Featured Forum Members 2

[StrikerEZ he/him]

5 hours ago, Captains Domon said:

A while. Last time I saw your name, it was Delightfully Smoak.

I think by the time y'all joined, she had changed her name to that, but it was originally just Delightful.

[Delightful]

3 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I think by the time y'all joined, she had changed her name to that, but it was originally just Delightful.

 

8 hours ago, Captains Domon said:

A while. Last time I saw your name, it was Delightfully Smoak.

Yeah I change profile pics semi regularly and took a cue from Orlion changing my name for Felicity too. I thought it was just a week or two ago though, I guess time is flying. 

[Orlion Blight he/him]

11 hours ago, Delightful said:

 

Yeah I change profile pics semi regularly and took a cue from Orlion changing my name for Felicity too. I thought it was just a week or two ago though, I guess time is flying. 

Mwahaha! My evil influence spreads! 

[Erunion he/him]

@Chaos - that was awesome. 

Also, as a teacher, I totally get what you're coming from. Sometimes you just need to take 5 minutes to expound on something important that wasn't in the plan, but storm it! They need to hear. 

[Mestiv he/him]

So I guess Chaos win this round, right? 

[Silverblade5 he/him]

1 hour ago, Mestiv said:

So I guess Chaos win this round, right? 

He does. Currently waiting on him. I suspect @Chaos will be ready soon ^tm .

Edited June 12, 2017 by Silverblade5

[StrikerEZ he/him]

22 minutes ago, Silverblade5 said:

He does. Currently waiting on him. I suspect @Chaos will be ready soon [superscript] tm [/superscript].

I think the BBcode you're looking for is [sup ] tm [/sup ] without those spaces.

So, soon^tm

[Chaos he/him]

I'm writing it

[Chaos he/him]

Thanks Silverblade and everyone who wanted to know more about me. (I'm changing the way people should submit their answers. I think featured members should just post these directly in here!)

1. Provide a picture (if you are comfortable with that). 

Have some JAPAN PICTURES.

Spoiler

 

Okay, those last two are obviously not me, but Japan is weird, so I wanted to show you. 

2. Provide your real name (if you are comfortable with that).

Eric Lake

3. Which book is your favorite and why?

This is tough! Oathbringer beat Words of Radiance for me. 

As for non-Brandon books, I'd say Foundation's Edge.

4. What have been your main contributions to the community? What are you known for?

I'm one of the three co-founders of 17th Shard. Originally my mandate was just in running the forums, but I have a hand in basically everything the Shard does. I'm ultimately the system admin of the site (and I'm not good at that, honestly). I deal with the Shard's software. I do some coding stuff on the main site, but mostly to make the Shard look pretty. I write news articles (which I did exclusively for a while. Now Weiry does a lot, which is good). I manage all podcasts, and somehow weaseled my way to be on every podcast now or involving future plans. I also do audio editing now for Shardcast, somehow. 

In many respects I'm a manager, directing a lot of our people to make cohesive things. I connect the 17S design team. I'm on the Coppermind staff. I'm on the new WoB Archive staff. I'm constantly working on something. Currently the WoB Archive is sapping a lot my effort.

I used to be much more involved in the theoretical discussion here, but I'm way too busy these days to do so. However, I'm directly responsible for some terms fans use all the time, like intent and Survival Shard (the Survival Shard, by the way, was a thing that was written into a book of mine). I rather aggressively pushed the idea of Adonalsium's "opposing force" and kept asking questions about it, but that eventually got me in trouble, because Brandon likes intentionally misleading me at this point. He very much knows I care deeply about the Shards. Troll. I remember at a signing when I asked him, "How many Shards have Invested themselves onto Roshar?" (This was because at the time there was some debate as to whether there could be a fourth Shard in the system.) You know what he said? "Technically, all of them have." What a troll.

I still find the pinnacle of my theorizing in the cosmere to be the Principle of Intent, which was eventually revealed to be totally canonical. 

5. What made you join the forum?

Maybe you guys don't know the story! I'll recount it.

Long ago, when the Earth was young (meaning 2010 here), Mi'chelle wanted to make a fan site because she felt the fanbase had been outgrowing Timewaster's Guide. She along with Josh 

Brandon gave this place its name, and once we had that, I got fed up with our coding person I bought the domain myself. Thus, I've been struggling my way through being system admin of this site ever since 

6. How many hours do you spend on the Shard on a given day?

The Shard itself, less than you'd think. I always have a tab of it open but I don't browse all new posts. I probably spend less than hour actually posting on the forum itself. I'm always doing stuff in the periphery of the Shard, though, like being on Discord (where you can always find me), the Coppermind, or the new WoB Archive that I really want to tell you the name of. When I spend a day working on this Shard related stuff, I'll spend the whole day on it. 

7. Describe your fondest forum experience.

This requires me to actually remember things? Man, that's hard. My memory is quite legendarily bad. Sometimes people will say "You told me to do it this way like a year ago!" when I tell them to do the opposite in the present day. Oops.

Anyway, this is hard to narrow down. 

For a forum specific moment, I'm going to say that one fateful day in February 2011 where Joe kindly bought us this forum software. When we did that upgrade, Kerry and I immediately had the most stressful design night, as we had to get the crappy default IPB site to do what we wanted it to do. There was about an hour where we yelled at CSS because something wasn't centering that should have. (Mind you, the site was live this whole time.)

My fondest moments are really in all the people I've met on the Shard. I've met amazing friends who I talk to all the time. I've also met people on the Shard that I dated, but as that goes, that kind of happened by accident. 

An extremely humbling time happened when, at either Alloy of Law's or Words of Radiance's release, I was talking with someone and she eventually screamed, "Oh my god, you're Chaos!?" Apparently I am famous to a few  It was a cool and very humbling. 

8. What is one thing that Brandon does really well?

Endings. Brandon's such a freaking boss at endings, especially recently. I'm a guy who absolutely loves good plot and good endings, and I don't think I'd ultimately care about the connected universe stuff and his worldbuilding if his endings weren't so sweet.

(Uh, Oathbringer hype.)

9. What is one thing that he could work on?

Sometimes he becomes so fond of a character that he has no perspective on when to cut down on a character. I'm looking at you, Wayne in the beginning of Bands of Mourning. Brandon liked the scene and he kept it in its entirety. I think it's still the strongest thing to criticize Bands about. Brandon likes Wayne way too much...

It's hard to say other things. Others are having a problem with the amount of fake character deaths, but if those people didn't infect my brain, it wouldn't bother me too much. 

10. Which fictional character is the best representation of yourself?

I suppose I'll go with Mistborn 1 Elend Venture.

11. Any additional comments, whether it be about your life outside of the forum, favorite food, your website, or...anything!

I teach math. Math is applicable to everything, because math is logic. The universe is inherently logical. You might not see that is inherently logical, but that's just because you might lack perspective on the issue. Everything has a cause and effect. Sometimes this is phrased as, "everything happens for a reason." That's needlessly dramatic. Practically speaking things happen for utterly mundane reasons. I'm thirsty, so I'll drink some water. My feet are cold, so I'll put on socks. It applies to everything. If you crush on someone and they reject you, or a friend betrays you, their logic may seem unknowable, but there is always reason for why something occurs. (Sometimes, though, it can be a very unsatisfying answer for you, especially if a person actively tried to hurt you.) 

So, in a way, if you learn math, you learn about logic, and you learn about everything. Learning math has made me a better writer, because writing is not some unknowable enigma. You can design a great story. There are bits and pieces you need to make a great novel, or even pieces you would need to write a good paragraph! Anything you think is challenging has a logic to it. I think drawing is really hard, but surely there is logic to it, or else it could never be taught. 

The universe has rules to it! How cool is that? One could easily imagine a fantasy universe where the universe actually doesn't have rules to it and it truly is unknowable, but fortunately, it is not the world we live in. 

Just because you don't know a fact doesn't mean it is unknowable--it means you have more work to do. 

12. How did you incorporate the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise into a calculus lecture?

Actually, a student of mine wrote this on a calculus quiz when he didn't know how to answer the question. It was great. I don't think I directly mentioned in it a lecture, though. 

[Left he/him]

@Chaos Woooo!! You're literally the real MVP. 

 

Well, since Mestiv has already been featured, I'll nominate @RippleGylf again for her contributions to SE and the only sharder I know in real life

[Mestiv he/him]

Has @Silverblade5 ever been featured? If not, then I nominate him

[Oversleep]

11 hours ago, Chaos said:

12. How did you incorporate the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise into a calculus lecture?

Actually, a student of mine wrote this on a calculus quiz when he didn't know how to answer the question. It was great. I don't think I directly mentioned in it a lecture, though. 

And now I imagine Chaos putting a question in the test:

Quote

Q: Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise?

Student chuckles and attempts to write an answer when he sees that under the space he's supposed to write the answer in there is another line of text:

I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you.

@Chaos, I think edited version is even better ;P

Edited June 18, 2017 by Oversleep

[Chaos he/him]

9 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

And now I imagine @Chaos putting a question in the test:

 

Good idea. I'll integrate that in my summer class, where there is less oversight.

[+Extesian he/him]

Hmm after Chaos' rad response (you'll always be a celebrity to me @Chaos) we've gone a bit quiet with votes.

The Sharders I'm probably the most curious about now are @Pagerunner, @Argent, @Oversleep, @Spoolofwhool and @Yata. Mainly because their Cosmere knowledge is great but they also post a lot. 

I'll go Pagerunner for this round. For the fact he has about 50 more posts than me and has contributed about 15,000 times as much awesomeness to this site

[Calderis he/him]

7 hours ago, Extesian said:

Hmm after Chaos' rad response (you'll always be a celebrity to me @Chaos) we've gone a bit quiet with votes.

The Sharders I'm probably the most curious about now are @Pagerunner, @Argent, @Oversleep, @Spoolofwhool and @Yata. Mainly because their Cosmere knowledge is great but they also post a lot. 

I'll go Pagerunner for this round. For the fact he has about 50 more posts than me and has contributed about 15,000 times as much awesomeness to this site

I agree on all counts.

Edit: and this was apparently my 1000th post. Way to make it count. 

Edited June 22, 2017 by Calderis

[Steeldancer he/him]

Pagerunner indeed, the famed discoverer of Harmonium. 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

I'm gonna go ahead and upvote @Pagerunner as well. He's definitely a legend when it comes to theorizing, in my book.

[The Sovereign]

@Pagerunner is a really good choice.

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

@Pagerunner

[Pagerunner he/him]

@Silverblade5, I don't know if this is happening or not, since I haven't gotten any PMs, but I did see everyone yelling at me, so I'm just gonna leave this here, why not?

Spoiler

1. Provide a picture (if you are comfortable with that). 
Nope. If you knew me, you'd thank me. (Yikes!)

2. Provide your real name (if you are comfortable with that).
Alex.

3. Which book is your favorite and why?
Favorite book has to be the Bible, but not for entertainment value, so that's probably not what you're looking for. My favorite Sanderson book is Way of Kings. My favorite non-Sanderson book is from the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order series. Right now, it's Traitor, but there are a lot of them that have spent time at the top of the list (like Star By Star or The Unifying Force).

4. What have been your main contributions to the community? What are you known for?
I make very long theory threads; I've probably block-quoted a full third of Mistborn: The Final Empire. (No, I haven't.) I also harass people who refer to WoBs they "remember" without posting them, and sometimes post the WoBs in question just to debunk misinterpretations. Good times.

5. What made you join the forum?
I was a latecomer to Wheel of Time, and when I found Theoryland, I was blown away by the depth of theories and how long some of these ideas had been around. I could tell the budding cosmere was going to be a similar thing, so I hopped on board. I lurked on TWG, lurked for a little while on the Shard, made an account, went back to lurking, and finally got my own copies of the books for Christmas a couple of years back and decided to jump into theorizing in a much more active way.

6. How many hours do you spend on the shard on a given day?
I'm pretty much always lurking on my phone, and I can usually find time for a post or two a day. Some days I'll go crazy and post a bunch, but it probably averages out to an hour or two a day posting, and much more time lurking. (More than is healthy, I'm sure.)

7. Describe your fondest Forum experience.
I like the Bands release, and how we all hashed out how we thought the medallions worked. Lots of people had pieces of it, but nobody was 100% right (and we're still missing a big piece). I'm hoping that will be outclassed by Oathbringer; here's hoping we finally crack the glyphs!

8. What is one thing that Brandon does really well?
He does excellent planning and inclusion of the larger picture. I've compared the cosmere sequence to the Bible, in some ways. For the Bible, its component books weren't (for the most part) intended as theological texts, they were written as histories or letters, and we study them to determine broader doctrinal truths. It's the same thing for Realmatics; Brandon isn't writing books about Realmatics, he's writing stories, but we can pull the books apart and closely evaluate them to see the big picture.

9. What is one thing that he could work on?
I'm in the camp that doesn't like Lift, Lopen, and Wayne. I find them to be YA characters; just a little too absurd for my liking. And apparently Brandon's actual kids books get a little too grown-up (I haven't read Alcatraz 5, but I heard it made a lot of parents upset.) I also think he needs to prioritize his writing time better; sure, he puts out a book a year, but that just means he has like 5 different fanbases (Mistborn, Stormlight, Reckoners, Rithmatist, Alcatraz) all waiting years between the next installments of their series. If you follow them all, it isn't that bad. If you only follow one or two (like all the people who are waiting for The Lost Metal to read the other W&W books), then it certainly isn't endearing.

10. Which fictional character is the best representation of yourself?
Uh... my twin brother and I are probably Thing 1 and Thing 2. (He doesn't read fantasy, so you won't see him here.)

11. Any additional comments, whether it be about your life outside of the forum, favorite food, your website, or...anything!
Silverblade should get on top of this thing again. Keep it moving.

 

[Silverblade5 he/him]

It should still be happening @Pagerunner I've merely lost the time. A book was involved.

[Calderis he/him]

36 minutes ago, Silverblade5 said:

It should still be happening @Pagerunner I've merely lost the time. A book was involved.

Is it a book titled "Cards Against Cosmere?" 

[Silverblade5 he/him]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

Is it a book titled "Cards Against Cosmere?" 

And another called Arcanum Unbounded. And another called The Name of the Wind.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Silverblade5

[Calderis he/him]

8 minutes ago, Silverblade5 said:

And another called Arcanum Unbounded. And another called The Name of the Wind.

All good books. I'd have lost track too. 

[Mestiv he/him]

So now I vote for @Calderis. The speed he gains reputation is interesting. I want to know who's behind it.