#No I'm not done with twok

[shiroselia]

Shallan is so fucking good there's so much wrong with her Oh My GOD

[shouldprobablybereading]

I've seen the "haha dalinar kills elehokar in twok prime" jokes so many times I always imagined it was some heat of the moment righteus battle. But I just got to that point and oh dear, that might genuinly be some of my favourite writing that sanderson has done.

The way they just sit and talk, both knowing that only one of them will walk away alive. It's so... hopeless. There is no triumf, just two men tired and broken from weeks of fighting a losing battle. The tragedy of what has become of their family evident as elhokar notes that proto-aesudan and gavinor have left, and killed as the reader knows. Dalenar thinking about the boy he taught to duel, yet not being able to forgive him. How theres no reason for him to live, having lost two, likely all three of his sons, both of his brothers and finally his honor. And walking into battle planning to die.

The way it's clear he does not kill him for the sake of the kingdom, no somehow he still believes in him. Still loves his brother so much that he is willing to die for it. He kills him because he killed his son. Because he loved aredor more than any of that.

It's such a fascinating character moment. Jasnah doesn't care for the reason, as elhokar was a bad king and they will be better off with dalenar. But from his perspective he has lost his honor by taking the throne, I imagine that is something he would have grappled with had there ever been a sequel.

[radishleaf]

okay, yea, i'm super attached to the cast of the way of kings (not so much dalinar's story, but i do think the mystery regarding the parshendi is appealing). i had plans to get a day of fallen night next to read, but i'm leaning toward twok's sequel, path of radiance, because i really want to know what happens next.

[crow-of-paradise]

I finished The Way of Kings and IIII'm feelin' it!!! Yo girl is going THRU it!!!

This book is great for the saps. The Sentimentals. Dare I say cheese-lovers. Moved easily to tears by acts of goodness and humanity. (<- all me) Maybe bc it is so lacking in our real lives - and this from someone fortunate enough to have some amazing people in their life, I still think we can all want to be better for ourselves and others, because it's the right and good thing to do. In the end, it's the heart of the book, imo, that stays with me the most. Kaladin, Dalinar, Bridge Four, struggling to do the right thing, keep hope alive in the face of despair like a small sputtering candle in the dark (or highstorm, as it were). When I finished and was gathering my thoughts, there's a lovely quote by Mr. Rogers that immediately came to mind:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

And this book has plenty of both (the scary and the helpers). It’s a very hopeful story at its core, despite realizing some people felt put off by the “depression simulator” (as the first review, of all things, I watched called him!!) that is Kaladin during most of the book, lol. But hey! I'm into that shit! I was deeply moved by his struggles and how he kept finding reasons to care, despite himself, like a wild instinct he’s unable to control. He’s gotta be one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, THE LOVE I HAVE FOR THIS MAN IS INSANE. So I'm hoping that the story continues with its main philosophy and theme centering hope prevailing in the end. I'm locked in, so I guess we'll see soon enough lol.

Also I fucking love beginnings. Some people loathe them - they’re too slow, there’s not enough happening, there���s too much to learn. When it’s done WELL, I eat that shit up, and TWOK does it sooooo well. When I first started reading it, I was constantly praising its accessibility, how easy it was to understand and visualize and keep up, as someone who does NOT read a lot (particularly not a brick like this). That is a constant throughout the rest of the book! I personally really meshed well with Sanderson’s writing style, and that was besides his amazing skill with a large and compelling cast of characters, all of whom have their own subtle arcs and development which were satisfying to read and I value most in the media I enjoy.

I found out about Sanderson in the most random way! I was RPing in Final Fantasy XIV lol (2022/23 was... a time) and I really wanted to work on my combat writing skills. I think I looked up recommendations for this and Brandon Sanderson’s name came up more than once (and yes, this book is a war epic, and the battles are long and brutal, and so captivating to read), along with The Way of Kings being the most recommended, so I filed away his name and the book in the back of my mind. I would see his work out in the wild and pick it up, balk at the size, but it wasn’t until earlier this year when I bought the mass market paperback that I actually decided to try it out - read a few pages, then bought the larger trade paperback bc I am Old and my eyes suck, also there are gorgeous illustrations to appreciate. I just wasn’t vibing with any of my attempted reads at the time (ACOTAR, Emily Wilde tho I do wanna try this one again, among others). I think I was craving something Epic, and I was fresh off season 2 of House of the Dragon and the latest FFXIV expansion and I wanted a book to take to Iceland with me (this massive tome did indeed travel with me lmao, and I didn't get far what with the long exhausting days of that trip, but I did manage a few pages and even more scuffs and dings along the way). So yes, this did largely scratch that itch and then some! I’ve said it 100 times but I’m not a good reader - it’s so hard for me to maintain the focus required for it long enough, though I do try. To me it’s nothing short of a GENUINE ACCOMPLISHMENT that I not only conquered this monster but did it relatively quickly during a stressful time of the year, and LOVED it. Books as a storytelling medium is such a large untapped well for me, so I mourn not being able to devour them like other bookworms do because I know there are some gems out there (audiobooks are worse for my focus to grasp onto funnily enough lol).

In light of that, this book really just feels like a small miracle that happened to me. It means a lot and I’m so grateful. (told you I was a sap!!!) And I'm so sad Words of Radiance is still being shipped to me. But I have another lovely book I'm reading (The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields) for book club with my bestie (shoutout to @bisummers I'M STARTING MY PAGES TOMORROW) so I will be occupied until then... and hopefully it gets here soon. :)

[tigerexe]

so you seem like a saavik fans, maybe youll have an answer for this. whats her deal? i thought she was like spock adopted daughter, but did she actually sleep with him??? thats very weird

I'm THE Saavik fan and I will happily clear this up!

Saavik is kind of a schrödinger's cat situation depending on How Canon you decide certain things are, but here are the facts:

Heres what happens ON screen, not taking into account beta canon or scrapped/deleted scenes yet:

-Saavik is Spock's student/protege, their past is unknown but they speak vulcan when in private and seem pretty at ease with eachother and Saavik sheds tears openly at Spock's funeral

- Saavik and David find reincarnated baby Spock on the Genesis planet and take care of him as he matures rapildy

- when genesis Spock (for some fucking reason) starts going through ponn farr as a teenager Saavik does some vulcan hand stuff that calms him down, next scene theyre seen sleeping leaning on eachother

- when the enterprise crew leaves vulcan to go on their whale adventure, Saavik decides to stay on vulcan and is never seen again in canon

So yeah, not much to go on besides the TSFS ponn farr scene which of course carries implications but is almost completely off screen and kept PG, so it's kind of up for the viewers interpretation

Where things get interesting is when we look at beta canon and plot threads dropped from the movies:

-in a deleted TWOK scene, Spock says Saavik is half romulan, half vulcan, but its left at that

-this plot is picked up MY FAVOURITE star trek novel, The Pandora Principle, in which Saavik is born as essentially a genetic experiment on a romulan military base, lived as a starving feral child for 10 years until Spock finds her on a mission. Spock takes leave from the Enterprise and lives with 10 yo Saavik for at least a year and stays in almost daily contact once Saavik enters the starfleet academy. their familial bond is explored in the novel, but never referred to anything else besides student and teacher. Its also a very very good book i think everyone should read

-meanwhile back in dropped plots from the movies, it was planned for Saavik to become PREGNANT with Spock's child after the ponn farr scene in TSFS, which is why she stays on vulcan to take maternity leave in TVH 🤮🤮🤮 this was thankfully cut by Nimoy himself because he was really uncomfortable with it.

-in the last TOS movie, Spock has a new protege, a vulcan girlie named Valeris. She was originally going to be Saavik, but the actress was unavalible so they just made a new character. SPOILERS for star trek 6 but Valeris betrays the Federation and Spock in the process, and it is safe to assume if the character had remained as Saavik, she wouldve done the same thing in the script.

-jumping forward to TNG, Picard has the line "I met [Sarek] once, at his son's wedding." It is never elaborater on WHICH son or WHOMST the son was marrying, and when Spock actually appears in TNG no wife is ever seen or mentioned. But in the novel "a Vulcans Heart" the wedding was between Spock and Saavik. I have not read said novel and never will 😬 its apparently a series of novels as well

-misc. beta canon appearences happen in the comics as well, most of which i havent read, but at least a couple seemed to loosely follow the origins established in the Pandora Principle, i.e Saavik is half romulan and rescued by Spock as a child

Tl;dr

Canonically Saavik is Spock's student, anything else is up to viewer interpretation and what beta canon you prefer

PERSONALLY i fully subscribe to the canon the Pandora Principle weaves, and pick and choose my way when it comes to the movies (ignore the TSFS ponn farr scene entirely) and completely disregard anything else. I know its literally my own but I highly recommend this approach, Saavik is like my favourite Star Trek character because of it!

[colwbear]

drawings on colored paper always turn out better?? anyways here's twok era shallan and jasnah on the back of my echo chamber research essay

i have time to draw and read during school but i don't have time at home to work on things i actually want to work on 😭 i'm gonna lock in on the next tarot card tonight and we'll see what i can get done

[lost-boys-chapter]

I have successfully completed the twok reread!! got through the sanderlanche this afternoon. hoping to get through words of radiance before september as it's the last work month before many a school month meaning my free time is gonna plummet dramatically. anyway

I've not got a bunch to say about the end of this book, considering how much happens. I think most of what we actually learn in twok is resolved in the next few books. but of course who would I be without my rambles?

genuinely one of my favorite moments of this book was when kaladin went around the tower looking for someone in charge and when he couldn't find someone he just looked at one guy and went 'you're promoted.' my man does NOT have the authority and everyone knows it but they're just like. yeah sure why not. kaladin ily.

I do really feel for rlain at this point. not sure I ever really processed how shit his situation was when he revealed himself in (wor or ob?) cus by that point the carapace armor shit has passed but jesus fucking christ someone give that crab therapy. renarin I'm looking at u

KABSAL!! we've been knew by this point that I forgot about him but he was a ghostblood?? mind you not a very good one was he. that was a very cool reveal that I feel like. did actually hit harder in cool points the second time around.

think I'll def begin to enjoy dalinar's pov now again. he's so boring in twok I'm so sorry. but yeah

looking forward to shallan's pov chapters next book. I wasn't really paying attention to Team Scholar the first time around but knowing more of actually what's going on with them now they're like. crazy lore dropping left and right. I wanna see what I can glean from these two now I'm more invested in both their characters and their storylines.

I think wit is suspicious. but I love him. his epilogues are great. I fear his goals will be beyond all of our understanding until it's too late xxx

also the more I reread the more I buy into the city-shattering/continent shattering theory I've seen around. totally forgot about that vision that dalinar has where kholinar shatters. given it was the first one he had I suspect it might be an end-of-book event in kowt. but who knows Brandon's mind is unknowable!!

I've definitely been thinking a lot about the death rattles too. a couple of main thoughts:

does anyone else think the 'I hold the suckling child in my hands....and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip....and with it gain us breath to draw' one leads into 'so the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life?' it definitely sounds like they're both referring to child champion theory. which I do hate as a theory but I see it.

I think the 'I'm standing over the body of a brother. I'm weeping. is that his blood or mine? what have we done?' one is usually agreed to be about gavilar but I think it's about kaladin and moash. I won't b elaborating.

also the 'I raise my hand. the storm responds' one could so be about dalinar if he becomes a fused. like he loses the battle but still retains some bondsmith powers and now uses them for ✨️evil✨️ or something. who knows.

anyway that's all for now, hopefully about 40% of it is coherent. will be reading the new preview chapters after work tonight or tomorrow but I'm hyped for them !!

[pityroadart]

Hey, what is your process when making collages? How do you collect things for them, how do you decide on quotes and what to draw/paint on and such? I really enjoy them :)

Hello! That's a very good question, I do it so automatically that I'm not entirely sure myself — but since I caught myself in the middle of a cut-and-stick sketchbook session, let's dive into it.

First up, I collect scraps like a trash magpie. Always have done, always will. Any paper items that I enjoy the colour/shape/texture of. Nowadays I tend to enjoy things with bold primary colours or black and white, pages from old maths textbooks or encyclopedias, flyers from local exhibitions, fragile tape and shipping labels from parcels, scraps found on the floor, old shopping lists, slips of paper from inside medicine packets or covid tests etc, anything that jumps out at me.

I collect these things in the pocket at the back of my sketchbook, or in a drawer (I have a whole drawer dedicated to scraps — some picked up from six or seven years ago, and some from last week). I hoard them like some sort of paper-loving dragon.

Other things I like adding are washi tapes, stickers, cinema tickets, drawings (whether straight in the sketchbook or stuck in), and anything else flat enough to fit in there.

Here are a few older sketchbook pages (from about 2014) showing some other types of scraps I've collated and used, and I think you can see where my current style has grown from.

The second part of your question is: but how do I put them all together? Again it's pretty much instinctive by now, but here are a few things I look for:

- Do I have a theme for the page? Is there a central object I want to build around? For the recent star trek pages I shared here, I'd been to see TMP and TWOK at the cinema and glued my tickets into my sketchbook, so I knew I wanted to theme the page around them

- Is there a colour palette? Either I pick colours from my central object, or I decide on a colour palette myself. Nowadays I keep my colour palettes very limited - one or two bolder colours and a range of cream/white/black/grey - but previously I've set the palette as pastel rainbow colours for example, when those were the colours I was more drawn to

- What words, symbols or drawings do I want to add? This can be lyrics that have been stuck in my head or that fit the theme, phrases I've come up with, fragments of found poetry clipped from textbooks, drawings that fit the theme (e.g star trek screencap thumbnails in the first example), etc. They don't have to fit the theme perfectly, or make sense to an external viewer - the important thing is that *you* want them on your page

This image below is a fragment of an as-yet-incomplete page - in which I swatched some leftover watercolour paint onto the page, found it complimented the colour of a sticker from a parcel perfectly (the small circular sticker), then I added an interesting-looking image from an old encyclopedia, which reminded me of a line from a Mountain Goats song: "the low pressure system brings the breezes in", and I wrote out another line from that same song on kraft paper and stuck it in. So it makes sense to me, or maybe someone familiar with the song, but to the average viewer it just looks kinda cool and/or they enjoy the line I've written out.

Then the next thing is to stick everything together! I'll confess, I rarely do this in one sitting - I currently have multiple pages I'm working on, one started the other month and almost complete, one started two weeks ago, and one just started today. I add to it whenever I get an idea or find a scrap that fits. But I used to do the pages in one sitting, and that absolutely works too.

As to how I decide what goes where on the page, that's just intuitive! I've made collage-y type art for at least fifteen years now (and longer if you count playing 'cut and stick' with old magazines as a kid), and I've very much learnt what sort of compositions please me, and how to tell if something feels too cluttered or lopsided or too spacious. But the beauty of this part is it's all personal preference! Shuffle your scraps around before gluing them down, and see what works for you.

Sometimes I add text or drawings first and use scraps in between, sometimes I stick the scraps down first and fill the gaps with text or drawings - there's no one way to do it! And hey, if there's something you don't like, you can always tear it out or stick something over it, that's the joy of mixed media.

Anyway this was a bit long-winded but I hope it makes at least a little bit of sense. Go forth and play with scraps!

[lenievi]

For the fic writer asks: 1, 9, 21, 24, 30! 💙

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

This year, I included characters exchanging messages. I had fun writing them, and I was told that my formatting and the inclusion was done well, so I'm sure I'll try it again it the future.

And the other "first time" was including explicit-ish(?) sex... based on the comments, it was successful, I guess (I haven't reread that fic since I published it 😅). I tried to focus more on the emotional part, because that was what was important to me in that fic, and it seems that that worked well as well. I'm sure I'll try it again with mckirk, I'm not sure about other trek ships (but never say never).

9. What fic meant the most to you to write?

In the Embers, my Kirk/La'an fic. Not necessarily because of the themes or anything profound, but it was a fic that I wrote after a spones day fic which was really hard for me to write or even come up with, because I had to force myself to write it (I'm still surprised it's so popular because I really struggled lol) - which is why I'm not forcing myself to come up with a fic for the spones zine, even though I'd like to participate, but I'm done forcing myself to write something just because I feel like I should. So the Kirk/La'an fic was very easy and relaxing, it's my longest fic to date, and I could pour all my love for Kirk/La'an into it, and writing from La'an's POV was also very freeing.

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue.

I posted one in this answer. I know I could post another, but this is going to be long 😅

24. What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

Kirk wanting sex with McCoy T_T It really came out of nowhere, I haven't sat down to write the fic with "they're gonna have sex". It just happened and so the fic happened the way it did. (For some reason, mckirk is just really easy to imagine in a sexual way. Even my very first mckirk fic last year almost had a threesome... at the end they only kissed the same woman lol)

30. What’s something that you want to write in 2024?

I would really like to finish my "when McCoy came to the Enterprise, he and Kirk weren't friends" fic (but they slept with each other three years prior...). “I served on a starship before. Captains and doctors don’t mesh well.” is the vibe. I'm just really into McCoy only realizing what a Starfleet officer could be like after meeting Kirk. Finding his place in Starfleet after years of running away from Earth and from himself. Finding his own dream. Kirk making him struggle between being an officer and a doctor. McCoy killing someone/something to save Kirk (ala The Man Trap, but tweaked)

I'd also like to write some TOS films era fics. A mckirk one set either after TFF or TUC. A Kirk-centric one where he retires from Starfleet before TWOK and goes to his uncle's farm to ride horses (I'll turn it into a mckirk fic too, probably lol) But I'm just obsessed with his literal retirement.

Also since last year, I've wanted to write a fic featuring Kirk's birthday. I should probably start thinking about it again, since I have three months... (probably won't happen like last year tho)

[fic writer asks]

[sedgewicke]

Mixed-up TWoK Reactions: Ch. 47

Kaladin: I can't take this Blade. There's blood on it. Unlike... literally any other weapon. And it would make me like one of them.

Well then! I guess continue to lie back and get fucked the ass by them at every turn, if it makes you feel like you're dragging your big dick on the moral high ground! Of course, I'm sure this will eventually be revealed as the True and Moral decision... somehow (and not just in a "well, then he wouldn't have done all the things he did and also character growth, etc" kind of way).

Also Kaladin: But I'm still certain that Dalinar and Sadeas are super legit guys.

I didn't realize the military paid well enough to fund a copium addiction.

Also, Merida? Dark green on burgundy? Has graphic design not been invented yet? Because somebody's doing all this glyph calligraphy, (and let me guess-- it's women, because we can't very well let boys do anything nice in this garbage culture), and I'm not sure they'd like knowing that the Amaram banner is the one people recognize at a distance as "the one we can't read, so by process of elimination--".

Yeah. Squint your eyeholes at that beaut. I wasn't even going to try and force this into the shape of a white-spine, which I assume is like a boar, but more crab. Not with a trackpad, I'm not.

How are you supposed to tell the difference between khakh and khokh (assuming there is one)? And why is Amaram being written with it anyway? Are glyphpairs some kind of different system, where you have the unpaired gylphs like with the Highprinces' that are just [name] written out (minus the vowels, because who needs those), while with glyphpairs, you've got the Kholins using khokh-linil, which are... the constituent glyphs than got compressed down into Kholin? Or the reverse, where the Kholins picked two glyphs that kinda sounded like their name and had meanings they liked?

I was surprised that, far as I've been able to figure, glyphs are an abjad (aka the "vowels aren't important" system of writing) and not ideograms/pictograms/rudimentary logograms. Because, golly, that sure makes it awful close to being a legitimate system of writing that one could use to communicate all manner of complex and abstract ideas. And we sure wouldn't want that... for... reasons, I guess?

Though, if you stylize an abjad into a pictogram, to the point that you can barely make out the letters, and people probably aren't bothering to read it beyond "Oh, tower-crown, that's the Kholins, look busy", what do you call that?

[thisbirdhasceasedtobe]

I actually have more thoughts I'm sorry.

TL;DR

Transport -> Successful Transport = Not Death, either to us or them Transport -> Accident -> Split Personalities = Not death to them, could be death to Us, happens to Kirk

Transport -> Accident -> Duplication = Not Death, either to us or them, could be considered a birth

Transport -> Accident -> Splice = Not death, could be considered a birth

Transport -> Accident -> Fatal Merge = Very death, RIP Commander Sonak

Transport -> Accident -> Splice -> Split = Very death, in fact Murder

Death in Star Trek is, like I jokingly said, hardly worse than the flu, but that's not to diminish how important death still is in the year 2375. I also say that I don't think they'd have the same concept of death as us, and I stand by it, but that concept is certainly more similar than I let on.

We see in DS9's "The Visitor" what a concept of death closest to our own looks like. Benjamin and Jake Sisko are in Engineering on the Defiant studying a subspace anomaly when Ben gets swallowed by the anomaly. Jake spends the next couple years aboard DS9 grieving his father, but the *second* Jake lays eyes on his briefly re-materialized father, Jake funnels all thought into bringing his Father back, studying every bit of knowledge he can get his hands on, sacrificing his whole life to bring his Dad back. To you or I, in our modern world, this would be the height of unhealthy obsession and would absolutely get someone a trip to a psych ward, but to them it shows just how mutable the concept of death is. To Jake, to the people in his life, that glimpse of his father erases nearly any idea that he's *actually* dead.

Let's take a step back and look at The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. We all know Spock's sacrifice at the end of TWoK, Hallmark made it a Christmas ornament for Roddenberry's sake, but after Spock's death Kirk goes home and does his grieving, that's that, done and dusted. Sarek breaks down the door and calmly asks "did my son put his soul in you," Kirk is reasonably confused and with the stunning realization that Vulcan's have literal, physical souls, begins the quest to "resurrect" Spock. Vulcan's clearly don't share our same concept of Death, and Death in Kirk's mind is plenty flexible enough to grapple with the idea that Spock might not be dead.

When I said the people in the world of Star Trek would have a completely different view of death, this is the distinction I was trying to articulate. Death, for us, is permanent and inevitable. It is neither in Star Trek, and that's the difference that makes everything. People, like Jake and Kirk, still grieve long and fully, but the fundamental difference in permanence and effect leads them to have a significantly less rigid view of the concept.

Spock got his brain stolen in TOS 3x01 Spock's Brain. I dunno about you, but I would certainly call a brainless body a dead one, even if it's being artificially kept alive. If brain death counts as death, then being brainless should also, even if the body is artificially supported.

Kirk gets split in two in TOS 1x04 The Enemy Within by a transporter accident, resulting basically in a 'good' Kirk and an 'evil' one. The original Kirk is no longer there, and this certainly counts as the transporter killing a person, but because of Kirk's subsequent re-integration, it's a non-issue.

"But Jesse," I hear you raise your finger pointedly, "that's just TOS being silly and 60's!" and you'd be correct! But you'd be a fool to think the hijinks stop here!

How about we look at a pair, or rather, two pairs of people who have some experience with transporters. William T. Riker and Bradward Boimler. Both got duplicated the transporter, and in the first place it's the original that returned, in the latter, the copy. Thomas Riker, Will's clone, wasn't discovered for some eight years and no one could have known he was alive. The original Boimler, however, makes it back to the Titan just after his clone, later taking the name William, walks off the Transporter pad.

If, as I claim, the transporter splitting Kirk in half is killing, then surely so should these, right? Well, to you or I, sure. But to them, there's a person who's clearly the original, they know their circumstances. The "original" Riker and Boimler could be said to have died when they were split, but since no one was any the wiser until OG Boimler showed up and Riker Beta was discovered. Are they then considered, retroactively, dead? No, because that's a very silly thing to do, and death in Star Trek is flexible enough a concept to accommodate them all.

As I put in the Tags, I don't view it as death in either our view or in Star Trek's view. I think this is also evidenced by the way transporter suspicion is viewed in-universe. Bones is considered 'quaint' or even 'misguided' over his fear of transporters in The Motion Picture, despite those fears being proven valid just a little bit earlier when Commander Sonak and an Unnamed officer get merged by the recently refit Enterprise's, NCC-1701, transporters and, according to the TMP novelization, essentially turned inside out. Horrific, isn't it? THIS is what a transporter death looks like, this is our first canonical bit of evidence of what a true Transporter Death looks like.

A hundred years later, Reginald Barclay is a lieutenant on the Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, and by this time advances in Transporter tech have made them safer than either flying or driving by orders of magnitude, and Barclay's transporter fear is treated as a psychological problem, with him being directed to Ship's counselor, Commander Deanna Troi. Despite accidents appearing to us as frequent, because it's an easy to use plot point, they're extremely rare in the context of the show and are broadly treated like automitive accidents now.

Let's shift now to using the Transporter for execution. Surely, you could kill with a transporter by sending the occupant into space or re-materializing them in a bulkhead. In fact, the ways you could kill with a Transporter might outnumber the ways you can safely use them. Hey, wait, that almost sounds like what you can do with a car!

Let's commit a murder with the Transporter though. Voyager 2x24.Two crew members transport down, successfully, to a planet. They pick up some samples, one of them has a laugh, they beam back up. Oh no! The crew members got merged into one! One person, a merge of two, is born from their de-materialization. This person's name is Tuvix, a splicing of Lieutenant Commander Tuvok and Neelix. This person is both Tuvok and Neelix, yet neither. A distinct, living sentient being. But ah shoot, the captain misses her bestie and Kes misses her boyfriend, so the choice is made to split Tuvix back into Tuvok and Neelix. This is, rightfully, treated as a killing. This is another canonical example of what Transporter Death looks like.

In conclusion: it's the re-materialization or lack thereof that makes for a Transporter Death. Since, to successfuly use the transporter requires a re-materialization, successful transport cannot be considered a Transporter Death. It's not Death to them, but if we were to watch someone be beamed away, our only reasonable assumption would be Death.

In Star Trek, the transporter works by converting you as a complete copy from matter to energy containing all information necessary to reassemble you, sends that information wirelessly over a distance to a location where you are then reassembled, molecule by molecule. Since the copy is so perfect you do not perceive any interruption between conversions and everything about you is physically in tact at the end of the procedure (assuming nothing goes wrong, which canonically very rarely happens).

[luminouslumity]

THOUGHTS ON: THE COSMERE SERIES

So I said last year about how I was going to be reading the Cosmere books for the first time, one book/series at a time, and I've finally done just that!

So I started with Elantris and it was... eh. Yeah, I can see why this one isn't really talked about much. I didn't even hate it, tbh, but I still found it to be pretty boring overall. I know it was Branderson's first book, though, so I'm willing to cut him some slack here. Hopefully I'll enjoy the sequel more, whenever it comes out.

Next was the original Mistborn trilogy, which I've actually been wanting to read for awhile now! I can certainly see why it's Branderson's most popular work and I myself really liked it, too! Kelsier is probably my favorite character since I love how many layers there are to him. Elend is a close second, and considering what happens to the latter... Yeah...

Speaking of villains, I still can't tell if we're meant to pity Rashek or not due to things like this:

It's calling him "a good man" is what has me thrown off. I know his actions were at least in part due to Ruin's influence, but still! As for Ruin himself, again, I love Chessmaster characters! I do however think I would've preferred it if the Hero of Ages did turn into a tyrant, just because I've always loved this sort of trope, but I'm not too bothered about the twist, either.

So since I finished Era 1, I decided to read Era 2 while I was still on Scadrial, and as someone who's not too fond of Westerns in general, I thought the Wax and Wayne series was okay. I was feeling so bad for Wax throughout it, though! And I'm also really looking forward to the inevitable big crossover that's been teased at this entire time after getting a taste of it in a main book.

And now we come to my favorite of the Cosmere books, Warbreaker! And it's just fun! Really, really fun! Of the PoV storylines, I think I liked Vivenna's arc the most and how determined she was to rescue her sister, but Siri's was still a close second. Favorite character in general, though, Bluefingers. I repeat, I love a good Chessmaster! But more than that, I really liked how sympathetic he was, just trying to free his people, but he and his supporters ended up taking things way too far! Which brings to what is really my only big complaint with the book, and that's how abruptly it seemed to end, especially where the conflict with the Pahn Kahl is concerned, so for better or worse, I really hope their fate gets explored in Nightblood. Which reminds me, I loved the chaotic sword, too!

White Sand was next and it was another story I found to just be alright, both the graphic novel as well as the prose version.

Now comes The Stormlight Archive, another I've been wanting to read for awhile now, though I know it won't be completed for a few years now. I actually read the audiobook to the Prime version of TWoK first, so it was fun to compare it with the official release and I really hope we get more Sanderson Curiosities in the future! All that said, I'm really enjoying the story so far and how grand everything feels, but oof, did these scenes make me cringe:

On one hand, I totally get scolding Kaladin for just automatically assuming the worst of everyone who's a lighteyes and being fed up with his cynicism. At the same time, though, I also really hate how dismissive Shallan comes across in this chapter. At first, I thought that was the intention, but then we get this:

This isn't even the first time I've felt like anger towards oppression was being dismissed in one way or another, btw (again, Warbreaker, my beloved), these are just the moments that stood out to me the most. It'd be one thing if it were just condemning extremists, but when you have scenes like Shallan's talk with Kaladin and... Yeah... Again, I totally get the intention, I just wish the scenes had played out better, because I actually do like Shallan otherwise.

Anyway, I ended up reading Arcanum Unbounded afterwards, as well as Dawnshard, and I liked them just fine. Secret History is probably my favorite of the short stories, and I really hope Nalthis gets a short story eventually. I also received Aether of Night literally yesterday (thank you, 17th Shard!) and it was interesting seeing the similarities between this and other Branderson works, such as Ruin and Decay.

If I had to rank them from favorite to least favorite, it would probably be Warbreaker, The Final Empire, Wax and Wayne, The Stormlight Archive, White Sand, and finally, Elantris.

So yeah, great stories by someone who seems like an overall great guy, I just question some of the writing choices.

[existentialcrisistime]

!!! I finally watched the first episode of strange new worlds! and u know what? lots of fun, I really enjoyed it! looking forward to learning more about the characters and watching them grow (and also I guess finally watching discovery so I can get the backstory oops - but I didn't really need it to follow the plot)

mild spoilers below cut ig??

I actually didn't dislike the whole spock/t'pring thing - like I think it was well done and fits in with what we know about the characters from amok time, and also it was v funny that we were worried about it and yet that was one of the first scenes, to get it out of the way :') very spock fake dying at the start of twok vibes (and regardless they can't take amok time away from us don't worry)

uhura is fuckin incredible, as is m'benga and I love the new cast too - and sam kirk! wild

also gotta love the whole "I've seem my own death" pile subplot for a bit of spicy seasoning, I'm already creating a playlist in my head 👀

and mmmm the recreated old tech is nice and tasty I love

[kingjasnah]

Idk what the anon meant, but maybe they were saying Lirin pushing back in "acceptable" ways meant non-violence? Even if Kal thought his dad would've murdered Roshone, doesn't mean Kal's observation is correct. Idk. But I'm not shocked by his ideology shift either. Lirin has been through some Stuff since twok, and the world's gone a little crazy. Dude's been beaten down, and it read to me like his "compliant slave" comment was more of a reflection of the fact that he's seen no method work.

non violence wasn't exactly acceptable in alethi society either!! any kind of resistance to social norms was punished and well...there's an extreme example in pai the ardent.

but yes he's really been through it so i understand why he mightve been less optimistic (not that he ever was really) over the years but something i liked about stormlight was the way it showcased different ideologies and morals for different characters depending on the situation they were in. like with jasnah's kharbranth philosophy lesson. jasnah thought she was right, shallan thought she was wrong because they had different ways of looking at the situation, both logically and morally. i ended up siding with shallan, but the book still made me actively think about it and make that decision. in row the big ideological battle was between dalinar and taravangian and adolin's "uh maybe there are more than two ways to practice honor?" was another sign that we should maybe have a good hard think about all this.

lirin seemed to be set up in wok as an alternative to dalinar. they're both father figures to kaladin with exactly opposite upbringings and ideas on how to act in this situation. and both were valid for their characters and made sense! they both made you think! and then suddenly....both dalinar and lirin are like hm :/ actually maybe you shouldnt try to uproot your oppressive society. now that og post put this way better than i am doing rn but it's like suddenly there are more arguments for the halting of progress than i would've expected (even from dalinar "a life is priceless" kholin) and it really did feel like lirin's comment was there just to cause conflict with kaladin. it robs us of a nuanced philosophy previously in the series cause literally no one is gonna be like yeah slavery apologism is good actually. if that theory was going to be discredited it probably should've been done in a less nuclear way...even if this made sense for lirin's character (which I'm still not convinced it does) his role in this story feels like it's been damaged

[queen-kassiopeia-the-5th]

Finished Rhythm of War.

Didn't really like it.

It wasn't a bad book, by no means, it is miles better than many other books I've read, but usually Brandon Sanderson knocks it out for the park for me, and this… didn’t hit right. I did have parts I really enjoyed, but I could tell the path of each character from the first 50-100 pages, and none of the plotwists got me. I saw them coming from the previous book or the blatant hints in this one (which isn't a bad thing, per say, but it impacted my personal enjoyment).

I feel like the writing style between the rest of the series and RoW changed – it's less thought out and simplistic, almost juvenile, in some places, and very poetic and epic in others, which creates a sort of dichotomy, and made it kind of hard to get into some parts. There is plenty of reiteration, repeating facts and descriptions we know already, which haven't been referenced to this extent before, because they are known to the reader – how Shadowsmar looks, for example, or the experience in it. Then, we have this onslaught of characters all of a sudden, hundreds of new Radiants with abilities just as strong as our main characters, who needed months, and sometimes years to develop them, reached in mere moths. It feel like it cheapens the efforts, sweat, blood and tears our other main characters had to go through. No way all of the newcomers are on par as people who trained for months and years. Venli even comments of this fact at some point. I also don't see a case where so many – hundreds – of different spren would be willing to bond again. A few tens, sure, and some kinds less then others, but hundreds? I just don't buy it. Considering the vitriol Adolin faces, too.

Events and changes we didn't see mentioned in passing, new characters introduced to have no impact at all – the expedition to the Honorspren for example - as if we should be privy to the inner joke but are not. I've read Dawnshard, so I'm up to all the lore, and I still felt like there were too many developments in the character's lives that had a huge impact to this book, but we never got to see. Mentioned as an apropos. I get that almost a year passed between the events of Oathbringer and RoW but still.

I also felt that the Venli flashbacks were redundant. The only important thing we learned is that she got the first void Spren from a mysterious woman. We knew everything else about her and Eshonai's story, and it added nothing to the plot, not even emotionally. We needed a different characters flashbacks, deffinately not Venli's. She could have told the little info we got from them to her Spren, which she does in the story anywhay! I liked the parts where we touched onto the Listeners' culture, but they were brief. As for the Singers', they have nothing going on with them. They copy human culture – which I get, they lived for centuries surrounded by it – but it makes the entire experience dull and boring. And the Fused read like cartoon villians to me, very basic and one dimentional.

Both Kaladin and Shallan are in bad mental places, which is the natural development of their PTSD and trauma (and Odium, in Kaladin's case), but I feel like they had very little character development, and that Shallan didn't really progress anywhere. She lost one dissociative identity, and re-embraced the truth of her actions, yet again. Everything else was done around her, but Adolin, Kalak, and mostly Wit. She severed her bonds with the Ghostbloods, but since she was never truly faithful to them, it had little impact, in my eyes. Dalinar had no development at all, and Kal very little – he recognizes that talking helps the darkness in him every book, and forgets that by the next; he always encouraged Bridge Four to talk about their darkest moment around the fire, all the way in TWoK, because of that reason, so it's not like he invented group therapy in this book. Sil was the one to develop here, and Navani, which is fine, but we had charcter development for all main characters, and most side ones, in other books. Here? Almost none. The plot also progressed very little, in my opinion, for the length of such a book.

In general, I think this is my least favorite Stormlight book, but that's a personal opinion. It did make me less excited for WaT, which is good, considering it's still some time till it will be out.

Gotta say, I'm not enjoying Rythm of War so far...

Just finished part 1, and I'm not feeling it.

I don't like that there are so many Radiants all of the sudden, which like makes sense, but also feela so excessive to me. I feel like we're approaching level of the peak of the Knights Radiant, and this should be a new begining. A couple from each order, maybe? Also don't like the Kaladin storyline so far. And how everyone dances around Shallan's blatant mental breakdown, instead of confronting her and forcing her to deel with it. "She found a ballance" yeah, well, it's not a good one. They are just indelging her and letting her perpetuate the bad habits, to rely on Veil and Radiant, instead of fixing the root of her problems. Also I don't care for Singers' development. We don't need that. I can already see where the storyline of each character will lead them, and I hope I will be surprised along the way, but yeah... Feel like so far the story is going in directions that I don't care for or dislike.

We'll see.

[staringdownabarrel]

I feel like the thing a lot of people forget about The Wrath of Khan is that it wasn't really Khan as a character that made the movie work. It's more that the movie was a deconstruction of the original series which made it work, and that this deconstruction stuck.

For the most part in the original series, each story was over and done with at the end of the episode. Yes, Harry Mudd showed up in two episodes in TOS, and yes, the Organian treaty gets an off-hand mention in The Trouble With Tribbles, but overwhelmingly, the original series was a story of the week type show. Even the exceptions to that can be watched in isolation and still work.

The Wrath of Khan wasn't really like that. Its entire existence is the consequence of what Kirk chose to do in Space Seed, and how it ended up being a bad thing for Khan. This takes this one episode from the first season and made it the one thing he can't just forget about a few weeks later.

From this angle, Khan could have easily been replaced with a different villain and it still would have worked on a similar level and with a similar plot. Trelane could have sought revenge against Kirk for whatever his parents did to him after the end of The Squire of Gothos. The Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident could have sought revenge for her humiliation as well. I'm sure Charlie thought he had some pretty solid grievances against him after Charlie X, too.

I think the idea that Khan would seek revenge, even fifteen years later, is something that's true to life, too. Sometimes the bad decisions you make at one point in your life really do continue to haunt you decades after the fact. You don't always get to run off and forget them like Kirk did in the original series.

But what really made The Wrath of Khan work wasn't just that it deconstructed the consequences-free approach the original series took for the most part. It's also that later movies stuck the landing and kept it that way. The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home both couldn't have happened without The Wrath of Khan happening, and large parts of Kirk's character arc in The Undiscovered Country couldn't have happened without The Search For Spock.

So in essence, TWoK was the turning point in the franchise. I think a lot of people tend to forget that, either because they mostly got into Star Trek because of the Berman era shows where some episodes would be sequels to previous episodes, so the full weight the movie had in the context of the franchise at that point in time is lost. I think that's probably going to be more of an issue as time goes on, especially as newer shows set in the TOS era come out and have story arced plotlines.

I think sometimes even modern Trek writers forget this angle, too. Into Darkness was mostly just using Khan because he's the most iconic original series villain, not because they had some thematic point they wanted to make with him. Ironically, given what the alternate universe is like, they really could have saved him and used him to make the exact same point in a fourth AOS movie.

This is also ultimately why I'm not a huge fan of the idea of there being a series based around him. Apparently they're talking about it being a podcast series or something now. Khan's story arc is over; let it remain over.

Really, there's a lot of other, more interesting stories that could be told in a Star Trek setting about genetically engineered supermen. It'd also be very on brand with Star Trek's history of social commentary because of how many real life people are still out and out eugenicists.