My Favorite Books by Brandon Sanderson (a Tier List)

        It's here! Can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I made a tier list of my favorite books in general back in Oct 2022 (which you can find here), but I refrained from adding most of Brandon Sanderson's works since it had been so many years since I had read many of them. On top of that, Brandon has also released, like, 10 books since I wrote that post, so there's a lot to add.

        Important Note: This is my favorites and is reflective of my experience with them, not what I think is the best nor what the books I would suggest the highest. Obviously my experience with them is going to be strongly correlated with how good I think they are, but this is not always the case.
        Prime example: I don't actually think that Allomancer Jak is a better book/short story than Rhythm of War even though it's two spots higher. I just simply had a good time when I read it last and thought it was cute and so I put it in the "Like" tier. Versus Rhythm of War I feel generally meh about, so I put it in the "It's Fine" tier.

        Okay, so I don't want this post to accidentally turn into 'Give my thoughts on every book I've ever read by Brandon Sanderson', but I did want to make write about a few things.

        Three Small Notes To Start

        Legion represents all three Novellas combined.
        I think the main reason I didn't like Legion: Death and Faxes was because the narrator's voice wasn't my favorite.
        The Eleventh Metal surprised me this reread; I really enjoyed it and thought it worked great as a prequel.

        Lux

        Lux almost assuredly is good enough to make it much higher on this list than the spot it landed on (the bottom of "It's Fine"). I started listening to the book expecting it to be to be a novella length, like, 3-6 hours long. I was trying to blitz listen to the book, not paying the greatest attention to exposition/character backstory/things in general since I thought it would be done soon. Just a simple little listen. Well, after getting quite a few hours deep into the story I realized that it was actually 15 hours long in total. I was not mentally prepared for that. I still wanted to finish it and I just kept listening to it even during times I couldn't fully focus on it.
        These incorrect expectations for what the book was going into it really ended up ruining what could have been a much better experience, I think.

        A thought on rereads and why The Hero of Ages remains my favorite book

        Question: What's the most important read-through of a book, the first or any other past that? I really think the first. Many books you're not even going to reread in the first place. On top of that, surprises/twists/revelations can only be experienced fully on the first read-through.
        (An aside here because I think it's interesting: Music I think is the inverse: You can listen to a song so many times and thus the 100th listen experience is much more important than the first imo.)

        I think this factor is relevant in making this tier list. In certain cases, I give some amount of weight to my first read-through of a book. The prime example of this is The Hero of Ages. For many many years now I have said that it's my favorite book and that continues to this day. But for the past couple readthroughs of the Mistborn trilogy, I've actually been preferring Book 1. Same with various Stormlight books, my most recent rereads of Stormlight 1-3 were all a better experience compared to my most recent reread of The Hero of Ages.
        But, and this is a big but, my first readthrough of The Hero of Ages is by far and away my favorite individual readthrough of any book ever. I. Love. That. Book. And it remains my favorite book of all time.

        None of my other first read-through opinions shine nearly as brightly as Hero of Ages, but it is relevant in much smaller ways in a couple parts of my tier list.

        Dreamer

        I read Dreamer for the first time just recently. It's been worming in my brain, and I like it more and more the more I think about it. I went in knowing nothing about it, which I think was important for the experience, so try to go in blind if you can. It's only 20-pages or so long and worth the quick read in my opinion. I have a copy I could lend if anybody is curious.

        Skyward Flight

        Okay, I don't know why I loved the Skyward Flight stories as much as I did, but I really enjoyed them. Should they be put above the likes of Isles of Emberdark, The Well of Ascension, and Tress? Probably not, but, like for some reason I was just having a blast the whole time when I read them, and you'll notice they're my 2nd favorite thing from the Skyward series. I'm not really planning on ever rereading the series because I didn't like the 2nd or 3rd book, though.
        The three are unsorted amongst themselves -- they all blur in my head.

        Emperor's Soul

        Reread this for the first time in a long while and it was simply a delight. Deservedly earned spot #5. Highly recommend, especially if you want something shorter (it's only 100ish pages).

TØP Rap Statistics (Breach and The Line update)

Old Statistics can be found here: https://whateveriwant7.blogspot.com/2024/06/tp-rap-statistics.html

        So the stats here are how many songs by Twenty One Pilots have rap in them and how many don't. I just find it interesting and fun and cool.

        First: Update to previous decisions on previous songs. 

        After consideration, Bandito has been moved to the non-rap category. 

        And Not Today (already time-stamped for the section in question) is still the biggest question mark, but I decided to leave it in the Rap section for now.

        In the previous statistics, there were more songs with rap than without. But 10 out of the 14 songs in Breach do not contain rap, and The Line doesn't contain rap either. This means non-rap has taken the majority.

Here's the stats:

October 2025 Journal Entry

Hades II

        Well, if last month was the month of Silksong, then this month... wasn't really the month of Hades II. I was fully expecting it to be, but it didn't turn out so. I mean, I still spent some time with it (partly in September, to be fair -- it came out September 25th), got to an ending and had fun. But, like, a third of the time compared to Silksong and a quarter of the time compared to Stardew Valley.

        I'm not sure why I didn't like it as much as Hades I. I can recognize the game is great, but idk.

Books

        Got a lot of reading done! Read Isles of Emberdark, reread tons of some of Brandon Sanderson's smaller works, read some of his smaller works for the first time, got around to rereading Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing so I could read its sequel A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor.

        Good stuff.

Scheduled out Blogposts and Such

        I referenced last month that I wrote tons of blogposts that I hadn't published yet and that I'd be posting them once per week. Since then I have polished several of them up, made a specific schedule for them, and had a couple more ideas to add into the mix. Most of them are already written, but a few of them are still being worked on (ex. obviously this post alongside the November and December journal entries can't be written until they can. My Twenty One Pilots Tier List is also still a WIP alongside spoilers).

Exercised/Used Exercise Unlocked

        Exercise Unlocked (more specifically, the Loot Boxes you could buy with Sweat Coin that Ryan, Angeles, and I made) got me motivated to exercise a lot more this month than I normally do. It's been great, feeling good. A lot of push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and squats in the first half of the month, then I kind of transitioned back into playing Pickleball every chance I get.

        Although use of Exercise Unlocked has declined throughout the month (which I'm perfectly fine with; I had no expectations for how long lived it would be), it was great fun to play around with it. 

        It was fun to do just a few more jumping jacks so I could have just enough Sweat Coin to buy another Loot Box. Fun to talk about the meta of Ryan's game he made. Fun to try to collect every family member's trading card and decorate my page. To look at the creative things others did on their pages, look at adorable Melody Inspirational Stickers. Just good fun all around. And maybe it'll spike back up in use at some point, who knows.

Interviews!!!

        Huge progress in terms of my job hunt. Feel very blessed and fortunate. Did many interviews this month for two different jobs, and I think I did really well! Feeling great about the chances I have to get one or both offers. Either opportunity would be wonderful; they're both jobs I really want, so I'm excited for whatever happens. I finished my last round with one of the companies and still have one left with the other.

        Maybe next month I'll return and report that I got neither. I would be very quite sad. But I'm rather hopeful that will not be the case.

Misc.

        Scrabble playing continued 🔥. Dressed up as Kristofferson alongside Hannah as Ashe from Fantastic Mr. Fox for Halloween (Lucas and Hannah did it first -- I just stole Lucas's costume) 🦊. The NBA season has started up again, which I seem to get more and more invested into every year 🏀. Oh, yeah, I had my 25th birthday, lowkey forgot about that for a second 🎂. Thought about writing many times but never did so 🖉.

Breakdown of "Creation Thawing"

        In this blogpost I talk about the poem "Creation Thawing" that I wrote. You can find that poem here, but it will also be copied and pasted throughout as I talk about specific sections:

Link

A Brief Forward

        So after writing that poem and this breakdown, I started watching some poetry content on youtube. Fascinating stuff which kind of made me feel like my poem is bad. Which it is on the grand scheme of things, of course. But that's not what matters I think? So regardless of the fact that I can get so much better at writing poetry, I'm proud of the poem that I did write. And obviously if I'm ever to get better at poetry the most important step to doing so is writing more poetry, so there's that.

        Anyway, onto the needlessly obtuse breakdown:

        

Quick Overview

       This poem is about some struggles I have in my creative/creation process. I originally started writing it because I started to freeze up (a topic/theme discussed in the poem). I broke through and in an attempt to describe what I was feeling and the thoughts I was having about what I was going through, I started writing short lines for a poem. After iterations, those lines became this poem.

        In its middle stages of creation, the poem was actually structured as a set of three poems that were meant to be read in conjunction. The first three 'paragraphs' were titled "Creation at a Standby" and then later "Creation Frozen". The next three 'paragraphs' were titled "Creation at a Crawl" and later "Creation Thawing". Then the last three 'paragraphs' I simply labeled as "Creation", but I never felt that title was the one I wanted it to have.

        It was actually this struggle with the third title that led me to simply remove the separation altogether and conjoin them into one poem. I think the three separate but connected poem idea is cool. It came about because the structure of what I was writing flowed within the sets of three paragraphs, and specific ideas were tackled by each section. 

        Although now one poem, their structures and specific ideas are still split across the 3 sections which I'll be calling the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Sections.

My Personal Meaning to the Poem

1st Section

It's easier to do nothing than something

So nothing often happens

It's easier to stop than finish

So stop often happens

It's easier to consume than create

So consume often happens

Such easy dopamine

The things I truly want lay on the wayside

So many choices 

The things I do make me feel like I am missing another

Ice creeps through my veins

So I sit in paralysis

        As referenced before, this section was originally titled "Creation at a Standby" and later "Creation Frozen" because this section simply states my struggle with no offer of hope, solution, or alternative.

        The first paragraph is talking about how creating something can be difficult for me. It's easier for me to never start or to stop than it is for me to create anything at all. It's easier for me to simply watch youtube videos ("consume").

        Paragraph two expands on this. "Such easy dopamine" is a reference to that "It's easier to consume than create". It's so easy for me to simply open up youtube, find a random video to watch, spend x amount of time doing that, rinse and repeat. But often I walk away from watching that video feeling like I didn't really want to watch it. That the primary reason why I watched it was simply because it was a convenient, easy way to distract my brain, and I would choose to do something else if I could go back and change that decision. 

        Nuance nuance here: Obviously youtube can be a wonderful place full of goodness in a variety of ways -- and it often is that for me. But other times it leads to, well, me wasting time. And, slightly different note, obviously living in a constant state of "I have to be doing the optimal thing at all times and if I don't do that than I'm constantly regretting my use of time" is not healthy, and I hope I'm not invertedly promoting that mindset here. It's a balance between recognizing that I want to do something differently while not beating myself up over it etc. etc. Fighting off unhealthy mindsets/fears is part of what Section 2 focuses on. 

        In this poem "things I truly want" is referencing creating things, working on creative projects or other things such as blog posts, various youtube video ideas, an app/video game idea, Auzzy Quite Liked Her Name, alongside other things I want to do including mission journal transcriptions, other writing projects, and reading.

        

        "So many choices" is referencing how sometimes when I go to do something, my mind is bombarded with all the other things I also want to be doing. It makes me feel, well, it makes me feel like what paragraph 3 says. In this case, "So many choices" is not only referring to the "things I truly want", but is also referencing tons of random small things that my brain says I need to get to. 

        "When's the last time you talked to x friend or y family member?", "You still need to read some scriptures today, are you sure you should be doing this instead?", "You've been meaning to post a life update on facebook for years now, you really should get on that.", and then the ever present "You don't have a job, why are you doing anything else besides attempting to find a job."

        I hate this bombardment of thoughts, and although those sentences aren't exactly what goes on in my brain (but is more just an attempt of trying to get the idea across), these thoughts weigh me down at times. Sometimes it's better and sometimes worse, of course. The worst offender by far is the ever present thought at the end, which I'm trying to get a healthier mindset around.

        

        All these thoughts can send me into a state of paralysis. A petrified state where it feels so difficult to act because it feels like I won't be able to get to even a fraction of what I want to, so why even try. And even if I do pick one, it wasn't the correct one, that I should be working on something else instead. 

        This is what paragraph 3 talks about. There's a physical sensation of something crawling through my veins in my arms, freezing them in place. This is where the idea of the 'ice' throughout the poem comes from. This is also where the poem gets its name.

2nd Section

So afraid of failing while creating

So afraid of creating something worth nothing

But perhaps the attempt itself has intrinsic value

So afraid of choosing one over another

So afraid of wasting that potential

But perhaps they can all be done, one by one

I'm afraid of wasting

I'm afraid of freezing

But perhaps I need only to try

        The last line in each paragraph is fighting off the fears. In this section, my fight back against this ice/paralysis begins. This is why this section was originally titled "Creation at a Crawl" and later "Creation Thawing". 

        Paragraph 4 (aka, paragraph 1 in this section) talks about how I'm scared that I'll struggle and fail while creating -- struggling and failing is hard. It'd be so easy if I could just make something fantastic immediately, but that's not how it works. It then talks about how I'm scared that even if I do manage to create something, that it won't be worthwhile. 

        These fears are fought back by the thought that perhaps the attempt itself is worth something. That even if I fail or even if I create something that ends up being thrown away the next day, that that effort was not wasted.

        Paragraph 5 talks more about the idea of how when I choose one thing "I truly want", I feel I won't be able to get to (and therefore waste the potential of) another thing "I truly want". These fears are combatted by the thought that perhaps they can all be done if I just take them one at a time. 

        The thing is (although I don't like to remind myself of this fact), I don't even know if that's true. The "But perhaps" is in there for a reason. Can I really do all the things?

        But the thought helps me focus. It helps me calm down and just pick one thing to do rather than be overwhelmed by how many things I want to do.

        Paragraph 6 encompasses all these ideas. I'm afraid of wasting. Wasting my time. Wasting these great ideas I feel I have. Letting my friendships waste away. I'm afraid of freezing. I'm afraid of having all these things paralyze me into a state where I do nothing at all (which, I'll note here, is different than a state of relaxing or taking a break).

        These fears are combatted by the thought that perhaps I need only to try.

        Using the word 'I' in this paragraph made it feel more personal and real for me. It's the last paragraph in the section; this slight change up makes that work better, I feel. It focuses in on the fact that this poem isn't just about anyone's fears, but they're mine. And these "But perhaps" thoughts lead me to having a healthier mindset around them.

3rd Section

When the ice starts to form

And my brain starts to short circuit

I'll heed those voices not

And channel this desire strong

I'll focus on a thing I want

And create it

        This last section finishes the poem with a declaration of what I want and will try to do when these struggles come.

        The "brain starts to short circuit" references another sensation that commonly comes alongside the ice (although do not always appear together). My brain just starts to shut down is the simplest way of putting it. I could go much more in-depth about this, and perhaps I will another time depending.

        "I'll heed those voices not" is referencing 1 Nephi 8:33. "But we heeded them not" is a powerful phrase to me. "Those voices" is referencing all the fears and things I discussed throughout the rest of the poem.

        "And channel this desire strong" is referencing this deep desire I have in my heart to create and work on these things. It pushes me to make, to create.

        In the last paragraph, my use of the word 'a' here is intentional. 'The' would perhaps imply that there's only one right choice of thing to work on, and there's only one thing I want at any given time, which isn't true. 'a' pulls back to the idea of doing things 'one by one'.

No Phun Intended Tier List

        So this is my first time ever sitting down and fully making a tier list for No Phun Intended. I've always known generally which songs are my favorite, but the lower end I've really had no idea how things would shake out.

        For those who don't know, No Phun Intended is an album made by a 17 year-old Tyler Joseph. The fact that he wrote this in high school is incredible. Every lyric is compact with meaning and every song is performed with so much emotion. This album makes me feel more things than any other music, each song is just so raw and powerful.

        The production quality is obviously low, and, as shown in my rankings, it's not like I love every song. But that doesn't mean I don't love every song, if that makes sense. That sentiment is true more for this album than any other, I think. 

        Especially with an album as emotional as this, people will connect to different songs. Anybody could tell me any song from this album is their favorite and a thought like, "Really?" wouldn't even cross my mind, which, ofc, isn't true for most music ex. how does anyone like Bounce Man, I don't get it (sorry, have to keep playing into my certified Bounce Man hater persona to annoy Ben)

        The S, A+, and A songs are all songs I genuinely enjoy and I should really add them to my playlist. Obviously this is more true the higher on the tier list you get (with an asterisk on TB Saga, we'll talk more about that in a sec). Although, granted, due to the fact that they're very emotional and they sound ¿old?/not like the rest of the songs on the playlist, it probably wouldn't be uncommon for me to skip them. 

        Okay, so the asterisk on Taco Bell Saga: Taco Bell Saga is the greatest song of all time... but like not really, haha. But, like, it's the greatest song of all time. 

        The fact that a song such as Taco Bell Saga (an incredibly goofy silly fun song about Taco Bell) exists on the same album as Save (a song where Tyler Joseph is literally screaming and pleading with all his heart to God and Christ to save him) is incredible. 

        On top of that, it's just the fact that the man who made Taco Bell Saga is also the one who has made so many other powerful deep songs (Neon Gravestones feels like a prime example) and has, through his music, saved a lot of people's lives. It's just awesome and makes me happy. 

        Taco Bell Saga's existence makes me so happy. Enough to put it in S tier when perhaps it really shouldn't be. I almost gave it the #1 spot, haha, but Drown and Blasphemy are too goated.

        Like, seriously, this fact is so hilarious and great to me. Feel free to check out this amazing thing yourself: Taco Bell Saga Link, Save Link.

        

        This was a really tough tier list to make because emotion just plays such a large part in my love for these songs. Save, for example, I like less in several ways to Hear Me Now and Tonight, but it just hits me so hard. Obviously in other tier lists emotion plays a part, but not this strong of a part. On top of that, I don't actively listen to these songs, so I had to a lot of refreshing and such. But I think in the end, the tier list ended up in a good spot.

Tier List made in TierMaker (which I clipped out the logo of to make the image not have tons of empty space)