TwiLyghtSansSparkles

We agreed to it at the outset, so yes. And I do too.

An, okay. Sorry for taking that personally. Apology cookie?

"Biased or ignorant"? That seems a little harsh to describe making a conjecture based on limited evidence. You're right--we haven't seen much of uncorrupted Epics. The evidence IS scant, so we're going off what we've seen so far. Can it be refuted in the next book? Absolutely. But calling our position "biased or ignorant" is like calling cops "biased or ignorant" for going after the (ultimately) wrong suspect because all the evidence they have points to him.

Kenshin and Sweet Tooth? Oh, it's possible.

"And I listened, and behold: a horrorible grating sound, as of two privileged women whining about their First World problems. And I spoke to the Holy One, 'Will someone not destroy them, and do it with as much pain as can be found?' And the Holy One said unto me: 'Go, and take with you this notebook from the one called Steelslayer conveniently detailing their weaknesses.'"

Well, Voidus? What are you waiting for?

Sam and Revolution have good ideas. ( Especially since neither one seems to have ordered Calamity's Cupcake. )

Like I told Kobold, she has to get worse before she gets better. All the same, my apologies to your brain.

That's pretty chilling. (Though she used a wooden plank to make the baseball bat.)

When I was a kid, we had a cat named Smiley. After living with us for one year—during which she saw every member of our family celebrate a birthday—she began bringing us "presents" on those days. I got a dead mouse one year, while my brother got a dead bird. It was kind of sweet. I mean, seeing a beautiful bird dead on the doorstep was a bit morbid for an early morning sight, but I like to think she knew it was our special day and brought us something to celebrate. That, or she realized her humans were holding some sort of festival and thought it would be rude to not bring a gift.

I read once that she wrote the entire first book without knowing where the fence, the factions, or any of the other stuff came from or why it was there. Which, as a discovery writer, I don't necessarily see as a bad thing. I've written stories without knowing how they'd end, and they turned out fine. But when it comes to big things like that, I think the author should at least have an idea of how to make it all fit together with a plausible explanation—or, failing that, know which portions of their setting they're going to leave unexplained. Take the Marvel movies of their classic heroes, for example. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man doesn't give us a long-winded explanation of exactly how a spider was made radioactive, or how it transfers that radioactivity through a bite, or how that radiation doesn't kill Peter Parker where he stands. Nor do we get a scene explaining precisely how the Green Goblin's glider works despite the fact it seems to have no room for fuel cells anywhere and yet it basically defies gravity. Captain America doesn't bother telling us how an expatriate scientist in the early 1940s was able to create a power-granting serum that modern science has tried and failed to replicate. It doesn't tell us where they found vibranium or how they extract it from ore or how on earth it can deflect bullets. Those movies just wave off those explanations as part of the comic book setting—and we as the audience go along with it, because it's what we expect. We didn't come to see how modern science is so close to giving us a superpower-granting spider; we came to see ordinary people become heroes and kick villain booty, and Marvel is smart enough to give that to us. What Roth should have done in regards to her setting is just wave it off. You have a dystopian Chicago divided into factions derived from a BuzzFeed quiz? Great! How are they working? Not well? Fantastic! Explore that idea some more! Roth didn't have a plausible explanation for where the factions came from, and that's okay. The setting could have worked, if she'd just explored the ideas she had further. Instead, she tried to come up with a plausible explanation for an implausible society, and it didn't work. It just made the whole thing unbelievably silly, rather than the deadly serious angle she seemed to have been going for.

Sorry if I sounded a bit snarky. I just came from Facebook, where Sanderson can't post a Calamity progress update without Stormlight fans hijacking the thread. (Which...I understand wanting your favorite author to finish your favorite series, but I wouldn't ask about Calamity on a Stormlight or Rithmatist update.) Yes we do. His work is so original that it makes me wonder if more authors are capable of greater creativity.

I used to be someone who thought high fantasy was all the same generic sword-and-sorcery thing that's been done a million times, but Sanderson proved me wrong.

Dear mail-mi, That is all.

Remember a few pages back when I posted a drawing my sister made of (her idea of) Kobold's OC pony? He has a code now.

It'll take her a while to bounce back. She won't just forget about him, especially when Quota steps up his game.

Okay, good. That's what I was going for--almost overboard, but not quite. Noted.

":angry:"

Was...was it too overboard? She wouldn't have reacted the way she did if she didn't think he was the one who did what Quota did.

Yeah, it turned out quite a bit darker than I thought it would….

I'm sorry for the new Funtimes post, Chess!

"Because…because... I wanted to prove it to myself. They told me... told me I was powerful." They? "Had a chance. Didn't believe it, though. Not really. I had to prove it. Prove myself. To be an Epic like..." Funtimes' grip tightened on the lighter. She knew what was coming. Like Lightwards. I wanted to be like him. Lucentia. Altermind. Corpsey CorpseMaker. Like every Epic who's better than— "Like you." You. "So when I saw someone who was obviously strong and powerful, made... like me…" Like you. "I thought why couldn't I be like you? When you weren't doing whatever you were doing. Dangerous." He looked at her through sad, bloodshot eyes. Cheeks wet with tears. Slumped over. Arms free, but he wasn't using them to reach for anything. Not that he could—everything useful was on the other side of the room or in her grasp. He wasn't trying to fight her off. When she said she was going to kill him, he thought she was telling the truth. I wanted to be like you. Doctor Funtimes looked down at the cloth in her hand. Red. Cotton-like. Just the right size for a gag. She looked at it….and she changed her mind. Keeping one eye on the chess Epic, she backed a step or two, found a plank, and transformed it into a metal baseball bat. The lighter became a glowing electric necklace, which she slipped over her head before wrapping both hands round the bat. She eyed her target in the dim but steady light. Clunk. The bat struck his temple, and he slumped forward awkwardly, still half buried in the tar. His glasses fell to the floor. Funtimes changed the smooth concrete and tar alike to water. He sank, and without waiting to see if he'd bob back up, she made the water concrete once more. Smooth and grey. Only she would know what was beneath it and why. If he wasn't dead yet, he would be soon. Only she would know.

Add me to the Divergent Haters Club. The first book was fun, fast-paced, with just enough depth to make you care. The second….argh, Insurgent was retroactively bad. It was so terrible, it showed up all the flaws in Divergent and made the entire book worse in hindsight. I haven't even read Allegiant, except through sporkings and snark.

Kind of like Alcatraz writing his own account of his exploits in order to dispel rumors? That's plausible.