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  1. My 17th Shard behavior, explained via ponies and Pixar's Inside Out. Joy's a wacky one, but I owe most of Upvote Island to him.
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  2. Um like I said I have no idea whats going on or how this website works so if someone could give me some pointers it would be greatly appreciated
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  3. Guess who got a bass flute for the night Guess who gets to play the doctor who theme on bass flute for a concert
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  4. The Ballooner hadn't thought things could get worse. Really he hadn't. The evil demon birds had been bad enough, flying on wings made of nightmares and despair, seeking to feast on his eyeballs like succulent grapes with rather striking blue irises. But then things got very much worse. The Mad Ballooner watched as huge tendrils of diamond rose from the museum at a perfectly horrendous speed. They twisted and turned, like the tentacles of a giant sky-sqiud imagined by a third grader, like an unholy space alien envisioned by the 70's, like the vengeful spirits of the Zales sales associates he had shot back in Maryland, like... The Ballooner realized that perhaps this was not the proper time to come up with an exquisite analogy, but rather the time to exercise the better part of valor. Getting the sparks out of there. "Schultz, prepare Plan Fivfe!" Schultz grunted in affirmation and turned to the Mad Ballooner. Tape shot from his hands, attaching itself the the mad ballooner's torso and limbs. "Schultz! Be hurryink PLEASE!!!" Schultz ignored his panicked outburst and maintained focus. In seconds he had crafted a sort of wingsuit around him. He then proceeded to craft a similar one for himself. "Schultz, they're gettink CLOSER!!!" Schultz looked up as the last pieces of tape came into place and nodded. The Mad Ballooner ran to the front of the Zeppelin and shouted, "Escape Pan FIVFE!!!" He flung his arms wide and created the largest amount of balloons he'd ever made in his life. And all of them were of an explosive nature. Well, most of them. There were some confetti balloons as well because they were just so festive the Mad Ballooner couldn't resist. He turned and ran towards the rear of the zeppelin where Schultz was waiting. He turned back towards the museum and shook his fist "You may haf beat us zis time, but ve vill be returnink tvice as stoAAAAYEAAAHEHEYEHHHEEEEEEEEEEE..." Before The Mad Ballooner could finish his horribly cliche line, the diamond tendrils hit the first of the balloons, causing an explosion the like of which he had seen only in Chuck Norris Films. And maybe some Michael Bay films as well... But unlike the movies where the hero is unaffected by explosions and their repercussions, this explosion sent out a shock wave that slammed into the zeppelin, launching the Mad Ballooner and Schultz through the air and away from the floating museum. Moments later the zeppelin met it's untimely demise to the diamond tendrils, creating another large explosion. Needless to say, it was not quite the exit The Mad Ballooner had been hoping for.
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  5. When it's been raining for over a week straight and you try to be optimistic about it by bragging about witnessing a Weeping. Though now I'm worried about Lightday coming up soon.
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  6. Lucy Lockser frowned as Arsenal turned his full attention and displeasure upon her, his patience evidently wearing even thinner than usual. "Lockser, You should call your parents and inform them you won't be home tonight. You'll be spending a while here restocking the doctor's supplies. And when you are finished with that, you'll be restocking ammunition and weapon depots across town. Take ten minute breaks if you need to, but I want this town fully prepared for whatever tomorrow has in store for us." A sudden urge to set Arsenal's hair on fire rose and was quickly stifled as Lucy exerted all her will to still both her face and mind at the unwelcome news. 10 minute breaks 'If I have to'? And restocking not just the medical supplies but ammo as well? It seemed that a long night of extensive power use lay ahead of her, fetching the clinics supply log she sat down and began to write, starting with an extra large coffee for her own medicinal use, along with some aspirin to help the Arsenal-induced headache she felt brewing she quickly moved on to stocking up bandages, needles, bloodbags and assorted medicines. The tedious work left her with plenty of time to think. And to plan. Great, just what I needed at the end of this insanely long day, to meet with the head exterminator and hear his pompous speeches about how worthless I am. Too tired and emotionally drained to even raise her voice, MV simply leaned on Backtracks arm and introduced herself for what felt like the 50th time that day. "I'm MV, momentum Epic cleared by Autumn, this is Backtrack. My twin sister went missing during that attack, trying to protect the city from getting crushed by those animal freaks.We tried to track her down but someone decided to start blowing up half the city so we couldn't search anymore." Having to say it all like that again sent MV through a whirlwind of emotions, she squeezed her eyes shut to prevent any traitorous tears from pouring forth and gave a tug on Backtracks sleeve, wordlessly trying to get him to take over. I'm so tired of all of these people. Even the museum in Portland was easier to deal with than this. That creepy guy was someone I'd rather not meet but at least there they treat me as an Epic so I can just avoid him. Besides it's only a day away, I can search for Impact from there just as easily as here, she'd probably head back too wouldn't she? A blur of images. Lights. One face, swimming in and out of focus as Impact tried to hold on to one scrap of sense and figure out what was happening. "Keep... pressure on it son or she'll... can't risk... faster" Words, coming and going, what few she could grasp making little sense as she tried to process them. Where was Megan? She needed to keep her safe, keep her from doing something stupid. Megan was always doing something stupid. Impact closed her eyes again, letting her pain carry her off into the dark realm of her dreams.
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  7. The Unmade are Splinters of Odium, and there are not ten of them.
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  8. Hypothesis: The enhanced burn provided by duralumin is not instantaneous. Supporting arguments: 1. I've read that three times at a conversational pace, timing myself, without pauses between any of the four clauses, and it always times out just over seven seconds. That's up to five places where pauses could be including the gaps between "she burns" and "the first words," and "the last words" and "the burst ends". It would be natural for each gap to be at least a second, or two, I contend. In short, by timing out this, from a relatively small quantity of pewter (Vin was completely out and was running on the amount of pewter in a single Mistborn vial) you get a burst that lasts 7-15 seconds. 2. Source. This is in reference to Mistborn being stronger than other Mistborn. This says that Elend is more powerful than Vin for the specific reason that he burns metals at a faster rate. From the times he takes control of Koloss, even his duralumin boosts are more powerful. If all duralumin bursts were at the same speed, Elend would not be more powerful. Therefore, he must burn duralumin itself faster/more powerfully, meaning his duralumin bursts are shorter and even more concentrated. Additional speculation: I speculate that each Mistborn will have their own "duralumin burn rate," by which I mean, the enhanced ultra-flare at which other metals burn under the influence of duralumin. This will primarily be based on their own skill/power with duralumin, and therefore with practice and skill a Mistborn could get better at duralumin and affect their own burn rate. This means that even for a Mistborn, two different "bursts" of the same metal will be different lengths. One small amount of pewter let Vin burn for ten(ish) seconds; I suspect if she'd swallowed five beads of pewter as she did at the start of her first pewter drag, which she said would flare through in under an hour, she could burn it for something in the area of a minute or so. Additionally, I suspect a specific Mistborn will have different flare rates depending on their specialties in different metals. Shan Elariel, for example, was by all (very few) accounts good at emotional allomancy. I suspect if she used duralumin, she'd burn zinc faster than some of her other metals. To summarize a point I spread out a little, a Mistborn's duralumin burst rate for each specific metal is based primarily on their skill with duralumin, modified by their skill in the individual metal. EDIT: Here's an equation. Sharders love equations. R = (M*A)*D. R = The Rate an allomancer burns a metal. M = The fundamental burn rate of the metal itself (pewter burns faster than steel, for example) A = The allomancer's specific skill with that specific metal; Vin, for example, was probably better at pewter than copper, so she'd burn pewter faster and get more power. Also, Elend burns all metals faster than she does. D = The factor of a duralumin effect. 1, if the mistborn is not burning duralumin. Can vary from mistborn to mistborn. I have no idea if I think a Nicroburst could touch a Mistborn and affect their use of duralumin, or if duralumin is immune to nicrosil the way it's immune to itself.
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  9. A LONG time lurker in the forums but I have never really commented much on stuff. I thought I might as well start by introducing myself here. I live and work in Singapore as an engineer and I am (obviously) a big Sanderson and epic fantasy fan. I think the first sanderson book i read was The Final Empire back when I was in university and immediately fell in love with the characters of Vin and Kelsier. Already pre-ordered Shadows of Self from Amazon and can't wait for it to arrive in October .
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  10. Welcome to 17th shard, where the timelines are made up, and the points don't matter!
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  11. Or flirting in general, meaning that Winter Glass would give everyone the cold shoulder.
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  12. I'm personally a fan of making magic a "spiritual" things going by its own (consistent) rules that can bully physics however they want. However I instead tend to either give the magic itself a consciousness or making it form as a result of the users psyche, sometimes both, so I supposse work has to be put in somewhere. Then again, I'm always happy to see something more sci-fy superhero based.
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  13. I blame Cracked and their deconstructions of popular superpowers. The first link especially. I nearly went the Marvel route and said "Blah blah blah scientist, blah blah blah war, blah blah blah super serum, ta-da! This guy can create and control a wildfire!" But then I read that article, and reread the second, and I started wondering if maybe the Marvel approach was really one I wanted to take…. So, basically, yes, it's been difficult, and yes, I blame Cracked. But hopefully, it'll be worth it.
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  14. So update on that Hollywood game, your assistant is wearing a Funtimes' style buisness suit, one of the default names for the pc is Jeager, you have an enstranged sister, that's a horrible person, and can name your niece after the Alethi. Am I the only one seeing this? By the way, if Backtrack is now the squirrel boy, how would he feel meeting marvel's squirrel girl? And a more general question for everyone: How would your characters react meeting standart spandex wearing superhero/ines?
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  15. Seeing how much trouble Twi's having making her setting's superpowers halfway realistic within physical laws, I feel better and better at my decision to make magic entirely spiritual in my setting. No offense to you, Twi. Your setting's awesome. But I'm way too lazy to do all the work you're having to do.
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  16. Planning. That way when you post pug pictures on the Questions thread we can say we're talking about planning
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  17. So... I did have one of these. 'Lawmakers get shown multiple times that those who make the laws are always behind new technology'. Unfortunately, after mentioning it to Kas, I never told him the answer, and I've now forgotten it, and I can't answer my own bad description :S. If anyone guesses at that, it would be very handy so it can stop being on my mind . So, casting around for something new... 'A dragon turns out to be eligible for kingship, but gets killed after being crowned.'
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  18. We have two examples that directly contradict this assumption. Ati, was pretty much described as the opposite of Ruin yet he was still the man it attached itself to. The second being Vin, specifically choosen so she would use to power of Preservation to attack Ruin, which again is pretty much the opposite of the Shard's intent. The second letter also refers to Ryse/Odium thusly: Note the "we made" implying some kind of manipulation of events and not just the Shards doing their thing. Nahel bond Spren act like this, yes, but Hoid notes that the magic on Roshar is especially strict in this regard, which means they can not be taken as a universal rule. A bit of a side track but the Shard of Harmony is tecnically not something that actually exsits, even if both Shards are now conected. The Intent of Ruin and Preservation, as well as the Investure attached to these Intents, still exsist seperately. Harmony is just how the balance their union has achived, given their disposition to each other, is called. That's only half-correct: While entrapping Ruin's mind was needed to keep him from destroying Scardrial, what caused the actual ballance of power, needed for the prision to work, was that Ruin couldn't access the part of his power hidden in the Atium, which is why not letting him get the Atium was so important in HoA.
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  19. Start a 'Buy Twi a Pug' fund on one of those crowdsourcing websites? If I had any money I'd love to donate. Highest contributor gets to name it?
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  20. So I was just checking twitter and saw this twitter exchange: I'm assuming this will be in conjunction with the 10th Anniversary edition (i.e. an "unlimited" trade paperback and a special leather-bound edition for collectors). I don't know about the rest of you but I'm definitely going to start setting money aside for this!
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  21. So Deadline.com just posted this article announcing that Carter Blanchard will be adapting the story (which I'm pretty sure means he's writing the script?).
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  22. I know this is small, but I was feeling really down tonight. I felt miserable all day, actually. I just felt like curling up on the floor when I took a load of laundry past Mollie. She must've noticed, because a minute later, she walked up to me, wagging her tail, carrying a shoe.
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  23. So I got a nice little bowl to paint, and so I painted it - Mistborn style! Basically, what I did is but on the grey/black background, then I added the mists, which were two layers of gray, and lastly, I put on either 3 or 4 (I think it was 4) layers of some type of red or orange for the iron symbol. I have some pics here! Tell me if you like it!
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  24. But it's said she warms up to people who gift her with good dinner dates. Book a night at an excellent restaurant and you'll go thaw.
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  25. Many people upon meeting her would receive a somewhat chilly reception.
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  26. I'll throw an upvote into the donation bowl. Here you go.
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  27. Uh... they spent it all... on a bathroom... that they don't even want to use? Congratulations Twi's parents, Disgust is speechless. And Sadness says he's sorry you have to deal with this nonsense, by the way.
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  28. Anger is an arsonist? I'm…I'm glad he's upset on my behalf, but remind me not to tell him what my parents bought instead.
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  29. Lord Tekiel could barely restrain his anger - Lord Erikell continued to mock his intelligence. The suggestion that the bodies had been identified by their clothes was absurd. Given the gravity of the issue, to suggest that Lord Tekiel had not taken all due care to identify the bodies was absurd. Indeed, the greatest precautions had been taken. It had taken work and investment, but House Tekiel had established a forensics laboratory, recruiting the foremost experts in the field, to identify the bodies themselves, so as not to be deceived by any attempts at subterfuge. Lord Tekiel, having received this information, had come to the conclusion that two possibilities existed. The first was simple - his investment had paid off, and his forensics laboratory had successfully, and accurately identified the bodies. The second was not so simple. This involved another House, taking such sufficient precautions as to deceive advanced forensic techniques. Not only this, but they would have had to do this in very little time - House Vinid had only incredibly recently established itself in Luthadel. Furthermore, they would have had the good fortune to have done so to a pair of houses who had decided that the least sensitive information they could release to the public involved a transfer of four properties from the more wealthy house to the heavily militarised house. Indeed, not only this but Lord Erikell appeared to have knowledge of the assault on Keep Tekiel before the information entered the public domain. Lord Tekiel acknowledge that the above was possible, but given the circumstances that would have had to occurred, doubted it to be in any way plausible. Indeed of the two possibilities, it seemed to him that one was so much more likely than the other, to the point where he was quite prepared to stake the reputation of his House on being correct.
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  30. Got a date tonight
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  31. Well, remember the time I had conceptual eldricht abdominstion pour into "our" world and start bonding with people after the eldricht abdomination with the power to travel on the plain of exsistence of others of its kind brought all of them into our plain of exsistence because we actually exsist within an eldricht abdomination, whose entire purpose was creation... or something like that, I haven't go back to this idea in a long time and it's a bit convoluted. I second this motion.
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  32. Got a date tonight
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  33. It's as far from solid as you can get. After reading on TVtropes (I tried in vain to find the link; it might've been taken down but maybe not) that in Arandelle, the alignment of planets causes one child every thousand years to be born with ice powers, I started thinking about a world based on old-school astrology, which led me to consider a society based on the prophecies of stars. As in Narnia, they would be sentient beings; as in our world, they'd be so distant that their light would take thousands of years to reach us, meaning if they could see what happened on our planet, they would know about earthly events before they happened, which shamans would receive as prophecies. I have no idea what sort of magic would facilitate that sort of cross-dimensional communication or what other sorts of magic would exist, but I'm toying with the idea of having the society be based on pre-Columbian Native societies.
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  34. Yeah, but they're Marvel. A company with hundreds of heroes to its name, years of experience in storytelling, and one heck of a marketing department. I'm a twentysomething librarian who cries at Pixar movies. I'll take the safer (if more difficult) route. Thanks! I've been toying with a magic system, but what I have so far practically demands an alternate world that I'm not ready to write yet. Again, thanks.
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  35. Link? I want to see this business suit. Funtimes would hug Supergirl and wonder if she was a threat. Nathan would greet Superman politely and wonder if he was going to kill him. Remington would clean his rifle and hope Spiderman got the message. Autumn would smile at Jean Grey and quietly turn on her radio so Vondra would be able to step in if she turned on her. Quota would try to make Hulk cry and be smashed mercilessly.
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  36. Backtrack would be sad because Squirrel Girl is more of a badchull than he'd ever be. Lightwards would think they're fools. Aldo would think they're quite stylish. Vondra would find them pompous and arrogant. Deathwish would have the time of his life when the female heroes come to town. Sam and Revolution would post notices everywhere warning people about the invasion of the supermodel clowns.
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  37. There is also always the option of adopting a rescue; you'd be surprised how many purebred dogs wind up in shelters. A lot of popular breeds also have dedicated breed rescues who foster and re-home dogs.
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  38. Hello, Hmmm! I'll bombard you with some random information! This is a fansite of Brandon Sanderson's works, as you should hopefully know. Most of the forums' purposes can be determined by exploring, and most are self-explanatory. However, if you haven't read all the Cosmere works yet (adult fiction like Mistborn, Way of Kings, Elantris, etc.) I'd stay away from the Cosmere Theories section. Major spoilers there. There's a reputation system that works on upvotes/downvotes on posts. Those are the red and green arrows on the corners of every post. Upvotes for if a post was funny/awesome/helpful/whatever, downvotes if it was offensive or very, very bad in some way. Your total reputation is the number underneath your picture on the side in the box. (That wasn't confusing at all.) If you're at zero rep, like you are now, you're a "Spren." The names don't really do anything except provide amusement. Rep doesn't mean anything, but it makes you feel accomplished. Try not to double post, as a general warning. If you've read Mistborn, you probably understand what I mean when I say that if anyone offers you a cookie it's spiked. If you don't, just know that it's not alcohol. It's literal spikes. Explore! Have fun! I'd give you an introductory upvote, but I've hit my upvote quota for today. Anyway, go thee forth and do stuff!
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  39. I'm all for the pug fund. This may be a moment to reference the Daypug. ...Somehow I find that name weirdly adorable.
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  40. Scipio Tekiel paced his office, his gaze returning frequently to the three letters on his desk. The first troubled him greatly - the results of his identifying the bodies of those killed in the assault on his keep. He simply could not fathom what he had done to provoke the attack from the Houses Erikell and Vinid - his House had had little interaction with Erikell since the ascension of the Great Houses - not even any contact since the very beginnings of the new society. What was more worrying, more perplexing, however, was the involvement of Vinid - a House new to the political scene, with not even an opportunity for enmity to arise. And yet the second letter made him shake with fury - a letter from Lord Erikell, denying any responsibility for the attack, and claiming to be framed. The sheer temerity of the man, to attempt a lie, in the face of conclusive evidence... The third letter was more hopeful, and Lord Tekiel began penning his response, accepting the offer of this new security firm to resolve the situation within the bounds of the law. It greatly irked Lord Tekiel to not exact vengeance himself, but he had seen sense, and come to recognise that two wrongs did not make a right - and that any attack by his own forces, although more justified, would still be illegal.
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  41. Maybe I've missed a point here but isn't this the exact opposite of what you previously deduced? The parts I found dealing with resticted consciousness in your essay were these. (Little tid-bit to add, the reason Ruin was stronger than Preservation at the time of his imprisonment was because Preservation gave humanity sentiece by Investing in them, so creating more consciousness actually diminished his power.) Both clearly stating that restricting the cognitive doesn't change the amount of power and only restricts the control over the power and doing so immediately before you start the part about "growing" Investiture. So yeah, I can't follow your logic here. For the next point I'm not exactly sure if I should bring it up here or in the topic about Odium but given that this one is more mechanics based I supposse I'll take this one. I get the impression that you seem to equate a Shard like Odium with the spiritual ideal/cognitive aspect of Odium/hatred in general, which I see no evidence for. Shards tend to be named after their Intend, which is a guiding force within their powers, but that doesn't mean they are made from their Intend. Odium, Honor, Ruin and all the other Shards are (as far as we know) ultimately made from pure Investiture. So Odium is a Shard ruled by Odium but for this system to work he would need to be a Shard made from Odium.
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  42. I'd say go for the Dalles. Also, talking about the Dalles, Backtrack's description in the last excellent Arsenal post braught this to my mind:
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  43. Nice post, Maxal. Have an upvote to cancel out the downvote I gave you When I said that you were making assumptions about how not everyone wanted to read about Szeth, I was referring to this comment of yours: My comment about your Adolin obsession simply came from the number of posts I've seen from you about how Adolin should have their own book, and Adolin this, and Adolin that, and so on. Personally, I'm curious about Szeth himself. Yes, I'm interested in everything I mentioned in my previous post (which you quoted as being the bits that people are interested in in Szeth's flashbacks), but I'm also interested in finding out exactly what kind of person Szeth was before he was made Truthless. What kind of person goes out and commits all of those atrocities, to keep his personal honour intact, all because his leaders did not believe him when he warned of the Radiants' return? I'm expecting Szeth's back story to fill in, not just a lot about the world, but also a lot about who Szeth actually is. It's the same with Kaladin's and Shallan's flashbacks. Yes, it explained a lot about who they are, and what motivates them, but both flashbacks did quite a bit of worldbuilding.
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  44. The Dresden Files, Storm Front?
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  45. I see some very interesting ideas here. Well done! However, there are a few things I feel may be inaccurate. First of all, a personal note. You've been rather busy here lately, and I see that your ideas are all interconnected. As such, I will be trying to respond to all in a relatively short (for me, it will still take a while) amount of time. Please understand that this is not personal, but an evaluation of the concepts as they are presented. As I mentioned, you've made some great points. Also, I don't have time now to cite references and Words of Brandon. Please post or send me any requests and I can update this with those sources. Now to the real deal: 1. The Cosmere originally existed as only Consciousness. As that Consciousness began to conceive ideas, those ideas reified into Spiritual Realm ideals; Spiritual connections began to form among the ideals. Only then could Consciousness’ power begin to manifest in the Physical Realm. Investiture comprises the Cosmere, the result of the creation process. There are some points both for and against this. Investiture truly transcends all three realms, where I feel you are saying it is a result of a Cognitive creation. In fact, of the three, Investiture is primarily Spiritual. Also, it cannot be created or destroyed, something I feel is contradicted here. At the same time, WOR shows that the Cognitive mind can survive a Spiritual and Physical death, indicating something central about the Cognitive Realm (though other things indicate that the Spiritual Ideals are superior ultimately). 2. Changes within the Cosmere commence in the Cognitive Realm. This primacy means that restrictions on a Shard’s Consciousness impair the Shard’s ability to exercise its power. Unanswered is the converse, whether an increase in a Shard’s power in the Cognitive Realm – an “expansion of its Consciousness” – increases its power in all Realms; but I believe that to be true also and the source of Odium’s growing power. I like how you phrased the first sentence. I think a clearer way to more accurately portray the first part is to say that restrictions on a Shardholder's consciousness impairs his/her ability to direct the Shard's power. Again, Investiture cannot be created - hence much of my disagreement with the subsequent idea you discuss so extensively. There is no evidence of which I am aware to support this conclusion, with that fact firmly opposing it. 3. Cosmere magic involves manipulation of an object’s Spiritual Realm connections. The people who live on each planet with sentient life have unique thoughts and ideas. Each planet, therefore, has its own version of both the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms and its own Spiritual Realm connections. Because of this Realmatic uniqueness and Shard-planet interactions, related but different Physical Realm effects appear on each planet with sentient life. Each Shardworld requires a different cognitive means of manipulating Spiritual Realm connections. I agree with your first part; though it's not confirmed in any way, I have theorized similarly before - it seems a logical conclusion based on the information we have (largely thanks to Kurkistan's work on Forms, which are essentially the same concept.) I don't understand where you are coming from to say each world has its own version of the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms. They have Spiritual aspects, but I have seen nothing to indicate that they have their own Realms. Where are you coming from with this idea? ARGUMENT I believe Brandon’s Realmatic system works as follows: This has some merit but, from what I understand, is inaccurate. This is similar to how spren are formed, from what I know. While minds can influence the Cognitive Realm, the Cognitive ultimately aligns to the Spiritual Ideals. (See Kurkistan's discussion of how healing works.) While I don't know how or if Ideals are created, this seems too similar to the other process to be likely. But it does seem a field worth studying, if for different reasons. This algorithm is true for all magic systems in the Cosmere and implies that the First Mind (Adonalsium? the “God Beyond?” Brandon?) pre-existed both the Spiritual and Physical Realms. The mind must have an idea before the idea can take the form of a Spiritual Realm “ideal.” And until the Spiritual Realm ideal has established its connections with other ideals, the original idea cannot take tangible form in the Physical Realm. Thus, the Cosmere began as a void, occupied only by a Divine Consciousness – God’s “mind.” Creation of the Spiritual and Physical Realms may have taken only an instant. Just as humans conceive an idea, invest that idea with physical, mental and spiritual resources, and make that idea tangible, so do Gods. They invest their ideas with spiritual energy – God’s “spirit” – to make their ideas tangible. That’s what the Physical Realm is, the tangible expression of Divine Power – God’s “body.” This seems to be copying the HOA epigraph you quote lower down. That quote detailed the Realmatic aspects of a Shard, but I don't think that it is also a model for the original creation. Again, Investiture, energy, and matter in the Cosmere cannot be created or destroyed, and it would still leave the question of how a mind-in-a-void came to exist in the first place. Power – whether embodied in Adonalsium, Shards, or splinters – has “three aspects”: physical, cognitive and spiritual – body, mind and spirit. This is Realmatic Theory at its simplest: the fact that, in the Cosmere, there are the three Realms, and the study of how things interact differently in each Realm. Restricting a Shard’s Consciousness – its ability to control its power — will restrict the Shard’s ability to exercise its power. While there is no textual support for the converse conclusion, I believe that enhancing a Shard’s Consciousness likewise enhances Spiritual and Physical Realm power output. HOA gives evidence supporting the first part, but, as I said above, I have seen no support for the second. And a minute on semantics: Your second thought isn't truly the converse of the first. The converse would be that an increase in consciousness increases a Shard's ability to exercise (I still prefer to say'direct') their power - which, I feel, is logical given thata stronger mind ought to allow more precision. Magic is the manipulation of Spiritual Realm connections. I somewhat agree. For instance, I have theorized before that a Spren Bond is a sort of Connection, connecting the Surgebinder's Spiritual aspect to the Ideal(s) affiliated with their order. Spiritual investiture “powers” Physical Realm changes by re-arranging the affected object’s Spiritual Realm connections with other objects. However, I don't believe that this is fully accurate. Many abilities simply allow one's Physical aspect to "fix itself" to conform to their Spiritual Ideal, as interpreted through the Cognitive. (See again Kurkistan's discussions on Healing.) This does not alter one's Spiritual Connections. I would argue rather, then, that magical abilities are a result of a Spiritual Connection to that Power, and while some magics affect Spiritual Connections (Gravitation, as you said, being a prime example, along with steel/iron Allomancy), others are a matter of either changing an object's Spiritual aspect (Soulcasting and Forgery) as interpreted by the Cognitive, or are a matter of making the Physical conform to a Spiritual Ideal (gold Feruchemy). HoA is when we first hear of the three Realms. In each of the following quotes, Sazed/Harmony speaks only about investiture, not about the Realms generally. I'm confused as to your distinction there. What do you mean by,"not speaking of the Realms generally?" As I interpret this, he is talking about the Realmatic aspects of a Shard, which are -by definition- an aspect in each Realm. Power has three “aspects” – mind, body and spirit. (Draw your own “Trinity” analogies here.) But each “aspect” is not a different power. Thus, conditions in one Realm can influence the amount of power available in other Realms, even though the nature of the power in each Realm is different. Yes, power has three aspects. Everything does. This is Realmatic Theory. Like you said, each aspect is not a different power; it is a manifestation of the Shard in each Realm. Why then, after saying that each aspect is not a different power, do you discuss them as separate? The power is not going to change, for three aspects you speak of are the Realmatic aspects of the same Shard in the three Reaused And, as Investiture cannot be created or destroyed, the power level will stay the same unless power is used (as by Preservation in granting mankind sentience, or power being Invested into a Shardworld). Preservation's mind prison did not take Ruin's power away, it took away his ability to direct that power. This is clearly stated in other epigraphs from the HOA. I will finish this later when I have time.
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  46. More Shakespeare! "Goat delighteth not me." "Double, double, goats and trouble..." "'What dost thou read, young Hamlet?' 'Goats.'" "Soft! The fair goat! Nymph, in all thy orisons be all my sins remembered." "...to bear the goats and slings of time..."
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  47. A team of neurologists wishes to study my abnormal brain. I'm exaggerating things by saying it that way, but my brain is definitely abnormal. The condition's called aphantasia and was only really discovered last year - it's the inability to form mental pictures, or really, experience most sense memories. I can't recall pictures, smells, textures....none of that. I can't generate mental images either. Best I can manage is about a tenth of a second flicker of something vague. Yes, that means that when I'm reading, I don't generate any kind of picture of any setting, characters, action - nothing at all. I'm in contact with the researchers who are studying the condition now, and have given them a helping hand. If you'd like to assess yourself and help us out (for science!), take this survey - and if your score is below 32, consider taking the one it links to when you submit your results. For the record, I scored a 23 - and my wife scored a 55. Despite all that, I write science fiction and fantasy. Oh, and there is a thread about this in Creator's Corner.
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  48. Dag, passed up for a promotion again! (I kid, eero is much too lazy to take on more responsibility!) Also congrats to weiry and joe
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  49. We interrupt your regularly scheduled Stormlight-themed game of intrigue and betrayal to announce the coming of a new Mistborn-themed game of intrigue and betrayal: Crafty games just announced Final Empire: a Mistborn Board Game Okay, seriously geeking out now.
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  50. Also, when you have gotten someone new into the Cosmere and they ask you a question and the only reply you can give them without ruining something is ...RAFO
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