TwiLyghtSansSparkles

Scumbag Steelheart (Firefight spoilers): No spoilers, but large images:

Wow. You know, I think Epic!Vondra and Oklahoma! would actually get along pretty well. Together, they could spend long hours cursing Calamity for handing out the most utterly useless powers in existence.

Will he do this? Because someone needs to make an exit that way.

I am now 7% finished with Way of Kings. It's good. At first, it was mostly the intricate worldbuilding that kept me reading, but now it's at the point where I've gotten sucked in by the characters, too. And still the worldbuilding. Great Noodly One, the worldbuilding.

"Unless he's just pretending. Which he is. He's totally pretending. He has to be. Lalalalala can't hear yooouuuuu, Koschei is just pretending..."--Frequency

I'm good with it, unless Backtrack has something to cry about say.

Protector Pug would find it difficult not to prance whenever she saw him, knowing she, a humble pug, defeated an Epic. I'm kind of torn on that one. On the one hand, he did answer the corruption part; on the other hand, he didn't say anything about whether or not the weakness itself goes away. So I think it'd make sense to leave that one on there for now.

His only clue would be a long, loud snorting noise. ARGH! Behold, RAFO, the most irritating Epic of all time!

You know what would be hilariously ironic? If the all-powerful and immortal Emperor of Light 's next in-game death came at the hands paws of Protector Pug. Obviously, the fallout would be...less than desirable, but still. Interesting to think about.

I don't have the book on me, so I can't give you any specific examples, but I think I remember David mentioning it when he complimented her. And she probably told them her weakness because they were more powerful and demanded it as a means to control her. She probably had no choice.

I doubt he used her powerset as a point of reference. He probably just went off of the fact her gang is always insulting her, while Regalia and Obliteration compliment her.

True, but the whole idea with the symbolic empowerment theory is that the connection isn't supposed to be crystal clear. If true, the lack of a clear correlation would provide another layer of protection between the Epic and their weakness: By making it symbolic, and therefore somewhat unclear, those attempting to access the Epic's fear are unable to determine it easily. Besides, if Calamity gave Epics crystal clear and thematic empowerment over their fears, anyone could guess an Epic's weakness by looking at their powerset. Which wouldn't be an effective means of empowerment at all.

I'd have to disagree that Epic powers are random; rather, I think they give Epics symbolic empowerment over their fears. For example, we have…. Steelheart: School bully, believed by some to have been nearly killed by a former victim who didn't fear him, creating that fear. His power portfolio makes him the biggest, strongest, most indestructible being in the city, if not the Fractured States. Who wouldn't fear a seven-foot man who could fly, lift cars, shoot energy beams from his hands, and walk through a hail of machine gunfire without so much as a scratch? Fortuity: Past largely unknown, but it created in him a deep-seated fear of rejection. Clairvoyant, able to dodge bullets with ease. If publicly rejected by a beautiful woman, who wouldn't wish they'd seen that coming, wish that they could've ducked it before it came? Firefight: Nearly died in a house fire as a child. Able to resurrect and reshape reality in small but effective ways. If caught in a fire, I'd find myself wishing I could change the situation somehow, or hoping I'd get out of it alive and unscathed. Newton: Feared disappointing her wealthy parents, a fear that seems to have been intensified when she was imprisoned for murder. Powers allow her to outrun threats and deflect things that might harm her. Anyone who has ever disappointed their parents, who has had to listen to them go on about what their actions mean and pile on the accusations ("You wanted to do this, didn't you? You wanted to make us feel this way! You wanted to destroy your future because you have some bizarre fear of success and if you let it go on….") has probably wished they could just run away, and in the meantime make it so their parents' comments don't hurt so much. Obliteration: Preacher before Calamity; judging by comments like "the seed of the Epic is in each one [of us]," it can be surmised that his fear had something to do with the darker nature of mankind. Powers allowed him to create explosions the size of nuclear blasts, go wherever he felt he needed to destroy, automatically dodge any threat to his life, burn down houses and people…in effect, his powers turned him into a destroying angel, complete with glowing skin whenever he is about to mete out "judgment." Sourcefield: Poisoned in a cult-like attempted murder as a child; feared cults as an outcome. Powers allowed her to dodge threats to her life, but also lent her a means to steal through the night and quietly eliminate anyone she saw as possessing cult-like tendencies. Dissolving into electricity and reappearing behind a cult leader would be an extremely effective means of eliminating said threat. Note that all Epic powers don't require the Epic to face their root fear. Just as the spyril allowed David to control water without ever facing his fear of it, none of these powers required the Epics to face their fears. Rather, they gave their owners a sort of artificial empowerment—a bandaid on a gunshot wound, if you will.

I kind of want to join Corvallis as Oklahoma!, but he's more useless than Flowerface.

I shouldn't upvote things like that. I don't want it taken as encouraging that sort of behavior.

Yep, it's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

My meeting-the-Bandersnatch scenarios almost always involve me offering him a homemade baked good of some kind. Best to make a good impression, and what makes a better impression than caramel-filled chocolate chip brownies?

I'm super happy for you, mail-mi. Even if I do wish I lived in Utah so I could pass myself off as a teenager long enough to get into the conference. I mean, everyone who sees me at work says I look too young to work there, so it can't be that hard, right?

I have a theory, but I don't know how correct it is. Yeah, go for the one with less likelihood of getting RAFOed.

Go for the one that provides the largest number of answers for the largest number of players here. I'd recommend the one about High Epic despots or the determining factors in an Epic's power level.

YES. Just…yes. You get to hear Brandon Freaking Sanderson speak, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping you'd have the chance to ask some Reckonersverse questions. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't more than a little bit jealous.