Argent

The Blessing of Presence, as I understand it, gives kandra mental fortitude, focus, and clarity - presence of mind. Stability is more about resisting influences and urges, I imagine, awareness of your emotions and what affects them.

Story time. I was looking at Pinterest (don't judge me!) earlier today, and landed on one of the many Brandon Sanderson boards (which is the main reason I even have a Pinterest account). I am familiar with most of the art out there, but I saw something new here - Russian covers for some of Brandon's books. You can see them on the link there, or on the publisher's website (warning: Russian ahead!). Fun fact: the names of the books are Ash and Steel, Well of Ascension (though I keep seeing it as Source of Ascension), Fire Avenger, and Steel Heart. Anyway, I wanted to see more, so I did about 3 seconds worth of Googling and landed on a page I hadn't visited in a long time - Mistborn: The Final Empire cover gallery over at Brandon's official site. I've gotta say, some of them are... interesting. I mean, look at this Bombshell Vin & Macho Kelsier. Or this... presumably Kelsier? The sequels of which feature some leggy Vin? And most of them are gorgeous.

I can't even imagine a debate like this. OSC is a decent author, but that's about it. Brandon is literally revolutionizing the genre. Tell your friend you'll get back to them when they've read more of Brandon's works, starting with The Stormlight Archive doesn't give you enough to fall in love with Brandon, you need the context.

The length of the day-night cycle actually did change. It was about 23 hours some 350 million years ago. Soon after the Earth formed it could've been as quick as 6 hours. Not that I think this is relevant to this particular conversation, but it's a fun bit of trivia.

I don't know this for a fact, but I believe the original phrase (in old Hebrew?) is "six ages," not "six days." Then translation happened. Also, while you are all being wonderfully polite and kind about each other's beliefs, it does bear mentioning that any form of creationism I've heard of us incompatible with science. I won't go more into this because there is a lot of room for offense and flaming, but if you feel the need to justify your belief to me, or to tell me how wrong I am, or accuse me of intolerance, my forum inbox is open to you.

So here's the thing about Penny Dreadful: it's really not about the plot. There is plot, and it's mostly cohesive, but it's neither the interesting, nor the best thing about the show. Instead it's the characters, and to a lesser extent the setting and the subversion of Victorian elements (e.g. Viktor Frankenstein creating not one, but two "monsters", or the mashup of Victorian characters) that make the show great. Beautiful cinematography too. If anything, the first season has a tighter plot than the second one. As you continue watching it, you'll notice that the plot is more of a general direction than a fixed path to a destination. And because of this looseness, you get to have every character interact with almost every other character, and it's beautiful.

I'll pick a bone here and mention that atheism is not necessarily the same as rationalism. Many atheists arrive to where they are because of rational argument, but the reverse is not logically valid. You can, and do, have theists who are (almost, as I see it) perfectly rational.

It is. I thought his writing was a little better, but his story (not the plot) was a little less interesting than before. But overall, pretty much the same.

I don't know about most interesting, but the rigid structure of the Alethi society appeals to me strongly. I like its order.

Well. I don't want to be accused of xenophism...

This too. It's exaggerated and unrealistic (usually), but it's unquestionably feminine - as in, you won't look at one of those photos and go "this is a dude."

I believe this to be a coincidence. I am mostly convinced the fiery theme came from the name of the book itself - Firefight - not from any knowledge of the plot.

The shape you generally imagine when you think "female." More curves. You know.

You don't prove a negative - and you can't, you are correct. No atheist is (or should be, rather) completely certain that the supernatural doesn't exist. The big distinction here is that atheists find it highly unlikely that it exists, given the evidence at hand. It's about probability, in a way. In other words, for every argument you - or any believer, really - can muster about why you believe in the existence of a God, I can find either a logical flaw, a rational explanation, or a counterargument that says "I find this highly unlikely, here's why." Your belief specifically is probably not offensive to anyone. What some atheists find offensive is when theism is being shoved down their throat - which doesn't happen all the time, but it happens frequently enough to make people speak up. I think a similar idea was addressed earlier in the thread, specifically the belief that if I am a good friend with a strongly religious person, depending on my friend's religion, he or she may feel obligated to try to convert me, lest my soul suffers an eternity or Hell (or some other variation of the same scenario). So from my friend's perspective, they are trying to save me; from my perspective, they are not only disrespecting my personal beliefs, they are also infringing on them. Tough situation. Another common enough scenario, tangential to this, is the feeling that in certain areas of the US (and I suspect other countries), atheism is somehow associated with evil, lack of morality, disobedience, and other nasty things - the implication being that if I don't believe in a God, I neither know what good is, nor am I willing to do it. Both of which are terribly wrong (I could, in fact, argue that the opposite is true, but that's a strong argument that easily offends people, and I don't really believe in it, so I won't include it). So in certain places, under certain conditions, atheists are actually being actively discriminated against. Examples include, but are not limited to, various forms of punishment against students who refuse to speak the phrase "one nation under god" from the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as a quiet kind of discrimination against public officials who are openly atheist (I've seen many polls on this, but here's just one). So, lots of reasons.

Except none of this is true (except the bit about men being physically stronger on average, but that's pure physiology - the things that make you a boy also make you bigger). Or, rather, if any of those are true, it is because of social influences, not because of innate gender differences. I've seen several studies done specifically on the topic of whether one gender is more logical/emotional and whether one is smarter than the other. What you see in the results of those studies is, without exception, that until about 12 years of age (give or take a couple), there is no statistically significant difference between the genders. Then, as social influences start kicking in, girls lean more towards what they are being told to lean against (emotional intelligence, domestic functions, soft sciences, etc), while boys shift towards the "manly" attributes (hidden emotions, aggressive behavior, hard sciences, etc). I feel I should apologize, twice now in a single morning I've singled you out with a direct reply that essentially says "no, you are wrong." It's an unfortunate coincidence, I promise I don't hate your guts On topic, however, I'll remark that it's funny this thread popped up when it did, because I've been thinking about gender a lot these past few days. I've always known that I am а heterosexual cis male, I've never had a reason to doubt that. What I've been wondering lately, however, is what defines me as a male. I don't subscribe to the idea that traditionally masculine interests (sports, cars, one-nighters, brash behavior, etc) define gender, those are social and cultural constructs and should have no control over gender. I am attracted to the "default" female body, but that defines my sexuality, not gender. I dress more or less like men have been dressing for ages, but again, that's cultural. The bottom line is, I have no idea what makes me a male, yet I know I am one. Which, I think, puts me in the "gender is a social construct" camp, which is something I am not entirely thrilled about, something about it doesn't quite ring true with me...

There is nothing of Chicago that I can see in this skyline. As for Calamity itself, I've always imagined it (visibly) smaller than the Sun and the Moon, but bigger the other stars. Then again, those covers are not necessarily indicative of anything, artistic license and all that. The blurb is not terribly interesting to me, it's more or less what we expected. But I do like pretty pictures.

No. I am sorry to be blunt, but this is both wrong and offensive, and I feel bluntness is a solid way to get this point across with the gravitas I feel it requires. The main difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of conviction the two groups share in the belief that there is no higher power. Both groups, however, are ready to change this belief if sufficient evidence presents itself. Atheism is no more about God-hating than feminism is about man-hating. It's a little difficult to clearly differentiate the two groups, but I'll offer you two popular paradigms: Richard Dawkins, a famous atheist, uses a 7-point scale to describe belief. In this scale, a 1 is somebody who believes, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is a God; similarly, 7 is somebody who is absolutely certain there is no God. He argues - and I agree with him - that nobody should be a 7, since you can never use science to absolutely prove something, you can only use it to disprove. In other words, it's always possible that everything in our universe points to the lack of a Creator, but one might exist, hidden so well, we have no way of detecting it. So he claims most atheists should be 6, maybe 5. Agnostics are 4s, dead in the middle - the agnostic's motto is "I don't know, but I am equally ready to accept either side". Believers fall between 1 and 3, obviously. Another way to look at this issue is to look at what sets agnostics and atheists apart. In essence, agnostics are people who have looked at all the evidence and have decided that there isn't enough information for them to pick a side. Atheists vote in favor of there being a sufficient amount of evidence that points towards the idea that the existence of a higher power is unlikely. It's all about likelihoods here. I, for example, did just that - I looked at a bunch of arguments for and against the existence of a God, and decided that it's just unlikely that one exists. So let's not bundle atheists and hatetheists together. Some people will be jerks regardless of their religious belief - or lack of thereof - and we can agree that we shouldn't judge the rest of their respective groups by their behavior. Christmas has become very much a cultural holiday, not a religious one. So has the phrase "Bless you!" after somebody sneezes. Arguing that things like that need changing is not quite oppressive, I think, but it's definitely pointless.

The second book in the series does a much better job at her, if you can / want to muscle through the first one. As for myself, I am done with Wyrd Sisters (which I liked) and am reading Witches Abroad now.

The very very short version is that once you know enough math*, you start noticing it everywhere. It is what I imagine religious epiphany feels like, except instead of believing that everything has a purpose and a reason, you know what those things are. You are speaking the language of the universe. I don't get this as often with pure math, but understanding physics does the trick pretty often. It's difficult to convey though. * I don't mean the ability to solve problems and ace tests. I mean understanding as easily and natively as you understand, for example, that things fall down when you let go of them.

It also fits the sentiment that history will probably not get his version of the events right. History will remember the Lord Mistborn, a figure of legend, while Spook was, well, Spook until the Last Ascension. The crew's Tineye.

No, I think we are misunderstanding each other. To the best of my knowledge, Novik has never stated that Uprooted is supposed to represent anything Polish. She calls it a fairy tale, not a Polish story. So if there are similarities, it is I who believe they are intentional (because given how specific they are, they'd have to be), but the book overall is not meant to be a fantasy retelling of the history of Poland. The similarities are more for authenticity, I think, or to give it the right tone and mood. Like, for example, if a high fantasy book tells the story of a king who pulls a magic sword from a stone, gets a wizard to help him on his quest, and ultimately restores his kingdom to its former glory... it doesn't have to be a retelling of the Arthur myth, but it's obviously meant to remind people of it. Regardless, this is not a thread about Uprooted and I shouldn't try to convince you or anyone to read it. If it breaks the fourth wall too much for you, my barely cracked wall doesn't give me enough of a similar experience to relate properly. I suspect you are reading it with certain expectations, and when they are not met, you feel like the book is not doing what it's promising to do, but I could very well be wrong and the reason for the difference in our opinions could be just difference in tastes.

Marsh is the one with the knowledge, but the writing doesn't sound like him at all...

I am mildly concerned about the amount of namedrops in those last couple of chapters. But only mildly, because there is a very specific cognitive bias that could be at work here...

I always get a little bit twitchy when people define other people as having certain psychological conditions. I will just remind you that a desire for order and organization is not the same as having OCD or OCPD. For instance, I don't remember seeing the C-component of either disorder - compulsive behavior. Steris is, from what I remember, annoyed by disorder, not disabled by it.

The similarity to Poland is intentional, I believe. Naomi is Polish herself (though born in the US), and one of the things she wanted to do with Uprooted is to tell a fairy tale. I felt a little bit the same way, but I imagine all of or familiar with Slavic culture will. It doesn't really take away from the story. As for the worldbuilding and character development... There isn't much in the way of worldbuilding, it's a world very similar to ours, sans the magic. Character development you will see a ton of, however. It might be what I liked the most about the book, actually. Either that or the plot itself. I maintain that it's a slow burn - some characters change literally until the last page.