u/ReeseSlitherspoon

Never noticed about the blood before good catch.

I've always thought the Ghostbloods actually got to her much sooner. Like, when she was a child. And Veil is the only one who knows/remembers this.

I feel like she was experimented on in some way to accelerate the bond, like snapping in Mistborn

This is SO cute, his lil neck rolls omg. Artist really brought him to life!

Magic is coming back into a world that has forgotten it, and along with it, an ancient enemy. A cast of characters including soldiers, scholars, leaders , and more, are all on the front lines of these changes, and will fight to save the world.

Yeah, I figure the genius diagram creator version of Taravangian set it up this way on purpose. Probably so Odium wouldn't see the real plan and this could be a distraction. Let the other versions of himself and his cult think the wrong thing.

With regards to supporting your husband, if it were me, first, I would avoid framing it as a lack of love/motivation, especially so early on; quitting smoking isn't easy, and is much harder for some people than others for physical/psychological reasons that aren't entirely understood; it's absolutely possible that FIL does want to quit, but doesn't believe he can. It's not always about motivation the way your husband fears (though it could be, you know FIL better than I do). Would that help your husband to consider so he feels a little less rejected?

On another front, I think there might be some potential workarounds or "compromisess."I know with the typical JustNos we see on this sub, suggesting compromise is a bad idea because if you give an inch, they take a mile and stomp all over your boundaries. But at least from this small sample, that doesn't sound like your situation: MIL was fully honest with you about the reality up front rather than trying to deceive. And it doesn't sound like they fought you the way typical JustNos would. A lot of the responses in this forum are (understandably) colored by the writers' own experiences with boundary setting, but you and your husband seem to have that on lockdown already! So in terms of compromise, nicotine replacement as others have suggested is a good idea.

A hotel might also be an option if anyone can afford it; you could ask them to shower and wear fresh clothes before leaving for the day to visit you and hold off on smoking until later. People get weird about hotels and family visits, like it means you're less of a "real" family somehow, but there are plenty of good reasons to use hotels--yours included!

Could you also consider allowing vaping, outside only, and with FIL wearing a coat he removed after coming in, and waiting for awhile after to hold the baby? Vapor itself is still harmful, so keep that away from baby, but because it's a vapor rather than smoke, it doesn't linger in the same way. It's still up to you whether you're comfortable with that, but it could work.

I think the implication is maybe that mom got back into social media after the divorce in an attempt to be cool again? Similar to the jokes about divorced people dressing way too "young" for their age. Pretty common for divorced people of a certain age to focus on "putting themselves out there" in a way that's pretty embarrassing to their kids. Not sure though, and I agree it's a stretch.

Things like satisfaction tend to be rated on a scale, with polar opposites at either end and multiple points in between, like "very satisfied, satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neutr, somewhat dissatisfied, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied," typically. Polar opposites are in some cases (like when measuring degree of emotion) easier to compare than any two other totally random things because they run along the same "axis." It's just a different kind of comparison. No idea how they did it in this study, bt it's not at all unusual.

Interesting, I remember in one of Dalinar's visions, he sees a great earthquake-type disaster demolishing the world, looking like a giant dust storm with the ground falling to nothing below it, and Honor says it's his prediction of what could happen. If the sibling is a spren of earth could make sense with your idea.

I'm not certain the humans were voidbringers in the sense that they bound voidspren. I always saw it as a term the Singers used to describe a race that was taking over their planet. In that case, there's no particular reason they would have to know the Unmade. I could be totally wrong though.

Pretty sure the horse races take place long after her mother's death, as Shallan is old enough to run around doing nice things for her brothers, but I could be wrong.

I just found this in WoK, as she is discussing summoning her blade:

"She began the process anyways. Ten heartbeats, to bring forth the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act."

At first I thought this was about her mother...but it can't be. Because she already had the Pattern blade by then, and this quote implies she got the blade as a result ("proceeds," "fruit") of the "horrific act." So there is another thing Shallan did that she considers horrific from before even her mother. The trauma, then, includes Shallan committing an atrocity.

As recently as earlier today, I was pretty convinced that some organization or other (Ghostbloods, Cryptics, whatever) purposefully engineered her bonding to Pattern, probably by trying to get her to "snap" a la Mistborn, but this quote gives me pause. Could be both.

Yeah, I just found something interesting from WoK that fits with what you're saying:

"She began the process anyways. Ten heartbeats, to bring forth the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act." So she's implying that her shardblade came from something she did. I had interpreted the horrific act as killing her mother, but how can that be if she already had the shardblade?

"Snapping" a la Mistborn is exactly how I imagine it too. A group including anyone from the Mistborn planet (forget its name) might have had the idea to try that because they know it works in their world. Did the Envisagers have off world members? I'm an audiobook person too, but imagine it's spelled with an E.

I was under the impression that she regressed in some way and needed to partially start over. It would explain why Pattern was not fully sentient in Words of Radiance. Also she's sworn two oaths onscreen now (killing her father, in way of kings, and her mother, in words of radiance) which would put her up to 5 already, no? They seemed pretty distinct to me, but is your reading that they only counted as one each? It's been awhile for me so I'm totally willing to accept I'm wrong.

Maybe there is another personality that bonded Pattern earlier, and "Shallan" had to get up to speed too, hence her new Truths?

Yes! While disability-positive discourse is vital and has done a lot of good, I also feel like it's become unpopular, even in disability communities, to express wanting a cure. But many people (myself included)would love to do exactly that if they could.

If anyone reading this wants an example, I have bipolar I disorder. The pervasive narrative surrounding bipolar is that it's somehow a price you pay for creative genius, and that fully treating it in some way robs you of the "highs" that make you a unique individual. The unfortunate side effect is that people, in my experience, react incredibly poorly to the uglier manic symptoms because they don't understand or expect them at all.

A manic episode can look like a creative whirlwind, but it can also look like deciding to run for mayor because you've had a revelation that your town needs to build a public water park, spending three grand on promotional materials, then, after days with next to no sleep, escalating into a frantic negative energy that makes you hostile to everyone around you. And depression soon follows.

A DSM-typical manic episode lasts at least a week and can even last several months, plenty of time to torch everything you've worked for. Relationships and careers end up destroyed because people don't believe that this behavior is an episodic symptom that will go away soon rather than a sign of poor character. I believe that the "you don't need a cure" mindset is partly to blame for this.

Most critically, it's an often fatal condition: estimates vary, but somewhere between 5 and 20 percent of people with bipolar eventually die by suicide. So I find the well-meaning "you're fine just as you are" attitude incredibly dismissive and harmful, and I appreciate that you get it!

She was very young at the time of her mother's murder, yet already a Lightweaver of the third ideal. What's more, she was really early to the spren-bonding game, at least compared to any of the characters we know, and may have been the first (Wit was certainly surprised by her). I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been discussed more, because it's pretty weird. Whatever the explanation is, it's gotta be extraordinary, and I feel confident that the explanation is at the heart of the new Truth. I have a bunch of theories that have been stewing since Words of Radiance:

1. Shallan was in some way actively manipulated to become bonded to Pattern. Maybe by the sons of honor, maybe by the Cryptics, maybe by the Ghostbloods, maybe by an as-yet unknown group...she was essentially an experiment. Whoever did it to her put her through hell to get there, so she repressed those memories. A good Truth.

2. Shallan as we know her is also a creation, just as Veil and Radiant are. There is some other true personality underneath. Someone in another thread suggested she was switched at birth by some nefarious organization and basically impersonated Shallan her whole life while in some way serving that organization. Not sure I buy that specific angle, but haven't been able to come up with a better one myself.

With the chapters released so far, I'm starting to think the Ghostbloods have had a hand in her life for a long time. She brushes off the fact that they already know a lot about her, but it's pretty fishy how effortlessly they adapted to learning about and exploiting her many personalities.

Absolutely agree (though this would be her fourth not her final ideal right? Unless I'm missing something?). Can you expand on the Unmade angle? I don't remember how that ties to her being bonded with Pattern or plays into her past at all.

Yeah, it just has to have something to do with this. An explanation is warranted for this remarkable situation (it's been bugging me forever), and it's hard to imagine these things are unrelated.

I do feel like it's gotta be whatever it was that led to her mother dying, but in a much broader sense...how did she have Pattern in the first place? She was the first radiant (that we know of) by a long margin of time, and was very young, yet had apparently reached the third oath already. How?! Some trauma or struggle must be involved.

Was he on the path to becoming a Bondsmith? I missed that part.

I also think Dalinar will be the one to talk to him, because I can see Lirin naturally confronting Dalinar under a mistaken belief that, as Kaladin's commanding officer, he's in some way responsible for the transformation. Like, "look what you did to my son!" and Dalinar would be all like "lol listen honey..."

I don't know how intentional this was, but I felt that Moash's 'non conventional' reasoning, as you put it, captured a certain kind of suicidal mindset that seems utterly bizarre to people who've never experienced it.

It reminded me a lot of people who argue that euthanasia/assisted suicide for the terminally ill should be available to the mentally ill as well (or even just to anybody who wants it). Essentially, they believe that there is no reason to deny someone who is sick of suffering, for any reason, a dignified death. Sure, it might get better, but so what? And, jarringly, I actually find myself philosophically agreeing with them in most ways--the only thing standing in the way of this argument is a belief that life, and living, has inherent value. Normally-functioning humans instinctively feel this way, but very depressed people do not. Basically, remove "life before death" and the rest of the first ideal from your world view, and Moash is actually kind of right. For Kaladin, "giving in" to Odium to find peace wouldn't manifest as revenge, or surrendering responsibility for an atrocity he committed, it would manifest as giving in to a lifelong struggle with sucidal ideation...at least that's my take. A lot of people struggle with this feeling irl and have a hard time expressing it. Really well done, can't wait to see where it goes from here.

I see it just a little differently--giving into Odium, for the characters who have done it, has been all about giving in to their darkest impulses from their weakest moments. About no longer having to fight to resist. For Moash, that's his need for revenge and sense of righteous victimhood, but for Kaladin, it's always been suicidal ideation. He is always fighting that urge...so why not surrender, says Odium? It's not an alternative to giving in, it is the giving in.