Hello, first post so I hope you'll excuse any awkwardness within.
I am attempting to quote Carbonationspren question regarding whether metal inside you must be touching you to be burned. Hopefully I have done so correctly. If it isn't simply clicking the Quote button and then posting I hope someone will enlighten me in how to do so.
(Edit- Ok so I have to hit the quote button first, hmmmm. Well I don't know how to add it to this post after the fact, and I'd rather not double post. If anyone can tell me how to insert a quote into an existing post and how to turn someone else's forum name into the highlighted, linkable version I have seen on here I would much appreciate it. )
Anyway, yes. This. And my first upvote to you.
We know that feruchemy and hemalurgy require direct physical contact to work. Allomancy seems to only require the metals to be within oneself. We can then hypothesize that for instance, metal flakes being suspended in either stomach acid or even initially a simple water or alcohol solution seems to count as an acceptable reserve of said allomantic metal. If instead the flakes needed to be literally touching the lining of an allomancer's digestive tract we would likely see an allomancers reserve fluctuate with internal fluid levels as various flakes touched the stomach lining and then swirled away. In fact, taking into account duralumin's ability to almost instantly burn the entirety of an metal reserve, we can likely assume at least Some of the swallowed metal would in fact not be in direct contact with the actual flesh of an allomancer at the moment of use.
Therefor, we only need to ask if it is only water based fluids inside the stomach that must then contact the allomantic metal to make it available or if the metal simply being enclosed with the digestive tract is all that is required. If an aqueous solution substitutes for a direct physical connection then the reactivity of ettmetal still poses a problem.
I hypothesize that it is only the physical location of the metal that is required. This is conjecture, but I somewhat doubt that instantly upon the water/alcohol reaching the inside of an allomancer's stomach it undergoes a cognitive or spiritual transition from "I'm water!" to "I'm a Person!" I would venture it takes digestion and integration into the bloodstream for this change of cognitive aspect to occur. Therefor I see no inherent difference between a metal flake surrounded by water inside a stomach, and a metal flake surrounded by a non-reactive substance inside a stomach. It is still isolated isolated from the allomancer physically and likely cognitively.
And since we know the next large Mistborn series will take place in an era of 1980's-like technology and plastic comes from hydrocarbons which were once part of a living being, I conjecture that even if say another allomantic metal would interfere with accessing an enclosed ettmetal bead, by the time Scandrian technology progresses to early 1900's era Earth analogue they should be able to ingest ettmetal with minimal danger.
