people you know or meet.

@AonEne Thanks. Yeah I'm hopeful. I really think the main reason he hasn't done better so far is that he didn't realise he wasn't hitting the same mark he was with other groups. @thegatorgirl00 I have read Defending Elysium. But I forgot about it when I was writing the letter. Which is silly, because I reread it relatively recently. :/ Ah well. Defending Elysium is a more complicated and interesting one. I think there'd be more varied opinions from different disabled people on it. I reread it again today to try and sort out what I thought of it. I can't speak for the presentation of blindness with the 'fear of the darkness' thing with any conviction. I really don't know how well that would or wouldn't resonate with someone who'd lost their sight. I'm not very knowledgeable in that regard. Though it's worth noting that the majority of people who are legally blind still have some vision. I'm not sure what someone with partial vision might think of it relative to someone with no vision. Or someone born blind vs someone who became blind. So basically that was a lot of words to say "I really don't know" about the specific case. I can talk a little more generally though. Disabled people with super powers? More please! Disabled people with super powers that directly replace/remove the limitations of their disability? Ehh, it depends. It mostly depends on the limitations and what the author does with it. In this case, replacing sight with what is essentially a better sight isn't as interesting to me. His Sense doesn't have a lot of downsides and has fewer limitations than regular sight. It can be suppressed, sure. But you can suppress someone's sight with darkness or a blindfold (or overly bright light for that matter), suppressing Cytonics is much harder by comparison. I still like Defending Elysium and I don't dislike Jason being blind or anything, but it doesn't stand out to me personally as an especially praiseworthy representation of disability. Jason's experience just seems too separate from normal blindness. I think generally I prefer if a character's super powers don't directly replace their disability, or if there are more significant limitations around its use. It makes for more interesting story telling for one thing. But it's also a lot closer to reality, and you aren't going to end up with a character who is technically disabled but it doesn't really effect them much. I don't have a strong idea what most disabled people think along these lines, so I'm just speaking for myself here. I think a solid real-world example is actually a wheelchair. I know a lot of people who don't need a wheelchair see them as something scary, afraid of being 'confined to a wheelchair'. But that's not the reality at all. To someone who needs one, whether they can walk a little or not at all, a wheelchair is great. It's a mobility aid that can really make a big difference in their life and allow them to be a lot more independent. It does have it's own limitations, of course. A lot of places aren't properly accessible for wheelchairs, plenty of terrain isn't easy to traverse in one, (some strangers like to 'help' push you around even when you tell them not to), etc. You're still better off thinking of them as super-powers for some disabled people than as a bad thing to be 'stuck' having to use.

@Lunamor Thanks. Sorry you have to deal with that. (I have no idea where you could reasonably draw a boundary on what counts as disabled, nor would I care to try. It's definitely a very broad spectrum. Just from what you said I reckon it could apply to you if you wanted.) @ConfusedCow Thanks. I'd like less magical healing, mostly S: stormlight/mistborn @NattyBo Hope your going ok. Depression and anxiety are nasty. @Karger If you're right and I'm wrong, I'll be happy. S: stormlight @datalaughing Yeah there isn't a clear cut answer, just case by case. Some would, some wouldn't. And I'd be happy with that. I'd forgotten about Kaladin's brand. That is an excellent example.

I've been thinking for some time about the presentation of disability and chronic pain in Brandon's novels. I've been rereading a number of his books to refresh my memory on some of the details as well and I ended up with a lot of thoughts. I've written him a letter trying to provide some insight and I think it's a topic worth discussing here as well. Fair warning: it's kind of...long. But I think it needed to be to really unpack and explain what I wanted to talk about. Spoiler Warning: The letter includes direct spoilers for Mistborn, Stormlight, Elantris, Warbreaker and Reckoners. But other books are relevant to the topic as well. If you haven't read some of Brandon's books and are concerned about spoilers this is not a safe thread to read.

For the first point: I'm reasonably certain standard inquisitors have 2 spikes each for steel and iron. They have 11 spikes total so they would then be missing a power or 2. Presumably allomantic gold and perhaps one of zinc/brass/copper. (It's possible they also have double pewter in place of another of those metals, but that's pure speculation.) For the second: I can only guess Elend was able to burn unconsciously because of the purity/strength of his allomancy, coming directly from lerasium. There are a number of mistakes and inconsistencies with the magic across the trilogy and this may be one of them. (Edit: I'm actually partway through a reread currently and I've been noticing a lot more of them. Still love the books though.)

I really enjoyed the season too.

I suggest avoiding anything online about Doctor Who until you've seen 5, unless you don't care about significant spoilers.

So uh. Anyone here seen episode 5 yet?

Someone asked about that in the update #1 comments (might have been you for all I know :P).

I don't mind at all! Invested is very cool by the way. Hrm, I haven't encountered that. Do you get the same behaviour if you go through the same actions but with a different font to steel alphabet? Have you tried writing out whatever you want in Calibri then selecting the whole lot and converting it to steel alphabet when you're done?

I've updated my old font for the Steel Alphabet (Final Empire era symbols). The new version improves the details on some of the symbols and improves the scale and alignment of the symbols which makes it look cleaner and easier to read. You can download it from google drive if you want to try it. Here's the same passage in both to show the difference. Old font New font (The old topic was nearly 6 years ago now so it's locked. Starting a new one seemed the way to go. If the mods think it'd be better to reopen that and merge this topic in that's fine. )

Heh, no doubt.

Hi! It's been a while. (*checks post history*..a year. Wow.) Anyway, I'm (somewhat) back! What've I missed? And today was better than I have been in quite some time. Still in a lot of pain, still got fatigue troubles etc. But I'm finally off the medication that's been making things so much worse (and it wasn't really hot today). So today I was actually able to do a (little) bit and still cope ok through most of the day. Unnecessary additional health details in the spoiler.