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I think that I can safely say that I am stricken. Eternal Enthronement A flower, so pure as to cause the very idea of purity to drip the most unclean nectar and aura springs forth and grows upon the realm of mortal flesh. Perfume that gods and primordials quest for throughout the eons is a river flowing from the spirit of this most beautiful blessing bestowed by the divine. How it grows and calls with its ethereal voice the most striking and amazing music that is even conceivable. Passion summons mighty light that raises cities and kingdoms in no more than a single instant. Oceans and rivers slow if only for a moment so as to be able to capture that which mortal ears are blessed to hear and fewer eyes to witness. Minerva in all of her wisdom and Venus in all of the pathos that she inspires can only fade before she who now ascends to unseat even the most powerful goddesses. Jealous Juno removes from her head a circlet of gold and bends her knee in submission. Nyx, the most ancient one of the dark, is lost in the most wonderful warming light. Hathor descends into the sands and all-powerful Isis can do nothing, but return to whence she was first brought into the memory of the world. Newest mistress of all those who have come and gone your glow is so much greater than even that of the highest point of Diana’s silvery chariot. Nature’s splendor is fashioned after but the smallest fragment of the shadow of your spirit’s shadow. Can even Phoebus speak of you and not be stricken with a sort of dumbness as he seeks to sing the simplest praise. All of reality is nothing when you are absent and it seeks to place the circlet of the queen upon your brow. That most dim a crown would not add to that to which so little could ever be added. All call for you now that you are revealed to all to be truly most worthy in all of creation, of such a coronation. Let the throne meant from the earliest of days now be yours and all else answer to you until all ends and your light continues forevermore.

I'm going to get this AAR up before I forget about this game. Apologies, Fifth After-Action Report Surprisingly or otherwise, this one is less involved. More brief thoughts than anything particularly detailed. Probably because I'm tired >> Distro Commentary A lot of times in a game, especially when either team more or less near-sweeps, you have to ask if the game is balanced or if the distro was just volatile. I do think this can be somewhat complex as a game, so is not as easy to balance. I think tapping/storing is neat, requires players to be careful about concealing themselves (or to not care, I suppose), and creates ability scarcity as a result of player choices. Another element of tapping/storing I liked is that it was a neat way of making the scans de facto oneshots without us actually saying so - given the player group size and the store rate, it was very unlikely that a player was getting off a fulltap scan twice. The two distro thoughts Fifth and I had were: A. whether or not to go with a two-player team that was really beefed up (ideally two FFs) and/or B. whether to have the Synod compromised. I leaned towards preferring a compromised Synod; Fifth favoured an uncompromised Synod. I don't really feel bad about the decision to give the Elims three players. I think it could have been complicated in a different world - as it was, Stick's death was the beginning of their troubles because JNV would come under some suspicion after that. The coin tosses could lead to a very different world: Mat nearly died, as did Araris, which could have shifted the game's landscape quite a bit, especially since Araris dying meant that Stick survived. So there is that amount of volatility there. Pewter I think is balanced by player choice, since Striker chose to store for the fulltap rather than tap, which, fair enough, but I think that's something to keep in mind if trying to balance with a FF. Players can have a lot of options, but how they choose to use them is key, and that's not something a GM can always anticipate. I do think the Village's ability to get three scans off near the end and Elan's good use of her PM ability really helped to narrow down the PoE towards the end. In a game of this size, I'm feeling eh about this. I don't think that's a big deal in a group with a bigger player size, but I do think it's worth noting as that can be quite the power spike for the Village as a way of closing out the game, especially coupled with the Synod kill. Equally though, Mat and Araris were fairly fragile. Araris had to decide in the Day if he was going pewter. I'm leaning towards "I might like one less Tin or fewer starting charges" for one of the three scans, but I also think player choice mattered (Araris could've filled a different metal, and again, Mat fragility.) All in all, no strong feelings, some weak ones. Actions Economy Players took less advantage of the guaranteed kill than expected, whereas Ash being the last Elim meant that in terms of actions economy, he started to be very hard-pressed. I think JNV being the last Elim might have made things a little less tight, but admittedly, the Village had the capacity to softclear a number of other players so I don't see that as a big deal. Doggo Adoption Shame on y'all except Elan, why are you okay with letting four sad doggos rough it alone Synod No strong thoughts on the Synod either. We did expect some potential in-Synod shooting, and Steel figuring the Synod might actually not be compromised after all was fairly helpful for the Village. Synod kill was used to narrow PoE so that was ok for the Village, even if not optimal. Synod doc was a little dead, but I'm not terribly surprised by it.

guys guys never have I felt the spirit more strongly than I did last week at FSY. holy crap. so. spiritual. like. bruhhh.

Consider the WoR Epigraph on this topic: This may indicate that for Odium's intent to be channeled for good, it would have to be held with another Shard (Harmony-style) to give it the context that is lacking.

I…… Honestly forgot the Shard was a thing for a bit. I mean, uh, it’s good to be back :DD

First status ever woooooo! So I've been working on writing a musical representation of a scene from the Stormlight archive and I've made some excellent headway tonight (while the shard was down lol)! Keep an eye out in the Fan Works section for that in the next few weeks (maybe even sooner if I'm feeling particularly inspired ). I was originally thinking it would be solo piano, but one of my fellow sanderfan friends who plays violin/clarinet offered to join in which could be super cool! We got together today to plan it out and I think it's going to be amazing! I'm so excited for where this is headed, so I thought that some of you might be interested in updates

Screw it. Here's Redraft - Chapter I, y'all. Knock yourselves out. Apologies for the nasty formatting

I'll admit, when I first heard that the Shard was down, I was devastated. You may point out that I'm not on as much anymore so it shouldn't matter, and you'd be right. But still, that's, like, ten minutes of my day I no longer had anything to do with. What am I supposed to do with an extra ten minutes?? Then it hit me. I could finally do all the things I wanted to do! All the things I said that I never had time for! I immediately began working out. I'd never done this before, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Soon I was deadlifting twice my weight, and I was seeing results. I started running as part of this, and even ran a marathon. I finally got around to the novel I've been procrastinating, and finally finished its first draft. I got it in with a publisher, and it's now sold 4 million copies worldwide and counting. I'm not allowed to give details yet, but let's just say, be on the lookout for a possible film adaptation coming to a theater near you. Now, I hadn't forgotten about my religious responsibilities. I got my call and ended up serving my mission in Sweden, of all places. I have since returned and am now happily engaged to my fiance. My friends, there is a very important lesson to be learned from all this. Even just ten minutes can change the course of your life. So, tell me... how are you going to spend the next ten minutes? This status update is a work of fiction and/or satire. Any similarities to real people, events, or places are purely coincidental.

in case anyone was wondering where the hecking heck i vanished to; I WAS AT FSY AND MADE LIKE 10 NEW SUPER CLOSE AMIGOS AND I LOVE THEM AND I GOT THEIR NUYMBERS AND YAAAAAAY so anyways what did i miss

Cloudflare is a Content Delivery Network which helps on a variety of things. Probably is easiest for me to just link this: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/what-is-cloudflare/ It would indeed have nodes all over the place so would display a city near you. That's how it works.

Hello! We welcome you today!

Hi everyone, I had to sign up to make this post since it's something that's been bothering me a whole lot, and that's our dear Shallan Davar. In the first book, she was alright. I actually enjoyed her studying with Jasnah and all the spooky stuff that happened with Pattern. But by the second book, everything started going downhill so fast. By the time the split persona thing started coming out, it was too late. I absolutely despise Veil, she's such a tiresome character and is essentially just Shallan's powerfantasy (that has plot armor and cannot fail, of course). In RoW, I get actual physical cringe from reading her chapters. The personalities "taking her over", and other characters having to deal with that to not offend her is just so awkward. Poor Adolin, he was my favorite character in the series but now he's just delegated to a body pillow for Shallan. I won't even dare hope that she gets killed somehow, since apparently she can just casually take a crossbow bolt to the head and shrug it off, thanks to her super awesome radiant powers. This ties into another major gripe I've been dealing with in Stormlight - how there's just no stakes anymore. Everything's so meta, the world doesn't feel nearly as real and intriguing as before. I suppose nothing good ever lasts though.

The title explains itself. These are all so far rough drafts of songs you are hearing, recorded directly by my phone from my electric piano, so their quality isn't the greatest and I have a few errors here and there. Hopefully, you will all enjoy it otherwise. (And hopefully, I can successfully upload them.) The song recorded on video, called the "Mistborn Suite", is meant to be a collection of themes for the first Mistborn trilogy overall. Next is a song I made, titled "First Waltz", is based on Vin and Elend dancing together for the first and only time of their lives in Hero of Ages. After that is a song made by request to take place during the scene in Final Empire when Kelsier fights Bendal the Inquisitor in the Square, tentatively titled "Fight Scene". And then a song to take place during what happens directly after it, with "The Lord Ruler's Arrival". Directly followed by a "Lament for Kelsier". There is a lot more where these came from, but I haven't recorded or saved them yet. But more is to come! I hope you enjoy! mistborn suite.MOV Vin and Elend Second Draft.m4a Kelsier vs Inquisitor.m4a The Lord Ruler's Arrival.m4a Lament For Kelsier.m4a

Odium is hatred incarnate. Odium is passion. Odium is fervor, rage, divine wrath. And it's also unfathomable power, the power of a god. It's not going away. One way or another, odium is gonna be around at the end of the series. Now, there are of course a few ways you can make that fact less of a problem. The first is, of course, shattering Odium, like honor was shattered. I could certainly see that being the way this ends up being resolved. But there's another way to resolve this problem, too, and imo this resolution is a better fit for the themes of the stormlight archive. Someone takes up Odium who will channel it toward something good. Hatred and rage aren't inherently bad things. We like to think that hate is bad and love is good but in reality it's just not that simple. Love can cause you to excuse and overlook things you really shouldn't. To put up with abuse. And on the other hand, hatred can be justified. Sometimes, people do things that truly deserve to be hated, that the victim simply can't forgive them for. And sometimes, systems are built on the backs of people for whom hatred is a completely logical response. Systems like slavery, and dictatorships, and racism. And not even just hatred for the people on top of those systems (though not not for that either), but also for the systems themselves and the conditions that led to their creation. Odium can be channeled for good; for giving Passion to the downtrodden and oppressed. A force for change, a fuel to the fire within. Personally, I think someone taking up the power to use it for this purpose would be a more fitting resolution than simply shattering the power. Cause stormlight archive is a story about a war against odium, yes, but it's also a story about oppressive systems and the horrors they create. Shattering Odium may be a thematic ending to the first of these, but not to the second. Now, onto the question I know a lot of you have: Moash??? Yes, moash. Now, big disclaimer: This is something I'd expect to see at the end of his character arc (at least within this series- if he becomes a shard, we'll presumably be seeing him afterwards) which means he is absolutely not there yet. If he took up odium right now, it would not go well. But we still have one to six more books for him to evolve and grow. I see this coming after a long redemption arc. Stormlight is a series all about redemption and second chances, afterall. Right now, he's a character consumed by hatred, but I think a much more interesting resolution than learning to let go of that hatred is learning to channel it for something good. Cause honestly, he has all that hatred for a very good reason. And I think that Moash taking up Odium could be the force for change that roshar desparately needs. Now, there are other characters who could fill in this role as well. Chief among them, Kaladin. Kaladin has had very similar feelings as moash- they are narrative foils after all- and has every reason to personally hate oppression. He's currently in a much better emotional position to be able to do good with the power of odium than moash currently is. And at the end of Rhythm of War, we saw his eyes turn golden as he attacked the Pursuer, which is clearly setting up something, some kind of connection to odium, which means he might be in a good position to be able to take it up since you do have to be aligned with a shard in order to really hold onto it. I'll be honest, if Sanderson does go down the path of having someone take up Odium as a force for change, I fully expect it to be Kal. But I'm a moash girlie and in my heart of hearts I want it to be him, so here's my flimsy justification for why it should be. Kaladin's character arc has been more about leaving behind his hatred, and moving toward protecting people. Basically, he's been moving away from the parts of himself that are aligned with odium, while Moash has been running full force into them. And right now of course, that's really not going so well for himself or anyone around him. For Kaladin to be "odious" enough, his character would have to go backwards from where he is now to get him in a mental state more similar to the first book, whereas Moash could make forward progression and become a better person while still holding onto the odiousness that he has now. TL;DR Having someone take up Odium and channel the power to be a force for social change would be a good resolution to multiple plots, themes, and problems presented by the books, and moash's arc could take him to where he'd be in a good position to be that person.

hi guys i’m glad that we are all smart adult people who make good financial decisions yes i am apart of the set of all humans who make good financial decisions i am one of those people yep yep yep yep ispentonethousanddollarsonbitcoinguys

Yeah, it's exactly like EFY was - minor changes, but none bigger than differences between different sessions of EFY. I'm a counselor, and so far, it's been awesome. Had one Sanderfan this last week in my group, and got to explain that while I was definitely an Elsecaller, Skybreaker was in my top 3, so I was going to enforce any rules to the letter.

Hey, I'm new here but I am indeed a member! Hello!

Not this week, but I will be hoping to jump back in a few weeks from now. Used some of covid-quarantine to work on a short story, but it's not quite done yet. Hoping that telling people I'm finishing it up will get me to buckle down to get the last part of it together.

That's so awesome!! I'm so happy for you !! Those experiences are so beautiful; there's really nothing like them. Last summer I did EFY habits for lifes and it was very similar. I kept up the spirituality as much as I could and the months after were some of the best of my life. So keep it up, and enjoy life to the fullest, because life is beautiful and you can do anything with the Lord's aid!

i went to FSY last week and it was the most spiritually awakening and the best experience of my life. so much to tell but i wont because i wanna do writing but like yeah i made friends and had a blast i also almost died of heatstroke lol

Can't we at least prove that Anybody exists by breaking down his/her door?

Iron, tin, copper, zinc, chromium, duralumin and possibly nicrosil can steal stuff from regular humans, trying to use steel would probably just be a waste. Beyond that, we don't know enough about Hemalurgy.

Oh same! Hanne is pretty good but she and Nina just don't have the same chemistry as Nina and Matthias And honestly, with the fact that she can hear ghosts being established as canon, i do agree they could have done something cool with Matthias's voice in her head.

WE'RE BAAAAAAACK I missed you guys

Can one prove existence?

Happy birthday, Voidus!

A. I think this topic has better be in Entertainment Discussion, that where those usually are. B. Five Kingdoms so happens to be a series I enjoy a lot, too! Though I can read this only by lending it from a friend, with whom I'm not in contact much anymore... I probably need to reread it.

Do you think that it's possible that Sophie wasn't the first of project moonlark? Hear me out, experiments rarely go well the first time, they take many trials. And messing with genetics is not something that elves do often. So wouldn't there have been mistakes? Just something to think about...

That represents perfectly how I imagined the Fused to look! And the long fluttering gowns! I love it! Amazing!

Happy birthday, Silva!

I recently found that there are two other brandon sanderson fans in the stake that I live in that I didn't know about. This was through youth conference, which was a amazing experience and we had fun speaking gibberish near other people, talking about sanderson, or should I say gibletish.

Thank you! Happy to be here I live in an area where I'm the only member in my school, so it's really nice to have a community of fellow members!

SCADRIAN WAFFLE COOK! LEZ GOOOOOOOOOOO! BEST RANK EVER! Also, i feel like the TV watching world is divided into Stranger Things 4 people and Obi-Wan Kenobi people right now and it's kind of funny lmao

just went ghost hunting and locked my keys in my car and then went ghost hunting somewhere else after we got that sorted and now i smell like ghost

I'll throw this out there, Brandon's writing lectures on YouTube indicate that he thinks about 3 sliding scales for developing a character, that also can indicate how much a reader likes the character. If you don't want to read the writerly behind-the-scenes stuff, similar to not wanting to know the details of how a sausage is made, then feel free to skip this comment. Brandon has a simplified model of how characters have 3 basic sliding scales that influence how readers perceive, like, and relate to them. Scale one: how proactive the character is. We like characters that try hard, even if they fail a lot, such as Wile E. Coyote. Do they drive the plot, or do they react to others driving the plot? Scale two: the competitance of the character within the plot of the story. We generally like to watch characters who know what they are doing and show their expertise in the plot. James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and many superheroes are examples. Scale three: how sympathetic the character is. This is the extent that we can relate to the character or the character does things that we would laud. The cliche is if you want the audience to like a character, you have them pet a dog. If you want them to hate a character, you have them kick a dog. If other characters like them, or hate them can influence the reader. The fourth aspect of this is how these sliding scales move throughout the story. A character that is always top of competence, proactivity, and sympathy can end up feeling flat or boring if we never see them challenged or change. People can start with generally unlikable character that becomes a favorite as they grow in sympathy and competence, the example being Luke Skywalker transitioning from a whiney teenager to a padawan that saves the day in Episode 4. You can also have characters that regress on a scale, and watching them lose sympathy or competence can also engage a reader, though that's harder to do well. My point in bringing this up is not to prove one way or another how likable Shallan is, have other posters build their own scales for why Shallan does or does not work, or to have people suggest from their interpretation of Shallan on these sliders that Brandon deliberately designed Shallan to be liked or disliked. What I do hope to indicate is that what makes a character likable is multifaceted and for someone as complex as Shallan, her likability is similarly multifaceted and complex. I will say that unreliable narrators and a character that has their personality get more fractured and unstable as the story progresses will be harder for the general audience to relate to. Brandon's trying something tricky here. Different readers can have wildly different personal experiences and perceptions of her role in the plot, which is also complicated. Based on the three scales, different readers may have been focusing one one scale more than the others, for example if the humor fell flat and pulled the reader out of the story compared to someone that was engaged with her proactivity in trying to outthink the Ghostbloods while developing her Lightweaving abilities. Basically, I think it's obvious that different people had different experiences with Shallan and that she is not a universally sympathetic character. Just... be careful with threads like this that you don't tell someone that their experience was wrong. It's probably obvious that I'm biased towards input that increases or broadens how much a reader enjoys and understands a character and a story. Shallan isn't my favorite character like many others and I still don't get what makes her tick most of the time, but I'm glad for the insight I've gained. Thanks for reading, I'll get off my soap box now.

Honestly, I have too many to keep track of. But here are three of mine. Kaladin; "If I kill a man, I'm going to do it in the sunlight, and I'm going to do it only because there is no other way." Shallan; "I'm sure you were quite brave,"..."Though, probably not as brave as the poor men who have to clean your armor." Pattern; "No mating!"

'Good people are like candles.They burn themselves up to give others light.'-Syl(she's a sweetheart)

"This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again." - Wit

If I could keep my motivation, I'd excel at short stories, so here's a concept for one that so far hasn't really gone anywhere: A random collection of aliens and humans on a spaceship, that may be carrying slightly illegal cargo, and none of them would be there, except they were all escaping from a space station attack. The story itself isn't actually about the whole war thing going on; it would be an exploration of respect, obligation, ethics/morality, and cultural differences and how those intertwine in a certain scenario. There's a reason this one hasn't gone anywhere, now that I think about it; the story would be pretty harsh, and could stand to make readers mad with whatever my protagonist decides, and I have a crippling fear of making people mad.

It can, see reference to Vin and Zane's fight in The Well of Ascension. The most immediate choices are at a level that are almost certain due to how fast humans can react, but you wouldn't be able to tell what color shirt someone is going to be wearing next week.

Atium can only show a single possible future in a very close frame of reference, when Elend burned Duralumin with Atium he saw directly into the Spiritual realm, where future sight and possibility reside. Atium seems to project the possible future that is so likely it is almost certain, which is only really possible for within a few seconds, but you can interfere with it in other ways, as shown by Vin's battle with Zane. If you can see the future, you can change it, thereby showing that Atium shows a possibility if you did not interfere, and gives you the capacity to use the information properly. You are welcome to ask for further clarification.

Alright so I've been browsing various book five theories and fitting things together in my head, and I've got a theory about how this is all going to go down. One recurring theme that we've seen, throughout the series but especially in RoW, is this idea that "Honor is not dead so long as he lives on in the hearts of men." Wit also talks about how the contest between Dalinar and Odium will be about the hearts of the people. And while I know this isn't speaking about hearts literally, I can't help but be reminded about deadeyes coming back a little bit alive by syncing up with the heartbeats of those who hold their blades. According to WoB, the Resonance of the Windrunners is "strength of squires." They're better at forming Connections with people that let them share their power. And we've been seeing Dalinar learn to sense and tinker with Connections, and he's hoping to learn how to better use this skill from Ishar. So what if that squire Connection Kaladin has gets taken, and then strentched out to a whole bunch of people? On one level, I can imagine this simply being the Windrunners. The Radiants closest to both Honor and to Kaladin himself. But imagine if Kaladin winds up connected to everyone. Not even just humans, but singers (after all, Kaladin has shown himself to be pretty empathetic when it comes to the singers, and there's been a lot of hints at reconciliation between them and Honor) and maybe even the spren. A thousand thousand people of Honor, each drawing in a little Stormlight, their hearts beating together and each bringing Honor a little closer back to life, all with Kaladin at the focal point. And then he swears the fifth ideal, gets his final big burst of stormlight, and ascends. There are a few different factors I can think of that can maybe get us to this point. The first is that Dalinar winds up being the one responsible. Kaladin's not the only big viewpoint protagonist, so it makes sense he'd get help on this one, and this is the sort of thing Dalinar has been readying himself for. Secondly, it could be that Kaladin faces down with Moash (or someone else does, but Kal makes the most narrative sense I think) and wins Jezrien's honorblade, letting him double up his Windrunner powers and therefore his Resonance. Third, he could wind up with Ishar's honorblade, making him both a Windrunner and an unchained Bondsmith, letting him set things up himself. The biggest hurdle I can think of with that one is that Kal doesn't really have any Bondsmith training and I find it unlikely we'll see Dalinar relegated to just a mentor role. Of course, it could quite easily be a combination of some or all of these possibilities. I think this would be a satisfying way to finish out Kaladin's character arc while also giving a way for all the peoples of Roshar to prove their Honor. Of course, I don't think it'll solve all the problems, seeing as we've still got all the back half books to be filled. In fact, I can picture this being something that averts a victory by Odium, with him doing some serious damage before Honor!Kaladin ascends and is able to put him in a stalemate. One last tangential possibility that still follows the same formula is that we wind up with this network of the hearts of the people of Roshar, still centered on Kaladin, but it's Syl who winds up ascending, since she's made of Honor anyway. Of course, by that point Kal would have a Nahel bond with a Shard-Spren, and the difference between that and actually ascending is probably mostly pedantic.

Not an image, but still a meme:

Nice catch! Fixed?! (sorry for poor editing skills)

Made this a couple days ago but realized i probably couldn't put it in cremposting. Thank you so much for creating a meme page where RoW spoilers are fine!

When wax asked. "How's it taste". Wayne responded "like cotton candy made of baby"

Wax: "You're right of course" Wayne: "Usually am" "Except that one time at Lessie's bithday" You always have to bring that up, don't you? Honest mistake. You put dynamite in the oven, Wayne Gotta hide a gift where nobody will look for it. -Shadows of Self ch 17