FeatherWriter

Fun fact... I have changed some of my pronunciations since recording these. (Like I said, I started rereading it aloud to my housemates and found a few I wanted to trade around.) My pronunciations are constantly in a state of flux, it seems. I'm always trading them out... Elend and Sazed in particular are now different for me. "Elend" sounds a lot more like "melon" or "felon" now, with the stress on the first syllable. Sazed is now more like "SAY-zed" rather than the way I was saying it, "suh-ZED". Both of those come from hearing the way Brandon said it and trying to match. I ought to rerecord my old pronunciation meme of the way I say everyone's names now...

Yeah. I actually started rereading the original Mistborn Trilogy to my housemates since finishing Secret History and that scene in particular was difficult to read after this perspective. Dockson... :c

There's the thread you were probably thinking of, Delightful. Funnily enough, it seems that Quiver was the one to start that one as well, a little over two years ago! I didn't go reread that whole thread, but I seem to remember making points towards how fanfiction can be incredibly exploratory and explanatory. People talk about it's "training wheels" or it's "harmless fun before you work on real things" and yet I feel like there are many ways that fanfiction can contribute great value as a writer and as a fan. It all depends on what kind of story you're writing and what you want it to convey. For me, a lot of my fics take a character that I've put a lot of thought into understanding and try to display some of the conclusions I've come to about who they are as a person, the kinds of crises I feel like they struggle with. It's one thing for me to write out a dissertation on why I think Renarin is great. It's entirely another when I can set up a scene and, by writing him in-character, show a reader why I think he's great. I think it takes chops to both conceive the proper kind of situation to write as well as maintaining the integrity of the character. When another fan reads my work, I want them to recognize the characters I write and be able to connect that character's actions, motivations, and ideas back to what we've seen in canon. I tend to have a lot of complex thoughts about characters and their motivations and I often write fic to untangle those ideas and share them with other people. Sure, I could just write out my thoughts, but there's something powerfully creative in taking the reins on a character you're invested in and seeing if you can make everything mesh. There's a similar thought process behind things like AUs and crossovers. Crossovers and AUs feel more like a puzzle or a game to me, and I love it. How can I take this character out of their original context and recreate them with these new tools. What kind of person would they be in this world? What kinds of aspects of this world would shape them into who they are? How can we change their backstory and situation to make them fit, while still retaining the core of who that character is. Again, it comes down to motivations to me. If I put Renarin in the Dragon Age universe, he won't be a secret Radiant anymore... but maybe he'd be a secret apostate mage. If Tien doesn't get conscripted into the army for Kaladin to follow and protect him... maybe Tien got taken to a Circle and Kaladin volunteered to join the Templars to protect him instead. If Shallan is no longer a Lightweaver from a minor Veden house... maybe she would be an Orlesian bard, sneaking through the night. What about Marvel's Asgard? What if the Kholins were actually Asgardian, and Shallan took more of Jane Foster's role, the mortal human studying with one and being fascinated by their culture? Rather than trying to get to the Shattered Plains, what if Shallan was trying to figure out how to get to Asgard and tell Jasnah's family that she'd been killed? Anyway, there's so many other amazing things that I feel like fanfic can accomplish and explore, but this is already long and I'm running out of writing steam. Long story short, fanfic's great and a worthy fannish endeavor for all.

Aaaaand there we go. As Maxal is the Adolin expert, I'll defer to her expertise. I did warn that I'm really bad at assigning MBTI, right? Heh.

It was more difficult than I would have thought, actually, despite the fact I'm rather obsessive about him. I'm going to lay the blame for that at the feet of someone who decided we haven't yet needed any Renarin POV in canon. My kingdom for a Renarin POV, honestly. Brandon, ya killin' me.

So, I'll admit straight up that I'm pretty terrible at just assigning MBTI types to characters. I know my own (INFP) but it's often difficult for me to choose the letters, even for characters that I know well. Therefore, I decided to cheat. I took the sorting test while answering as I feel Renarin would have. Results were fairly conclusive: INFJ. This website calls it "The Advocate." The question seems to come down to whether or not Renarin's a J or a P, but in testing, the results gave me 85% Judging. He seems to me to be a person who is far more in favor of planning and structure, whereas Adolin is far more 'go with the flow' Perceiving. This description paragraph in particular struck me: Sound like a certain duel or chasmfiend attack to anyone? Renarin catches flack from people sometimes for trying to help in ways that do more damage than good, and that description above pretty much nails it. Advocates are also noted to be exceptionally good at "seeing through dishonesty and disingenuous motives, Advocates step past manipulation and sales tactics and into a more honest discussion" which amused me for our Truthwatcher.

You know, I don't think I was specifically remembering that it was from the Avengers, but I am a pretty big Avengers fan, so that's probably where I got it. I agree with the concept though, quite wholeheartedly!

So, this little theory is in need of an update. How about that Bands of Mourning and Secret History, y'all? Whew. As we are in the Stormlight boards, this discussion needs spoiler tags. Be warned, this folder contains spoilers for both Secret History and Bands of Mourning. I'll update the actual theory post up there soon, but for now I wanted to get down some information about how I feel this theory looks going forward with this new information. I'm sanguine about all this, guys. Also, because I can't help but brag: Hehehehehehehe. Called it. And almost 2 years early, too. It wasn't in Stormlight (yet) but I totally nailed that this is a kind of story that Brandon would tell.

Radiants can probably do this same trick, since there probably aren't too many people who know that they can summon instantaneously. Not that Surgebinders really need more advantages in battle against regular people...

Quick moderator note: This topic is in the Cosmere Theories board, and spoiler tags are not required here. Members can use them if they wish, but perusing topics in this board is done at one's own risk.

If I remember correctly, the one thing you can't soulcast is gemstones. Gemstones are used up in the process of soulcasting, which is why it can't be used to make more.

Okay listen, I'm not saying that I've written Iyatil/Mraize/Veil fic in the past, but...

Maxal's right, I believe. Though we have seen a pain-reducing fabrial, I seem to remember it being rather spiderlike in construction. A thing of legs that clamped down around the pained area. In fact, I should go see... But I think I remember Navani actually offering to use it on Renarin first, who turned it down, as he didn't have any major pains to speak of at the moment. Adolin took her up because he was sore from practice, right? Lemme go find it... Ha! I would like to dedicate this quoting to "I have spent far too much time reading chapters that Renarin is in" thank you very much. Also important in this passage: the seeds of my Engineer/Aritfabrian Renarin pet theories. Lookit how good and curious and scholarly he is. <3

Har har. I never know how far tales of my Renarin-insanity have spread. Surely there are still Sharders who have yet to witness my obsession in all its glory...

Allomancy is probably my fave magic just because of its physical precision. Surgebinding comes close, but we just don't know quite as much about it. Fights between two Mistborn are just so incredibly interesting, though. That said, Stormlight is my fave series, and Renarin Kholin is my favorite character from anything ever, not just the Cosmere.

Don't mind me, I'm just going to sit over here in awe. @sheep I know you said that you're a "shipper who should be exiled to tumblr" which leads me to ask... do you already have a tumblr? And if so, can I apologize for the fact that I am not already following you and sticking all of your fanart on Adonalsium? BECAUSE IT'S SO GOOD. I NEED ALL OF IT ON ADO. I love your Veil in particular. It was one of those moments where the illustration wasn't what I had pictured in my head but my brain went "oh no, wait, that's better." And as a terrible Mraize/Veil shipper I'm just going to use that interpretation from now on in my head thanks.

Yeah, I'll admit, while I don't think Renarin would ever really intentionally go "evil"... that doesn't necessarily mean he might never become an antagonist. I mean, even aside from the fact that he has a lot of very obvious physical and emotional vulnerabilities that could be exploited by manipulative force or person, there's the simple fact that Renarin doesn't necessarily have to comply. I mean, we've already seen firsthand: Renarin losing control of himself as visions of doom take him over and force him to scrawl prophecies on the ground as he screams, literally, "Almighty, why have you cursed me so?" There's a good chance he could be used by evil forces regardless of whether he wants to or not. Or an evil force could be controlling the visions. Dalinar was fearful of that: he didn't want to trust his own visions until he could be sure where they were coming from, afraid that someone was manipulating him. I mean, for those of you who have watched Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda Maximoff is a stellar example of how showing someone visions of their worst fears and "darkest timeline" futures is a good way to A.) manipulate them into doing whatever you want, or B.) causing them to make really bad decisions in the name of a presumed 'greater good.' (Also I am a sucker for both plots that have mind control and plots that have good people being manipulated into doing very bad things, so I'll be happy if either of those happen. And by "happy" I mean, screaming in tearful anguish through every page while lamenting that I will never achieve such levels of pure evil, myself. Brandon is an inspiration to evil monsters everywhere.)

On the subject of what might happen with Renarin in the future, I think the future sight is going to make a lot of Vorin people dislike/suspect/hate him, which he's already very insecure about. I mean, I think his fellow Radiants and family will support and try to protect, but having people as a whole turn against him would be a plausible source of conflict. I'd guess this is maybe why the Truthwatchers were reclusive, and if anything, Renarin will probably be even less comfortable being out in public than he was before, if his status as a Radiant is known. Then again, if my suspicions regarding his future-sight are correct, and they aren't (or at least, aren't entirely) Surgebinding, he might find himself without support from the other Radiants. Brandon has been exceptionally cagey about confirming one way or another that Renarin's visions are Truthwatcher powers, and I'm pretty much convinced they're not. I once wrote a fic where Renarin became Odium's Champion (because I'm a monster who enjoys suffering). I'm somewhat terrified that it seems to be less a "horrible AU idea" and more "actually plausible outcome" the more I think about it. (I love my smol son and he goes through so much and he doesn't deserve this and just needs love and hugs and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)

Funnily enough, if Glys and Renarin are far enough in their bond that Glys could manifest as a blade, Renarin might be one of the only people on Roshar who has the opportunity to dual wield. Though, I assume the screams would keep him from wanting to attempt such a thing.

Alright, I'll throw my personal favorite into the ring: Connector Diplomat. Store some Feruchemical connection, travel to far off lands, tap and instantly become a fluent speaker who's great at meeting people. Honestly, the ability to speak a land's language as though you'd grown up there yourself is the most interesting ability to me. That's my dream, honestly. Gimme. Other cool misting jobs: I was once in a modern-day Scadrial RP where there was a Pulser who worked on a bomb squad. He went in, popped up a bubble and then set to work diffusing the bomb. Gave everyone on the outside time to evacuate or go get more help in case he couldn't do it himself. That's probably one of my favorite Pulser jobs I've seen.

It's hard to say definitively. We only see one of his visions, during the Everstorm, but if the others were anything like what he went through in that room with Shallan, I would say he appeared to be aware of himself, but not in control of himself during these visions. Maybe the others were different, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say they were probably similar to the one during the Everstorm, so he'd know it was him.

For me, having just written a lengthy thing about this in another topic, I think Renarin's future sight will likely be the largest hurdle in their relationship going forward. Even when Adolin thinks Dalinar is the one making the marks, he's clearly very uncomfortable with anything resembling prophecy, and he says so, outright. It's one thing when you think it's your very confident, very in-control father going through this who has the strength of presence to tell you that it's all right and will be okay. It's entirely another when it's your nervous, shy younger brother that everyone has said something was wrong with all your life. Considering how horrific and involuntary Renarin's experience was during the vision in the Everstorm, I think if Adolin ended up seeing his brother like that, in the midst of the visions' throes, he'd have a very hard time with it.