LumpyUnderpass

I'm curious - I hadn't noticed it yet, but I'm at a place where my snoot always goes crazy, haven't taken my Claritin in a while, and seem to be totally ok.

I believe amphetamine or at least the levo variant used to be sold and used as a decongestant. I may be conflating that with benzedrine, but certainly amphetamines have something in common with ephedrine on a chemical or structural level (I never took organic chemistry so I will make Mark Twain proud and won't open my mouth and remove all doubt). (Edit: for clarity, I was thinking of pseudoephedrine, Sudafed, here, as far as why a resemblance to ephedrine would suggest anti-allergy or decongestant effects)

Is there something there or

I think this is frivolous but quite likely. I was reading about Formula One racing stuff, and noticed that the name of the Russian mining/fertilizer(?) company and former Haas sponsor, Uralkali, contains much of ralkalest within it.

uRALKALi -> RALKALest

Sanderson is well traveled and probably reads a lot of esoteric stuff. Uralkali is a big company that has been around a long time and the F1 sponsorship is prima facie evidence of worldwide advertising activity. I think it's likely that he saw it and thought - like I did which is what led me to this theory - "hmm, Uralkali, that name sounds almost like a cool fantasy thing."

Counterpoint: Uralkali does not appear to sell aluminum.

I have more interest than knowledge about linguistics, and I wonder if anyone can help me with a question that's been puzzling me.

On the Alethi Glyphs page at p. 844 of Rhythm of War, we get what I think is a real treat. The in-world author talks about the glyphs for the lights of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium, and a little about their vessels. (She Who Brings the Dews at Dawn!)

Among this information, we are given the following words: "tavodovast" for "Tavast's [Tanavast's] Light," "koradaros" for "Koravari's light," and "rasodonar" for "Rasan's light." I'm intrigued by how these words seem to be forming a possessive by putting the word for the thing *inside* the name for its owner.

Part 1 and Explanation: https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/rw0ylv/true_alethi_the_adventures_of_combat_general/

But a good writer knows not to use exposition.

COMBAT GENERAL BRETT HAWTHORNENROTHAH was back in Alethkar, having successfully vanquished the Natanatans who had been launching a very real assault on the good Alethi way of life with illegal and even legal immigration. It was important, Bret reflected intelligently to himself, that people know what a good way of life was and that the Natans were invading it, even if some immigration was legal and even if people called you a Natanist for saying that. Those people were cowards, he knew like every good Vorin did, th

I made a comment yesterday in the "Vorin literary cliches" thread (https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/rv6cjc/what_do_you_think_are_some_well_used_cliches_in/) and got a pretty good response that inspired me to write more of this. If anyone gets a kick out of it, that's good enough for me.

The underlying idea (which I can't take credit for - thanks to u/lyranscoutlance) is what if there was a super gung-ho, Tom Clancy style, incompetently written thriller series for lazy Alethi men who have never actually seen combat, with notes in the undertext by/for the women about how unbearable this all is. This is sort of a satire on Alethi men, and sort of a parody of the lovely boo

What do you guys think? I want to "just write," but when I do I find I do a lot of other stuff instead, like video games. Is it OK if I want to be a writer but I don't write?

It's kind of a shower thought, so forgive me. Today the idea of an on/off switch is ubiquitous and I sound stupid for asking. But we didn't always have light switches, or electricity. Before that, did people refer to, say, a torch that was extinguished as "off"? It seems to me we always say a fire is "out," not "off." From the other senses of off, I wonder if the sense was originally of something like water or steam - sending the water back "off" into the river instead of turning a mill, for example. Circuits that generated power were originally circuits of water or steam... But that's just a guess and I'm curious if anyone has tracked it down. Anyone know?

We used to watch a lot of movies when I was a kid, and he would always bring up the runtime and bitch about it if it was more than about 1:50 and wasn't a Bond movie.

He just texted me that the ebook arrived today and is 7300 pages long on his phone. LOL.

He's a strange bird - he reads a ton and has read the entire ASOIAF series, but isn't a big fantasy fan, but said he enjoyed reading my draft of my fantasy novel (of course, he loves me, but I think he would have mentioned it if he felt the genre and tropes weren't his thing - it's pretty safe and IME people usually say stuff like that when you get them to read something that's out of their genre).

I await his remarks with amused excit

Peace, in the end

All mortals are destined to die.

To live is to die. Birth - death - birth. To die is to live.

Die - to destiny.

Mortals all end in peace.

I think it speaks for itself!

Anyone want to share some experiments you've tried in franchise mode? IMO this is the most fun thing about Madden.

I put a guard at fullback for 2 years and dominated on the ground. Carson and Penny combined for 2000+ yards, then Carson and Penny and Kamara (lol) for 2100+. Not a whole ton of passing. The OG at FB definitely hurt in the passing game but made a real difference in power running. Oddly he didn't want to resign with me so I drafted a utility guy.

I also have some bigger and smaller receivers. This year I ended up with a 6'7" and 6'8" TE. Kind of fun throwing over the middle with those guys. I had Trevor Gabriel at 5'7" and some 6'5 ish rookies.

On defense, I like to move guys

It appears to me that it's possible for the intent of a Shard to be interpreted differently depending, in some manner or extent, on the vessel and maybe other circumstances. For example:

Preservation + Ruin can give you either Harmony or potentially Discord. Rayse certainly seems to *want* Odium to be all-around Passion rather than just hatred, though I don't know if that's evidence. And Dalinar says, "I am Unity," which might be along those lines. I think Brandon said that the intent naturally falls along certain lines but it's possible for a vessel to sort of "nudge" it in one direction or another.

So, if Preservation and Ruin can mix in at least two different ways, I wonder if it's po

There are lots of things that list a ton of different words for emotion. I'm looking for something that has verbs specifically. My idea is to make a list of 5-10 verbs per character that can be used as action tags.

I'll make it myself if I have to, but I'd like to know if anyone knows of such a thing.

I have too many characters shrugging, raising eyebrows, smiling, and frowning. It's like my version of Sanderson's "noted." But restricting my dialogue tags and stuff like that instead of replacing "said." I know it's not terribly important, but I'd like to get better at this.