Reading through Arcanum Unbounded and here's what I got:

The Emperor's Soul:

Local woman is so focused on her hyper fixation (crime) that she almost forgets to take care of her basic needs (not getting murdered as part of a government cover up to hide the fact that they're pulling a "Weekend At Bernie's")

Hope of Elantris

It's so sappy. Soooooo sappy. I will fight anyone who tries to take it from me.

The Eleventh Metal

Yeah this explains a little bit about why Kelsier is like that.

Allomancer Jak And the Pits of Eltania

I can see why Wax hated being compared to this guy. He's a mess, he's mostly illiterate, he has no idea where he is or what he's doing, he is a disaster on two legs. I would definitely read a weekly article about his misadventures.

Mistborn: Secret Hystory

Kelsier is great because after getting bitch slapped so hard he saw God he:

Jumped God

Bullied God into joining his gang

Conned his way into being immortal

Sassed the man who killed him

Heist movied his way into becoming God

Conned the Devil

Jumped the Devil, did not let him join his gang

Sixth of the Dusk

I love that Dusk spends most of the story respecting nature but the moment he learns about guns he’s like “yo, you could kill every horrible monster in the word with this!” And when Vathi is all like “That would ruin the ecosystem” Dusk is like “f*ck the ecosystem and especially f*ck them monsters, I wanna live”

Edgedancer

I have been on my library’s waitlist for “The Way of Kings” for months now so this is my first look into Roshar. I like it. I want more of this feral child running around town like a greased up hog.

Questioners: what was your inspiration for Wayne?

Branderson: i once dropped a hat under a cabbage leaf and this grown man popped out and started making dick jokes.

He is currently at large and he is unstoppable

If you want to stop him, you'll have to think like him. Unfortunately, he is incomprehensible

He is holding me hostage

wayne becoming the fourth richest person in the lost metal was so funny. he didn't care about his money at all so he was like "ok gonna invest in random stupid stuff that'll make me lose money" and ended up investing in like. electrical power. and team sports

Steris being excellent yet again

Wayne has been... interesting over the last few chapters and really this whole book.

Firstly I do think it's strong characterization for him to easily espouse and laud the greatness of Wax and Marasi while writing himself off. Proceeding to basically solve the entire apartment scene and downplay his accomplishments.

Wayne not only has a strong disdain for himself, but like many people in similar headspaces as him, he is not only unable to acknowledge his own positive attributes but is quick to actively downplay himself for the raising of others.

I doubt I am the first to see there's a strong connection between Wayne's power of bring sickly and unhealthy to then be the one taking punishment and intentionally being harmed to draw attention away from friends. It's like the allomantic equivalent of self-deprecating humor, which he is also consistently using, see again, the apartment scene.

Wayne is blinding rich, but lives a poor man's because he thinks he deserves it.

Wayne is constantly joking in his head about drinking because he's constantly thinking about drinking.

Wayne has the ability to slow down time, to create moments where there are none and yet he has defined the entirety of his life by a split second decision made by a parentless kid 25 years ago.

Wayne is so antagonistic towards Steris (she'll change Wax), so loathing of himself because not only can he not let go, he can't accept change in general.

If Wax is a positive side of Ruin, of change, it feels to me like can be Wayne is the toxicity of Preservation.

This is super rambly but I hadn't posted in a while and felt like these brainworms would be enjoyed.

18 - liquid

Wax getting another fill of steel laced whiskey and Wayne trying some liquid that certainly wasn’t ordered by him. image description blows the cut:

digital drawing of Wax and Wayne in a big room, made with scratchy dark brown lines and soft warm and cool browns and grays for the shading. Wax stands straight and tips his head bag to drink from a hip flask, gun ready in his right hand, while he glares into the direction of the viewer with the visible eye. Wayne is seated in front of him, casually lounging on some wooden boxes. He hold a metal tankard in one hand and sucks some of its content from the index finger of the other hand. One of his dueling canes hangs from his lower arm, the handle of its twin can be made out at his hip away from the viewer side. On a barrel next to him stands a similar tankard. In the back the room looks vaguely chaotic and disorderly. There is a row of windows to the right, but their bars seem out of shape and some of the glass panes might be shattered. A tipped table lies on the floor to the left, a half-detached chandelier dangling above it.

wax on, wax off

My favorite piece of worldbuilding in the cosmere is that Wayne accidentally invented privatized sporting events in an attempt to blow money. As much as he likes to pretend otherwise, Wayne understands people really well. We see this with his disguises obviously, but he always seems to misread the room. And this isn't because Wayne doesn't understand people, it's because he doesn't personally know how to connect with people. He doesn't know how to describe what he's feeling, and he often is unsure of what exactly it is that he's feeling. I just think it's really cool that a character that struggles with connecting with people would accidentally found a business based on community engagement. I just think that's neat.

In typical Sanderson fashion, the prologue shows what’s gonna happen in the rest of the story. Prologue—> Wayne’s mom telling a story, she dies the next day. Main book—>Wayne is telling/living the story. I can see where this is going, and I’m going to cry. He JUST fixed his mental health, I swear to the Survivor if he dies. I’m rioting in the streets.

I'm halfway done with The lost metal and it's absolutely amazing. Steris and Wax's children are lovely, and I was pleased to see Allik in the begining (and also by the fact that Marasi and him are in a relationship because they are both so cute and I knew they were perfect for each other). It was also nice recognising some characters on the backround. Hoid has lightly apeared again, Wax and Wayne have finaly met Marsh, and I'm almost certain I know who Moonlight is. Wayne's character arc is startin to scare me because it seems to be very sad, and I'm not mentally prepared for that. And Marasi and Steris are such girlbosses, one of them interacting with the ghostblods and the other one (hopefully) saving Elendel all by herself, I love those girls so much. I'm really excited to start reading part 3!

im sorry to people who create media but your lesbian rep will never be as good as ranette from wax and wayne who never goes outside spends all her time working on guns (she's a very good gunsmith as well) never showers so she always smells like gunpowder and threatens to shoot everyone she meets

Really it's not surprising that Wayne was dating a Kandra. He is the closest thing you can be to one while not having a detachable skeleton

Just finished the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson (for now) and…DAMN IT, IT HURTS MAN. He probably has one of my favorite writing styles and it almost made me cry SEVERAL times, cause I listened to it while at work and…I’m gonna start the stormlight archive saga and, yeah.

I believe this is one of my first actual posts on here so, hi

Thoughts on Mistborn: Shadows of Self

Shadows of Self is incredibly great, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking!

I'm hurt and confused. And I'm not sure how to feel, and I love it for that. Shadows of Self is completely different than its preceding book. It is different from even the Mistborn trilogy. There are themes of the stagnation of political systems, religious tension, the ethics and morals of what line God should, could, might have on interfering with the lives of his creations. After finishing off the book, I genuinely had no idea what to think about Harmony, Trell's puppeteering, Bleeder's campaign, or the state of Elendel.

Something that annoyed me about Era 2's books off the bat was the noble system. There's no state sponsored murder or rape, and the nobles are more like businessmen. But it still felt like nothing changed over the last 340 years. I kept thinking... wow, this is what Kelsier died for?! This is what Vin and Elend fought to protect?! I started off hating everyone - Harmony, the Senate, constables, Wax, even Spook - for not erasing the noble system. But while reading the book I kept thinking about Sazed's limitations due to wielding the Shard of Harmony, his stance on free will, his subtle maneuvering of Wax and Marasi... and kept thinking about real life. I came to the realization that being in the role of God comes with a lot of nuance on guiding mortals. I connected the stagnation of Elendel back to the history of the US... how even though centuries has passed, many abhorrent systems are masked by seemingly more human systems. Governments are still being controlled by nobles and aristocrats, just in a different flavor. Policing has so many issues it could take 1000 years to solve.

Even after finishing the book, I still think the noble system should've been completely erased. But now I'm thinking if that would've fundamentally changed things. The US doesn't have monarchs, nobles, slave plantations, or aristocrats. But corporations, billionaires, politicians, and the upper class get away with a lot, they find ways to obtain power and avoid accountability. Would Harmony be right if he gave the divine mandate of "I DECREE NO NOBLES FOR ALL OF TIME!" At that point is free will a choice?

I started off blaming Harmony for not making a democratic world with no nobles. Ended off having… weird feelings about him. Like... MeLann brings up a great point about the kandra impersonating witnesses to testify against people. If Harmony allowed that, that could be a dangerous precedent.

But then there's Bleeder. Bleeder is easily my favorite antagonist in the series. She's incredibly competent, her body horror is gruesome horrific, and her climax is depressingly tragic. May she rest in the Beyond. Poor Wax. This is the thing that has me feeling weird about Harmony. This hurts cuz of Sazed. Fuck Sazed. Fuck Sazed. I knew Harmony would’ve become a Chessmaster, but not like this. Sazed isn’t supposed to manipulate people. Sazed isn’t supposed to cause trauma to people 😭😢💔💔

But Sazed is, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages. Harmony seems to be foreseeing a great disaster caused by Trell. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to thread towards a future possibility that will save Scadrial from this disaster. He must think about the future of the entire world. It hurts that he moved Wax this way, but would there really have been any difference if he left Wax completely alone? The Set - puppets of a Shard of Adonalsium - would've subtly caused turmoil on Elendel. What if he told Wax he was hunting Lessie? TenSoon said it himself. Harmony saw the future, saw that Wax wouldn't go through with it. Bleeder - another puppet of a Shard - would've succeeded in her goals. Sure he could've maneuvered someone else, but it opens a new can of worms!

I love the hints of Trell being a far scarier antagonist than it appears. I love the advancements and possibilities of Hemalurgy Trell is responsible for. Shadows of Self does a far better job than The Hero of Ages presenting gray morality in the motives and plans of gods. It also does a far better job at presenting a smart and clever antagonistic deity. I think with the conflict between Ruin and Preservation, Sanderson wrote many things that made Ruin appear too much like "the bad guy." He can say Preservation has a dark side, but we never saw it. The one reprehensible thing Preservation could've been completely responsible for - the Deepness killing people - ended up being the result of his frayed mind. He could've been solely responsible for the Deepness covering the Sun and killing plants, but that ended up being caused by Ruin. Ruin spoke with too much malice and joy of killing all life and destroying everything. Apart from his attributes being fundamental aspects of life and the Universe, there was no possible way I could've seen his stance as having any sort of value. Sanderson also wrote too many things that made Ruin's planning so far behind Preservation's. Preservation felt like a Xanatosian genius even on his deathbed. Ruin was a petulant child. Ruin wasn't kind, or patient, or particularly clever, or have long-spanning schemes when Sanderson presented him in the spotlight. Don't even get me started on his futuresight lmao. And tbh I don’t get why Sanderson wrote a being of death and destruction as the opposite of stasis and stability. Is he trying to say in life and creation, everything either stays the same or everything dies?

I know that wasn’t his intent, but it came across that way. It’s haphazard in retrospect, and I don’t understand why that was the direction after the beauty of Kelsier’s rebellion. I still love the concept of Ruin and Preservation’s conflict, but I think it could’ve been much more developed. More nuanced. Ruin could’ve been far more of a Chessmaster or represented a different concept.

With Harmony and Trell... I'm not as certain who's the good or bad guy. And so far, Trell's schemes are genuinely complex, layered, and terrifying. Even the Set are scary.

Marasi grew a lot, as expected. Wayne didn't grow but he was still so much fun. Love the new dynamic of Wayne and MeLaan, who's also pretty great. ARADEL IS A MAN!!!

There wasn't much of Steris this book. But she vastly improved in such a short time! Feels like she hides a lot but is actually a warm person. Look at the ending 🥺

Well done, Sanderson. I give Shadows of Self ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.