Archer

I'm too scared to look... Blankets. I'm pregnant, and- Despite being a hardcore Canadian, I am absolutely obsessed with the podcast This American Life. It's outstanding. Cookies and cream, Chocolate, and Strawberry. Shout-out to Chapman's for being the most amazing ice cream company ever. Xave, because the world needs more words that start with X. It would be a grey/violet. Friends! Because a friend is a friend 'til the end. *struggles to answer this question* It keeps changing. Right now, I'd say the 2011 Tintin movie. R2D2! Bacon. It's more versatile. I don't think Cheez-its are sold in my country. If they are, I've never seen one. So, Cheetos. Candy Store, from Heathers the Musical. Great musical, if a little heavy on the swearing. I was going to say deaf for sure, but then I realized I'd never get the chance to hear music. By blindness is more debilitating. So I'd rather be deaf. Her's was something along the lines of 'to remain the same forever'. The bane was to 'have a name that translate to elevator in the UK'. To have all the powers, abilities, and resources as the main character from Doctor Who. I'd probably get slapped with a bane along the lines of 'people will never remember you.' I'm a huge Wolverine fan, so I always choose him. Batman's good too. As is Iceman. My least favoruite (popular ones) are Angel, Jubilee, Rouge, and Cyclops. And Superman, obviously.

Clay watched in astonishment as the bomb flew away. "Not how I would have done it," he said, still sounding slightly awed. "I didn't see who planted it here. I'm not getting any feelings, so it probably wasn't the butler. I will note, however, that Yzabet has been suspiciously absent recently." He waved his hands dramatically to illustrate his point, and to steal the dun spheres from the counter. "Think about it. She had the opportunity. And maybe the means. But no motive. Hmmm." He handed the spheres to Mr. Amber as payment, then helped himself to one of his chocolate bars. "It's a real mystery. These kind of things usually end badly for minor characters, so I'm going to avoid the investigation at all costs. Yup, I'll just sit here eating this delicious chocolate, completely unthreatening."

Umm. ... *nervously avoids eye contact* Ankle who? Never heard of him. But he sounds like a great guy. Wow, I'm hungry. Who wants cookies? Good talk, nothing to see here. Cheers! *slams door* I don't think he noticed anything. Of course he did. He knows! He can't suspect us. My performance was flawless. He suspects us. You have to- No, no, no. Not doing that. You must... Woah there Mister Demandy Pants! Who's the spren here? That's right, I call the shots. No, I do. I do. I do. Do not. *boop* Ha! I win. You're ancient history, Anklesaurus. ... I'm still hungry.

Mr. Amber was saying something, but it didn't sound important to Clay. When the man ended his sentence and stared at Clay expectantly, Clay just nodded. "Umm, deal. More chocolate you say? I'm cool with that. Just let me finish this." Something wasn't right. He was sensing something. It was extremely distracting. Stress eating entire bars of chocolate as he walked, Clay followed the feeling. It was like trying to find a hidden radio. He could sense it easily enough, but it was hard to find its exact location. Huffing in frustration, he threw open one of the door along the hall and looked inside. It was too dark to easily see much, so he stepped into the room. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screamed the room's occupant. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screamed the surprised Clay. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screamed Kicker, who had come to beg Clay for chocolate. Two minutes and a lengthy apology later, Clay was back in the hallway. He was pacing back and forth in front of another room's door. When he moved from side to side, the direction of the feeling changed. Confident that he was in the right place this time, he threw open the door and burst inside. As he threw open the door, it broke a tripwire attached to a rather large bomb. It interrupted the bomb's normal sequence. A new, two minute, countdown appeared on the bomb's casing. It flashed, then began to count down towards zero. "Oops." Clay said. Like any good hero, he rushed over to the bomb and began to inspect it. "No, no, no, no. C'mon people! What is this? Amateur hour?" Sighing, he ripped off the access panel on the back of the bomb. "Why do you even need a countdown? You're already long gone. I could run this to the woods and back by the time this thing goes off. And what's this? Two wires?" Indeed, the inside of the bomb was entirely comprised of two wires. One was red, the other was blue. "That doesn't even make sense! How does the clock work? And what actually makes it explode? There's no C4, no TNT... Yet, if I let this piece of junk finish its countdown it's still going to blow up and kill us all. Great. Woop de doo. I really wish I hadn't spent so much time talking." Kicker snorted, then kicked the box of chocolate towards him. "Yeah, yeah, I know. The solution is going to be to use the chocolate to mess up the explosive. Or maybe the chocolate wrappers can magically rewire the bomb to blow bubbles instead." Clay groaned in frustration. "Not this time. YOU HEAR ME, WORLD? NOT THIS TIME!" Clay picked up the bomb and casually walked out the door. Kicker neighed apprehensively. "What, you think the timer is going to run out? We could drag this thing out for ten minutes, and the clock will still stop with a second to spare. Trust me, I've done this far too many times." Clay walked down the hall, returning to where he'd started. "I've found a bomb," he announced to the crowd of Waystop guests. "Nobody look at the timer. That will just make it count down faster." He placed it down on the carpet. "I could defuse it, but it's funner if I don't. Y'all can make this a teambuilding exercise or something." My bet's on the tall one to run first.

I'm not in I'm in Hufflepuff. And no, I am not under any illusions that my house is the best. We suck at quidditch, our mascot is an overgrown rat, and we're equivalent of the Hermes Cabin of Hogwarts. *sigh* I hope you're using graphite. Lead's poisonous. You shouldn't be using 0.5 or 0.7 lead. Hamlet's vision of a dagger. Four o'clock sharp. Eastern Standard Time (regardless of where in the world you are). Moist. *shudders* Followed by all those faux amis. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've misused excite. Pine. I prefer its colour. No. And, possibly/probably. I don't remember many of my dreams. Black. *Googles Benin* I'd choose Eweka I. I'd pretend to make a discovery, then make an inside joke. I'd probably be executed by the end of the day. (Thank you for giving me the excuse to go Wikipediaing. )

Clay raised his hand, then waved it enthusiastically. "Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Amber! Yzabet asked me to taste every bar of chocolate in the Waystop. Weird request, I know, but who am I too question the boss? If you could just point me in the direction of your chocolate, I'd like to get started on that right away."

Illustration of one off Kelsier's (off-screen) planning sessions in Secret History. Alas, the scene never existed was deleted in the final version of the book.

Clay and Kicker quietly slipped into the room to watch the show. He was eating some freshly baked bread from the kitchen. "Two crysts says he's using allomancy," Clay whispered to his horse. Kicker responded with a look that seemed to say, You're on. If he was Steelpushing he wouldn't have cut himself. As Ioc juggled, Clay made a mental note of what the knives looked like. If someone got stabbed later, he'd have a suspect. Or, if he needed to murder someone later, he could frame the man by using a similar weapon to stab the victim. Kicker snorted. "You're right," Clay responded, eyes still fixed on the whirling blades. "It's probably just a distraction." He tore his eyes away to scan the room for anyone trying to pick his pocket. I'm acting too much like Mace. I've got to lighten up. Clay pulled a banjo from his bag and began to pluck its strings ominously in time with the movement of the blades. When people started giving him annoyed looks, he transitioned into playing Fucik's Entry of the Gladiators. He didn't know much about entertainment culture in these parts, but someone had told him once that playing upbeat songs improved any performance.

1. Marvel is infinitely better. In every way. I've seen people try to argue that DC makes better TV shows, but I disagree. The biggest thing DC has going or them is Batman. I love Batman. The rest of the JLA? Meh. I'll still read their comics and watch their shows, but their characters aren't as good. *looks pointedly at Superman and co.* Marvel has tons of great heroes, settings, plots, and arcs. They make good comics, cartoons, movies, and TV shows. A few favoruites are Wolverine, Spiderman, Banner Hulk, Fury, Iceman, and Cable. And that's just the heroes. I like Magneto, the Phoenix, and those fine folks from AIM and Hydra too, just to name a few. 2. What do you mean, an African or European Swallow? I can swallow pretty quickly. I'd say about 30m/s. 3. So this guy sees an object is blue? And everything is blue for him and himself and everybody around? It's 'cause he ain't got nobody to listen. I'm blue.... 4. Tolkien died in 1973. Pokémon was invented in 1996. Therefore, Tolkien would be incredibly confused by the format. Brandon, having grown up in a world with Pokémon, would understand the concept. This would put Brandon in a better position to win. Plus, he has the advantage of having read his opponent's books, so he'll know what to expect. My money would be on Brandon to win.

True story: *listening to Shardcast* Eric: Check out our website, seventeenth shard dot com! Me: What? There's another website? .... Me: Oh. I was very concerned for about two seconds that I'd have to make another account to go with my ones for the Arcanum, the Coppermind, and the Shard.

I don't think most people would do this. The timing would be incredibly difficult to get right. People cherish their Breath. Since no one wants to give away their Breath until the very last moment, many would wait a little too long and die before saying the words. There would always be the nagging doubt that you might recover, then live the rest of your life as a Drab. Optimists or selfish people would likely die without relinquishing their Breath. It's for the same reason that most people don't give up their possessions before they die. True, possessions continue to exist after you're gone, but the same sense of finality applies. Once you give away your stuff, there's no going back. You would have to accept that you're going to die soon, and be responsible enough to want to leave a positive legacy. I just can't envision many people acting that way. (A notable exception would be suicidal people, but they'd have different motivations.) Unfortunately, I can imagine people abusing their position to gather breaths. Doctors, as the last people a patient would see before their death, would try to isolate them, then pressure them to give up their Breath. An intentional misdiagnosis to make them believe they're very near death, maybe a promise to give the Breath to their family later... The same strategy would work for predatory grandchildren, aggressive palliative care workers, and smooth talking murderers (. Even people who are abusive and dominating in relationships could probably pull it off. Religious and superstitious people would be easier to steal Breath from. If you were reasonably handsome looking, you could dress up as a Returned, then travel the countryside compelling people to bow down to you and give you their Breaths. The con wouldn't work if people knew the going rate for their Breath, but I'm sure a few farmers would get tricked. If the people were really easily fooled, starting a cult or pyramid scheme might also work. Breath farming could also become a thing. I'd estimate that with a specific education, children could learn to give away their Breath by the age of three or four. You could mass produce children, assuming the costs of raising them could be lowered to less than the value of a Breath. But if Breaths lowered in value, an easy way to increase it would be to kill a large amount of people. Invasions, fires, artificially created droughts, any number of tactics could produce the desired result. Naturally, people would be aware of this kind of thing, and therefore be wary of ever giving up their Breath. I agree that slavery and mistreatment of children would likely be rampant. The government would have to be incredibly vigilant to prevent it. The protection issue would depend on the value of the prostitute, and how much pregnancy would interfere with their ability to do their job. The loss of them not being able to work might be too much, especially considering you only get a return on your investment if the child survives the birth and childhood. Plus, the mother might die in childbirth. That would be unfortunate. EDIT: Do you think that parents sit down with their kids and have The Talk about Breaths? While you're telling them about sex and relationships, would you also talk about their Breath? It would open them up to predation, as ignorance would prevent them from having the intent necessary to give it away. However, if a someone gave them a rundown on how Breath works, then bullied them into giving their's up, then you've failed as a parent. (To avoid this, you could have your child give up their Breath early, but they might be bullied because of it.) And as we know, whenever kids hear their parents tell them not to do something, they want to try it. So, you'd have to figure out how mature your child is, but not jump the gun.... In conclusion, being a parent is hard. *Disclaimer: Pretty much everything discussed in this post in morally wrong. Don't try it at home. It won't work anyway because you don't live on Nalthis.

Sorry, I don't buy stuff at the door. If you try and send any of them my way, I'll just slam the door in their face. *mutters about snake oil salesmen*

Clay slunk away dejectedly. The wizard hadn't fallen for his clever trap. Don't blame yourself, a voice said. Clay ignored it, because listening to strange voices was for crazy people. He quickly made his way down the hall, and back to his room. He stepped over the splintered remains of the door to find Kicker grazing on the carpet. "Did you do this?" Clay demanded, gesturing at wood chips. Kicker just snorted. "Next time, I'm booking you a separate room. You make such a mess. It's infuriating." The horse didn't reply. "It's about time we had some food. But you can't go out looking like that. You haven't brushed your tail in days." Kicker groaned as Clay reached into his bag. "That's right, you're wearing the uniform. Quit complaining, the sooner you get dressed, the sooner we can eat." Five minutes later, Clay exited the room, accompanied by what appeared to be a prison guard. Inexplicably, the stranger's uniform fit them perfectly. It even came with a cap that cast an unusually large shadow over their face, making it difficult to identify them until they got within punching range. The two of them strolled down to the kitchen. When they arrived, Clay knocked on the door and peeked his head inside. "Excuse me, my friend and I were wondering if dinner is ready. I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse." Clay winked for no apparent reason. His partner just snorted.

My only regret is that I don't have any popcorn to munch on while I scroll through that thread.

Yes, I can! Not very accurately, but I've got the whole 'pull on the string, then release' part down. At camp, I once hit one of those circle targets from five meters away. So yeah, I'm a pro. Unless you meant, 'can I hit a bow?'. If I had a rifle or some other projectile weapon, I could probably shoot at and hit a bow at close range. Assuming it wasn't moving. And I had unlimited shots.

*finishes going through all 21 notifications* *gets two more* *rage quits* THESE OATHS ARE ACCEPTED @The Awakened Sloth. Thanks for the ping BB!

Woot! Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and to Ax, Matias, and Ark for making some amazing roasts! I look forward to seeing how the next rounds go. Good luck, everyone!

Room 211-A, nothing to do with the alarm for a robbery. Clay grimaced. He was getting a feeling that something very, very cliché was happening. "Don't kick anyone I wouldn't kick," he called to his horse as he dashed out the door and down the hall. He followed his instincts, pushing past other patrons to get to the source of his distress. Then he saw it. A wizened, ornately dressed, magic-spewing wizard. Clay groaned. Why is it always a wizard? When he had regained his composure, he quietly entered the room while the wizard was distracted talking to Laurelai. He pulled out his lasso, and tied it to the handle of a broom he found lying in the corner. He then tipped over a box of potatoes, emptying it. He placed the empty box upside down, propped up at one end with the broom. As bait, he placed a magic wand from his bag in the shadow of his trap. Then he hid behind a nearby table and waited, rope in hand, for the wizard to wander into his trap. Wizards can never resist a wand.

Thanks! Surely there was something accurate in there... *rereads roast* Nope. Nope. Looks like pretty much everything except for the pewter dragging bit was exaggerated. Jak sure sucks at getting the facts straight.

Thanks, both of you! I'm really glad you liked it.

Great roasts so far everyone! Here’s my submission, using the character Allomancer Jak. WARNING! There may be spoilers for the Stormlight Archive, Mistborn: Secret History, and Mistborn Eras 1 and 2. Maybe.

Kicker snorted. Humans, he thought scornfully to himself. He shifted his weight to the front, preparing to lash out with his feet. Face or chest? How about both? "Kicker! Down, boy!" Clay sharply shouted. "No kicking strangers. We've been over this." Clay put the rest of their supplies on the bed, then hurried over to the doorway. He reached an arm up to gently stroke Kicker's neck. "There, there. Don't be sad. If they turn out to be mean, I'll let you kick them later," he whispered softly in the horses ear. He then turned to face his guests. "Hi there. I'm Clay!" he said. He gestured for them to come in. "I'd offer you something to drink, but all I've got is water. And I'm not entirely positive it hasn't been poisoned. I should know in a week or two." He shrugged, then took a swig from his canteen as he sat down on the bed. "This is Kicker. Now tell me, who are you, and what brings you here?"

Near the entrance: Clay nodded gratefully to Yzabet. "It's okay, keep the change," he said. Breaking off the conversation he quickly exited the building. He'd forgotten about his horse. "Kicker!" he called. Moments later the horse burst out of the bushes and trotted over to him. Clay breathed a sigh of relief. He should have taken more precautions in case there were horse thieves about. "I got us a room. C'mon," he instructed. Taking him by the reigns, he led him into the Waystop, down the hall, and into their room. "Dibs on the bed. You can sleep by the door." With that, he began to unpack their belongings.