Zelly

Uh...the first things that come to mind are more animes lol.... You might like Natsume Yuujinchou, Mushishi, and Ghost Hunt, if you're not familiar with them. For novels, try looking up "supernatural detective agency" or something along those lines. Dresden Files or Iron Druid series, as people have mentioned. You might like The Libriomancer, I wasn't sold on it personally.

I thought the battle for Thaylen City was amazing and was rereading it. At one point in the battle, Shallan notices her illusions seem to have more weight than usual and are able to physically resist the controlled Alethi army. Jasnah noticed the same thing and mentions it to Shallan as well, though by that point Shallan is too exhausted to do much of anything. If true, this is a pretty dang powerful combined ability. She's essentially a Green Lantern. I was thinking about what other examples of combining surges we may seen occurring. Kaladin makes his weird windbreak out of spren. Lashing windspren via Adhesion and giving them weight/resistance via Gravitation? Dalinar....uh....combines planes of reality. So there's that. Tension for make the realms more malleable and Adhesion for combining them? Speculation on surge uses we haven't seen yet: If Division is used to split bonds, I wonder if there isn't something similar to limited soulcasting possible, like changing water to hydrogen and oxygen, or water to steam/ice? Maybe a flying Skybreaker could change water vapor to ice and then cause some seriously terrifying gravity-lashed hailstorms? Dustbringers - Abrasion + Division....Not sure what this combo could be.... If you could make the surface you are decaying frictionless, maybe the decay could spread almost instantaneously? Frictionless fire, like a superpowered molotav cocktail? Or if you ramped up the Abrasion on yourself...you'd be like the ultimate blocker: unmovable and untouchable. Truthwatchers/Renarin's corrupted spren: If he can make illusions via Illumination, could he apply growth/progression to them to foresee possible outcomes regarding them?

I will second The Deathgate Cycle, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and the Sword of Truth series. I'll also back the Dresden Files, although it took me awhile to warm up to them (book 6 was amaaaaazing). As for other others......The Licanius Trilogy by James Islington has a growing following. The books are really gripping, but sometimes there's so much it gets really confusing (there's kind of a search for the truth happening, but it gets complicated when the cast are shapechangers, or immortal, or, time travelers, or have amnesia, or all of the above!) I need to reread them to pick up all the pieces I missed the first go round. Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series blew my mind as a teenager. If you love dragons, it's for you. C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy was another favorite of mine. She also wrote a scifi called The Madness Season that I loveeee. It is full of surprises.

Very nice! I'll subscribe to this idea. The cosmere occasionally seems like a curiously small place... I think jail is a minor inconvenience for them as they also tend to be very bad at actually staying in jail.

Some inworld cosmere citizens like Wayne might also try to make out with Nightblood, so let's not include his judgement XD Brandon's RAFO about the Fused and Nightblood is verrrrrry interesting. If the Fused don't go beyond after tangling with him, I wonder if Nightblood could somehow be "curing" the Fused of Odium's influence.....if the Fused are maintained by Odium's corrupted investiture, would removing his investiture leave them untainted somehow?

The Setup Is it possible that one of the Davar family (Dad and/or brothers) went to the Nightwatcher at some to ask a for boon? The resulting curse might be part of the reason the Davar family suffered such instability/unhappiness. A big reason for this idea come from a WoR quote from the flashback in which Shallan meets Wit for the first time. He tells her, There's been some discussion that this could refer to the influence of one of the Unmade. However, I think the mention of thorns is interesting since both the Nightwatcher and Cultivation have a strong imagery connecting them with plants and gardening. Wit mentioned this in the same conversation earlier, telling her not to end her hunt for beauty just because thorns grow in her way. The Culprit Trying to pin down which family member (assuming it was only one, not several) may have gone to the Nightwatcher is tricky. I think there are 3 main possibilities: I could see Papa Lin seeking power and influence. The same could be said for Heralan, who we know was getting involved with Skybreakers and possibly other groups. Jushu is a possibility due to his gambling problem (the Nightwatcher told Dalinar he "smelled like desperation", which I could see Jushu doing as well). Cultivation Gets Involved Cultivation has shown she's definitely pulling threads behind the scenes. We have to assume that she knows Shallan will be a figure of importance in the following years. Can't say if she was directly involved and appeared as she did to Dalinar, or simply influenced the boon/curse to best suit her interests. But Why? We know Cultivation "pruned" Dalinar to be able to withstand Odium's influence when his memories returned. Cultivation may similarly have been prepping Shallan to be able to handle the tough situations she knew to be approaching in the future (or, creepily, setting her up to not be able handle the situations and thus forcing her to create personalities), or setting up her family's financial ruin in order for Shallan to seek out Jasnah.

Found a local place with delicious cheap tacos and cheap beer! Made new geek friends! Am getting setup on a date??? Edit: 3 hours later, may have food poisoning. The adventure continues!

So I gave them a google. I haven't read them so no comment on the story, but if I were to judge a book by it's cover.....wow. The first three novels look like they came out in the 1980s, not mid 2000s. Maybe it's a deliberate homage or something, but yikes.

Wait...............when Brandon says "both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension", is he referring to humans and parsh? Because that statement makes a lot more sense. I thought he was referring to Horneaters and Herdazians, which was throwing everything off. But now I have a problem with how humans and parsh were able to produce children. I mean....they don't share a common ancestry, it seems incredibly unlikely that offspring would be possible. Unless Adonalsium made them that way? I wonder if Cultivation got involved somehow....interspecies breeding sounds like her sort of thing. Maybe ancient Singers created a human-mate form? Or humans are the galactic baseline and can breed with anything.

I assume that humans were worldhopping around the cosmere long before the Shattering. Adolnasium might not have created humans on/for Roshar (as they don't really fit the ecology), but some found their way there a loooooong time ago.

There were humans originally on Roshar though, right? Or at least, there was a migration long before the mess with the Shards started. Also, on an interesting note, a bit of connection with languages: The Shin and the Parshendi share a language family, which makes me think they had to be originals/earliest migrants.

Let's eat the forbidden fruit of parallel universes. Welcome to the Cosmultiverse.

Well I'm in love with this topic. Amazing job on the theory, those moons make me crazy. I agree with some have said that Aimia might tie into this idea as well....Blue moons, blue skin, blue veins, etc. Maybe Aimia's a portal to Nomon? Or a fallen chunk of Nomon?

I mean....it's a cookie. I'm not going to say no to a cookie. *setting self up for disaster*

I have a lot of problems with Elantris and think it's overrated. I think pineapple on pizza is glorious. Toilet paper should be hung with the paper rolling towards you, not towards the wall for Pete's sake.

Preeeeetty sure there's a WoB that states Hoid has one method of healing that is pre-Shattering. I thought in WoK it says that Hoid had only been the Wit for a few months, though that throws a wrench into how Jasnah knows him. Although....It's possible he actually named himself Wit.....and then amusingly took the job of the King's Wit at a later time. Also, people occasionally act oddly around Hoid, and I suspect he may be using emotional allomancy to divert their suspicions of him. Jasnah's naturally suspicious and hostile when he's there waiting for her, but then she suddenly turns almost dismissive of him.

Strangest book I'd like to read, but haven't (and if I'm honest, am nervous to try and read), is House of Leaves by Danielewski. I've read the reviews and still can't begin to imagine how it works and what it's about. Not to mention the irregular formats of text and pages (google it). It's like a novel with beautiful terrifying pages of visual poetry tossed in?

Playing the Council. It's a narrative mystery game set in 1793, where you've been summoned to an island because your mother has disappeared. It has a lot of historical figures, art history, mythology tie ins. No fighting, it's all based around choices and dialogue options. From what I've played and seen, your choices really do affect the storyline, which I like quite a bit. My favorite thing about it is the intrigue and manipulations. You're never sure if people are lying to you and/or testing your loyalty, while at the same time you're doing the same back to them. My least favorite thing is that it's being released in episodes. I highly recommend it, but only after all episodes are out. There's too much too remember inbetween updates.

Wild speculation: What if Odium deliberately set up the events of Aharietiam to ensure that the 4500 year gap occurred? He needed the time (for whatever reason), but the return of the Heralds kept setting his timing off. So he creates a scenario in which only the one with the most fortitude/stamina returns. (Meh, it's convoluted.) I also think Taln himself maybe special in other ways. He is the anomaly of the Heralds. He wasn't suppose to have been one to start with. He wasn't an important figure like the other nine.

OB spoilers. Can they go in questions?

Things I'm curious about and that I think are important within a year's time: 1) Two hapless Heralds dropped off at Jasnah's feet. Did they stay? Did they flee? Are they cooperative? Held prisoner? 2) Szeth, killer of many members of royal courts. I have to assume the monarchs working with Dalinar are not pleased to see him. Has he been doing penance for a year? 3)Has Shallan told anyone about the Ghostbloods? Bad to keep secrets from your husband, not to mention your cousin in-law and now queen who was quasi-murdered by them. Agree most stuff going be a lot of gathering resources, setting up societies and politics, training troops/radiants/Listeners, researching, communications, etc.

This made me laugh so hard.

Thought about this in the past and assumed that each kingdom was given an aspect of rule or civilization to focus on: warfare, lawmaking, economics, etc. Following this theory, some countries we haven't been as well introduced to should probably have a focus as well (agriculture? art? medicine? philosophy?) Considering the Desolations set back humanity's population and tech by centuries, it makes sense to gather the best and brightest in their fields together to advance as rapidly as possible. Also nice to be to focus only on your area of specialty. Possible connections to this idea: 1) The Vorin idea of having a Calling you dedicate your life to. I'm partial to this idea as having originated from the lifestyle aspects of the Silver Kingdoms. 2) Curiously ties into to Dalinar's council of monarchs and the compromise of having each society control what it is best at. I'm partial to this one too. 3) These groups may have migrated out of their areas and are no longer associated with the country, but may still have ties to the original ideals. Groups like the the Ardentia or the Stormwardens. (I'm not partial to this, just super suspicious about these groups)

I always assumed we haven't seen much of Szeth's spren because of some unknown condition/law of Highspren society. Ivory and Syl were rebels, bonding against their society's wishes. A spren of law, however, I think would have a difficult time breaking an actual law if it was in place. Omg I want Highspren to speak in legal-ese. Not really, but can't you imagine: "The spren seeking a bond, hereafter referred to as Transitioner , shall not make a physical transition and bond until the chosen human, hereafter referred to as Squire, has reached the required levels of understanding of law as put forth by the mandates of the Skybreakers and is in accordance with the regulations put forth by the Council of Highspren (hereafter referred to as the Council) as found in Section 5c."