Colours

Part of the problem with this is that (if I remember correctly) the walls made by Lines of Forbiddance aren't solid, and don't feel solid - they stop things from going over them, but in a yielding and flexible manner. A Forbiddance-staircase should theoretically work, although it would take some skill (and courage, and pants under your skirt ) to climb. What I'm curious about is what happens when you draw a Line of Forbiddance at about the same location on both walls of a corridor - in theory, the Forbiddance-forcefields should support each other and create a more secure footing, but do they actually interact with each other? Actually, what I'm more curious about is Rithmatic billiards. Use Lines of Forbiddance to draw the "table", set up a neat triangle of Lines of Warding, and then bounce them around using some very well-aimed Lines of Vigor! Tension ramps up as the cue ball gradually gets destroyed! Try to command your chalkling precisely enough to manoeuvre the highest-value ball right into the pocket! It's the best possible use of all those different chalk colours, I guarantee it.

The Turing test would work a great deal better if it was proposed after we had some AIs worth testing. I mean, I remember reading about one Turing test event thing where a bot was believed to be human by a fair number of the judges. It would bring up a recent news event and then spent the rest of the conversation directing you attention to various aspects of it and stating its own opinions on those aspects. The twist is, it used literally the exact same script each time. The makers decided on the day before the competition to submit this bot instead of the one they were really working on. It might have been a pretty good idea.

Wild Mass Meta-guessing: The Person Who Cooked Herdazian Tortillas (that's right the chouta vendor is a Herald) The Person With Cute Hair-Ties (now that I think of it, we never hear anything about anyone's hair-ties - those are important) Tiny Penguins Who Covertly Handle Timelines (time machine story when) OK, more seriously: The Person Who Calls Himself Taln? (Edit: Ninja'd, admittedly quite slowly)

I think there was something about some of the Cosmere cultures sharing linguistic roots across worlds, so that part is more-or-less justified. As for the Rending... Reckoner-Rithmatist crossoververse with Lines that make evil Epic chalklings?

Thanks for the welcome. I'd been thinking of jumping in for a while, but I hadn't read enough of the books yet. I almost forgot about that particular subplot, too. In fact, I only remembered Lolan was a thing because Nightblood can drain parts of people seemed like an important thing to know. I shall join Sarcasm in paying more attention!

I know! I know! (I think.) It's Lolan, isn't it? Had to go and re-read to get his name, though.

Ah, but Shardplate can break. It has just occurred to me that Shard-ice-skates would be very, very awkward.

Now I'm wondering what a Shardsmartphone could do. Still, utility-Syl could be really handy. Sun getting in your eyes? Shardshades! Hole in your shoe? Shardboot! Hate the fuzzy rain of the Weeping? Shardbrella! Dear sweet precious Shallan stranded at the top of a tower somehow? Shardcopter! (I mean, you could just walk up there, but why would you?) I'm sure that if you remember to call her intelligent and articulate every hour or so, it'll all work out.

Don't worry, I don't think anyone is likely to seriously ship them - not in this community, at least. Which is kind of strange, but not too strange. I mean, most people ship in a partially tongue-in-cheek manner, in the first place. The strange part is how they don't seem to show up at all, even in (largely nonexistent, admittedly) crack fics. Maybe my expectations have been skewed - Harmony knows there's enough seemingly-random shipping in most anime communities and in the most prominent fandoms elsewhere - but I just can't get over how little shipping there is. I'm not even much of a shipper myself, but it just feels like... a brick that should have been made of porridge, except you ran out of porridge before you could make it, or something. But I've derailed this thread enough already. Whoops, sorry about that.

I get the impression that it falls right into the category of fancy-girls'-school-shipping that you get in MariMite, where the standard relationship model has a younger girl who sees her sempai as utterly flawless and respects her deeply (and perhaps being the only one to see the cracks in her facade and try to fill them), while the sempai in turn draws strength from the innocent spark of the younger and directs her in the ways of the world, and they have tea parties and long walks under the fluttering cherry blossoms and occasional almost-romantic heart-to-hearts? Something like that. It isn't my area of expertise; I've only watched like the first episode of Kannazuki no Miko. I mean, it seems like Shallan would work as the younger girl. Jasnah, on the other hand, is a block of ice. That wouldn't normally stop the shipping, but it does make it that much harder, I guess.

But wouldn't that make him 'armful?

I read the books back to back, so it was an amusing detail. In particular, it seems like it refers to the bit where Dalinar drops him to the ground and puts his Shardplate-enhanced hand right against Elhokar's chest while talking about how easily he could have killed him at any time, in a case of "very odd paternal instincts". I still think it's one of Dalinar's main Crowning Moments of Awesome. In a way, I'm surprised there aren't shipfics, with a scene like that. In any of the other fandoms I'm familiar with, people would be all over it. Same with, say, Jasnah x Shallan, in a MariMite kind of way. High school AU? Maybe I'll have to take care of it myself. You people are so unenthusiastic about these things, while your theorycrafting is about a hundred times more elaborate than I've seen in the usual fandoms. I guess every fandom is different.

I wouldn't have minded Skybreaker because their glyph is the most fun to draw. Second place is the Elsecallers' glyph; they both feel like little dances for brushes. (Meanwhile, I don't even want to touch the Stonewards' glyph. Edgedancer is almost as bad.) I just took the quiz again and it turns out that I'm now even more Truthwatcher. Which is fine by me; they have a neat and elegant glyph (unlike the Stonewards because seriously how do you even begin to determine the stroke order for that thing), and precog powers are the best powers, even without the handy bonuses of resurrection and illusion-making. ...The cost of this, of course, is that I'm now 0% in everything other than Truthwatcher, Elsecaller, and Lightweaver. Guess I'll just sit here with my books and prophecies and imaginary friends.

I was going to make a joke about him being a WindLoper, but I have been as thoroughly defeated as a formerly one-armed Herdazian realising that his one-armed Herdazian jokes are now useless. The Lopen can be the guy waving at you on the left end of the Windrunner glyph who you can see if you squint really, really hard.

Selected works from Brandon Goaterson's bibliography Goatborn series: The Final Goat The Goat of Ascension The Hero of Goat The Goat of Law Shadows of Goat Goat of Mourning The Lost Goat (tentative title) Stormgoat Archives: The Goat of Kings Words of Goat Goatbringer (tentative title) Other Goats: Goatbreaker (sequel, Nightgoat, pending) Steelgoat Perfect Goat Sixth of the Goat Goat for Silence in the Forests of Goat The Emperor's Goat Legion: Goat Deep White Goat Dragongoat