I'm going to the Utah Salt Lake City mission and I'm reporting to the MTC on November 6th.
I. am. so. excited.
I leave in 48 days. Probably 47 by the time anybody reads this since I'm posting it lateish at night.
It's soooo soooon.
Which means my plans of reading all those books that I wrote about in the previous blog post are out the window. The Ender and Bean series will have to wait until after I get home from my mission. Along with The Giver Quartet (Although I might just read the first book again. It's short, so it wouldn't take too long).
I'm excited. I'm happy.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
I've been reading a lot (Favorite Books List Revamp)
So, fun fact of the day that I would bet money I'm the only one who remembers: A long while ago I decided I was going to revamp my favorite books list. I decided I wanted the books to be split apart (instead of by series like they were before). I never did it. Until now *party popper* *party popper* (Note: I'm still debating if I'm going to put novellas on my new list.)
So you can go ahead and look to your left at my new list. Here's the old list in case you're curious:
1. Mistborn Series
2. Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow
3. Books of Umber Series
4. The Rithmatist
5. The Reckoners
6. Elantris
7. Jinx Series
8. The Emperor's Soul
9. Mysterious Benedict Society Series
10. The Healing Wars
11. Alcatraz Vs. Series
12. Flowers For Algernon
13. Uglies Series
14. Fablehaven Series
15. Beyonders Series
16. The Phantom Tollbooth
As you can tell, a vast majority of them are not on the new list. This is because I haven't read them in years. The ones on the list, however, I have read recently. Because I have been doing a lot of reading recently.
I have this info written down in my journal, so I'm just going to transfer it (with own commentary and such added. Not exact quotes or anything). Note: I don't have the start date on many of the books. Just the finished date. Between certain books, I had a couple-few days break, between others (such as the Mistborn Trilogy), I started the next book the day after the previous book. It just depended.
I started on July 6th.
Finished Skyward on July 9th. I read this as an ebook.
Finished Warbreaker on July 17th. I listened to this with GraphicAudio. I couple years back, I listened to about the first half and then stopped. This time I listened to it all the way through.
Finished Elantris for the 2nd time on July 24th using GraphicAudio. The previous time I read Elantris was back in 7th grade.
The rest of the books in this list, I read physical copies of.
Finished Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds on August 5th.
Finished Mistborn on August 13th for the third time.
Finished The Well of Ascension on August 18th for the third time.
Finished The Hero of Ages on August 27th for the third time.
Finished The Alloy of Law on September 4th for the second time.
Finished Shadows of Self on September 8th for the second time.
Finished The Bands of Mourning on September 11th for the second time.
All the above books are by Brandon Sanderson. The next eight books I have read/will read are by Orson Scott Card.
Finished Ender's Game on September 15th.
I'm currently reading Ender's Shadow. Afterwards I plan on reading the rest of the Bean series, and then the rest of the Ender series. After that, I'll most likely read The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry.
I plan on rereading The Stormlight Archive + the fourth book when I get home from my mission.
I also read several novellas and the annotations for several books in between.
August 2nd, I read the annotations for Warbreaker and Elantris. Directly after reading the Mistborn Trilogy, I read the annotations for their respective books (aka, right after I read Mistborn, I read the annotations for it etc.). Note: the annotations for those books may have been read the day after.
On August 30th, I read The Eleventh Metal (It was my second or third time doing so) and on August 31st, I read Mistborn: Secret History (for the second time).
Right before I read Alloy of Law, I read Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania (Episodes Twenty-Eight through Thirty).
On August 12th, I read Sixth of Dusk.
Perhaps I'll do a separate list for ranking my favorite short stories/novellas. We'll see.
In conclusion: I've been reading a lot and it's great.
So you can go ahead and look to your left at my new list. Here's the old list in case you're curious:
1. Mistborn Series
2. Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow
3. Books of Umber Series
4. The Rithmatist
5. The Reckoners
6. Elantris
7. Jinx Series
8. The Emperor's Soul
9. Mysterious Benedict Society Series
10. The Healing Wars
11. Alcatraz Vs. Series
12. Flowers For Algernon
13. Uglies Series
14. Fablehaven Series
15. Beyonders Series
16. The Phantom Tollbooth
As you can tell, a vast majority of them are not on the new list. This is because I haven't read them in years. The ones on the list, however, I have read recently. Because I have been doing a lot of reading recently.
I have this info written down in my journal, so I'm just going to transfer it (with own commentary and such added. Not exact quotes or anything). Note: I don't have the start date on many of the books. Just the finished date. Between certain books, I had a couple-few days break, between others (such as the Mistborn Trilogy), I started the next book the day after the previous book. It just depended.
I started on July 6th.
Finished Skyward on July 9th. I read this as an ebook.
Finished Warbreaker on July 17th. I listened to this with GraphicAudio. I couple years back, I listened to about the first half and then stopped. This time I listened to it all the way through.
Finished Elantris for the 2nd time on July 24th using GraphicAudio. The previous time I read Elantris was back in 7th grade.
The rest of the books in this list, I read physical copies of.
Finished Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds on August 5th.
Finished Mistborn on August 13th for the third time.
Finished The Well of Ascension on August 18th for the third time.
Finished The Hero of Ages on August 27th for the third time.
Finished The Alloy of Law on September 4th for the second time.
Finished Shadows of Self on September 8th for the second time.
Finished The Bands of Mourning on September 11th for the second time.
All the above books are by Brandon Sanderson. The next eight books I have read/will read are by Orson Scott Card.
Finished Ender's Game on September 15th.
I'm currently reading Ender's Shadow. Afterwards I plan on reading the rest of the Bean series, and then the rest of the Ender series. After that, I'll most likely read The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry.
I plan on rereading The Stormlight Archive + the fourth book when I get home from my mission.
I also read several novellas and the annotations for several books in between.
August 2nd, I read the annotations for Warbreaker and Elantris. Directly after reading the Mistborn Trilogy, I read the annotations for their respective books (aka, right after I read Mistborn, I read the annotations for it etc.). Note: the annotations for those books may have been read the day after.
On August 30th, I read The Eleventh Metal (It was my second or third time doing so) and on August 31st, I read Mistborn: Secret History (for the second time).
Right before I read Alloy of Law, I read Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania (Episodes Twenty-Eight through Thirty).
On August 12th, I read Sixth of Dusk.
Perhaps I'll do a separate list for ranking my favorite short stories/novellas. We'll see.
In conclusion: I've been reading a lot and it's great.
Friday, September 13, 2019
Which Ferring ability? pt.4 Cognitive Metals
Okay, cognitive metals. This is where things get really difficult for me. These four powers are all super high on my list; I think they're all incredible.
Brass (Warmth): This one used to be my pick for being a ferring. Never being too cold or too hot? Yes please. The obvious draw to this power is it being equally useful for both storing and tapping. Winter's chill doesn't get to you. Summer's heat is a pushover.
What I realized about this power, though, is I'm not often bothered enough by being too warm or too cold to warrant me picking it. Especially where I currently live, I survive both the coldest winter nights and hottest summer days relatively well. Obviously it's not a fun time. But it's not that much of a bother. If I lived in a place where the temperature varied more and I couldn't really deal with the heat or cold, this power would be more attractive. Currently, though, I'm not all too interested.
I know I did say I think all four of these powers are incredible, but I did just tear on Brass a little bit. Probably too much. I still think the power is super cool. There are also minor applications that would be fun to experiment with. Tapping tons and tons of it to potentially light things on fire around you. Or tapping a lot to warm people near you up.
And, as I said earlier, this used to be my top pick. It's still high up there for me, I think. I've just realized that I live very easily without controlling my temperature through said means.
Verdict: Still awesome, but I live just fine in my day to day life just dealing with the differing temperatures.
Bronze (Wakefulness): I really really like this power. I think it's important to make sure you get the full effectiveness out of storing it. On paper, storing it doesn't seem that useful; you just spend an extra hour asleep and then later you could tap it for an hour. So, in the course of a day if you did that, you would wake up an hour later and stay up an hour earlier.
But. But.
There are a few ways to make storing it awesome. First off, it becomes super easy to fall asleep anytime, anyplace. And. And. You can stay asleep for as long as you want. During car or plane trips, it's effectively time travel into the future. You just get to be at your destination (supposing you're not driving). You're just automatically there.
Also, I think it would be surprising how in random scenarios in life you could store it for just a few minutes. I forgot my book at work or am waiting for a new book to come, I can just store wakefulness during my break instead of wasting time looking at my phone.
Tapping it has its clear uses.
Maybe I'm overrating this power, but I think it's super cool.
Verdict: Super awesome (imo)
Zinc (Mental Speed): In Bands of Mourning it briefly takes about how tapping mental speed makes you hungry. So, presumably, storing it would allow you to not be hungry? That's not that important, especially since we don't really know how it works, but I thought I would mention it. It also probably gives signs of what's actually happening when you use the power.
Anyway. So, one misconception I had a few years back about this power. It doesn't increase your intelligence at all. It just allows you to think more in a given amount of time. Effectively, time stopping to allow your brain to think.
Storing it would suck. Sazed talks about how he has to struggle to comprehend every word said etc. But, storing it does have its uses. Theoretically, you could time jump with this power, similar to how someone would time jump with storing wakefulness. You store so much mental speed that it just seems like time is passing super quickly since you can't process anything or something like that. The benefits of that have already been talked about.
How useful is tapping it, then. I'm not exactly sure. I wouldn't use it during tests because I feel like that's cheating. I could read faster with it. That'd be nice. If a lot of things are happening around me at the same time, I could easily process and understand all of it. I could listen to several conversations at once since I would have a lot of time to think about what the people are saying. At work when we're particularly busy, it would be nice to be able to process everything that's happening easier.
I think a weird tiny benefit that we might not think of is being able to "live in a moment for longer", if that makes any sense. If there's something exceptional going on, you could have it, effectively, go on for a longer period of time. I'm not sure how often I would use the power like that, but I do think it's cool.
I think one thing that makes this power cool is thinking about the potential of it. If there's a really hard question or problem or something, you can spend a lotta lotta time and solve it in what seems like an instant to other people. It's cool.
Verdict: I think it's cool, but I'm not quite sure when I need to think more at any specific time.
Copper (Memories): Here's the thing about Copper. 1. It's awesome. But 2. I kind of want to keep the memories. Memories that I want to be able to get a fresh copy of at any time would be memories I wouldn't be willing to store in the first place. So, the memories I would store would be ones that I could have multiple copies of. I would make an additional copy in my Coppermind so at any time when I really want the info/watch/see the thing, I could.
One weird thing about this. We learn in the annotations for the Mistborn Trilogy that Sazed was trained at a very early age to memorize very very very well. He has crazy crazy good memory without ever touching a Coppermind. So, the question is, how well would memories stay put in my brain? Sazed is able to take and put back information into his Coppermind (I don't know why I keep capitalizing it, but I am) many many times without needing to replace the old copy with a new one. How many times would I be able to take information out, then put back in, without needing to refresh them? I'm predicting it would be far far less. Which obviously isn't a good thing.
I wouldn't use the power during tests because I feel like I would be cheating.
Even with all this said, I'm sure the power would be incredibly useful and super awesome to have. It pretty much eliminates small written down lists. In many forms at least.
When there's a random phrase or idea that you want to right down, but you can't because whatever reason, you can just chuck it into a metalmind.
You're getting rid of the specific words or whatever in your head at that moment, but you'll remember the build up to them, so you'll still have that memory of them. Point being, you have both your actually memory and the memory in the Coppermind.
Things like visual memories or audio memories for things you can only see/listen to once are the memories I was referring to at the very beginning of this portion. I'd rather have the actual memory of them rather than forgetting them just to remember them later. I want them to be a part of me, not whisked away.
Although you would still remember how you felt and such if you did put the memory away, which is weird. Copper is weird.
Longer memories would be a thing you could store parts of. You're watching a really pretty sunset/sunrise? Those last a while, so you could store parts of the memories, so another time if you really want to see the sunset/sunrise, you totally could.
Verdict: Copper is wild and incredible. Also very very fun to talk about. Also I want to talk more about Bands of Mourning stuff because I just came up with new theories on stuff and I want to spread my ideas. That was mostly irrelevant to this verdict, but whatever.
Rankings:
4. Zinc.
3. Brass.
2/1. Copper/Bronze. Still not sure on this one.
(I'm not rereading this right now because it's a lot, but I might later and edit a few things)
Brass (Warmth): This one used to be my pick for being a ferring. Never being too cold or too hot? Yes please. The obvious draw to this power is it being equally useful for both storing and tapping. Winter's chill doesn't get to you. Summer's heat is a pushover.
What I realized about this power, though, is I'm not often bothered enough by being too warm or too cold to warrant me picking it. Especially where I currently live, I survive both the coldest winter nights and hottest summer days relatively well. Obviously it's not a fun time. But it's not that much of a bother. If I lived in a place where the temperature varied more and I couldn't really deal with the heat or cold, this power would be more attractive. Currently, though, I'm not all too interested.
I know I did say I think all four of these powers are incredible, but I did just tear on Brass a little bit. Probably too much. I still think the power is super cool. There are also minor applications that would be fun to experiment with. Tapping tons and tons of it to potentially light things on fire around you. Or tapping a lot to warm people near you up.
And, as I said earlier, this used to be my top pick. It's still high up there for me, I think. I've just realized that I live very easily without controlling my temperature through said means.
Verdict: Still awesome, but I live just fine in my day to day life just dealing with the differing temperatures.
Bronze (Wakefulness): I really really like this power. I think it's important to make sure you get the full effectiveness out of storing it. On paper, storing it doesn't seem that useful; you just spend an extra hour asleep and then later you could tap it for an hour. So, in the course of a day if you did that, you would wake up an hour later and stay up an hour earlier.
But. But.
There are a few ways to make storing it awesome. First off, it becomes super easy to fall asleep anytime, anyplace. And. And. You can stay asleep for as long as you want. During car or plane trips, it's effectively time travel into the future. You just get to be at your destination (supposing you're not driving). You're just automatically there.
Also, I think it would be surprising how in random scenarios in life you could store it for just a few minutes. I forgot my book at work or am waiting for a new book to come, I can just store wakefulness during my break instead of wasting time looking at my phone.
Tapping it has its clear uses.
Maybe I'm overrating this power, but I think it's super cool.
Verdict: Super awesome (imo)
Zinc (Mental Speed): In Bands of Mourning it briefly takes about how tapping mental speed makes you hungry. So, presumably, storing it would allow you to not be hungry? That's not that important, especially since we don't really know how it works, but I thought I would mention it. It also probably gives signs of what's actually happening when you use the power.
Anyway. So, one misconception I had a few years back about this power. It doesn't increase your intelligence at all. It just allows you to think more in a given amount of time. Effectively, time stopping to allow your brain to think.
Storing it would suck. Sazed talks about how he has to struggle to comprehend every word said etc. But, storing it does have its uses. Theoretically, you could time jump with this power, similar to how someone would time jump with storing wakefulness. You store so much mental speed that it just seems like time is passing super quickly since you can't process anything or something like that. The benefits of that have already been talked about.
How useful is tapping it, then. I'm not exactly sure. I wouldn't use it during tests because I feel like that's cheating. I could read faster with it. That'd be nice. If a lot of things are happening around me at the same time, I could easily process and understand all of it. I could listen to several conversations at once since I would have a lot of time to think about what the people are saying. At work when we're particularly busy, it would be nice to be able to process everything that's happening easier.
I think a weird tiny benefit that we might not think of is being able to "live in a moment for longer", if that makes any sense. If there's something exceptional going on, you could have it, effectively, go on for a longer period of time. I'm not sure how often I would use the power like that, but I do think it's cool.
I think one thing that makes this power cool is thinking about the potential of it. If there's a really hard question or problem or something, you can spend a lotta lotta time and solve it in what seems like an instant to other people. It's cool.
Verdict: I think it's cool, but I'm not quite sure when I need to think more at any specific time.
Copper (Memories): Here's the thing about Copper. 1. It's awesome. But 2. I kind of want to keep the memories. Memories that I want to be able to get a fresh copy of at any time would be memories I wouldn't be willing to store in the first place. So, the memories I would store would be ones that I could have multiple copies of. I would make an additional copy in my Coppermind so at any time when I really want the info/watch/see the thing, I could.
One weird thing about this. We learn in the annotations for the Mistborn Trilogy that Sazed was trained at a very early age to memorize very very very well. He has crazy crazy good memory without ever touching a Coppermind. So, the question is, how well would memories stay put in my brain? Sazed is able to take and put back information into his Coppermind (I don't know why I keep capitalizing it, but I am) many many times without needing to replace the old copy with a new one. How many times would I be able to take information out, then put back in, without needing to refresh them? I'm predicting it would be far far less. Which obviously isn't a good thing.
I wouldn't use the power during tests because I feel like I would be cheating.
Even with all this said, I'm sure the power would be incredibly useful and super awesome to have. It pretty much eliminates small written down lists. In many forms at least.
When there's a random phrase or idea that you want to right down, but you can't because whatever reason, you can just chuck it into a metalmind.
You're getting rid of the specific words or whatever in your head at that moment, but you'll remember the build up to them, so you'll still have that memory of them. Point being, you have both your actually memory and the memory in the Coppermind.
Things like visual memories or audio memories for things you can only see/listen to once are the memories I was referring to at the very beginning of this portion. I'd rather have the actual memory of them rather than forgetting them just to remember them later. I want them to be a part of me, not whisked away.
Although you would still remember how you felt and such if you did put the memory away, which is weird. Copper is weird.
Longer memories would be a thing you could store parts of. You're watching a really pretty sunset/sunrise? Those last a while, so you could store parts of the memories, so another time if you really want to see the sunset/sunrise, you totally could.
Verdict: Copper is wild and incredible. Also very very fun to talk about. Also I want to talk more about Bands of Mourning stuff because I just came up with new theories on stuff and I want to spread my ideas. That was mostly irrelevant to this verdict, but whatever.
Rankings:
4. Zinc.
3. Brass.
2/1. Copper/Bronze. Still not sure on this one.
(I'm not rereading this right now because it's a lot, but I might later and edit a few things)
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Ferring Ability Small Update
I'm currently rereading Bands of Mourning (I've been reading a lot recently, which I'm planning on talking about in a different post) and it's given me some new information about feruchemy that I'd forgotten about (the last time I read it was when it first came out (or very near that time)).
The main point of interest: tapping Connection allows you to communicate to people in their language.
As I stated in a previous post, I learned more about feruchemical speed that I didn't realize (from Shadows of Self, specifically).
Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I'll be making a post about adjustments to stuff at some point.
The main point of interest: tapping Connection allows you to communicate to people in their language.
As I stated in a previous post, I learned more about feruchemical speed that I didn't realize (from Shadows of Self, specifically).
Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I'll be making a post about adjustments to stuff at some point.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Which Ferring ability? pt.3 Hybrid Metals
Cadmium (breath): So the main usage for this is to go underwater and not have to breath. But I don't like water anyway, so you'll be hard-pressed to find me in a situation that I would use this ability. Maybe it would allow me to like water/swimming more, which would be nice. So that's a small benefit to think about.
Verdict: Might allow me to enjoy playing in water? But meh.
Gold (health): So storing this kind of sucks. And I rarely get injured enough to make it worth it. But, in the random case that I do break a bone etc., it would be quite a nice thing to have. I'm not sure how well this one will rank, but we'll see.
Verdict: Storing sucks, and tapping is rarely necessary.
Electrum (determination): I could definitely see this being useful for situations where I really need to get an assignment of some form done, but I don't want to. I would probably store it when I'm doing an activity that doesn't require the most determination to do. Such as reading. There's probably some other scenarios as well that I can't think of. But, on paper, storing and tapping determination isn't all that appealing, and there's not much to talk about.
Verdict: I don't know *shrugging shoulder emoji*
Bendalloy (nutrition): Note: You can store both food and water in two different metalminds.
So, this is Andrew's choice of being a ferring. He referenced this fact several years ago when we were Christmas Caroling. It was going to be a cool mini-surprise that I still remembered, but then he commented on the other day's post, so there goes that surprise. Regardless, I also still remember part of his reasoning. You go into an all-you-can-eat buffet and you just save up calories and water for a week. You only have to eat, like, once a week (or less or more depending on how you're feeling). I've also thought about the fact that you could do those super food challenges and get tons of stored up calories plus a prize or two.
It would also be useful on my mission (see an update on that on my mom's blog) when people serve me far too much food (which doesn't always happen, but I've definitely heard stories).
The one thing putting me off from being too enthralled by this is I don't really know the ethics of eating that much food at an all-you-can-eat. I would feel like I was stealing if I ate too much. But, at the same time, I wouldn't feel bad if I ate, let's say, two days worth? Which still substantially decreases food costs (hopefully, at least).
One nice thing about this power is you can eat whatever, whenever, and it's only benefiting you. At an activity that offers drinks and treats? Totally partake and then just store the calories for later. Point being: Even if you don't use the power to eat vast amounts of food at an all-you-can-eat, it's still super useful to store up calories by eating random things at random places. You always go for seconds (or thirds) when they're offered. You save time later by not needing to eat.
Verdict: Super useful, but I can't get the best value out of it without feeling bad for taking a lot of their food.
Rankings:
1. Bendalloy Clearly has good and useful uses. Save tons on money. Don't have to worry about a diet (maybe you do? I'm not sure exactly how it works).
2. Gold Healing a broken bone would be nice. Definitely more useful than the other two.
3. Cadmium It would be nice if I felt comfortable swimming/playing in water. It's not a fantastic benefit, but it would be a nice small perk to life.
4. Electrum I'm not determined enough to figure out a way to explain why this is at the bottom, which might signify that this power might be more useful than I give it credit for. I don't know.
Verdict: Might allow me to enjoy playing in water? But meh.
Gold (health): So storing this kind of sucks. And I rarely get injured enough to make it worth it. But, in the random case that I do break a bone etc., it would be quite a nice thing to have. I'm not sure how well this one will rank, but we'll see.
Verdict: Storing sucks, and tapping is rarely necessary.
Electrum (determination): I could definitely see this being useful for situations where I really need to get an assignment of some form done, but I don't want to. I would probably store it when I'm doing an activity that doesn't require the most determination to do. Such as reading. There's probably some other scenarios as well that I can't think of. But, on paper, storing and tapping determination isn't all that appealing, and there's not much to talk about.
Verdict: I don't know *shrugging shoulder emoji*
Bendalloy (nutrition): Note: You can store both food and water in two different metalminds.
So, this is Andrew's choice of being a ferring. He referenced this fact several years ago when we were Christmas Caroling. It was going to be a cool mini-surprise that I still remembered, but then he commented on the other day's post, so there goes that surprise. Regardless, I also still remember part of his reasoning. You go into an all-you-can-eat buffet and you just save up calories and water for a week. You only have to eat, like, once a week (or less or more depending on how you're feeling). I've also thought about the fact that you could do those super food challenges and get tons of stored up calories plus a prize or two.
It would also be useful on my mission (see an update on that on my mom's blog) when people serve me far too much food (which doesn't always happen, but I've definitely heard stories).
The one thing putting me off from being too enthralled by this is I don't really know the ethics of eating that much food at an all-you-can-eat. I would feel like I was stealing if I ate too much. But, at the same time, I wouldn't feel bad if I ate, let's say, two days worth? Which still substantially decreases food costs (hopefully, at least).
One nice thing about this power is you can eat whatever, whenever, and it's only benefiting you. At an activity that offers drinks and treats? Totally partake and then just store the calories for later. Point being: Even if you don't use the power to eat vast amounts of food at an all-you-can-eat, it's still super useful to store up calories by eating random things at random places. You always go for seconds (or thirds) when they're offered. You save time later by not needing to eat.
Verdict: Super useful, but I can't get the best value out of it without feeling bad for taking a lot of their food.
Rankings:
1. Bendalloy Clearly has good and useful uses. Save tons on money. Don't have to worry about a diet (maybe you do? I'm not sure exactly how it works).
2. Gold Healing a broken bone would be nice. Definitely more useful than the other two.
3. Cadmium It would be nice if I felt comfortable swimming/playing in water. It's not a fantastic benefit, but it would be a nice small perk to life.
4. Electrum I'm not determined enough to figure out a way to explain why this is at the bottom, which might signify that this power might be more useful than I give it credit for. I don't know.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Which Ferring ability? pt.2 Spiritual Metals
So I'm not going in a direct order (aka, I was originally planning on going to cognitive metals next, but not anymore). I've decided to skip around depending on how I'm feeling. I know the cognitive metals are going to be really crazy to talk about/rank and such, so I doing an easier category to write about.
Another note: I've learned feruchemical speed doesn't work quite like I thought it did. So I'll have to rewrite part of that because the new information definitely changes things.
Nicrosil (Investiture): I've studied a lot about how this one works and such. But there's no real reason to get into the fine details because most of them only matter if there are other powers in the world/if you yourself have other powers. Being a nicrosil ferring is pretty much useless if you have no other powers to play off of. You don't really store investiture; I find that misleading. You're more storing the ability to use different kinds of investiture. And since I would only have the ability to store nicrosil, I'm effectively storing the ability to store my ability. Anyway, it's a little weird and useless by itself.
Verdict: Effectively useless by itself
Aluminium (Identity): So, this one also has a lot of crazy applications, but only when applied with other powers. By itself, it's not all that great. When I store it, I lose my sense of self/I don't know who I am. When I tap it, the reverse happens. Either aren't that useful.
Verdict: Really not useful. Better than Nicrosil, though.
Duralumin (Connection): From the chart: when storing you are "reducing other people's awareness and friendship with them". "You can tap it in order to speedily form trust relationships with others." It's a weird one (as all of the spiritual metals are, pretty much). When tapping it, I feel like I might feel like I'm cheating my way into friendships. So I don't know how I feel about that. (There's obviously more to be talked about here. The topic is very similar to the ethics of using emotional allomancy on people. Breeze talks a lot about it in the original trilogy and such, and I'm sure I could give my thoughts on certain things, but I'll refrain for now). But at least it has its uses. I wouldn't feel bad at all if I tapped it while talking to someone who doesn't like me much. Compared to all of the metals, though, this won't be very high.
Verdict: Has its uses, but they aren't common and not really necessary/all that helpful.
Chromium (Luck): I saved this one for last because it's by far the most interesting and by far my favorite out of these four metals. When you store it, you become unlucky. When you tap it, you become lucky. What "luck" even means, we're not really sure, but that's one of the reasons it's so fun. One downside is whenever I would store luck, I would be kind of afraid of what could happen. We don't know how much of your life it affects. If I'm just reading a book by myself in my room and I'm storing lots of luck, how much of my outside life could be affected? Could I randomly be fired from my job? Could a robber decide to come rob our house? Any number of things could happen. So that's kind of frightening.
But I personally don't think that that much of the outside world would be influenced by me storing luck. So I think I'm pretty safe while storing luck as long as I'm not in a place where tons of unlucky things could happen to me. If I'm at an amusement park while storing luck, somebody could accidentally spill their drink on me. If I'm in my room reading a book, what could really happen? Regardless, I would probably only store low amounts of luck at a time until I figure out exactly how much of my life it affects and in what ways.
Now tapping luck. That's where things would get awesome for me. If you want a generally awesome day, maybe put on 20% luck for the whole day or something like that. I'm sure the day would turn out awesome. Tips from customers flowing in left and right. No angry customers. Maybe find a 5 dollar bill on the ground outside. Your food turns out fantastic. etc. etc. It would be great.
But, if you want something magnificent, you can tap tons and tons of your luck at once. Become incredibly lucky for a few seconds. It would be fun just to see what happens.
Or, perhaps you're in a really dangerous scenario. A rouge car serves into your lane. You tap tons of luck. I don't know exactly what would happen, but it would be fantastical.
Verdict: Could be crazy awesome, but I am also a little scared of what could happen while I'm storing luck.
Okay for the ranking of this section of metals (the results are fairly obvious):
1. Chromium Really really interesting and cool. It would be kind of like opening a present in the "I wonder what's going to happen when I tap luck" sort of way. Could be kind of scary, though.
2. Duralumin Some uses. Could be cool to have.
3. Aluminium Some very minor applications. At least I get a power to play with instead of having nothing like Nicrosil.
4. Nicrosil Next to no use.
Another note: I've learned feruchemical speed doesn't work quite like I thought it did. So I'll have to rewrite part of that because the new information definitely changes things.
Nicrosil (Investiture): I've studied a lot about how this one works and such. But there's no real reason to get into the fine details because most of them only matter if there are other powers in the world/if you yourself have other powers. Being a nicrosil ferring is pretty much useless if you have no other powers to play off of. You don't really store investiture; I find that misleading. You're more storing the ability to use different kinds of investiture. And since I would only have the ability to store nicrosil, I'm effectively storing the ability to store my ability. Anyway, it's a little weird and useless by itself.
Verdict: Effectively useless by itself
Aluminium (Identity): So, this one also has a lot of crazy applications, but only when applied with other powers. By itself, it's not all that great. When I store it, I lose my sense of self/I don't know who I am. When I tap it, the reverse happens. Either aren't that useful.
Verdict: Really not useful. Better than Nicrosil, though.
Duralumin (Connection): From the chart: when storing you are "reducing other people's awareness and friendship with them". "You can tap it in order to speedily form trust relationships with others." It's a weird one (as all of the spiritual metals are, pretty much). When tapping it, I feel like I might feel like I'm cheating my way into friendships. So I don't know how I feel about that. (There's obviously more to be talked about here. The topic is very similar to the ethics of using emotional allomancy on people. Breeze talks a lot about it in the original trilogy and such, and I'm sure I could give my thoughts on certain things, but I'll refrain for now). But at least it has its uses. I wouldn't feel bad at all if I tapped it while talking to someone who doesn't like me much. Compared to all of the metals, though, this won't be very high.
Verdict: Has its uses, but they aren't common and not really necessary/all that helpful.
Chromium (Luck): I saved this one for last because it's by far the most interesting and by far my favorite out of these four metals. When you store it, you become unlucky. When you tap it, you become lucky. What "luck" even means, we're not really sure, but that's one of the reasons it's so fun. One downside is whenever I would store luck, I would be kind of afraid of what could happen. We don't know how much of your life it affects. If I'm just reading a book by myself in my room and I'm storing lots of luck, how much of my outside life could be affected? Could I randomly be fired from my job? Could a robber decide to come rob our house? Any number of things could happen. So that's kind of frightening.
But I personally don't think that that much of the outside world would be influenced by me storing luck. So I think I'm pretty safe while storing luck as long as I'm not in a place where tons of unlucky things could happen to me. If I'm at an amusement park while storing luck, somebody could accidentally spill their drink on me. If I'm in my room reading a book, what could really happen? Regardless, I would probably only store low amounts of luck at a time until I figure out exactly how much of my life it affects and in what ways.
Now tapping luck. That's where things would get awesome for me. If you want a generally awesome day, maybe put on 20% luck for the whole day or something like that. I'm sure the day would turn out awesome. Tips from customers flowing in left and right. No angry customers. Maybe find a 5 dollar bill on the ground outside. Your food turns out fantastic. etc. etc. It would be great.
But, if you want something magnificent, you can tap tons and tons of your luck at once. Become incredibly lucky for a few seconds. It would be fun just to see what happens.
Or, perhaps you're in a really dangerous scenario. A rouge car serves into your lane. You tap tons of luck. I don't know exactly what would happen, but it would be fantastical.
Verdict: Could be crazy awesome, but I am also a little scared of what could happen while I'm storing luck.
Okay for the ranking of this section of metals (the results are fairly obvious):
1. Chromium Really really interesting and cool. It would be kind of like opening a present in the "I wonder what's going to happen when I tap luck" sort of way. Could be kind of scary, though.
2. Duralumin Some uses. Could be cool to have.
3. Aluminium Some very minor applications. At least I get a power to play with instead of having nothing like Nicrosil.
4. Nicrosil Next to no use.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Which Ferring ability? pt.1 Physical Metals
This post contains minor spoilers for the Mistborn Trilogy. It wouldn't ruin your experience of the books all that much, but I don't know. If you haven't read the trilogy, then you're probably not interested anyway, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem.
Oh, I suppose talking about the existence of a ferring is also super minor spoilers to Alloy of Law. (A Ferring is a feruchemist who can only use one power (like the mistings of feruchemical powers)). But, it's such a minor spoiler that I gave the spoiler in the spoiler warning. So. Yeah.
Which ferring ability would I most like to have?
Couple points I wanted to make before I begin: I'm assuming I am the only person with any powers. It would also be in my current life. I'm not talking about the idea of me being in their world. I'm talking about me getting on of the powers in my current life.
Also, since I'm the only person with powers, Hemalurgy has no influence on my decisions. Granted, it wouldn't if other people had powers since I'm not one to murder people.
So, I was typing up the ending to this post and I realized an inherent problem with some of these abilities. They would just be too obvious. If my muscles could grow and I used that power in public, I would quickly become a phenomenon. That's a problem. So, for purposes of everything, I'm going to say that for some reason people don't question things. They don't question when I tap pewter and my muscles grow. They don't question when I'm floating on the winds as I store lots of weight. I don't know why they don't question, but I need to put that rule into place otherwise a lot of the powers would become a whole lot less useful/cool, since I wouldn't be able to use them with nonfamily nearby.
Iron (Weight): This has always been a fun one. We get to see a lot of its cool uses with Wax and such, but Wax is also a Coinshot, so. Regardless, its power is both useful when storing and tapping it, which I think is pretty important to me. However, gaining weight isn't actually all that useful (in our lives) now that I think about it. So I'd mostly be storing it. Which would be a lot of fun, granted. Going around with a constant spring in my step is appealing, plus, if I really felt like it (and I would), I could store a whole lot of weight and drift off in the wind.
But overall, I don't think it would be that useful to me.
Drifting is super cool, though.
Verdict: Middle of the road, I suppose.
Steel (Speed): This one is super fun on paper. Thomas says it's near the top of his list of powers he would want. I'm pretty sure Joseph has similar thoughts. I, on the other hand, wouldn't care for it. The first major problem, is it sucks to store. Having to struggle to take breathes just doesn't sound fun. Moving through molasses, so to speak, sounds like a sad time. I bring up the breathing because that means, even if I'm sitting still, it's still pretty annoying to store. Also, I don't find the upside all that appealing. Sure, it's interesting enough, but I don't know. It's just, like, when would I use it? The only real times I can think of it just moving to different parts in my house/whatever. But I do just fine as I am right now. But, like, the thought of being super quick is pretty cool. However, even then you couldn't tap too much of it at once because you would need some mental speed to be able to keep up with your body.
Verdict: Meh. Cool, but not interested.
Tin (Senses): This one is definitely interesting to me. In many cases, both storing and tapping would be useful. When storing: Sight, can be mitigated by simply wearing glasses; Taste, allows you to eat super unappealing foods (would be helpful on my mission and at other times when I want to eat super healthy, but unappetizing food); Hearing, instant earplugs whenever you need them; Smelling, allows you to easily bear horrible smells; Sense, I don't know about this one. It might be useful for something.
When tapping: Sight, can see something far away (pretty straight forward upside). Taste, sometimes you just really want to taste that meal real well; Hearing, need to hear something far away or something quiet; Smelling, need to identify something? I'm not sure on this one; Sense, feel something more.
Point being: many of these have good storing and tapping abilities, making it super versatile. Having to have a metalmind for each is a slight downside, though. But I'm sure there's a relatively easy way around that.
Verdict: Definitely keeping my eye (no pun intended? Not sure if that really counts as a pun anyway) on this one. Wouldn't be surprised if a few different abilities beat it out for the top, though.
Pewter (Strength): This one has obvious uses. Being weak wouldn't be fun, but it's not really that big of a burden if you're just sitting around reading/watching something/playing a video game. It isn't useful to become weaker, obviously, but it really wouldn't be that bad at most times. Being stronger obviously has its uses when you need strength to do things. Helping people move, doing the order at work ("the order at work" involves moving lots of boxes filled with stuff as you put things in their correct locations) etc.
Verdict: Not bad, but definitely not impressive. There are just so many more useful abilities out there.
I'm sure there's more intricacies to all these things, but I'm going over them enough to make me happy. This was large enough that I've decided to break this into four separate posts (one for each section of the metals (Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Hybrid (I suppose I'll chuck in the God Metals at some point as well))). Also, I've decided to rank them. At the end of the four-ish posts, I'll combine the list into a large 18 metal list of my ranking of which powers I would want. It shouldn't be too much time between the posts, but we'll see.
So, for this first section:
1. Tin Clearly my favorite out of these four. So useful both storing and tapping. Very versatile.
2. Pewter Storing strength isn't bad and being able to be stronger is useful in so many situations in life. Sure, if I didn't have the extra strength I would be fine, but the convenience is nice.
3. Iron Floating around is super cool. But it's not useful. Plus, two problems with floating around: 1. It's annoying to get back to home/wherever 2. Would it really be that enjoyable after the first few times? You're just at the whims of the winds. You'd have to worry about running into a tree or something. Going around at about 3/4 weight would be nice, though. Regardless, this and Pewter are fairly close and I could definitely see myself being persuaded by someone to rank this above Pewter in the future.
4. Steel Sorry Tom and Joe. I just don't care for this one. The downside is worse than pewter's by a lot. And being fast just doesn't seem useful. It might be cool for a bit, but it would rarely be applicable to my life. If I'm walking somewhere, that means it's already nearby, so I'm cool with just walking at my normal pace.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Now, Not Yet (an album)
So, half alive's album is really really good and I wanted to make that opinion expressed. The album is called Now, Not Yet and you can find it here. The lyrics are important, so I suggest reading them. Half alive is my second favorite band.
That was pretty much the purpose of the post. Just letting people know that half alive is awesome, regardless of your opinion.
I'm planning a few posts about books and certain magic systems, so be on the look out for those, if you're interested in that type of thing (specifically referring to my brothers (Ryan should probably finish the Mistborn trilogy before reading them, though. Just for the sake of avoiding minor spoilers (granted, there would also be minor spoilers for the Wax and Wayne series, but whatever. They're minor enough where I wouldn't worry about them))).
That was pretty much the purpose of the post. Just letting people know that half alive is awesome, regardless of your opinion.
I'm planning a few posts about books and certain magic systems, so be on the look out for those, if you're interested in that type of thing (specifically referring to my brothers (Ryan should probably finish the Mistborn trilogy before reading them, though. Just for the sake of avoiding minor spoilers (granted, there would also be minor spoilers for the Wax and Wayne series, but whatever. They're minor enough where I wouldn't worry about them))).