Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Long time no update, but I have finished all of the Path To Ascendancy books, and they definitely are good. The character dynamic between Kellanved and Dancer is really fun. I was a bit disappointed with Dassem Ultor's backstory, but he's still a great character and his brief romance was well handled. But more importantly, I am cruising through my re-read/re-listen to Malazan Book of the Fallen. Gardens of the Moon is such an amazing book! It's crazy how much of the full story is in the first volume. I loved Deadhouse Gates the 2nd time through, it's a lot stronger book than I remember it being. Also, there's one point where Felisin is making predictions when she opens the book of Prophecy, and she makes a prediction about Karsa which I think will be played out in the Witness Trilogy (based on Erickson's statement on his website that Witness is really the consequences of Karsa's actions catching up to him). I'll edit this post later and add the exact quote, pretty interesting though. Memory of Ice, is, of course amazing, but the real reason I am posting is because of a line from House of Chains. It's when Trull and Onrack are investigating the hound statues and talking about the power behind the Edur, and Onrack is going on about how the Crippled God is either going to abandon the Edur after they are no longer useful to him or destroy them outright, and Trull says: "There is the unpleasant ring of truth to your words, Onrack". To which, Onrack replies: "I am generally unpleasant, Trull Sengar". "So I am learning", Trull replies. So good.

Granted! Attached to your wrist is a steel braided cable that extends up to a mylar balloon containing your megaton of helium. The megaton of helium (1 billion kgs of it) has a volume of 5.6 billion m^3, which means that the mylar balloon you are attached to has a diameter of 2.93 miles. Unfortunately, you have precious little time to enjoy your helium as you rocket up to the airless expanse of the stratosphere attached to a balloon that's nearly twice as wide as the Golden gate bridge, and that has a lifting force capable of lifting 441 million pounds (which incidentally is enough to lift you and 100 blue whales). I wish that blue whales would start sightseeing using derigibles with glass walled, copper strutted steam-punk style conveyances.

Turn back time, 300 baud modem... paying 15 dollars a month to do daily polls of message boards . Crazy. Ahhh, to pay 50 cents to transfer 3k of data, or buy 16 bit-o-honeys or 50 jolly ranchers. Here is the soundtrack of nostalgia:

Awakening is the perfect art for cartoonists, and as such I think it would be nice to have a place to put cartoons about awakened items that are rendered in a cartoony manner. Cartooning is not just about the drawing, even if you aren't a cartoonist, feel free to add suggestions for what you would like to see an awakened cartoon version of. Would probably work best if you are specific, by saying something like "A Banana, awakened with the command 'Go Skinny Dipping'" or some such. To start this off here are a couple of awakened objects rendered in cartoon form: 1. Mustache: "Feed Me" 2. Match stick man: "Light the Fuse" (spoilered because it's an animated gif) 3. Glove: "Be a cutie-pie-'lil boon companion" (some of the cute things Glovey the Awakened glove does):

Granted! After you make your wish a balloon shaped like a chull and obviously filled with helium drifts out from behind some foliage. Attached to the balloon by a thin string is a box that appears to made from soulcast metal leaves, cleverly joined and hinged at the top. The Nightwatcher beckons for you to take the box from the very light bringer of the box. As you open the lid, your're dazzled by the brilliant sapphire blue light pouring from the box. Your heart races in anticipation, finally a blue seed crystal will be yours! Unfortunately as your eyes adjust, you find that it is merely a small chunk of sapphire, shaped like a sesame seed that has been infused with stormlight. The Nightwatcher's luminous eyes then blaze as your bane is visited upon you. You now have puppy heads for hands and cat heads for feet. The upside is you can get puppy kisses anytime you want and mice run away in terror at your approach. I wish I had puppy breath.

Interesting pairing, I would say that it comes done to a couple of things, spoilered below because it has some spoilers for Malazan Book of the Fallen (safe to read if you've read up through Toll of the Hounds) and Oathbringer spoilers. Don't know if you're Malazan obsessed or not Aon Ati, but if you like deep dives into Malazan related stuff, there's a great thread started by @Ammanas: Would be interested to see how some of the regulars on the Malazan thread think this match would go down, how about it @AngelEy3, @officiumdefunctorum, and @Orlion the Platypus?

Right after you said that Warform comes with built in umbrellas, this image popped into my head. Brilliant! I also like imagining them being able to open and close their umbrellas by furrowing and unfurrowing their brows. So if you startle a singer in Warform, by sneaking up behind them and saying "Boo", their umbrella would pop open and hilarity would ensue.

Great Podcast! Since this podcast covered the songs of Listing and Revision, I didn't think it was going to be that informative, but as per usual you guys had some great analysis. In honor of @Argent's penchant for homonym hilarity, here's a little picture of Warform with the built in carapace Umbrella: The Warform singer can collapse/open their carapace Umbrella using their frontalis forehead muscles, and keeps their hair and beard dry even during a High Storm. So the Singer ladies can have super dry beards...

Sorry to interrupt the raging dog debate, but I have been drawing a lot of zombie squirrels, and I think this is a pretty good design for Fallen Rope, the scourge of the Court of Gods: Soon to appear in the Cosmere spinoff, The Squeaking Dead.

Here's a little sketch of what is, without a doubt, the cutest thing in the Cosmere, Vasher's awakened lifeless squirrel, Fallen Rope (that's the command phrase, so might as well call this little cutie that). Awakened with the command "Run around. Make noise. Bite things which aren't me." I think Zahel would be great at kids' birthday parties.

Looks great, only I think this might be Towelenel, Herald of the Beefcakes (or would that be Chullcakes?) Your Kaza drawing is amazing, some really nice line work in that one. I think it might even be my favorite of your drawings.

Picking up the marble, which had but moments before flashed with a brilliant internal burst of light, the young Andy Nolsium felt the internal warmth of the marble flow back into his fingers. Once again it was just a sphere of cloudy, variegated glass, albeit now it was cracked and bitterly cold. It filled Andy with a profound sadness when he gazed into its smoky depths. With fingers still warm, Andy removed another marble from his pocket and held it close to his eye. Small specks of refracted sunlight glowed within and to him they seemed to shine like new born suns. In his mind's eye he saw matter accreting into planets around these blazing new stars. From the fertile loam of his imagination life varied and strange sprang forth, and as it had happened countless times before, the first life form that was created in awareness of it's creator was given a name and a simple task. "Hoid, see my work and know that it is good." THE END?

Awesome work! It's really fun to see a Bollywood style take on SLA. The havah designs are great, and I love your stylized incorporation of the glyphs too. One thing that would be great to see is infused gems in the costume designs, I'm excited to see what else you come up with!

There was a dragonfly hanging out on my fence, not really sure why it was so still, but I got to photograph it using my 10x magnifying loupe as a zoom lens, the resulting image is pretty phenomenal. Totally looks like a multi-limbed mustachioed villain with a somewhat inverted skull like aspect. *UPDATE EDIT* So there was a lemon yellow dragonfly hanging out on our marionberries and I got a picture of its inverted mouth parts using my 14x magnifying loupe, this guy looks like he's in the middle of a karate chop using all 4 arms. He also looks a bit less evil and slightly worried... A picture of the full dragonfly is spoilered below.

Granted! https://porch.com/vero-beach-fl/plumbers/john-oliver/pp As you finish saying your wish, a plumber named John Oliver from Vero Beach Florida appears 30 feet above your head, holding an oversized plumber's wrench. As he plummets on a collision course with you, he yells out "Itsa nice-a to meetchoo, Ima John Oliver" (just imagine the preceding was said with super Mario's voice). Unfortunately that's the last sensible sentence you ever hear, because shortly after John greets you your cranium meets his oversized plumber's wrench and breaks it's 30 foot fall. I wish my puppy would poop outside.

The company experts told everyone that the cognitive crisis was nothing new, that their erstwhile magical adventures had merely hindered their ability to decide what dose of reality serum they'd have to use to make the world snap out of the collective delusion. Dim-witted's attention began to falter as he let the cacophonous cognitive data streams he was monitoring flow from his mindset over his frontal cortex. Why had the company tried to make it worse? Was their effort just a botched job, or was their something more sinister behind their response to the crisis?

It was the best offensive against all of those folks on our national guard, here at the center of the Terran league world war zone. Dim-witted was the only person that had heard the cognitive response from the man seeking a little weird idea about his own personal identity, right before being released from his own life - stuck in a relationship with a woman who died when he became the first victim of empathy enhanced reality television. Looking on from the video cubesats with the link above the cognitive system, Dim-witted adjusted his brain function with low levels of empty static between the three different stages of brain activity recognition programs. From his perspective he had been sleeping in his car driving around town for years because he felt like he was doing something wrong but different than his father, something that was never meant to get him out of his own mindset. But something was wrong, something was terribly wrong with the people who died in the cognitive crisis that had gone on for centuries before the war began.

@Confused, this is a great first step, but eventually the market for complicated breath based derivatives will have to be regulated as well, and the cartel structure outlined above lacks the flexibility to adequately deal with breath endowed consumer items such as awakened boxer shorts (commanded to "breathe better"), fake mustaches ("make me look older"), hairnets ("protect foodstuffs"), sporks ("feed safely"), Tupperware ("keep food fresh"), etc. etc. Like any finite commodity of strategic importance, the path forward to controlling the market for said commodity should be an agreeable balance of government oversight and private sector initiative. Our best bet is to keep the court of the gods as far away from the regulation of this nascent market as possible, or in other words, to maximize the return on investment we should keep the Returned away from the investments.

@Paranoid King and @I think I am here. those song parodies were fantastic, too bad that like the Highlander, there can be only one true victor. After the votes have been cast and the smoke has cleared, pip pip to whichever of you stands victorious over the heaped and smoldering remains of roasted contestants past. Your victory was well deserved, your roasts expertly constructed and devastatingly delivered. Also, @Herowannabe, I loved the Final Show Down parody too, great stuff all around.

I love this one! This is graphically incredibly pleasant. I really like your geometric compositions, the thick to thin lines is really nicely done and I love the sense of balance your compositions have. Also, looking at the # 2 pattern art got me wondering, how big are the original drawings (next to the text the pattern #2 drawing looks like it could be Really tiny)

Never has this prestigious award been given to a more deserving candidate. Well done, AonEne, well done.

ON THE PROVERBIAL AONENE, on the It was actually a collection of "just desserts", but sweet things is a winner (you got the custom close up picture of my dog's nose as he is shaking off water award and an upvote for your oh so close guess. @Archer you got an upvote because it's a stroke of genius to realize that Allomancy is really just an anagram for a Loamy clan, don't know if you're a Malazan fan, but that's a perfect description of the T'lan Imass). Excited to see the raps from this coming round, this tournament and the signing updates are the few hooks still buried deep in my soul that keep pulling me back to the shard. And the Nightwatcher boon/bane game. And the fan art...so many hooks, so little soul...

The high king did onetime complain Of unbearable emotional pain Nightblood thought it was "Devi" That he misses poor Evi Whom he forgot once because of his bane

"The Human monster combines the impossible and the forbidden." Collected Jesanach 1171, 20 seconds pre-death. Subject was a bald Shin philosopher. (Michel Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: The Abnormals) "Why did they bow? In him—and as it were behind the question mark of his fragile and miserable appearance—they sensed the superior force that sought to test itself in such a conquest, the strength of will in which they recognized and honored their own strength and delight in dominion" Collected on Vevishes 1173, 104 seconds pre-death. Subject was a dark-eyed Reshi mustache farmer. Sample considered questionable. (Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil)

So, I got the 2nd collected volume of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, and stalled for a bit on all things Malazan after reading Crack'd Pot Trail. I love Erickson's writing in the Book of the Fallen series (though he can get a bit preachy and his digressions have digressions). I loved the first 3 B and KB novellas (though the Lees of Laughter was pushing the boundaries of good taste, it was still enjoyable). But Crack'd Pot Trail exposes the thing that I have the hardest time with in Erickson's writing (spoilered below because it's a bit of an adult conversation): I LOVED Blood and Bone, and I am finally getting a sense for what kind of writer ICE is. He is great at creating environment, his exposition is clear, and the uncertainty of his writing makes the world building stronger and more realistic. At first I just wanted him to pick, instead of saying something is like 2 opposite things or wildly different things conjoined with an or (like all of the weird monsters in Jackuruku are described as Divers, Soletaken or something else (this is eventually cleared up nicely by some 'Triss exposition, so it's really sketching out the boundaries of a mystery)). This is a writing tick that he has, that once you get used to it, it's actually kind of endearing and adds a dimension of immersivity to his writing. He is a very visual writer and is really good at describing action in a compelling, streamlined manner. The jungle setting was incredibly well realized, and as I was reading this book I kept instinctively wanting to grab a spray can of Off! The rest of my comments on BaB are going into a spoiler tag: @Ammanas and @TheOrlionThatComesBefore, I thought the Erickson/Fener and Esselmont/Trake analogy and debate were great, but I think that Erickson is by far the better writer, and I hope that he gets back on track with the Witness trilogy. I have a long drive up to Portland and back tomorrow, and an Audible credit to grab Assail with. Life is good my friends, life is good. I voted in the poll too, Toll of the Hounds all the way!