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  1. Two years ago, when Brandon first announced the secret projects, people were surprised to hear the audiobooks wouldn't be available on Audible. Brandon had spoken out before about how he was worried about their business practices and what that would mean for authors with a lot less success than him, and for the secret projects––where the rights would initially be in his hands rather than going through Tor first, as Dragonsteel would be publishing the books themselves––he took a big risk, knowing most of his readership was through audio, and decided to promote other alternatives for audiobooks besides the Amazon-owned company. Now, after many conversations with the company, he's reached a historic deal, not aimed at himself, but to benefit indie authors in particular, who are the most affected by Audible's policies regarding royalties and exclusivity. Many people have heard about this basic context. You remember Brandon explaining the new other options that weren't Audible. But today, I want to do more than just paraphrase this newest blogpost. So I want to explain the entire context behind the relationship between Amazon, and by extension Audible, and the publishing industry. I'm going to give a big shoutout to the Print Run podcast for a lot of this extra information that isn't pulled from Brandon's blog. If you're interested in the industry, go listen to them! Part 1: Amazon's Origins For those of you who don't know, Amazon started its online retail empire through books. The reason wasn't because of some artistic sensibility, but because books are "easy to ship and hard to break." In particular because with the amount of books and editions of each of those that exist, it is impossible to find them all at a physical bookstore. But it is possible with the internet. Which was the perfect opportunity for the business. The other thing about books is that they say something about us. The kinds of books you buy tells you a lot about a person, which for a business like this, is consumer data. Which helped them expand beyond the book realm. Part 2: The ebook revolution In these early days, Amazon started innovating a lot on distribution. The traditional process is pretty messed up, and Amazon made this a lot easier both for print books, but most importantly for ebooks. The Kindle changed the game. Dan likes to cite a statistic about how in sometime like 2012, the sales of books if I'm not mistaken, in that year alone, were higher than in the rest of history. And Amazon decided to price ebooks at 9.99 USD, and everyone agreed to it. But publishers eventually realized that their books couldn't cost that little. So they suggested switching to a model where they chose whatever price they thought was appropriate, and give Amazon a cut of that. Part 3: The lawsuits In 2010, we get the first large lawsuit with one of the Big 6 at the time, Macmillan. You all probably know that Tor is Brandon's publisher, but Tor is just an imprint of Macmillan. And Brandon has mentioned this incident before. To put leverage on Amazon, Macmillan said they'd window their ebooks. One thing you should know about the publishing industry is that most sales for a book come in the first few months of it being out, or even before. The bestseller list is built on preorders and hype, because you can rack up those numbers with months of marketing and word of mouth which will all count for week 1, rather than doing all that work in a single week. What Macmillan was going to do was not release the ebooks until about 6 months later, where a good chunk of those people would have already read the book in hardcover, which costs significantly more. But Amazon wasn't threatened by this. They pulled the buy buttons on Macmillan books, which means you literally couldn't buy anything from any of Macmillan's imprints on Amazon. I am not kidding, this is literally the nuke of book sales. So Macmillan panicked. Eventually, Amazon got enough backlash from the general public that they put it back, but they'd successfully scared the publishers. So in 2012, the Big 6 at the time––HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette and Random House––came together to try to put pressure on Amazon to adopt the model Macmillan had suggested in 2010. Amazon filed a collusion suit against them, which prompted the Big 6 to settle. The compromise was that Amazon could discount books as much as they wanted, but they wouldn't get back their 9.99 ceiling. However, since Amazon has so much business elsewhere, this allowed them to use books as loss leaders. 7% of Amazon's sales were books in 2016, but 43% of all online retail went through them. Books were extremely insignificant for them, unlike the situation publishers were in. And of course, this accustoms people to go to Amazon first when they want to buy a book because they're more convenient and cheaper. During this time, Amazon also started using this rhetoric of publishers as elitist and gatekeeping, that didn't want the good of the customers and authors, who if they self published on Kindle Direct Publishing would receive a higher royalty rate, particularly on ebooks, even if their books wouldn't be in physical stores as often, because physical stores don't like stocking Amazon published books. In 2014, we get a second lawsuit, this time with Hachette. At the time, this was the biggest of the Big 6, with authors that are both incredibly prolific and popular, such as James Patterson. Who, I am not kidding, had books coming out about every week. Hachette wanted better pricing now that their contract was up and it was time for renegotiation, but Amazon wouldn't budge, and Hachette wouldn't either. Even being the fourth largest trade publisher in the world, it was 12 times smaller than Amazon at the time. Just like last time, Amazon pulled the buy buttons, but they went further than that. They delayed shipping, pulled the preorder buttons, ceased their discounts, letting consumers feel the weight of the full price they weren't accustomed to, and filled Hachette recommendation pages with similar, cheaper books. This caused a huge culture war. Amazon brought back their gatekeeper argument, saying the reason paperbacks took about a year to come out is because publishers wanted to get you with the bigger hardcover purchase, and that if Hachette gave all their online retail share and gave it to authors, they would stand down. Of course, Hachette couldn’t do this. In a way, Amazon lost this fight, but this is when everyone started getting involved. Particularly authors and agents. One of the most famous agents to get involved was Andrew Wiley. He is probably the most well known literary agent, the one people will think of when they think of the classic agent. He is also very notorious for being extremely anti-publisher, saying that "if a book has sold out its advance, he failed as an agent because he didn’t get enough money for his authors." One would think he’d jump on the Amazon bandwagon of criticizing the publishers. But he didn’t. He spoke out on behalf of them. He went pro-publisher. This is because Amazon’s model dries up the money authors would be getting very fast. Publishers have less money to spend on advances or new deals, and become even more risk-averse, which is bad for authors. The fact that someone so notoriously anti-publisher would side with them against Amazon says a lot in my opinion. Part 4: The Penguin Random House merger. This brings us to the Penguin and Random House merger in 2013. Companies didn’t want to wait to have to fight the same fight Macmillan and Hachette had to deal with, and since they’d gotten caught colluding before, the solution was to make that collusion legal with a merger. This made Penguin Random House the biggest publisher in the world, and let me tell you it’s staggering how many imprints they own. You forget half of them until you start looking at their company timeline on their website. What happens here is that because publishing’s response to Amazon is to band together, you get these two giants punching at each other with everyone else crushed in the middle because competition has been driven down, there are less places to submit a book to, less houses to drive up prices in auctions, and a lot of other side effects. You probably heard about the recent merger attempt between PRH and Simon & Schuster. Authors like Stephen King spoke out against that one because of these exact reasons, and Brandon’s Kickstarter that prompted this article also got caught in it because PRH and S&S were trying to use it as an example of how authors could go independent, making it even more necessary for a merger like this to keep business going. This original merger was just the first iteration of what happened in 2022 and early 2023. In 2017, Amazon made a change to their buying page, where instead of automatically buying a new copy from Amazon’s warehouses, you could be buying from third party vendors who would usually be reselling. This means that you can’t trace that money back and that it won’t go to the authors. It also increased the chance of fake books or fraudulent copies. Part 5: Audible in 2022 We’ve been talking about a lot of these policies in terms of ebooks, but they apply for audio too. In the old days, audiobooks were incredibly expensive, because they came in cassettes or CDs, and the process of getting them made was much more complicated. Just listen to any Wheel of Time fan who listened in audio from when the books first came out talk about it, or to Michael Kramer and Kate Reading in their many interviews. With Audible, Amazon made audiobooks viable again, and much cheaper, just like they did for ebooks. In his 2022 State of the Sanderson post, Brandon explained why he wasn't putting the Secret Projects on Audible. He focused specifically on its impact on indie creators. And worse, these are the rates for Amazon exclusive authors. That means they can't have their book available on any other platform, like Libro.fm for example, which is also very popular. The rates for non-exclusive authors drops to 25%. The other problem is that most audio companies turn around and put their books on Audible as well. Brandon cites Apple, Recorded Books, his own publisher Macmillan (who owns Tor), etc. And because of that, most of everyone else pays the same rates Audible does. To even try to compete with them. He urged readers to go to those other providers and try to change the tide. Part 6: The new deal On the 5th of March 2024, on the heels of another secret project announcement in conjunction with the Words of Radiance leatherbound, Brandon announced he'd had conversations with Audible about changing their practices. Like I hope you've been able to realize by now, getting Amazon to budge on anything is HUGE. Even authors with more clout than Brandon gave up pretty quickly. With that in mind, this is what Brandon says constitutes the new deal. Higher royalty rates for both exclusive and non exclusive authors The system will pay more predictably on credit spent, paid monthly rather than quarterly. They will provide a spreadsheet explaining how the money received will be split. Brandon does clarify this is far from perfect. The percentage gap between exclusive and non exclusive authors is still about the same. This change doesn't bring royalties up to the 70% he wanted in the first place yet, authors still won't have control over pricing, and they will always sell for the price of a credit, which won't be raised with inflation. He talks about how his agent, Joshua, spent months arguing for a 2% increase when Brandon was a new publisher to illustrate how important a small increase can be, even if this is bigger than 2%. And I hope this article has illustrated that as well. How difficult even getting them to move this much has been. Brandon explains that the Secret Projects will now be on Audible, and closes, thanking everyone for their support and the pressure they put on these issues. Part 7: Reflecting about how all this affects the publishing industry The publishing industry has always had this dilemma of art vs. business and where to fall on that scale. Treat it too much like a pure art and you get mentalities like the starving writer who does it despite not being able to sustain themselves. Treat it too much like a business and you lose out on the artistic value of works that won't sell as much in the moment. Works that sometimes become classics or will be praised critically but not be incredibly popular. My personal favorite example is Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's not accessible to a lot of people because of the layers and the prose, and how much mental energy it takes. But it is an absolute masterpiece, and I don't know if in today's market it would be published because of those commercial considerations. Sad as it is to say, the publishers left the door open for Amazon to fill the space because they failed to think for more than a second about the initial pricing of ebooks. And the way it's going, it only leads to more and more of a blockbuster model with publishers being risk-averse to new things because they are getting squeezed, it just makes the market harder for debut authors with new ideas and innovations, with more diverse voices. This year's Lee and Low Diversity Survey found that publishing is still 72% white, 71% cis women, 68% heterosexual, 83% able-bodied, and 58% living in the northeastern United States. And none of these numbers will change, like they barely did from the last time this survey was conducted, if we don't make an active effort to change them. That's why it is so important that Brandon stands up for these small authors, particularly those who publish independently. Traditional publishing isn't without its problems, but indie authors get affected the most by Amazon's policies that force them to be exclusive or take a huge loss to run ads as the only way to be discovered. Amazon says it's good for consumers by having low prices, but in the long run it isn't good because it will be creating this white noise where nobody stands out and removing quality and variety from people's options because publishing becomes more risk-averse. Not only will those potential classics, or books that are very niche, or that are being revolutionary, ahead of their time, be lost, but the quality on more commercial books will go down. We're already seeing this with controversies like the Iron Flame printing controversy. I hope that all these reflections about how it can affect our culture from multiple people will make an impact, and we'll start to see change. But we can't stay and do nothing. Even if you're not personally involved in the industry, there are still ways to affect it. Stay informed, use your local library and buy books in indie stores, preorder books, read more diversely, talk about the issues online, support indie authors. The list goes on and on. There is hope with a deal like the one Brandon has made. But we have to keep working for a better place, and better conditions for the artists we admire so much so they can keep bringing us amazing art. Part 8: Conclusion This article was originally just meant to go over the generalities of this deal and add information from the stream. But when I got my hands on it after a couple of days of discussion, I realized that it was a chance to talk about something I care about very deeply as a literature student and aspiring author, which lots of people may not know about. One thing I appreciate about the original stand Brandon took is that it showed people how bad the situation is, in a way that they wouldn't have even been aware of before. I hope that this article was a chance for you all to learn more about this beyond the endless paraphrasing of the same original article. And as pessimistic as I feel this sounded for a lot of it, what we need to take out of this is to make it known. Keep putting pressure on Audible to be better. Congratulate them for moving forward, but don't just let it rest here. Feel free to ask any questions and to start more of a discussion in the comments, I would love to know what you think.
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  3. As my two-thousandth, two-hundredth, twenty-second post, I wanted to do something a little special. So, I think now is the best time to dump a stockpile of memes I made (plus one I found earlier today). Enjoy Mistborn spoilers; More Mistborn spoilers; Probably counts as a Mistborn spoiler; Era 2 Mistborn spoilers; Warbreaker spoilers; Mistborn Secret History spoilers; Just to be on the safe side, Mistborn spoilers; Stormlight and Mistborn spoilers; Aaaaaand, that's all I've got for right now. Hope you got a good laugh!
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  5. MEMES?! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!! I have a meme:
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  6. guys I found an absolutely gorgeous selfie of @Cash67
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  7. Well, I finished Frugal Wizard, and let me tell you, it went in a different direction than I'd thought. A much better direction.
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  8. 60,000 words IM SO CLOSE GUYS AND I JUST KILLED OFF A CHARACTER MMY FIRST ONE ACTUALLY AND IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL AND AWESOME AND ONCE I POLISH IT UP IS GON BE SO GREATTTTT
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  9. The problem with abbreviating Brandon books (especially in the context of a certain upcoming novel...):
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  10. Hello all! Long time no see. Doozy of an article to return for, though! Let's cut right to the chase: Roaring Brook Press will be releasing a kid's picture book titled The Most Boring Book Ever, written by Brandon and illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi (who you may know from his Amulet series of graphic novels). It will be 48 pages long, targeted at children aged 4-8, and is expected to release September 24th, 2024. And now without further ado, here's the official blurb: The book is up for preorder in the usual places: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and probably wherever else you usually get your fix from. It appears to be separate from Super Awesome Danger, the so-called "Secret Project Zero"—see State of the Sanderson 2023 for more information on that. And yes, if you're keeping track, that makes this the tenth book since he started the Secret Projects three years ago, or more if you count co-written stories. At least this one shouldn't cause nearly as much havoc for spoiler policy... So um, how do you all feel about this news? Let us know in the comments below, I suppose... For my part, all I have to say is *confusion noises*. But hey, all for anything getting us closer to a The Dog and the Dragon storybook!
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  11. Yep, he's done it again! Today Brandon Sanderson announced he's written another book in secret and is releasing it with the Words of Radiance leatherbound BackerKit. For those keeping count, this makes eight secret books recently - Tress, Frugal Wizard, Yumi, and Sunlit Man released as part of the Year of Sanderson, Super Awesome Danger announced with those but still in production, Long Chills and Case Dough in the December Sanderson Fan box, and The Most Boring Book Ever illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi. We don't know much about it so far: just that it's in the far future of the cosmere and has "high connectivity". Also, that unlike in the pictures and video we have of the mockup, it won't be purple anymore. Sorry, purple lovers. We'll be getting more information about the book - a title and reading - on the 21st of this month. The book will be shipping sometime in 2025. The Words of Radiance Kickstarter...er, BackerKit...campaign, in addition to the leatherbound and new secret project, includes Dragonsteel Prime (soon we won't have to almost completely restrict discussion of that, so that's cool!) and a lot of cool swag. Those spren plushies? Adorable. We'll see you all in a few weeks with a podcast on this book! Until then, journey before destination.
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  12. The crab!!! Imagine this crystal when it is filled with stormlight
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  13. I made this sign with a laser cutter at my library. I used gold pigment and charcoal to get the coloring. Pictured with my new 1st/1st or WoR.
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  14. MAJOR bands of mourning / secret history (original work I drew it)
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  15. It’s 3am…huzzah!!! I’m going to NYC, so uh I might not be here a for the next few days
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  18. Major spoilers for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter ahead. Overall, an excellent story. Highly recommend.
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  19. Guys I don’t think I have the energy to go through 50 notifs. I’ll check them in the morning. I’m gunna try and get some sleep. Just a little update for the fam, we are making progress. I started some medication and my therapy is going kinda well. I’m feeling a little better, still some huge swings, but… I’ll try to keep you guys updated, life’s been busy so sorry I haven’t been around a lot. Love you all
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  20. Just so all of Sticky Wickys friends are aware her paternal and maternal guardians (also known as parents to most mortals) have banned her from the shard for a week. I do not know why, but it can relay messages to her. love yall
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  21. having finished Sunlit man recently, I'm starting to notice a pattern (minor all SP poilers) and furthermore (more minor SP spoilers
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  22. More SA spoilers:
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  23. Heads up to my favorite online space: I’m going to be doing a mission trip to South Padre Island over spring break! If you want info, here is link: https://www.beachreachspi.org/ TLDR: I’m gonna be shuttling college kids to where they need to go on the island so they don’t get hurt, and talk about Christ during the van rides! So, I’m gonna be mostly offline from Saturday-Friday. During this time, @Spark of Hope if you want/need to, you gain control over Pic. I just need a summary of what he did come Saturday. Beyond that, I’ll have a whole load of stories, so if you want them, put a status on my page come Saturday!
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  24. Good afternoon, everyone. Since May 2022, I've been known as CalanoCorvus. That has been my name, my next iteration succeeding Doomslug the Destroyer. CalanoCorvus now has been succeeded by Medium. I am a man of many mediums. Art, music, writing, and abounding creativity. And within each form of creativity is still further forms of creative expression. With music, for instance, I take inspiration from whatever sounds good to me. I am not partial to a specific genre, I do not assign myself a specific field to lie in. I use everything available to me. I use every medium. With writing, the same is true. I am a poet. I am an author. I am a storyteller. I use so many mediums of writing. Thus, I am a Medium. I am Medium. The Influences are never ending, and Everything is able to be used for creative expression. This is my new persona. Medium.
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  25. Hi all, We are extending the spoiler period for The Sunlit Man. Normally, it would end on March 1st if we follow our standard six month rule. However, Tor's release of the book is March 5th, so that doesn't feel appropriate. We are extending the period to April 5th to give people a little time there.
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  26. Ah, Utah. That wonderful land where it can rain, snow, hail, thunderstorm, wind, and more all at once. And it was sunny and warm this morning. EDIT: Oop the power just went out…
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  27. GUYS CONFIRMED, I'M MY DIRECTOR'S FAVORITE AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH So we were performing our region pieces in front of the class today, and he's choosing which ones go to region. But it's round one of I guess qualifying, so basically no one has. (there are 4 people from the audition-only shakespeare class who are on his fancy list on the white board, but that was all). My scene partner and I did ours, and then at lunch we were on his board and I'M SO HAPPY Ok but it's even better, because at the beginning of class he was talking about our goals for region. And he was saying that he wants to get 1st overall, and for all 25 of our pieces to qualify for state, and a bunch of things. My scene is a contemporary scene (which, by the way, already had two of the four available spots filled) and when he got to that he was like "I want to get 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for contemporary." Then he made eye contact with me and goes "So no pressure, [Eddie]" which was great. But we all went through and now I'm on the list and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH and it's crazy because the people I would say are our best actors aren't up there yet. Meaning our Jean Valjean, our Romeo, our Othello, our Malcolm, our Lady Macbeth, our Peter...and like I know I'm not better than them, but for being younger than all of them it feels so scudding good that he immediately wants us, and that we're ready. Oh and then at lunch he was like "[Eddie] did you see the board" and I was like "yes, thank you so much" and he was talking about how excited he is to do this with us, and I told him I want to be his first place team and it was great and ANYWAY SORRY I JUST NEED TO RANT BECAUSE it feels so scudding wonderful and I'm so excited and I love theatre but I didn't have the energy to write a love letter (my OC Liz is stealing all my writing power xD) OH AND AND AND EVEN BETTER NEWS I'm making friends with our director's 2 year old son, and he's finally decided he doesn't hate me okay that's all I've got, sorry this was such a mess xD if you stayed with me to the end yaaaaay thanks <33 One family.
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  28. Oh my chasms. Oh my scudding gilded chasming scud stars. WE GOT THIRD OVERALL. FRIGGING THIRD PLACE OUT OF ALL THE GROUPS. LIKE WHAT? My brain has stopped functioning, and so has my voice. Goodnight.
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  29. The seagulls They have begun their demonic ritual There are hundreds of them It’s too late for us Escape while you still can
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  30. Hellooo! I finished my handmade mistcloak the other week and just threw together some stuff I have collected for Ren faire over the years. My Vin cosplay is about 80% complete, I plan to change out everything that has metal to just leather so I have to craft that myself, and I will be adding some bandages to kind of represent Vin more so in book 2. But overall I am super happy so far with how it looks! In action: https://imgur.com/gallery/ZS2n2cI
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  31. Guys guys guys guys GUYS Hadestown… On Broadway… It was unreal. The Eurydice and Hermes are leaving soon, and it was amazing to see them. And the Persephone was the original one from the concept album when it originally released in 2006. I sobbed through the entire thing AND OH MY SCUDDING CHASMS JORDAN FISHER AS ORPHEUS I LOVE HIM Guys theatre is art. Go see a show. It’s like interactive reading. With music. I saw it two days ago and I’m still emotionally…uh…
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  32. Dunno if these are quite accurate, I did them in class without a reference
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  33. UPDATE: GUYS I FOUND AN AIRPORT BOOKSTORE AND (currently in Chicago for a layover) THERE WAS A COPY OF SUNLIT MAN AND COOL PENCILS …anyway I think I drew energy from the bookstore (maybe there was stormlight or something??) but I’m alive
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  34. Helloooo Yesterday, we apparently had to get more animals, because 6 chickens, some assorted fish, 4 cats, (1 pregnant) andalltheothersican'tremebermybrainhurtsowch- Aren't enough animals so now we have these: *cough* Anyway, Love Y'all ~ Stick
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  35. Guys 57 notifs? not today. maybe tomorrow. Not today guys, I just got back from the most chaotic school trip of my life.
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  36. UPDATE ON MISSION TRIP The trip has gone really well! I’ve been sharing the gospel with dozens of people, and while I haven’t seen anyone choose to put Jesus in charge of their lives, they have mostly been willing to listen. I’m running on much less sleep than normal, and have played roughly 15 hours of Dominion. (If any of y’all want to play later after this trip the board game is on Apple and Android for free with no ads) I have had a wonderful time, and have grown a lot more confident in sharing my faith, so I guess if any of y’all have questions about Christianity (specifically non denominational) I really like talking and listening! Anyway, Cash out, see y’all soon.
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  37. Hi friends, I am new to the 17th Shard and this is my first post here. Now what I am about to discuss here is not entirely my theory, most of it has been theorized by the fandom for quite some time now. I am just gathering the most probable ones together and see if it fits to form a mostly cohesive narrative. Spoiler Alert for all of Stormlight Archive, including the chapter of Wind and Truth released by Brandon. So, with that complete I am going to discuss the possible ending of Stormlight 5 and maybe some plot points that can be expected in the back half. Now there are dozens of characters in the Stormlight Archive each having their own compelling stories, but predicting the ending for each of them is impossible. So I will be focusing on just 4 characters, the 4 most important characters to the narrative of Stormlight Archive, the 4 characters who started it all: Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar and Szeth. Yeah, Brandon pretty much says they are the key. So, let's examine their paths and come to a conclusion for each of them. I think that will give us a pretty good idea of where Book 5 will end. Shallan So, Shallan. Her story is basically finding out who she is, confronting it and accepting it. Pattern said that Lightweavers don’t have oaths, but they have truths. This is because of their unique position as spies. Knowing their truths will keep them grounded, since they impersonate other people there is a possibility that they may get lost in the role they are playing so they must know who they are. This is why Adolin was the right choice for Shallan and not Kaladin. Adolin knew which one was the real Shallan, the woman he loves. So far Shallan has spoken 3 truths: She killed her father, She killed her mother, She killed her spren. With the third truth Veil merged with Shallan and only Radiant is left. So, the next truth will be the one where she and Radiant merge and it will happen in Wind and Truth. One of the biggest Chekhov's guns that Brandon planted but never used in his the series so far is that Kaladin is the one who killed Helaran. And this is her reaction when she learns of it. Yeah, she suppressed it. I am not suggesting that she is going to fight Kaladin in book 5 because of this, quite the opposite really. And it comes down to Shallan’s mother, the herald Chanarach. Yes I believe Chanarach is Shallan’s mom especially after the release of Book 5 Prologue. Again it is not my theory but it is already there. The basic premise is, Chanarach has red hair just like Shallan and she had connections to the Skybreakers and tried to kill Shallan because she was a radiant. We also know that Taln didn’t break and this theory explains that too. In the book 5 prologue we learn that one of the heralds died on the day of Gavilar’s feast, which happened six years before the Way of Kings, exactly the same time period when Shallan killed her mother. She killed her mother Chanarach and sent her to braize. Chanarach endured the torture for 6 years before breaking. So, Taln didn’t break. This will be Shallan’s final truth. She is the one who is (indirectly) responsible for the desolation. And I don’t think Shallan will be able to ignore or suppress the truth that she pretty much caused the end of the world. I think at this moment of shame all her suppressed emotions will come out including her brother’s death. Then there is Chanarach herself, who will not be happy to learn that her eldest son was killed by Kaladin. This is my theory, Chanarach will confront Kaladin over Helaran’s death and try to kill him. At the same time, despite knowing that Kaladin killed her favorite brother, Shallan will choose to help Kaladin by fighting her own mother whom she very much still loves. Choosing Honor over revenge and her mother. Shallan will merge with Radiant and become a fully realized Lightweaver and possibly even revive Testament. Shallan will also survive Book 5, and go on to transform her Lightweaver Radiants into a cosmere wide spy network with the help of Hoid (who is also a Lightweaver) in order to fight the Ghostbloods. Dalinar Dalinar is the one on whom I am most conflicted. I mean his character arc pretty much came to a conclusion in Oathbringer with the You cannot have my Pain moment. There is really nothing much to develop in Dalinar except for the Duel he has with Odium. Now, Taravodium is not that different from Raysodium. So, Taravodium wants to rule over the entire cosmere and he thinks he will do a better job than the current shards. So, what he wants is simple, to be free of the Rosharan system, while also maintaining some control over it. So what is the way for Taravodium to get what he wants? Brandon has removed Rayse and introduced Taravangian as Odium because Rayse doesn’t have that fear factor anymore. So I think Taravangian will get what he wants. So Dalinar will somehow end up breaking the contract. It wont turn the Stormfather into deadeyes but it will let Odium to corrupt the Stormfather, potentially ending his ability to supply Stormlight. Szeth Szeth’s character is all about finding the truth himself. First he followed his religion blindly, then he followed Nale blindly and now he is following Dalinar blindly. His character arc is to break free of this and learn to distinguish right from wrong by himself. To learn what is the truth without blindly following others. Szeth’s fourth Ideal is ‘I will cleanse the Shin of their false leaders, so long as Dalinar Kholin agrees.’ And he will complete that successfully. But it won’t be the end for Szeth, by the end of book five he will be a 5th Ideal radiant. This is what Nale says regarding the fifth Ideal So imagine, Szeth completes his 4th ideal and returns to Urithiru, to Dalinar and what does he see? Dalinar has broken the contract, the law. Szeth will be forced to confront the reality that Dalinar was wrong and following him is not the right way. This is when he rises higher and swears his fifth ideal, becoming his own man. After that Szeth will kill Dalinar, thus stopping Odium’s corruption on the Stormfather from getting much worse. Since he would be using Nightblood to kill Dalinar this might even sever his bond to Stormfather and Honor. Odium will then transform Dalinar’s cognitive shadow into a Fused. Kaladin Well if there is one thing I am certain about our sad depressed bridgeboy, it is that he will live. The entire point of Kaladin’s character arc is that no matter how good and powerful he becomes there will always be those he cannot save, and he has to learn to live with it. And Kaladin finally achieved that in RoW, so killing him off in Winds and Truth even if it was a heroic self sacrifice will not be satisfying. Also he is being set up as a therapist for the Heralds. So, what do I think will happen with him? Well, he will Ascend to honor. There are many references to this in the books. Kaladin’s very first POV chapter is named “Honor is Dead”. Then there is that moment in WoR where he says, “Honor is dead, but I’ll see what I can do.” Brandon pretty much said that Kaladin never felt the Thrill because of Syl, but he was not bonded to Syl in Amaram’s army. Syl seems to remember Kaladin’s childhood despite not being bonded to him at that time. His connection to Aesudan as he recognizes the tune she is singing. He is also related to her by blood for some reason. In Oathbringer Kaladin killed, like actually killed a corrupted spren using Syl. The corrupted spren died like Phendorana. Then in both Oathbringer and RoW he commanded the Windspren to blow back the storm itself and they did it. Honestly there is so much more to Kaladin that is very similar to Vin from Mistborn. There is the Child of Tanavast. Overall? So what is it that I am trying to say? Well the Duel of the Champions will not be the final act of the book. It will probably happen at the end of Part 3. The true final act, the Sanderlanch will not be at Urithiru or Shinovar, it will be at the Shattered Plains. There a loophole in the treaty So after the Duel, there will be a final battle between the Radiants and the forces of Odium at the shattered plains. It will probably be for Ba-Ado-Mishram, each racing against time to get her for themselves. Only the Radiants will be low on morale and Stormlight due to Dalinar’s loss. They will be losing against the forces of Odium when the Singers led by Venli and Rlain join the battle to help the Radiants. Oh, and they will probably be riding on Chasmfiends as in RoW we saw them controlling one at the end. It is after this Kaladin will ascend, and by this point I think he would have lost Syl. Syl would be alive, but he would have lost his bond with her. I think Ishar would have brought Syl into the physical realm by this point. So how will Kaladin ascend? This is what Hoid told Kaladin in one of the SA 5 chapters released by Brandon What I think will happen is, during the battle Kaladin will play the Flute, and he will play the Rhythm of Honor. Just like how Navani produces Towerlight from a Rhythm, Kaladin will produce Stormlight with the Rhythm of Honor. This coupled with his near deity-like status in Urithiru among the Radiants and the recently forged alliance between Men and Singers will help Kaladin reassemble the Splintered Shard of Honor and Ascend. Maybe he might have help form Ba-Ado-Mishram, or Hoid, or Cultivation or even Dalinar. This will give the edge the Radiants need to defeat Odium’s forces. Szeth will probably fight and then convince Nale to rejoin the side of the Radiants, thus bringing the Order of Skybreakers back to Honor. Moash will have his redemption journey and will take Jezrien’s place as a herald. I am not sure exactly how this will happen but I am confident Moash is on a redemption path. Once the battle is won, Kaladin as Honor will reform the Oathpact and seal away the Fused. Only this time he will go to Braize along with all the Heralds. His presence will allow the Heralds to fight back against the Fused and give Kaladin enough space and time to perform Mental Therapy on them. The back half of the books will deal with the scarcity of Stormlight, the Men who have bonded Odium’s spren like Aesudan, The introduction of Lifelight through Lift. A shadowy war with the Ghostbloods over Investiture. Now although Odium is free from the Rosharan System, he has also pretty much lost control over Roshar and the Fused. So he will return in the end back half for a Final Confrontation. This is when Kaladin and the Heralds return from Braize. By the end of Book 10 Dalinar will break free of Odium. Since there are so many Corrupted spren and unmades like Sja-anat who go against Odium, perhaps by the end of Book 10 Kaladin will splinter Odium and take it up himself and become War. After all, Kaladin is described as a passionate man many times. This will set the stage for an overall cosmere wide conflict. Harmony vs War vs Autonomy vs Endowment etc…
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  38. I started writing a formal oratory speech… For absolutely no reason… Other than that I felt like it… And I’m having a blast… *whispers* I’m not a nerd.
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  39. After mentioning the name Adonalsium to Dalinar Kholin, the King's Wit, aka Hoid, quickly plays it off, claiming he's speaking gibberish. He drops this quote. Interestingly, while he does use two 'real' nonsense words of Nonsense and Balderdash, the term Figgldygrak was apparently a wholly Brandon invention. It was an amusing word, nothing more. Then, a user by the name of Natans had an interesting idea. Balderdash could be anagramed into the word Shardblade. Perhaps, the same could be done to Figgldygrak, in turn revealing some deep truth about the Cosmere. You can find the thread here: Surprisingly, Peter Ahlstrom himself weighed in, calling the people in that thread "Very special people" Clearly, we were reading way too much into this. The theory was basically abandoned, and we moved on. However, the word reappeared in Rhythm of War, this time in Navani's inner dialogue. Specifically, it was used in the context of writing ciphers that meant absolutely nothing. It was literally meant to be a waste of time. I was surprised to see it reappear, but laughed it off as Brandon lightly poking fun at his fans reading too much into his words. Then the secret projects happened. In Tress of the Emerald Sea, Hoid once again uses the word in his narration. It was another callback to the same forgotten joke. It's clearly used as a synonym for mystical nonsense in all of its appearances, but it kept cropping up. Why keep the joke going? The word then reappears a fourth time in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. At this point, I'm starting to get paranoid. While it does not show up in SP4, this nonsensical word has appeared in four separate places, uttered by three different characters. Some of you might guess that this is a word that Hoid has invented. However, this is tenuous at best. While he was the first to speak it, we have to consider that both Navani and Tojin used it in everyday speech. You could maybe stretch that perhaps Navani overheard Hoid make up the word, but that doesn't explain Tojin. Hoid is a statue for most of that book, and Design wasn't bonded to Hoid when he said that line. It's at least two degrees of separation. Even more interestingly, Hoid claims he doesn't make up words. Again, from Yumi, Admittedly, this is spoken with the indignation of someone who probably makes up words, but the point still stands. Hoid denies that he makes up words. Where, then, does the word figgldygrak come from in the Cosmere? Let's consider that three different characters of wildly different origins and planets have used this word. Therefore, I propose a theory. The word figgldygrak is Yolish in origin. It's the only root language all of these human characters would share. Is this wahoopli and figgldygrak? Probably. Is it fun to speculate about? Absolutely. Leave your own takes on this mysterious word down in the comments.
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  40. I used the SVG file https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Cosmere_symbol.svg with the library's laser cutter to etch this tile. Applied a powdered pigment to get the gold and silver colors.
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  41. OMG STOP HE LIKES ME TOO HE LIKES ME AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH skkslsldksnhdjsjussnbsb
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  42. So I'm apparently a pretty good shot with a shotgun. And a rifle.
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  43. … … I’ve been exchanging memes with my writer friends. Most aren’t about writing. But… hEeEeeLpppPp
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  44. Brain wouldn’t let me fall back asleep before leaving for the mission trip… we are running on 6 hours of sleep and the Spirit right now. No idea if I’ll be posting here in the next week, so just in case, I’ll see y’all on Friday!
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  45. I finally dusted off my patriarchal blessing and gave it a read. It’s amazing how they’re specifically tailored for us. It was a lot of the things that I had specifically been thinking about, even to the exact wording. I really do need to read it more… take this as a reminder to either read yours again or pray about whether if it is time to get yours or not! They’re an enormous blessing.
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  46. I found out today I may have a chance to a return to proselyting mission again. I am equally extremely hopeful and terrified.
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  47. I've been pretty inactive lately thanks captain obvious and I've been missing a lot of the goings on here cuz of school and just not being able to get on here very often in general, and I think I'm gonna just take a step back and stop trying to force myself to be on here. So I think I'm gonna be gone for a few months, which may turn into longer, idk. Y'all are great! I hope all of you have a nice day!
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