#Highspren are just so cool

[unfortunatelyshortpeasent]

Y'know how mayalaran forms like vines reaching through the air because she's cultivationspren?

Do highspren blades form like cracks in the air expanding to take the form of the shardblade?? I need this it sounds sick as fuck

You really wanna fight? Just summoning my weapon cracks fucking reality you wanna face that right now?????

[ettawritesnstudies]

Hi scholar

I'm finally sending out blorbsday asks again (I think). Please assign your blorbos to the setting of a book you like and explain briefly (or longly) how they'd fare.

Happy Friday, Sleepy! Thank you so much for this ask it's time for me to dust off my ancient (2021) Laoche-Stormlight AU. If you don't know the storm light archive I apologize but I'm not explaining Sandersons magic system it's too much

Weswin is a lightweaver. For whatever reason though (either as a deeply buried defense mechanism or a magic glitch with his bonded spren) he can't control how he uses stormlight. Everything he takes in is immedietly worked into illusions that he struggles to keep intentionally. So that's how you get his shapeshifting quirk. His pet in Laoche is a shapeshifter named Eeek, so that becomes his cryptic spren

This would be taking place before the whole voidbringers thing, so like WoK or prior era. Seth is the son of some brightlord and during the infighting his family is killed (rather than being the king and being overthrown), and he only narrowly escapes, so now he's trying to lie low and *not* get captured and sold into slavery

Stephan and Madelyn and Alric were sent on a mission to explore the chasms and find out what the deal is with the chasmfiends. so Seth is trying to make his way to the shattered plains to find his dead/missing brother and also any sympathetic nobles. He wouldn't be a radiant and he probably wouldn't have a shardblade but it would be very cool if he eventually won one somehow

I think Madelyn would be a skybreaker.... and she fights to get into the academy to be a fabrial engineer so she can learn more about stormlight and her powers and her spren, only her connection to justice isn't necessarily to a certain set of laws, it's more about bringing order to the world? she likes things to make sense. Not societal laws but studying the laws of nature.

And when she's betrayed by Alric, she turns more to revenge, thinking that's "Justice" and then her spren starts to leave like Syl did, and that's why she loses her magic temporarily. *also* Highspren look like tears in the world showing stars behind and that fit's Madelyn's vibe of being an astronomer and mathematician so much! I could have a line where she's in a bad place mentally and she's losing hope and says, "I can't see the stars anymore." and at that point Seth and the others don't know she's a radiant because she's still hiding her abilities and doesn't really know what's going on with her, but she just knows her star friend is gone.

Stephan would be a windrunner though! He's very protective of Seth and Madelyn and then the two of them could practice flying together :D He bonds with his honorspren later though, after Alric's betrayal. So Madelyn starts losing her powers because she takes a turn towards breaking her oaths, but Stephan doesn't want revenge, he just wants to protect his friends and family that got hurt, so he starts bonding with an honorspren and there are ~parallels~

Thanks again for this ask!

[basket-of-radiants]

Thoughts about Szeth's highspren?

Yes. Absolutely. Listen, I have been known to throw the occasional shade at skybreakers but whatever I’ve said doesn’t hold a candle to their fucking spren. I love it. Everyone else gets a cool magical companion who shares in all their secrets and emotions and most important moments in their lives, a friend who completes them and a relationship that is powerful and magical in of itself.

And then you’ve got Szeth's spren who shows up like once every two weeks with a clipboard to check if Szeth has made any progress on his next ideal, and then the answer is always no so it just leaves. 

Let’s not put this all on the spren because Szeth himself is a shitty friend who still has asked neither his spren nor his sword friend for their names and so I get that they’re not exactly best buddies. Even so, I think we should talk about how incredible this spren is. We all fondly remember it from Oathbringer wherein it spent the whole book being invisible and distant, and where it literally did not talk to the person it had bonded to even though Szeth had literally sworn three ideals by then. By RoW, of course they have spoken by then, and we really get to see its personality. We learn that when it was doing literally nothing in ob, that wasn’t because it was shy or contemplative or anything, it’s because being invisible and doing nothing is just what it does. This spren does the barest fucking minimum to even qualify it as a relationship, it’s so good. Stupid skybreaker spren technically performing its duties and upholding its side of this relationship, all the while doing so with absolutely minimal compassion or humanity.

A little sad it didn’t interact with Nightblood, but I do find it funny that Szeth explicitly left them behind before having his conversation with it. Also highspren have the absolute best and most badass aesthetic out of all the spren.

[psytog]

@libralita replied to your post “Been turning a TOH cosmere AU over in my head for...”:

Cool idea! Wouldn't it make more sense for Luz to be a native Rosharan to discover she's a either an elsecaller or lightweaver (probs lightweaver) and accidently travels to Shadesmar?

(Willshapers can travel to Shadesmar, too! And I’m like 99% sold on Luz being a Willshaper, especially after discovering this quiz, although Lightweaver is certainly within the realm of possibility given how artistic Luz is.) So hmm, Luz goes to Shadesmar and everyone from the Boiling Isles is a spren? That’s an interesting idea. I suppose Willow would be a cultivationspren, Gus a Cryptic (so fascinated with humans!), Eda an ashspren, Amity a highspren?

There’s a few reasons I chose “Luz travels from Scadrial to Roshar” as my premise. First, Scadrial is the closest to modern Earth in technology, so Luz can do things like “go to public school” and “read mass-produced novels” and “edit videos in her spare time”; she could actually be pretty dang close to her canon character. Second, Roshar is really weird. If you’re looking for a Boiling Isles analogue, it’s hard to beat Stormy Crustacean Hell Planet. Third, the Rosharan magic system is capital-f Fantasy in a way that nothing else in the cosmere is. It’s got reality-bending powers and lifelong spirit companions and guaranteed Epic Character-Defining Moments. So I think Luz—especially coming from an outsider’s perspective—would be really enamored by it.

In all honesty, though, I’m mostly just in it for the safehand laughs.

[velkynkarma]

(stormlight anon) so I just finished Words of Radiance and I have. SO MANY questions but mostly surrounding Jasnah and her past and I really want her flashback narrative for answers because the Ghostbloods? She met with the highspren? She's an Elsecaller and thus can enter Shadesmar??

You reached the end of that book!!!! Yes!!! Congrats Stormlight anon!!!!

Jasnah is a fascinating character. I believe you will get a little more information about her in book 3 and she has a small character arc of her own in it, although she’s not the focus character (for book 3, that’s Dalinar). Still cool though. 

I’m REALLY excited that you made it to the end of book 2 because so many cool things happen. What’d you think of Adolin just stone-cold killing Sadeas? I was floored by it since it seemed like he was getting set up as a major villain for the series and then...nope! Oh Brandon Sanderson, forever subverting my expectations. 

Kaladin finally makes the right decision and honestly, it’s one of my favorite moments for him. When he’s at his weakest physically, he’s dying, he doesn’t have his spren, and yet he finally gets it. When he determines to do the right thing, and to save people like he swore he’d do, even if he doesn’t like them? And that moment of triumph when BOOM, suddenly he can be awesome again??? AMAZING. 

Also...I think by now Lift has been introduced? Right? She’s one of my favorite characters. And next book she gets to do more!!! Plus, there’s actually a little short story with just her that’s pretty good that I highly recommend you check out. It’s called Edgedancer and it’s a treat.

There’s still soooo many exciting things happening in the next book that I can’t wait for you to get to, too, stormlight anon! So many more spoilers I need to keep my trap shut on. 

Plus book 4′s first draft is more than halfway done, according to Sanderson’s twitter.

EXCITEMENT!

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 55-57, Interludes 4-6

Chapter Fifty-Five – Alone Together

I'm calling it, it's Sazed. Balancing Preservation and Ruin ain't easy. SAAAAAAZE~

RLAIN. RLAIN RLAIN RLAIN OH FUCKYEAH WE'RE GETTING A RLAIN CHAPTER BLESS U BRANDOSANDO

It'd be really cool if that became a thing, if humans (Rosharan- variant 'humans' at the very least) could somehow learn to hear the Rhythms and get a better understanding of the Listeners/Singers/Parshendi. A step towards peace.

[winces] Yeaaaah, I noted back in Rock's chapter how watching the humans 'invade' and build in Narak must be really, really difficult for him.

The last. Oh, Rlain.

He still feels heavily ostracized. Even with him being Bridge Four, he's still set apart from them in ways they'll never be able to truly understand.

(okay, but an archer squire Windrunner. that could be really cool and useful.)

Please take Rock's advice. Bounce some stones off of their skulls when they deserve it.

Sando please let Rlain fly with the others.

Yeah. They were so afraid of becoming those things once again that they assassinated Gavilar and brought the wrath of warlike Alethkar down upon their heads.

Can we get more Renarin+Rlain scenes and friendship can we please-

Okay but with Rlain attuning to Rhythms and now with Rock's family around (we at least know that Rock can pick up on them ever so faintly) I'll bet one of them starts humming along with him, even if they don't realize what they're doing.

!!!! Skin patterns have/had an importance or maybe even function among the Parshendi? Can they change, with or without changing forms, or are they genetic?

Oh come on, guys, you're getting worked up over Renarin maybe learning to read? Kaladin, please talk some sense into them.

EXTRA MANLY. LOPEN I'M WH E E ZI NG

(though tbh that's actually a great way to put it)

Thank you Kaladin for putting things into words that they can all understand and mull over on their own. Hopefully they'll even start internalizing it.

Rock is the unofficial psychiatrist of Bridge Four, apparently. Ahhh, but they're all a big support group for eac other in the end (yes, Teft, this is a feelings-sharing party, now join the club). Alone together indeed.

[winces] Save for the one even more alone. You can't blame Rlain for his frustration.

At least Kaladin's willing to admit that he doesn't know, but it willing to try anyway.

Chapter Fifty-Six – Always With You

Ooo, this is the first time Hoid's chatted with Harmony? No interaction before this letter. Not that Hoid would have reason to do so, but you never know…

“How do you know so much about Adonalsium” HE WAS KINDA THERE, SAZE

oh shit oh shit oh shit Dalinar's going back to the Feverstone Keep vision, Jasnah and Navani with him. We're gonna find out something important, this chapter, this is a Recreance vision-!

He's getting a lot better at the vision-transfer, but I don't think it's technically part of his Surges? That's a complete unknown, though, since it was Honor himself that left the visions.

Timeline note for the Recreance – maybe 2,000 years ago.

(side note, but listening to the Journey OST during this part is jiving really well. it's shiver-inducing.)

False Desolation. What. Jasnah, plz continue your elaboration.

Mmm, that makes sense, especially with what we know of the Parshendi so far and their efforts to fight off the Voidspren. Of course Vorin teachings would deny there were any survivors. But how the Recreance, then….

Oh, hey! Gawx! You've gotten a lot snarkier over time in these visions, at least from that fist quip.

I wonder if Honor included the dying screams of the spren into this vision, and he's feeling it at the very edge of his senses.

Speaking of which, this must mean that Honor was Shattered at some point after the Recreance.

Gawx honestly does have it hard, and now he's pulled at in different directions by the people who want to see their homeland safe and the Blackthorn who wants to save Roshar. It's not an easy place he's in.

Shivers there, Dalinar. Good speech.

Technically, Gawx, Dalinar owns up to what he's done – or at least what he can remember? He doesn't deny the Blackthorn, but he is trying to be a different man than he once was.

….what's happening. The vision's not ending. And this man in white and gold….?

ODIUM

FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE “ALWAYS BEEN WITH [DALINAR]”

ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY THE REASON THE BLACKTHORN IS AS HE WAS. NOT ONE OF THE UNMADE, BUT YOU YOURSELF

FUCKING HELL

Chapter Fifty-Seven – Passion

Oh good it's another Dalinar chapter, because if it had changed POVs I would have rioted

Oooo, calling Hoid back to Scadrial, Sazed? To speak with the kandra?

YEP BACK THE FUCK AWAY DALINAR, HE IS BEYOND YOU RIGHT NOW

g o d the Stormfather is whimpering and if that doesn't tell you how much you need to fear…

Dalinar looks like he's gonna drop on the spot of a panic attack and tbh I already would be

Don't you dare call Dalinar 'son'.

And there's Odium himself confirming that this Stormfather-bonding is different than all the others before it; I was right.

What shackles you, Odium. What is it specifically.

SHIT, DALINAR, WATCH YOUR WORDS

'Intent' is capitalized and obviously means just that but does it also mean that it has something to do with the broader spectrum of power

Consequences aka probably ridding himself of Roshar a la Alderaan

Oooo, not only are you bound by the Shards themselves, but even the Splinters here somehow have power wrapped up with you.

Now see, here's where we come to Odium Blatantly Fucking Lying, because if the embodiment of Honor cared only for bonds and oaths themselves, then you wouldn't see any difference between Honorspren and Highspren. Not to mention the Passion thing (likely subtly sliding in a tie to the Thaylen Passions there as well). You, care? Love? HAH.

[squints @ Odium] While I can believe you had something to do with the Recreance, it's definitely not as you're explaining it.

Ohhhh, is that confirmation that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation – or at least an avatar of hers?

Oh shit, oh shit, a vision of sorts, touching the power of the Odium-shard itself-

...what's there. Something Not Of The Vision. Oh man is it Lift. Please let it be Lift. Let her flip off Odium himself.

It IS.

But. Odium couldn't sense her? Not entirely? Cultivation DID give her something special

“What was that thing, tight-butt?” Lift you are the pride of Roshar and the gem of all worlds

oh my god please make the first thing you do in Urithiru stealing Dalinar's lunch

That's… definitely a way to end Part Two with a bang.

Interlude Four – Kaza

Oooo, we're back out on the ocean!

!!!! Someone else with visions? I don't think this is another Bondsmith, but maybe another Truthwatcher…?

'hirelings out of Steen' Steen, Steen, where's that map… ah! South of Shinovar, east of Aimia, and probably the closest country to Aimia, save that island chain stretching out from Tukar

Ahhh, she's an older lady, too! Good, we need all the older ladies we can get.

Soulcaster? But does she have one or is he calling her that as a title?

So, they were braving the slower Everstorm winds, huh – or… not the Everstorm, but a strange, strong storm that has nothing to do with either? Either way, they're aiming for Aimia. Now there's a land that we need to know more of.

Ahhh, so she's a Soulcaster (but probably not an ardent because Not Vorin) and looking to reverse the whole turning-to-stone bit. ….understandable, but you think Aimia holds the answers? Maybe? Why? Is it because it's the last place you have to look, or do they have some sort of rumoured super-medicine there?

Well, there's a rumour of some kind, at least.

…..not stone, smoke.

Oh that is interesting. The transformation with Soulcaster use must be dependent on certain variables – what kind of transfigurations they most commonly do, perhaps – considering that all of those we saw at the Shattered Plains were turning to stone, not smoke, and most of their job would be to make buildings and food.

Ooof, a prisoner of her own family, kept for their use. Even without the whole 'dying' issue, it's no wonder she fled. (Assuming she wasn't just making up the story to scare off the sailor.)

Huh. I wonder if extended soulcasting starts to connect one to Shadesmar each time they use it, or if it's only when the person starts getting closer and closer to death-by-soulcasting.

“Each would have required several Soulcasters in concert.” Or maybe just one Elsecaller or Lightweaver with a fuckton of Stormlight.

Again with 'something larger' that's attached(?) to spren that normal people can't see.

That is a powerful call that she's almost losing herself to, and quite possibly a spren that's interested in her backing the Soulcasting. Hmmm.

So, the Soulcaster devices came out of Aimia and Akinah in particular. Huuuuh. Were the Soulcasters an attempt to mimic Radiant powers, if so, and were there any Aimian Radiants? Or were they an attempt at balancing power?

Wait, what. Everyone's starting to go unconscious? And Kaza feels like she's being pulled to Shadesmar? Is there an overlap here of the Physical/Cognitive realms…? Also the shadow stretching in the wrong direction like all the Aimians have – does that mean that whole people have/had some kind of presence in Shadesmar that can be seen in the Physical realm?

The sailors are all dead? ...well, shit.

Wait, and the sailors were right about greatshells coming here to die? That wasn't just a pirate-treasure sort of legend? (not that it matters, as none of them are left to even see it)

The cook? (Always, the cooks are so important in these books…) Ahhhhh, another cremling-person, fffffftttt- We need more information on these people, stat.

“The cost would be the ends of worlds.” Plural. Something exists in Aimia that could affect the greater Cosmere. Well then.

Interlude Five – Taravangian

FUCK OFF YOU OLD MURDER-MAN

“Today, Taravangian was a storming genius.” I can't help but laugh at the phrasing, even as a corner of my mind just goes fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

He is not wasting time here on pleasantries of any sort, but just powering ahead and being a complete ass as he does.

Well, that answers my question of 'does Malata know bout Taravangian and his plans' though I did not expect that she'd already been a member of the Diagram before she'd become a Radiant. I am somewhat pleased at knowing 'the Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause', not because it gives me any pleasure to know that goddamn storming Taravangian is getting any Radiants on his side, but because it's another step closer to confirming my suspicion that the Dustbringers are the I Will Do What Must Be Done order, closest of the Radiants to the-ends-justify-the-means.

GIVE US MORE DUSTBRINGER INFO, SANDERSON, I DEMAND IT

H e r alds but smart!Taravangian is an insufferable ass, both to other people and in his own head

“That day, he'd been God. Today, he could be God's prophet.” I'd start to wonder if you were Odium-influenced too, but this seems different – too detached even in your moments of grandest self-glorying – to be Odium's touch

And here we have the complete opposite of Jasnah, who's a beautiful example of atheism done right; this is the kind of atheism that glorifies ~~science~~ and spits on others' beliefs while holding itself above all else – its' own manner of extremist fundamentalism

'the Dalinar paradigm' sounds foreboding

Wildcard Renarin! Oooo, is he a blindspot in more than just Taravangian's Diagram, I wonder?

Well, that's just unnecessary. Storming hell, Taravangian.

Reference note – Vargo. Probably Taravangian's given name.

Okay but indoor farming would indeed explain a good part of Urithiru's self-sufficiency – which it had to be – and is probably related to the existence of the uber-fabrial that extends through the whole city.

“the part of the world that mattered” aaahahahahahahah fuck you Taravangian

“Then we force him to step down, so that I can take his place at the head of the monarchs.” AAAAHAHAHAHAHAH WELL GUESS WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GET HIGHKING KHOLIN SOONER OR LATER SO EVEN IF YOU DO IT'S NOT GONNA FUCKIN' MATTER

To be fair, pushing Dalinar until he collapses isn't a bad plan, considering the pressure the world is exerting and the weight he places on himself, but he's still the Tank, come on.

[rolls over laughing at the thought of Taravangian thinking he has any bargaining power against Odium]

Fuck off, you senile psychopath.

Interlude Six – This One Is Mine

Another Venli chapter, and thins time she's going to open herself for a Form of Power. And yet, with that title as well as the spren that followed you last time… I don't think this will you the way you think it will. Just a hunch.

….do the Parshendi actually have gemhearts. I mean, I would make sense considering their change of forms, but… still.

No rainwater from this storm. Just ash. (But didn't the Everstorm bring rain when we saw it in Edgedancer?)

[hums] Have we seen Demid's new Fused-form yet? The ridges under the carapace sounds like a form we might have seen in one of Kaladin or Moash's chapters, but perhaps it's different.

Mmm. Though Venli's form changed, indicating a new kind of bonded spren, she retained her mind. Not a Voidspren, then. Handful of sapphires says that the little comet-spren had something to do with it.

“grand of the Fused”? Ooooo, you're important, you have a title

...or maybe you just have a tendency to crush anything that doesn't pay obeisance. That works too.

[winces] What an awakening for Venli, and what a truly horrible way for it to happen.

Well, even if you didn't bond with the little spren, it's there. Not 'one of the same' spren you saw near Eshonai, but the very one, there's no way it isn't.

And you protected it.