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  1. The exact nature of his bonds are not known. He is bound by the powers of Honor and Cultivation according to the Stormfather in OB CH. 38 and the holder of Honor's power (or it's remnants) has the ability to release Odium, according to Odium in OB Ch. 57. On Braize We have a WoB that says he is trapped on Braize and it's where the Heralds and Fused would go when they died during the Desolations. This is because of the Oathpact made between Honor and The Heralds ( OB Ch. 38). The Stormfather says it is inspired by how Honor and Cultivation bound Odium, but they are two separate bindings. It's never stated that actual spren of Odium, like Ulim or the red stormspren, are bound along with The Fused, but it seems like they were. Ulim says "I am the one who escaped" to Venli in OB I-3. In the text, usually in the letters to Hoid from Frost and non-Rosharan Shards, he is referred to as not being able to leave the system that he's in. They don't refer to him being trapped on Braize specifically, but again Brandon said that he is stuck on Braize at a signing. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/172/#e8560 Everstorm "He won't remain bound by this, the enemy. He'll find a way around it you know he will." Kalak WoK Prelude. I don't think Odium could manifest directly on Roshar before the Everstorm was brought over at the end of WoR. He does it all the time in OB, but only when the Everstorm is directly over someone. Venli was instructed to leave her windows open during the storm and Mr. T had to open the window before Odium could appear to him. The Everstorm also is now where the Fused go when they die instead of back to Braize. Odium has found his way around the Oathpact. What Does Winning Look Like? We don't know what his win condition is, absent Dalinar letting him go. Will killing Cultivation do it? If so why would Honor alone agreeing to release him be enough? At this point he's been in the system for so many thousands of years he would be heavily invested in the system. The more investiture that's in Roshar's physical and cognitive realms, the less he has to wield against other Shards outside of Roshar. Even if he was released from what originally bound him in the system, he would likely need to destroy existing life on Roshar to free up that investiture. Honor's final Vision that shows the surface of Roshar being obliterated might be extremely literal. Odium's Army On Roshar Odium has a few sets of forces that can act on his behalf on the planet Roshar: The Unmade - ancient spren who remain on Roshar in between Desolations. They don't go back to Braize and get stuck. Brandon has said that usually this is how Odium has influenced people on Roshar, through the Unmade. In Oathbringer Odium says he has been speaking to Dalinar even longer than he has been speaking to Amaram and he means "speaking" through the Thrill they are influenced by in combat. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/107/#e1375 Golden Spren - Odium loves white-gold, some of his Spren like the one Kaladin talks to when he is with the Singers early in OB, appear as white-gold humanoids with Shin eyes (when Odium appears he has Shin eyes). When Odium directly uses his investiture it is often are often white-gold. The white-gold dagger used on Jezrien, the white gold power streaming behind him when he summons the Thrill to Thaylen Field. The molten gold realm Mr. T and Odium talk in at the end of OB. His human manifestation wears white and gold. His Singer manifestation when Venli looks at him at Thaylen Field has marbeled gold and white skin. The Void - He loves gold, but I'd argue his shard color is black/violet or "stygian blue" which is an impossible color. Voidlight that the Fused use to do magic is this color. The flame at the core of his being that Dalinar sees in this color and when he looks into the human forms eyes he sees this color inside. Notice on the chart halfway down this page that you can see stygian blue if you stare at bright yellow for a while then look at black. White-Gold is the fatigue template for his true power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color Passion - As KR makes a progression of oaths to access magic through Honor & Cultivation, Odium's forces seem to have to give their pain, passion, strong emotions to him in order to access magic through Odium. He isn't Passion, he takes it from others. The Fused - Cognitive Shadows of ancient Singers killed by humans in the humans conquest of Roshar. They are able to possess the bodies of living Singers and some can possess stone creating Thunderclasts. This constant bonding of new bodies or "bodies" has torn up their cognitive aspects, causing insanity in some. Red/Black Spren - Odium likes to conserve his investiture. He co-opts existing spren and they appear red, like the storm spren. The Unmade we've seen are all either red or black. Black investiture often means a bunch of different investiture mixed together, sometimes called corrupted.
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  2. Where do I go after Mistborn? I read skyward for the time being, but should I jump into The Archive? Especially with #4 coming out. What does everyone think? Mistborn was my first and only Cosmere and I LOVED it
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  3. Yep, it is a natural outgrowth like with the metals Khyrindor (paraphrased) Do the Honorblades reflect the natural pairing of Surges, or did Honor decide which Surge pair to put in each Blade? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) The pairs are natural to Roshar in the same way as the metals on Scadrial. When Worlds Collide 2014 (Aug. 9, 2014)
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  4. Eureka! Well of Ascension, Part one. Vin receives a package from a metallurgist with a sample of Duralumin. The note attached mentions that aluminum is hard to come by, but the writer managed to buy some aluminum flatware from a fleeing noble’s estate. There’s at least a tiny bit of confirmation that Gemmel’s fork could’ve been aluminum. Guess I know what I’ll be asking Brandon next time he stops through!
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  5. Here, I wrote an ace smut fanfic just now for you: (sorry to kind of intrude on this serious conversation with a joke, but honestly I think that's an important thing to do sometimes. Hugs for everybody! *hugs*) (also I'm probably gonna make a serious post at some point, but like I said, there's a lot to unpack here)
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  6. YKYASFW your text conversations occasionally include the phrase "Hoid what the [insert expletive here]" I realize I probably need to explain... My SO and I were just conversing about the Cosmere. When our boy Hoid pops his head in and I mention that one time he spent several months inside a large stomach, being digested. My SO thought that deserved the above response
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  7. What I admire most about YouTube ghost hunters is how they have rigorously trained themselves to use only advertiser-friendly swearwords even when being terrorized by freakish paranormal beings. Massive respect.
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  8. Stormlight 4 Draft 3.0 - 40%
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  9. I just want to elaborate on what I said earlier: "I think a character should be a well-developed character first, and LGBT second." What I don't mean is that their gender identity or sexuality should be a glossed over part of their character. Being LGBT should be a defining part of their character, just not the first defining thing about them. In my experience as an aspiring author, the thing readers will remember most about a character is the first thing to break their imagined norm. In the book I am currently working on, the main character's grandpa is introduced in chapter 2, and the first dialogue he has is the greeting "Ho." I wrote that just as a passing line of dialogue, trying to give him a unique way of speaking. But my alpha readers interpreted him as a chipper old man because of this line, when I actually intended for him to be a very serious character. Now that is the primary way that they remember him. In our culture, the natural assumption of most readers when picking up a book is that the characters are hetero. If the first thing to break the reader's assumptions is that a character is LGBT, that will be the primary way the character is remembered. If you want heterosexual readers to remember the character as anything but "the gay one," then you have to break their assumptions in another way first. Let's use Dalinar as an example. The first thing that breaks our assumptions about him is his visions from the Almighty. If he was gay, but it was revealed after that, readers would remember him first as the guy who had visions from the Almighty, and second as gay.
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  10. My apologies in advance, this one's pretty dang long. It has a sort of Shadows of Silence vibe to it, and that being the case Viewer Discretion Advised. Nothing sexual or anything; just violent. I never talk. Neither does anybody, in this world. For two years now, conversations have been dangerous; even deadly. Ever since the Cult of the Mysterium walked into that city and performed their ritual... But that's not today's story. Today's story has to do with the person who broke the rules. Seeing as how it's only been two years since the Incident, it's been kind of difficult to get people like small children to shut up when you need it to be quiet. Rules have been put in place, of course: You don't speak. You don't speak, and if you must, you speak in a whisper. You're less likely to draw the Phantoms' attention that way. If you can't whisper, then you speak as softly as you can. Avoid oral conversation at all costs, as even an idle chitchat can call the Phantoms. Keep your children indoors, and make sure they don't talk with anybody. If they do, punish them. Severely. Talking to yourself is generally fine. Phantoms like having more than one target to torment; if you're alone, then they won't bother. Talking to someone else, though? That's an issue. That's what this story is about. His name was Jack, I think. That's what I read off the note I had to pass back a few weeks ago. He was a bit of flirt, to be completely honest. Nothing wrong with that, of course; not until the Cult of the Mysterium summoned the Phantoms, that is. We were walking down the halls at school, silent as the moon. Sometimes you heard someone trip and yelp, and everyone would freeze, praying that the Phantoms didn't arrive; they rarely did. Long and loud conversations was how you caught their attention. Not a short, muffled yelp. Still, a yelp amongst such impenetrable silence could make anyone sweat. It was then that Jack yelled across the hallway at Edith. He probably did it reflexively; it happened to all of us, now and then. Laughing aloud at something we find funny. Telling our parents how our day had been at school. So as long as we shut up quick enough, we were fine. That being the case, I have no idea why Jack continued his conversation. "Edith!" He called. "Hey, Edith! Over here!" You could see it in everyone's eyes; they wanted to shush him so badly, but they were worred about making it louder than it already was. People began diving into classrooms and under tables, their eyes terrified as Jack realized just how big of a mistake he had made. "Eeeeeedith." A ghostly voice moaned. "Heeeere." "No." I whispered despite myself. The Phantom appeared. It was vaguely humanoid, and completely transparent. No eyes, though. They never had eyes. Never. "Eeeeeedith." It moaned again. Jack began to whimper. The faint scent of urine could tell you just how terrified this kid was. "Heeeeere." Edith-- a short, redheaded girl-- suddenly appeared before my very eyes. She appeared just between Jack and the Phantom, looking just as terrified as everyone else; probably more terrified, in fact. I wish that would've been it. I feel that that could've been it. Phantoms rarely did anything more than what you had actually said. Unless you kept talking, they would vanish eventually, leaving everyone a good deal paler than they had been before. Edith whimpered. "Please." Big mistake. I probably should've explained this earlier, but showing weakness to a Phantom is the worst mistake you could ever make. It gives it freedom to do whatever it wants. Don't ask me how it works; I can only tell you this from experience. Firsthand experience of today. The Phantom laughed crazily, and the screaming began. There wasn't any surviving a free-willed Phantom. You might as well say what you might before you go. The Phantom grew to ten times its size, and the walls began to close in. I threw myself into another hallway, so I didn't see what happened next. I heard screams; horrible, blood-curdling screams. After that, the walls became covered in red, dripping like the morning dew of a huge oak tree. I slipped in the blood, and saw something roll down the hallway. I don't know what it was, but it had red hair, and was coated in blood. People were running around like mad, trying to reach their friends before they died. Everywhere, people were screaming, their limbs being shorn from their bodies by some unseen phantasmal force. It was horrible. The walls were still closing in. People in the last hallway were being crushed to death. I tried to stop them; I tried to save myself. I broke my arm from the strain. It was going to crush me to death. Then, suddenly, it stopped. I can't tell you what happened. I only know I was trapped between two walls. Hours later, someone finally got me out. I wrote all this down and told them what had happened. Or, rather, what I saw. I still don't know what happened. I only know one thing. Never free the Phantoms. (Edit): Going back and re-reading this it can be a little confusing. My apologies. A world where you need a license to do anything; go to school, eat food, cut your hair. EVERYTHING!!!
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  11. *applause* First off, thanks for the link--I will be scrolling through that for sure! Second, you make a wonderful point about how others' identities become a point used for the growth of other characters and not something that stands alone, and I think that's exactly right. Being gay *is* part of who someone is. We are all collections of identities--personal and social--that make us who we are. Some are more salient in some spaces than in others, and just because you don't always see yourself as centrally "heterosexual" because it's not salient to you in every space doesn't mean it's not central to who you are. Shallan's heterosexuality is critical for her character because it defines her attraction to Adolin and her entire arc toward self awareness. Vin and Elend's heterosexuality is also highlighted. Ranette is only a Lesbian as a foil to Wayne's heterosexuality, not to help us understand her better so her own character can grow. And how many people list Kal and Bridge 4's reaction to Drehy as evidence of how "cool" they are but fail to discuss what it must be like to be Drehy? I think Brandon has opportunities for growth and because I think he's an excellent writer with a good heart, I hold him to a high standard. I also don't think it's fair to say "you can't force someone to write XYZ". Of course not. Verbalizing our concerns is not forcing--it's pressure, sure, but we can't *make* him do anything. What we can do is say, "here's what I expect from an author who values people like me, and if he/she doesn't do this, then maybe I won't read anymore because they aren't made for me." You can find that to be "forcing" but I see that as exercising our own self care and autonomy. (not to say that Honorless or anyone else is threatening to stop reading, but just generally speaking.) It's like me starting Dresden Files and being annoyed with all the "hormones" and "heaving chests" that he talks about. So juvenile "male". He's not written for me. And I don't see myself in him. And that's okay. And if I cared about the author, I might have spoken my mind on it. But I don't, so I just don't read them. Or when we talk about tropes of female characters in video games or comics as being unrealistic and not fully fleshed out women--but rather mechanisms for male growth (i.e., women in fridges). Oh, and thanks for everyone for the lit recs. I am stoked!
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  12. "What do you mean there was an attack in the caverns?" Admiral "Ironsides" Ivans was furious. Not only that the Disputers had increased their dissensions to a level of violence, but at herself for not being able to stop it. Not that she was entirely to blame. The Assembly should have been doing more than arguing. "One person dead. A new member of the DDF, hadn't even been assigned yet." Ironsides threw the report down onto her desk. "What about the investigation? Any leads yet?" "We arrested someone this afternoon, but it appears they were not involved with the Disputers. They're still in custody, though, just in case." "Good." At least it will look like they were doing something. Though that wouldn't matter if they didn't stop the Disputers before they killed off her best people. "Ramp up the efforts. See what you can dig up on anyone. Someone had to have seen something." --- Coda was arrested! They were a member of the Defiant Defense Force. Shanerockes was killed! They were a member of the Defiant Defense Force. Vote Count: Coda (3) - Elkanah, Kidpen, Abstrusity StrikerEZ (1) - Rathmaskal Fifth Scholar (1) - StrikerEZ Xinoehp512 (1) - Araris Valerian Kidpen (1) - Fifth Scholar Shanerockes (1) - Sart Player List This turn will end Thursday, February 20 at 10 p.m. PST.
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  13. I think a lot of you might have issue with what I'm about to say here, but here goes: You are lucky to be straight. It's not a great feeling to be gay. Anyone you think might be beautiful could turn out to find the very idea that you think they are beautiful disgusting. Even the most positive thing that could happen to you, is that some people might get together and put in their votes on whether or not you deserve equal Human Rights, to love, to marry, to have kids. Understand this and be kind. I'm sorry if it looks like I'm being an chull from your perspective but trust me when I tell you this, you have no idea how this feels. People seem to have moved on from debates regarding these kinds of issues now a days, citing how heated they get. This one did get heated, thank you to those of you who still showed up and spoke
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  14. So, this thread is a thing, but I was told that instead of unlocking and necroing it I should just start a new topic, so here it is! In case you don’t want to visit the old thread, the game is thus: you give a random idea, and someone else makes a magic system based around it, then gives an idea of their own. Be as detailed as you want; levels of seriousness can be as high or low as you want as well. Keep it to the Shard’s standards on adult content. To start us off, animal feces.
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  15. The gay male protagonist. Bane of mainstream literature. But things are better now™. *sigh* LGBT literature is still very much- actually hold that thought. The existence of that term alone shows the problem: that LGBT literature is a separate thing from straight literature. We rarely have fantasy, mystery or sci-fi whose main character happens to be gay, we have gay fiction which happens to have a fantasy, mystery or sci-fi setting, rarely. Mostly it's just romance. Written by women. *sigh* It's mostly erotica, basically not even aimed at the same gender. There are gay authors: Adam Silvera, TJ Klune, Will Walton, Benjamin Alire Sáenz,... well-known LGBT authors. Special thanks to Richard Morgan who finally wrote a non-romance with a gay male character as the main protagonist. Also Robin Hobb. Gay characters are almost never the main protagonist in the mainstream literature. Gay literature is still a niche genre and generally not taken to be a part of mainstream literature. When gay characters do appear in the mainstream and they're not badly written, they're usually secondary characters or at most, the deuteragonist. These authors are then treated like the bastion of LGBT literature and everyone else would remember their example for the next ten years as completion of the required dosage of gayness they can handle on their reading list. They will then cite these books everytime some poor sod mentions we need more representation, "wasn't that one book from 5 years ago with that one gay character (who probably dies later on) enough?" And these authors too, even after all this time, are in the minority compared to those who simply ignore that gay people exist. These are the books most likely to have a lot of romantic subplots. Love triangles, ahoy! "But we need romance in our books!" "Why do we need to have a gay character?" "what does it add to the character?" Female gay characters are, of course, fine. I mean there's also less gay female characters because it's not as daring and "female lead" is still something that can be used to sort books but at least people aren't directly opposed to them. Gay male characters on the other hand are an insult and a threat to masculinity everywhere *long exhale* So we have Ranette and Drehy filling the quota of gay characters in the Cosmere and they're tertiary characters. So far, we have maybe-promises from the author regarding gay characters in the future. On a completely unrelated note, how many love triangles have we had in the Cosmere so far again? This post is my anger and this post is my logic: Also check out this comment by @The Awakened Salad which addresses the question of why a character would "need" to be gay:
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  16. I'm rusting rich, boys and girls:
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  17. OK, I dusted off an old map that speculated on the location of the Aimia and Shinovar OGs, because I started thinking about the fortress at the center of the Purelake, and I remembered that one of the Oathgate radials I drew, crossed through the center of the Purelake. And then of course I remembered Feverstone keep, that we know almost nothing about other than it is close to RallElorim and is on a plain. I of course wondered could it be a Coastal Plain in the rain shadow of the mountains? And then I wondered is it just pure coincidence that one of the radials just happens to cross through the Horneater Peaks and the Cultivation shardpools? The same radial, BTW, that Kholinar (the first gate captured) is on? So thinking about those two fortresses, I started thinking, yeah the Oathgates are cool and allow all the good little people move around, but these gates were built for WAR as well. And gates in the middle of cities are not very defensible, sure they can be locked and all, but come on?! If you were building a vast infrastructure like this wouldn't you want some safeguards? So I wondered, maybe there is a reason that the Purelake fortress is on a radial. And maybe Feverstone Keep as well. Maybe there are other fortresses scattered around Roshar, and they have oathgate rooms at their centers! Ok by that point the speculation train was running on full steam. Jumping tracks. Whoo boy. Urithiru. The middle of all of these Oathgates. A city tower. An Arcology. Cities need power to run. City wide heat, water, sewage, air circulation stormlight for quickly growing crops etc… Not to mention possibly having some sort of defensive array, or intra-tower teleportation pads or remote viewing screens, Mickey mouse alarm clocks. Lots of power. But all Urithiru has is a battery. A big honkin battery maybe, but just a battery. Ok people say that the Sibling is supposed to make it run, but show me a single location where Spren empowered a single thing? Yes they direct function, but they don't provide the actual power for it. Stormlight does. So just how the heck is that pretty battery filled? Well, we will just lower this itty bitty cage of gemstones down to the storm… Nahh. Well, the people using the Oathgates give extra stormlight… What? How? How is it collected and transported to the battery? OK, what about Bondsmiths? Just open a perpendicularity near the battery and bam! Full power baby! Ummm, first we don't know if all Bondsmiths could do that, or for that matter if any of them could, until Dalinar came along. It's been RAFO'd. Second, do you really want to be opening a GATEWAY to the Cognitive and Spiritual realms at the heart of your fortress city? That's just begging for some sort of desperation attack. Hmmmm. If only we had some way of collecting Stormlight from across all of Roshar… Hey gancho, we have this pretty array of gateways all around Roshar, why do they have to do just ONE thing? Why do the Oathgates have TWO spren? One of them certainly looks like a Giant Inkspren, but does that other one look like a giant bronze spren to you? Lets face it, a giant spren of the Elsecallers should be more than enough for shuffling stuff around through preprogrammed fabrials. So what is the white one's function? We know it's sentient, but it doesn't match up to any other higher spren that we've seen on camera. Maybe it's there for an entirely different reason, maybe it's there to funnel stormlight back through the network to provide power to the city?! So, you ask, why isn't the battery full? After all, it's been sitting there doing nothing for millennia. Well maybe the gates need to be unlocked. What about the Stormseat gate, it's unlocked now? Maybe it needs to be exposed and not covered in crem. What about the Thaylin gate? Bahh! I need a drink.
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  18. This is a theory as to how Kelsier was walking around in the flashback at the end of Bands of Mourning. I believe he's a mistwraith. I stumbled upon this theory when I read the following on the Coppermind regarding mistwraiths: "A single Hemalurgic spike is enough to staple a Cognitive Shadow to a mistwraith, though whether this has happened in the past is unknown." One could definitely argue that Kelsier is a cognitive shadow of sorts (albeit with more sentience than most) in Secret History. We also know that he is somehow missing an eye during the events of era 2. My guess is that he stapled himself to a mistwraith and had it assume the form of himself, and since he isn't a kandra, he doesn't need gifts to stay sane. He moved the one spike to his eye to both emulate marsh, and to give himself Steelsight. Thoughts? Comments? Has this theory been created before or did I find a new one?
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  19. I've been thinking a lot lately about what one might get at the Fifth Ideal. I am drawn to an excerpt from the following epigraph from Words of Radiance: "...for though the bond between man and spren was at times inexplicable, the ability for bonded spren to manifest in our world rather than their own grew stronger through the course of the oaths given." Words of Radiance, chapter 35, page 9. So the ability for spren to manifest in the Physical Realm grows stronger the more oaths that are given. I suspect this is why after the Third Ideal, spren can become Shardblades/spears/forks. Another epigraph mentions achieving the Fourth Ideal in association with "earning my armor," and there is obviously some mystery still around that. But what of the Fifth Ideal? If the Third is some sort of weapon, and assuming the Fourth is some armor, then what could the Fifth be? I welcome theories. The only theory I have is that the Fifth Ideal could be a Dawnshard (...whatever that is). It would make sense, then, with how Surges and Dawnshards are related with the destruction of... you know. Just an idea, if you have evidence to the contrary, please share. Also if I'm blatantly on the wrong track with any of this here, also please share.
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  20. So, I'm reading through the books again and little things keep catching my attention. One is that in WoR while Kaladin is in jail he sees little Spren that look like wires. In an interlude that I think is in twok we see Axis the collection looking for Spren. At the end when he is sent to jail he says something about having another chance to see captivity Spren. I believe this is what Kaladin saw in his cell. Now, the interesting part is why Kaladin saw it when Axis never did. This may be because he is a radiant, buti think there's more to it. I think it is because Kaladin felt trapped. He felt like he was caged and therefore his emotions drew the Spren to him. Now Axis seems to be so carefree I doubt he truly felt captive in prisons. More than likely he just sees it as a slight delay in his quest to see all Spren. This mindset is not enough to draw the Spren.
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  21. Filtered through bacteria that made you sick, for one thing.
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  22. (Can I make that just regular Ideas and not Ideals, seeing as how there's already an Ideals magic system...?) You can create anything, but you must first draw it on a sheet of transparent paper using a No. 2 Pencil. Let's assume you wanted to create a loaded pistol. You would first draw a gun as realistically as humanly possible, then on another piece of paper draw the interworkings of that gun. If you overlap those pages, you can see the interworkings inside the gun through the transparent paper. You must conclude with a third drawing, of the other side of the gun. You can layer these pages, so it would go shell-interworkings-shell. You can will the papers to create the gun, which will look exactly as you drew it, and will last an amount of time based off of how well you drew it. A little bit of worldbuilding to throw alongside this there's a single faction that holds a monopoly of this type of paper and, therefore, the world. Sticky Notes
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  23. Very eventful chapter! This is the first time I'm really seeing some personality from I as a new reader of your books. It was nice to get a better sense of him. As I go; When E is shape shifting: "a snail grew" a whole snail or a snail shell? Around 50%: 'I think I was high ranking' paragraph. The font is the same as E's inner thoughts which was a bit confusing. Also, "the voice said" and other description are in the same font which seems like those words are also being said telepathically. Around 60%, while I is debating with himself: "He would be devistated." Is I talking about himself or S at this point? Since he last referred to S, the 'he' seems to refer to S, but context suggests I. Around 70% "vision warped" paragraph. I was a bit turned around in this paragraph. Starting with I's personal experience, I had assummed that the rest of the paragraph is also his experience and it was him being hijacked by 'black scaly hands' guy. This might be intentional, but I had to turn back and reread a few paragraphs to re-orient when I realized it was all memory. Thank's for sharing!
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  24. I’ve seen a character in a different story come back without any consequence, and it was one of the things that ruined the story, honestly. Plus, Brandon’s said he wants to be careful not to bring many characters back, because of what Trav just said, and because you either break your rules in doing it or don’t kill them off right. He already brought back Szeth and Kelsier and faked us out with Jasnah - any more would just be too much imo. Edit: but again, have your own opinion
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  25. *also hugs* I’m so sorry you have to deal with that, that anyone has to deal with that. You’re definitely not being a chull. Just shows that we do still have to talk about this, because some people haven’t caught the drift yet that people have rights. Kidpen, you’re amazing, I love you I don’t suppose it’s Alex? Exactly, education and exposure can help lessen homophobia. Sometimes people are too close-minded, but it works other times. I just meant that most always feel the way they do, that it doesn’t usually drastically change. Gender is a complicated subject.
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  26. really? I thought there were quite a few amusing theories, including the possibility of Hemalurgy and a connection with era 2, beyond the boring, but probably the most likely, Gemmel was just cracked. Also, you don't seem to mind much that many of the responses here on your thread are lighthearted fork battles either? I know that the first one is empty but these are the only threads on the topic, that I could find. I don't see what I did to offend you here: "they don’t inject anything more interesting into the conversation"
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  27. First of all Fanboy fanatics do not rant, no we definitely and most assuredly do not! We expound! Yes! We definitely expound, at great length, mind you. Reading that last chapter in OB, I'm pretty sure that the overcharge is done by opening the perpendicularity. Possibly, but I'm none to sanguine about it. Stormfather was something of a one-off as Tanavast gave it his proxy when he died. So to speak. Because as I said, that is one big battery, supplying the needs of a city, a whole entire city! One gem at a time wouldn't make a millionth of a dent in the energy needs. In fact when they tried to infuse stormlight into it it had no visible effect. I believe that it was siphoned away so quickly into the 'wiring/strata' of the city it didn't even glimmer! I really don't think so. See that is the thing that was bothering me. The black one does more or less match the description of an Inkspren, but the white one doesn't look anything like a Reacher/Lightspren.
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  28. I made this to earn fake reddit points Little did I know I could potentially gain real cosmere titles here!
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  29. I posted a theory once way back, the wast majority of the post never made it to the board due to tenichal issues, one of the lines of reasoning that I think we're lost was about the attributes. The idea is that each nahel bond is represented by two mixtures of Honor and Cultivation, one that is mainly Honor and one that is mainly Cultivation. Matching the attributes to the double eye and walking clockwise the right hand side has orders with falling Honor and growing Cultivation, vice versa on the left hand side. On the top side you have orders where Honor is dominant and the bottom side where Cultivation is dominant. In This model honesty is a secondary attribute but is actually Honors attribute for lightweavers. Honor being the Almighty in Vorin Faith it makes sense for his attributes to become the Divine attributes regardless of what the demonized Raidiants consider primary/secondary.
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  30. I hate that I have to post here again, but I need to vent in a major way. I had/ have a friend whom I have known since we were both quite young. Our meeting was memorable one to say the least. Over the years we were not best friend close, but we went to school on the same bus we would talk quite a bit and we got along well. Things changed when we got to high school and we went our separate ways. I wondered throughout high school what she was up to and admittedly I had a crush. After high school we reconnected and I admitted that I had had a crush on her. We stayed casual friends though I always got the sense that things were awkward between us. We continued on and I became aware that perhaps I was still crushing on her despite the passage of time. I tried to talk to her about it however she became defensive and ultimately put me on the defensive for in her words "making things about me." I tried to smooth things over, but she was having none of it. Ultimately, she blocked me on social media. I tried to reach out after and things crumbled when she began to try to move things in a direction that I was not ready for. I knew then that something was off in our dynamic and for a while I kept my distance, I was uncomfortable with the way things ended so I recently reached out to her and she told me that she did not realize that I felt as I did. That should have set off warning bells. However, I still hoped to salvage things. I broke down exactly how I felt and I told her that the best thing was to just keep things casual. She became even more aggressive than before and despite my attempts to cool things down in about a day things reached a breaking point. I told her that I did not feel a romantic love for her and would start a relationship of this kind. She lost it with me and cursed at me saying that she deserved to be loved and that she would block me again. I commented that I cared for her as a friend and that was all. I also asked what was wrong with wanting to just be friends. I left it at that. She did not respond to me and I took a day to think about this situation. It became painfully clear that there was something unhealthy going on in this relationship. I put an end to things and blocked her on social media. A friendship that had been on and off for almost 20 years imploded in a devastating way. At times I feel guilty and think if only I had tried harder things might have been different. Honestly, I don't know what to think about the whole thing. It hurt to see it ho, but I don't know that I could have maintained it on my own. The weight might have crushed me. This is not something that anybody else in the world knows about. I quietly carried this around inside for a long time. I don't know if I was wrong or right, but I do know that I cannot keep this hidden anymore. (I want to thank those who take the time to listen to my self-serving ramblings. What it means to you cannot begin to imagine!)
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  31. I agree entirely. Two things in particular that people don’t seem to keep track of. 1) They are the most numerous, and martial, Order (except for the Stonewards on the martial side, I think) and constitute a major part of the ‘Army’ of the Knights. 2) They would be leading armies of non-Knights, much like Kal does in Kholinar
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  32. Welcome to the Shard! Nice to get right in with a question. I just want to point out that Pewter has both the effect of healing faster, but I'm not sure that this is actually healing you. It might just be a side effect of having a stronger immune system. Filling a metalmind might stop this effect to fill it, or it might not fill. that is an interesting hack, if it works
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  33. It seems pretty clear to me that the Ideals aren't as fast and simple as a video game level-up. It's important to think about what's going on here from thematic and character perspectives. The Nahel bond is the combination of the influence of two different Shards, Honor and Cultivation, and reflects their specific intents. Honor is all about binding oaths, while Cultivation is the Shard of curated growth. We've seen their limitations highlighted before - some have said that Honor was more concerned about oaths being made and kept regardless of the substance of those oaths, while a similar criticism of Cultivation is that she seems to prioritize growth and abundance for their own sake. Combined together, however, their influence involves empowering mortals who make and keep oaths, which are in turn formulated specifically to facilitate their emotional and spiritual growth. Nale is a pretty perfect example of the point I'm striving at, here - he has apparently progressed sufficiently through the Ideals to have ascended to the Fifth Ideal, but that hasn't prevented him from spearheading a pretty horrific and monstrous agenda. His killing of countless nascent surgebinders apparently doesn't conflict with his oaths (including the most foundational "life before death" of the First Ideal), because the Skybreakers interpret that oath so very, very differently from, say, our Windrunners. The various Orders diverge pretty dramatically beyond the First Ideal, and even differ greatly in terms of which actions they intuit as following naturally from the shared First Ideal. The different Orders bond with different kinds of spren, gain different surgebinding abilities, and swear different oaths after the first. We also have pretty stark evidence that even within the same order, the oaths can take slightly different forms depending on the personal interpretation and the spiritual needs of the individual swearing them - see how Teft's version of the Windrunner oaths differ from Kaladin's. Kaladin wasn't even aware of the specific wording of the First Ideal until he had progressed very nearly to the Second Ideal of the Windrunners, but that didn't slow his progress, because he had already sworn himself to a code of behavior that aligned with those ideals. All this is to point out that all the evidence suggests a huge amount of variance between different orders and even individuals as they progress through the Nahel bond. WoB confirms that different Orders gain access to different surges and benefits of the bond at different points during their journey. It seems pretty obvious that the Windrunner path involves a Shardblade at the Third ideal and plate at the Fourth, but Shallan obviously got access to a Shardblade much earlier and it's very possible that Dalinar won't ever gain access to a Shardblade simply because of the specific personality of the Stormfather that he has bonded with. While it's probably true that some kind of increase in power is going to be associated with ascending to the Fifth Ideal, I very much suspect that what happens at that point is going to vary pretty widely across orders and maybe even based on individual needs within the same order.
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  34. None of them speak with the same sounds beginning each word?! Why, what wicked witches with wintry wherewithal! Even enemies endorse excellent entertainment! These thickheaded theatrics throw them through the thrasher.
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  35. (With worldbuilding) The dumber you are, the more powers you have. Powers vary greatly, and are oftentimes random, akin to Epics. Trying to free themselves from enslavement of the geniuses, the dull have risen up and are revolting, using brute force to overpower the smarter people. But the smarter people have technology, and so the battle rages on. Yoga balls
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  36. The consumption of specific food items and beverages with specific intents in during the first bite will impart very specific powers. Each food item or beverage have a range of potential powers however no amount of thought can extend what you gain beyond the range. These powers temporary. They last only so long as you are consuming the item. Once you have acquired three powers you cannot gain more before replacing one. Articles of Clothing
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  37. Eat excrement to be able to transform into the creature whose excrement it is. Transformation is not permanent but some characteristics: mental or physical may remain if the magic is practiced frequently. Eg: eat a goat pellet, have the ability to transform into a goat, specifically of the same breed as the goat whose pellet you swallowed. After the transformation has ended, some temporary mental or physical effects may remain, for a time. But slowly & surely, if the practitioner keeps using that transformation again & again, characteristics take a deeper root. In the case of the goat practitioner, it could take the form of growing horns or hooves, multiple stomach chambers and need to eat grass or worse a compulsion to eat grass without the ability to completely digest it. In case that a practitioner specifically utilizes different transformations each time, the common characteristics between the animals start appearing. Regardless, too much use can wear down a practitioner's human intelligence. These effects don't necessarily have to be negative, entranced strength or senses or agility or longevity may also be achieved. But negative effects are just as likely: skittishness, desire to eat only grass or insects or a need to hunt, lack of inhibitions or becoming more easy to anger, loss of colour vision, animal instincts, inability to read human behavioural or social cues, different muscular structure, horns, inhuman eye colours, cloven hooves, tails, scales, body hair, etc. Staying in a transformed state too long might aggravate these problems, you might also get stuck or forget you were ever human or both. offering of food & drinks
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  38. A close up of my painting. Here's Vivenna and Nightblood! I was so excited to paint something bursting with colour after reading Warbreaker! I know Biochroma exits through the mouth, but artistic licence!
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  39. People like to have a character to hate. Moash just happens to be the perfect scapegoat for many, and once it caught on, it just became trendy. The Moash hate probably looks worse than it is because people simply enjoy hating on a character. I wouldn't read too deeply into it, a lot of it seems to be a joke anyway. So long as no one is mean to each other because of this, I think it isn't something one should worry about too much. Moash hate is simply trendy, and people like to bandwagon on hating their scapegoat character. However, harassing people who do like Moash is wrong and simply takes things too far. That is a no-no.
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  40. Controversial opinion time, I actually respect (grudgingly) the character of Moash. In a way, even more than the character for whom he is a foil i.e. Kaladin. Personally, I'm an atheist, and one of the reasons for that is the fact that religion as I was exposed to it at a young age, focused heavily on morality, and on an objective morality that exists whether or not we are here to experience it. That doesn't sit right with me and if anyone's interested, DM me I'll explain my views. But given I don't believe in an objective good and bad, I can look at Moash's actions and say - yeah that's fair. He said he wanted to kill the king, he explained why. his reasons, at least in a society where certain types of murder are at best frowned upon, make sense. And then he killed the king. Well yeah. Good on him. Get him a pint on me lad! Kal on the other hand. Says he wants a world where your eye colour doesn't matter. Proves himself loyal in ways that money (or shard blades) can't buy. And then gets thrown into jail cuz he's a dark eyes accusing a light eye. And upon being challenged by Dalinar for his actions says yeah ok I'll stay in jail cuz orders. That just makes me go - nope. This boy will be exactly the sort of guy that when faced with a choice between a world where eye colour doesn't matter but odium gets to win for a day or three, and a world where the human civilization can defeat odium so long as the eye colour dynamics stay exactly the same will end up saying yeah we'll fight that fight another day but you go down today Odium. And that is not my kinda hero. No sir. All of this is to say - these books have beautifully crafted a world in which the lines between heroes and villains is so subjective as to be divisive. And two people could agree on a certain 'hero' while disagreeing on other 'heroes'. The beauty is that we are forced to ask - is it so wrong that Moash did as he did. Or anyone else for that matter? And are we really applying a consistent standard for everyone or just making it up to what we want to see in the world. I guess that's the beauty and the price of writing such a genius story. We will all never agree on any individual aspect of it.
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  41. I agree. The Moash hate is... Weird. Everyone reacts so strongly to the Elhokar thing.. And I mean I get his motivations there, even if I disagree with them. They make sense in a very human way. What always get me with that is that At the end of WoR, no one cared much about Elhokar. Even in OB, his strides forward were motivated by bad reasons, and Hoid comments on it when talking to Shallan (before his death). He cares more about what people think of him as king then actually being a better man... But you've got to start somewhere and with time (and Truths) that probably would have led to a more genuine change. But Elhokar's transformation to everyone's favorite sob moment was intentional. It was a masterwork in Brandon's writing because he made everyone furious about Moash's "betrayal" in... Doing exactly what he has said he wanted to do... Against a character who's death wouldn't have bothered anyone a book before. Good work Brandon. Where I actually take issue with Moash is with his killing of Jezrien. While his motivations with Elhokar were flawed in basis and morality, with Jezrien he had no personal stake. He knew nothing about the man. He just stabbed where he was pointed. He's given up his autonomy to become a dog on a leash. All that said, if he were to snap out of it and want to change, I wouldn't reject that arc... I just dread the idea of a Vader moment in which he has a change of heart and dies saving everyone, because that feels cheap. Whatever happens, the "storm Moash" crowd is... Weird, and as long as it's just jokes, whatever... But in the events that people actually insult and verbally attack people for liking Moash that's intolerable.
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  42. I get what you're saying, and you do have a point, but I think you're vastly overstating the similarity between Kaladin's and Moash's "betrayals". The whole crisis for Kaladin in the second book deals with the meaning of "protecting". Protecting, like attacking someone in aggression, is an ACTION: you deliberately put yourself in harm's way, between a threat and its intended target. Kaladin sympathized with Moash's bitterness towards Elhokar, and had it compounded by his own when he learned that another outcome of the "Roshone Affair" that led to the imprisonment and death of Moash's grandparents is what ruined Kaladin's life in Hearthstone as well, including conscripting Tien into Amaram's army. So he was swayed to believe there was a "third path": to attack, to protect, and to step back. So long as he was not present when Elhokar was attacked, he reasoned, he could not be blamed for not protecting him. Who would know he could have done so? The answer, of course, is that HE himself would know, and did know. That dissonance is what killed Syl. And he did intervene, despite having no Stormlight, to prepare to die in defense of Elhokar. Now, does he owe Dalinar or anyone other than Syl an apology, confession, explanation, etc.? That's an interesting question. Other members of Bridge Four were aware of Kaladin's (temporary) loss of Surgebinding. Eventually, if any other Radiant "backslides" on their Ideals and loses their Nahel bond, Dalinar may put two and two together about the way that "Stormblessed" got all busted up getting out of the chasm with Shallan yet didn't heal with Stormlight until days later, implying something similar had happened, and then recalling how Kaladin came back to save him from Szeth just after saving Elhokar from the attack. Or, I suspect Navani or Jasnah might want to collect and document the progression of Ideals from their current crop of Radiants, similar to some of what they found in the recordings at Urithiru, and put Kaladin on the spot as to how and when he gained his Shardblade. Given what happened later I'm sure Dalinar et al. would "forgive" Kaladin, but I bet the details of that will come out eventually. If it waits until Moash publicly outs him in a climactic moment, that could be very painful for Kaladin. But, I don't think it compares at all to Moash's betrayal, which is far more personal. Kaladin was guilty of moral cowardice, and realized and repented of it in time to prevent Elhokar's assassination. Both Kaladin and Moash had betrayed the duty of guarding the king, and Moash throws that in Kaladin's face ("and you're different?" -- "No, I'm not. But I'm trying to change that.") However, Kaladin had originally explicitly told Moash, as a direct order, to stop meeting with Graves and co. and to break off his plans with them. Which Moash disobeyed. That betrayal was pretty damning, until Kaladin found out that Roshone was at the center of both of their grudges, and was momentarily willing to let the plot go on... And he changed his mind. That, I think, is Kaladin's right. I think holding onto vengeance, repaying for the death of his grandparents, over the friendship and loyalty he owes a living man who he owes his own life in Kaladin - even going so far as to move to kill him - is far, far worse than Kaladin's dereliction of duty. Valuing vengeance over the life of his friend, his "captain, forever", who'd saved his life in the bridge crews, trained him, and made him a Shardbearer with a gift of Shards that Moash hadn't earned in any way, other than friendship and loyalty? And to kill him with those selfsame Shards? It's the exact reversal of "Life before Death", isn't it? Not "dope" at all. And it's not like Kaladin was telling Moash to "let go of your anger" or some Jedi thing. He said he'd discovered the true culprit wasn't Elhokar but Roshone, and that they could both seek justice against him. Moash didn't listen.
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  43. a princedusty original
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  44. I've been looking at the writing around this map: I've isolated the writing here, and adjusted the levels to improve readability. Because the regions outlined on the map are pretty close approximations of the Silver Kingdoms (albeit distorted ones), I've been working under the hypothesis that the writing translates as the names of those kingdoms, so that's how I've labeled them. My first observations are that the language appears to use a lot of diacritics, and that either the first or last letter of each word (depending on reading direction) seems to be rotated or modified so that a trailing end of it strikes through the rest of the word. The easiest to read, assuming I'm right about the translations, seems to be Natanatan: There is a mark over the last (or first) 'N' which might be a diacritic of some kind, but which I'm unable to guess the meaning of. Regardless, I think this is looks to be about right. I've done some work at identifying characters in the other words, but Natanatan is the only one I've got anything close to a complete idea of. I'll try and post everything I have later, but hopefully this will be useful for now.
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