Is Elspeth going to try using her sending power for general education? If she could turn a human into a passable doctor by sending them someone's memories of medical school, for example, she can solve several broad classes of societal problems very effectively by mass-producing various types of professionals from volunteers.

Announcement:

After Radiance ends (I currently expect #52 to be the last, maybe the second-to-last, chapter), I have two projects that will be lined up to go next.

However, both of these projects need significant amounts of preliminary work out of the way before I can even start writing the prose, let alone publishing it.

I don't want to go stagnant during this downtime, so while I'll definitely use the time freed up by no longer writing Radiance to hurry those preliminaries along, I also want to be, yanno, writing stuff as well as preparing to write stuff.

Solution: Luminosity/Radiance short stories. (Working title for the collection thereof: "Flashes".)

I'm not going to do a third novel. Two is enough, and I do have other stuff to get to that isn't fanfiction. But I can produce a short story (roughly the size of a Radiance chapter, i.e. more than 4,000 words but usually fewer than 5,000) once a week to keep in writing practice, and to offer additional perspectives on the Luminousverse, until Elcenia's relaunch and/or Dreamward are ready to go.

I've made noise about doing omake/other extras before, and people have given me suggestions, but I wasn't collecting the suggestion... (read more)

Nathan, I'd like you to drum your fingers on the table. After each tap, choose the best time in the next second to tap again.

Tap tap ... tatap tatap ... tatap tap ... tap tap tap ... tatap tatap ... tatap tatap tap ... tatap tap tatap tap ... "I think now would be a good time to stop."

IMNSMGC ... I am N.'s magic?

Wow! Just.... Wow!

The latest chapter is excellently written. It stands out in a work that already sets high standards. I was deeply immersed when reading, and it was very suspenseful. Thumbs up!

I wonder what the consequences of Jacob phasing will be...

I'm still wondering about the 'arbitrary numbers of sub-agents' aspect of Elspeth's power. She found Magic there the first time she meditated, but apparently created Memory intentionally for the purpose of dealing with her Del-induced memory banks. Could she create other sub-agents with particular purposes? Could she create a 'Math' sub-agent that was really good at calculus? If she creates multiple sub-agents that then explicitly argue the truth of a point, could she become noticeably better than usual at discerning the truth from opposing clever arguments? This is the sort of mental power that seems like it could do just about anything (inward-directed), depending on the constraints.

Has Chelsea gotten a power boost from canon?

The Twilight Saga Wiki has this to say about her power:

However, as stated by Eleazar, she cannot as easily influence the emotional ties of people when those ties are stronger than just friends or acquaintances. She could not have changed the way Bella and Edward felt about each other, for example, or the ties between a true family. (emphasis added)

If this is accurate, she shouldn't have been able to cut the tie between Bella and Elspeth, although Edward and Elspeth weren't nearly as close.

The description of Marcus pre-tragedy is superawesome.

"Heart Is An Awesome Power" added.

Question to Alicorn: how big does a chunk of a vampire's body have to be for Addy to borrow power from it, and how long will it continue to work if the vampire remains alive?

Because if a small enough chunk works for long enough, Addy really ought to work out some way to offer some kind of service to selected vampires in exchange for the ounce of flesh furthest from their heart.

That way she could assemble a charm bracelet with her favorite powers, and not have to keep them around.

Bella's law regarding no non-consensual turning of mates seems like it would be hard to enforce. If a vampire finds their mate and bites them before the Golden Empire can interfere, then even if the Empire finds out before the turning is finished, there's no real way to prove that it was nonconsensual. The mate will be incoherent during the turning process, and after turning will a. have fuzzy memories of right before the turning, and b. be more than willing to lie on behalf of their own mate. The only real way around this is for the Empire to isolate the ... (read more)

I'm troubled by Elspeth's new power in ch36, where Magic seems to have suddenly jumped from being solely about Elspeth's own personal subjective error-filled beliefs to being a royal road to objective Truth.

At least, I can't put any subjective spin on things like

"Well," I said to Magic, while everyone watched me to see if I was done thinking, "would it make sense to use that story as an analogy to what Alice and Jasper are doing? If I compared those things, would it make them understand something true?"

(What, Elspeth has to ask wha... (read more)

I just thought of something. Given Alice's precog, could she, for instance, guess passwords? Assuming a numeric entry code, could she do something along the lines of 1. decide to press 0 first; 2. if she sees the door opening in her precog set, press 0 and then go to 1; 3. if not, then try 1 with the number 1 instead, etc. (i.e., does her precog give her a set of possibilities based on future decisions, or does it give her only one possibility based on what she has in mind at the time?)

If the latter holds, and hence the above algorithm won't work, then how... (read more)

Ch 24 - So I'm assuming that Bella is with Allirea. I've been wondering about Allirea -- it's kind of a neat reading experience to have this important knowledge that the characters themselves can't retain in their heads.

Smart of Allirea to go and find Bella once she got loose. So Bella knows about the trap in Denali, and probably knows that Edward is alive (unless Allirea chose not to tell her that for some reason) -- but that also means that Bella and Allirea must be dealing with Demetri, which is dangerous and could take a while.

When Allirea extends her ... (read more)

First post on the site- please excuse any nonsensical aspect of the following, as it is rather late and I am a bit muddled from sleep-deprivation. However, this issue has been bugging me for some time, and I would greatly appreciate a response.

I apologize if I'm reading too much into this sentence, but the last line of Radiance disturbs me a bit.

"I still usually can't remember my dreams, but I'm told, and have every reason to believe, that they are happy ones."

If the goal of achieving radiance is similar to that of being luminous (aka living... (read more)

Ooh, the latest Flash is interesting...

Do we know why Adelaide (presumably) killed those people? How did she kill those people? Did she in fact get super martial arts skills (or assassin skills, or whatever) from somewhere? What's with the head trauma?

Is this backstory at all canon, or just made up here? Either way, human!Adelaide driving people off with a violin is awesome.

Another plotbunny: statistical authorship tests. Any vampire whose writing career spans much more than a human lifespan...

Plotbunny that recently occurred to me: would the new murder-free regime cause a statistically-significant drop in the murder rate? I gather there are several thousand vampires who eat ... how many humans a week? Might not be visible on the level of statistics for cities or states, but someone looking at worldwide statistics might notice the sudden change.

Some thoughts about heredity.

Alicorn, I believe, has said that half-vampires can breed with either vampires or humans (or, presumably, other half-vampires) and create hybrids of different fractions of vampire-ness. Thus, any children Elspeth has will be at least one-quarter vampire, which if I recall correctly is above Alicorn's threshold for "still technically part-vampire" as regards the on-or-off abilities of hybrids (males venomous, immortal are the ones I can think of). It is also hypothesized that male wolves imprint because their imprints ... (read more)

from chapter 48:

I'm prepared to consider you sufficiently self-controlled even on a human blood diet that I'll give you dispensation to get it in a less sentient package. Ransack whatever the Irish equivalent of the Red Cross is, if you decide that you'd prefer to go on living in Ireland after all regardless of where I set up. But I think it was fairly predictable that I wouldn't be allowing murder.

Doesn't the amount of blood in a human body in a blood bank go towards saving much more than one person, in which case stealing from a blood bank is killing more people than stealing the same amount of blood directly out of a human?

Ch 46 - ah ha ha, excellent plot twist! But I can't see how it really helps Marcus, since the mate bond magic won't be in place. I suppose with Addy's help he might be able to craft himself a pale replica of the bond...

(CH 36 SPOILERS)

Either I have completely misunderstood what Elspeth just did, or Elspeth's power is quite a bit more useful than anyone is considering. I'm hoping it's the former.

That is: OK, yes, Magic cares about whether "Alice and Jasper are doing something kind of like what Del did to Pera" is true or not. But how does Magic have that information to query in the first place?

It's essentially a question about the strength of Alice's alliances, which means memories from before Alice was Chelsead are pretty much irrelevant, and I can't think of a... (read more)

I will say one thing, while it's not as good as MoR, its plot moves much faster, which helps compensate. I think Alicorn also handles the emotional stuff better than Eliezer (unsurprisingly); I felt far less cynical and contemptuous than I might've.

On the other hand, Eliezer is much better at lacing in the didacticism since it feels like the lessons has for the reader are abandoned toward the end of book 1; and there isn't much one could learn from book 2 with Elspeth.

I particularly loved the writing for Allirea; not so much an interesting character but r... (read more)

So what is Siobhan's power? We have Del's actions to confirm that she has one, but what evidence did Carlisle have that he was so convinced? If Carlisle only saw Siobhan herself carrying out her plans, then it could be that Siobhan is simply of the mindset that puts together elaborate plans in a way that emphasizes fallback positions, and her actual power is something like a supernatural talent for Indy Ploys. However, if Carlisle saw others carrying out Siobhan's plans, and they still worked well enough to convince him that she was a witch and not merely ... (read more)

"Why," I asked, "did he come back to school? I realize it's a hassle to move, but if he's likely to lose it around me, why didn't he just stay wherever he went that week he was gone? I think my life ought to be worth some hassle."

I wonder if I'm the only one, in that I could hear Professor Quirrel burst out laughing as I read this.

Some thoughts on the New World Order.

(1) Very little attention seems to have been given to the problem of how to peel back the masquerade without various major world governments trying to make vampires extinct. I infer that this will be the primary conflict of book 3.

(2) What is the best choice of long-term dominant species? The known species so far are vampires, half-vampires, possibly other fractions of vampire, werewolves, and non-wolf humans (let's call them muggles).

Muggles have the major disadvantage of being mortal. Werewolves can't reproduce withou... (read more)

While Allirea makes a very effective bodyguard in the combat sense, she is less helpful in the intimidation sense because, of course, no one can remember that she's there. What would happen if a vampire who had a reasonable expectation to win against Bella alone, and was not talked by Elspeth into believing that he could not win a fight, attacked Bella and was taken apart by her and Allirea? Would he know what was happening? What would his relevant memories suggest? Would said memories become clear while Allirea was unfaded? Is this a valid method to control the vampire population? (It might actually be quite effective--anyone who attacks Bella is taken apart by something they can't remember happening. Great creepy factor.)

All that Bella-for-Queen! talk in the latest chapters again made me wonder how the state of vampire society and its influence on human society will be handled after the inevitable fall of Volturi rule. I don't think Bella as she is now is most equipped to realize any ambitions, be it on the planning stage or in practice. She is perhaps most ambitious though, although I would argue how healthy they are, for both vampire and human society.

I think it would be very interesting if Alicorn didn't stop with the fall of the Volturi and instead continued with the s... (read more)

When Elspeth destroys the bonds that Chelsea has forged she makes people realise that those feelings are false and to forget them, right? So to re-connect bonds that Chelsea has snipped would it not be possible for her to "remember the truth"?

So, if she said to Magic "I love my mother" it would be false at that moment but surely "I should love my mother" and "If not for Chelsea's tampering I would love my mother" would be true and could help re-connect the bonds, maybe?

(Do you think there are stubs of threads where Chelsea has cut, or if they wither away? With the stubs left it feels like it should be easier to re-connect them.)

DARN YOU!! Having just finished reading Luminosity I have now dissolved into a snivelling pile of salt water and mucus that you would probably be loath to poke with a stick. Definitely more crying when heard about Alice than Edward but then she's infinitely more likeable that he is...was...sniff

Wow, what a cliffhanger! And I was listening to Daft Punk's TRON Legacy soundtrack when I read the chapter. Brushing your teeth is dramatic when listening to that score.

I though of many potential plots for future outtakes in this chapter, here's one: How did the Cullen's react when Elspeth 'disappeared', did they look for her long? Is there any tension between some of them now that they know Bella took her, and how did their reunion work, from their own perspectives?

I'm most interested in Rosalie, who displayed canonical possessiveness of Elspeth at the end of Luminosity, when it became apparent that she may become parentless.

If Bella shields phased Jacob while another alpha is also phased, does the shield extend to that alpha and/or his/her pack? It's mentioned in Luminosity that there can be cross-talk between wolves in different packs to some degree if both alphas are phased. Will this allow Elspeth to transmit to all the wolves at once if the alphas are phased? If both are true, then they can carry out a surprise attack with the wolves by having them all phase, Bella shield Jacob, and Elspeth disillusion them all with the Volturi at once; they would then presumably yield to... (read more)

You know, it occurs to me: it should be obvious that the Volterra would leave one pack member in Jacob's pack - all Chelsea has to do is leave that attachment, rather than weaken it, and they have someone with split loyalties who probably wants Jacob to rejoin the guard.

Actually, something that I've been wondering about is, could we get a breakdown of the Volturi numbers? The impression that I've been getting of their size seems to vary depending at the time.

I understand if you can't, due to spoilers, but even a general outline would be nice. Are there a dozen of them? Two? If you include the witches Elspeth helped seed?

So it looks as if Demetri is finally going to kick the bucket over the next few chapters? I hope they manage to kill him before he can contact Volterra with the news that there are a whole lot of more vampires in Denali than the traitors have reported.

This chapter further solidified my infatuation with Allirea. I'm not really sure why I like her so much--probably because I associate her with most of the sparse humorous moments in the series. I believe the killing of lifeforms can often be selective, and think that the more sentient should especially not be... (read more)

Is anyone else out there interested in a Luminosity pod-cast? Unfortunately I can't volunteer, as I have a terrible voice and bad recording equipment. But I would LOVE to have a pod-cast of it, in the same vain as the HPMOR podcast.

Random suuuuper minor question. Was re-reading some of the flashes cause I love them to pieces, and- anyone know why Kim is "Mrs. Kim Connweller-Cameron"? I thought Jared's (and Vivian's) last name was Norton.

When she wasn't sucking down as much blood as they could get her (and damned if it didn't feel bizarre slurping down a mug of red liquid that had been coursing around in Charlie's veins minutes earlier), she was devouring eggs and everything else that was brought to her.

Um, Charlie's veins? Shouldn't that be an animal's?

I got the impression that Elspeth and Jacob's relationship remains non-romantic. Is that correct?

So Adelaide was always that disturbing.

What does Razi need to know about a place before he can teleport there? Alice can see anyone, but if there are no visual cues as to the location nearby she can't tell where they are (as in Luminosity, in which she is fooled into thinking James is in Florida when he is in fact on a movie set). Does whatever information Alice has on the look of a location suffice for Razi to go there? If not, then a vampire can evade Empire justice for some time simply by staying in a dark room, or being in an undifferentiated forest somewhere. Not long-term, maybe, but enough time to turn a mate and ensure the bond is established.

Yay, final update! Now I can put it on my Kindle and not feel like I have to replace it three times a week.

Two questions.

First, are the chapters in Radiance going to be rearranged the way the ones in Luminosity were?

Second, to what degree does Benjamin have control over the classical elements? Can he, for instance, summon fire from the air? If so, then he should be easily the most formidable fighter around, with the possible exception of Pera, and even she would be vulnerable to a less-metaphorical firewall. Can he put himself out if he's on fire? If so, w... (read more)

Now I want to hear more about this nontrivial skill component to War. Unless it's skill at cheating, I really can't imagine what it might be.

You mix up Grace and Gwyn in the scene in Jane's room. It should be Grace following Elspeth, but halfway through you start writing Gwyn and continue doing that throughout the chapter. Good chapter!

Ch. 45 spoilers!

Huh, so that's it for the Volturi. I wonder what the conflict will be from here on out. There's bound to be some vampires who won't be pleased with the new diet rules, and I'm also wondering what Bella will do with regards to humanity; will she let them in on the secret, or try to influence them without doing that?

I'd also like to see what she does with her parents. Renée and Phil may be interested in vampirization. And what will the wolves do? I hope Alicorn doesn't cap it off soon, even if there's no immediate threat to the current reign and the Cullen's.