FeatherWriter

Hey, I've made it no secret that I'm a 100% evil and seek to cause distress and suffering using everyone's favorite characters against them. If people want to help me out with that in hopes of being spared on the day of my great and terrible retribuion, well, who am I to stop them? I am the fandom monster after all. (On a more serious note, I'll remind y'all that I had nothing to do with this starting up. The Featherblades formed themselves independently and then later told me what was going on, haha. I am bad at keeping up with even things that directly involve me. Underneath it all, I'm still a little weirded by the idea that people think I'm cool enough to have a fanclub/guard detail/cult. I am a dork, y'all. I do not deserve this kind of treatment by a faint breeze or a stormwind. I'm just one of the fans, like y'all.) ((Wow I used "y'all" a lot. Can you tell I'm back home in Texas for the summer?)

*Descends from the ceiling in a shower of mist and a theatric ball gown and elaborate mask* ATTENTION RENARIN THREAD. I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED. BY VIRTUE OF YOUR DISCUSSION HERE MY RENARIN SENSES HAVE DETECTED THAT I AM NEEDED ...and by that I mean "I was over in a cosmere chat and someone informed me I was being summoned and then gave me a link to this thread." BUT REGARDLESS. THE SUMMONING HAS HAPPENED. I AM HERE TO BESTOW MY PRESENCE UPON THIS THREAD AND SHOWER EVERYONE IN RENARIN-TARGETED AFFECTION. *dusts self off* Alright, let's get down to business. First of all, lwd24era. You are amazing and you might be my favorite newbie on this site. You appreciated Renarin on your own? Enough to start a thread about appreciating him? And you're okay with Kalarin? Hello, if I ever decide to take over the world or something I will give you Australia probably. See, as people have *cough* 'warned' you, I'm kind of a very vocal Renarin supporter. In that I tend to write lots of essays defending him and fanfics about him and he's kind of my favorite character from anyone ever and people who say bad things about him in my presence tend to just kind of... disappear. Over the years the fact that I never ever ever shut up about him means that some other people have realized how amazing he is too. But normally I have to like, go through step-by-stup of why he's so great. You though? Figured it out all on your own? On a first readthrough? Dang. You trumped even me! (Renarin, darling I am sorry that I ignored you on my first readthrough I am so sorry I messed it up I got distracted by the Kaladin and did not appreciate you enough.) Now then... *glances up at thread* it appears that my reputation has preceeded me. It has preceeded me to the point that this thread went from "appreciating Renarin" to "Feather-watch" which is absolutely attrocious how dare all of you he is amazing and I am lame everyone should be appreciating Renarin like all the time why are people talking about me when they could be talking about Renarin this is a travesty I will fix this so much. SO. ON TO ACTUAL RENARIN APPRECIATION. The Renarin tag on Adonalsium has fanart, fanfic, and essays about him which you should check out! (If you're wondering who has the "renarinkholin" tumblr, it is me. It is so me. I own that tumblr and it is mine and I am never letting it go.) As for my actual contributions to Renarin appreciations well. They are numerous, wordy, and usually pretty long. You see, there's sometimes people on here who do not appreciate Renarin the way they should. And when that happens, I have to sit them down and explain them things. Because it is my ever-held theory that people who do not appreciate Renarin are people who haven't been paying enough attention. If you find yourself with an abundance of time and want to read some aggressive Renarin appreciation, I can pick out a few of my favorites: Why Renarin is did WAY MORE THAN 'NOTHING' in Words of Radiance (WoR Spoilers) Why Renarin is an incredibly strong character (Wor Spoilers) Why Renarin is not going to be evil (Spoiler Free!) I tried to find some others that I'd written that were spoiler free, but I can't remember any off the top of my head besides that one. It's been too long... Sorry! As for the rest of you... It's funny. I've been sitting here typing this up for the past hour or so. Ever since Lurthemir mentioned that I was online... (Which I will admit, was a little freaky that as soon as I check the thread someone updates that they're watching where I am on the site. Not gonna lie.) And then Lisa jumped in to reassure that I wasn't angry (because I've been writing this up while chatting with her in FNCC) and then strangely, Lurthemir thought I was gone. Hmmm. Don't know why. I've been sitting here typing on this page. Watching the new posts upload. Thinking that they're safe from me. No one is ever safe from the Fandom Monster. Not when Renarin is involved. How can you hope to outrun me, when I'm already here?

I couldn't let the computer win! I had to be valiant and fight through! Hehe, glad you all are enjoying these! I will warn you, the Shallan telling people to gag Renarin reaction is less... entertaining freakout and more me getting kinda actually upset. Sorry. Not necessarily the part you want to look forward to, to tell the truth. Sorry, Swimmingly. Or... perhaps it will be entertaining to listen to, but it wasn't very fun to go through. Not to be spoilery, I just don't want you to be disappointed. As for keeping mum, I didn't get the beta copy (or even the gamma) but I did have it a little early, and I managed to keep mum! There were some fun spoilers I had to sit on for a while!

"Wow I feel like I've edited a lot of Splintercast recently, I must have quite a buffer up, I should be good for a few da--" *checks* "Oh. Eric posted five of them." *wails* Back to work it is then.

..."nasty samoas." Your egregious crime against humanity is second only to INSULTING RENARIN IN MY PRESENCE. YOU HAVE UNLEASHED THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF FEA-- Oh wait really I can have these? *steals samoas and runs*

Oh harmony... I hadn't even conisdered iTunes. I have no idea how to publish things over there and... I'm not sure what to think about the idea of my craziness being over on something official like that. Right now they're just here and I don't know that we have any plans to publish them elsewhere.

Pffft, Leinton I think you just made my night with that. Hahaha.

The duel: very easily my favorite part of the book. Be prepared for a small, rather panicked treatise on why Renarin is amazing though (as though you would expect anything else.►

No need Grey, I can clarify here: I put forth the "theory" (though I'm almost positive it's canon) that Renarin is not in control of himself when the visions take over. The things he does during these visions are not voluntary. However, I did not insinuate that this makes him any less of a person during those moments, as I'm sure you all could guess. I think it's probably best we return to stated topic now, hmm? I don't remember being the person to drag this one off topic, but I can try to drag it back. Perhaps I have simply gotten to the point where I have a "Renarin centric" aura that just sort of takes over threads while I'm not watching. That would be both cool and terrifying.

...so I've had this really weird idea sitting in my head that I just can't shake. Wanna write a Pacific Rim Expanded Universe story with me about a bunch of criminals?

Hello new user that I have never met before and definitely do not speak to for multiple hours on a daily basis. Welcome to our humble forums. I'm sure it will be excellent having you around.

I'm sorry, but you are canonically incorrect there. It's okay, not everyone memorizes every single little thing to do with Renarin the way I do. (Remind me to tell you about the time that Chaos tried to tell me that I was wrong about a quote source when I said that it was Renarin who said it. He was wrong, I was right, hehehe. I gloated.) Anyway, yeah we definitely have canon confirmation of that: As for these things about Renarin not being obvious, yes. I agree. You're right. Most people don't appreciate them or realize what's going on with him. Which is why I am here spending hours typing up long-winded essays explaining them. I can understand people who don't like Renarin during a first readthrough, or who aren't interested in him. I almost like that it takes more effort to realize how awesome Renarin is. Kaladin's easy to like. Anyone can like Kaladin. He's a likeable guy. Nothing wrong with that. But Renarin? You've got to be looking to see it. Renarin is a "blink" and you'll miss it kind of character right now. But if you don't blink? If you go searching and seek him out and pay attention to him? Oh harmony, there is so much that is wonderful about him and all of his interactions and struggles throughout these books are incredible. And I'm not going to go into them here because I'll be here all night and I've written these essays before, I swear to the Almighty I have. Basically what I'm saying is, you can defend your initial dislike of Renarin on the basis of a lack of paying attention or on ignorance. But I'm baffled by your attempt to continue to dislike him after seeing all of these arguments compiled in his defense. I mean, I suppose it's possible that even after all of this you still genuinely dislike him, but man you're going to throw a wrench in my hypothesis that the people who don't like Renarin are the people who haven't heard enough about him. Because it's a line of thinking that just does not compute with me. And if that's the case here, then I probably don't have any more arguments to make on his behalf because there is pretty much nothing I'd be able to say that would fix that. Edit: I will say one thing in regards to his "uselessness" at the end. I'm 98% sure that Renarin is not in control of himself during the visions. The fact that he is writing should be enough to convey that -- seeing as Renarin tries so desperately to live up to Alethi masculine ideals, it's incredibly doubtful that he would choose to write anything of his own volition. The fact that he's screaming "a pleading cry" throughout the experience tips one off that this is not a voluntary experience either. He's conscious through the visions, but he's not in control.

We have both Word of Brandon (question 2) and knoweldge that Brandon consulted multiple ASD people to help him write Renarin's character correctly. Including Kogiopsis's roommate, Ellie, who is the one who "figured it out." Ellie noticed Renarin behaving similarly to the way that she behaved and reacted and wondered if he might be neuroatypical in the same way that she was. Which I'll say is a tribute to Brandon's ability to portray an ASD character so well and so accurately. Ellie's figuring this out, thus propted Kogi to ask the question and get confirmation. Which then led to Brandon asking Ellie if she could help out with some of Renarin's character stuff. She's mentioned in the acknowledgements of Words of Radiance. Elise Warren, towards the bottom of the second page. So yes, it's rather well established at this point. That one's not really up for debate.

Quick mod note: Xian, please try to avoid double posting. If you would like to respond to more than one post, you can either use the multiquote button or quote buttons to pull more than one quote into your post. I've edited the double post together for now and you're not in trouble or anything, it's just forum policy in order to keep threads clean. More on topic: I can see where both sides are coming from, I think, and if I had to wager a guess, I'd say that it's a lot of not understanding both sides. The point that Leinton and Abalidoth are making is not "Kaladin being straight is offensive" so much as the idea that Kaladin must be straight on the basis of his interest in women. Leinton is pointing out that the logical line of "Kaladin expresses interest in women, therefore he cannot be interested in men" is a line of logic which is faulty in its execution because it denies the possibility of bisexuality. Which Leinton, as he has self-identified as bisexual, would obviously have a problem with. Leinton isn't arguing that people should specifically take his personal preferences into mind, or give his argument special treatment because of his perspective. (Though the argument can be made that the perspective of someone from a different side is a worthwhile thing in all occassions.) Rather, the point being made is that we should all remember that bisexual and other kinds of queer people in general do exist, and the people making these points are trying to remind us that these options are posibilities. Leinton reads "liking women equals not liking men" and steps in saying "hey, I'm a direct contradiction to that line of thought, so I'm here to point out that there's something wrong with it." (Oh look. Abalidoth just snuck a reply in above me, but I've already got this typed up so I'm leaving it.) For those who prefer to headcanon Kaladin as straight, that's perfectly fine! No one's going to fault you for that, and truth be told, given both textual and metatextual evidence, it's probably the most likely outcome. However it is not the only possibility. And there are those who really enjoy imagining the other kinds of possibilities. Again, the quickest way to get into trouble with headcanons and shipping is getting into a "I'm right, you're wrong" mindset. That's where we're getting tripped up here, guys. Those who prefer some kind of queer Kaladin aren't saying "People who think he's straight are wrong and we are upset that you think that!" They're upset that they're reading: "People who think he's not straight are wrong and your idea of Kaladin is impossible and dumb." They're trying to explain that "no, it's not wrong, there is a definite possibility here with really interesting implications." Which, for the record, is probably how shipping and character discussions should go. No one's arguing that non-straight Kaladin is right or better or has more evidence. They're trying to show that it's possible. Just as straight-Kaladin is possible. Everyone's got preferences and different ideas of how things should turn out and how to interpret these scenes that we're given, and that should be celebrated. Brandon's written such a rich character here with Kaladin, and I think the idea that he can only be reduced to one possibility is limiting and devalues the complexity of his character. Aside from all the other wonderful complications of his character and arc -- because this is, in fact, a relationship topic -- we have a character who has expressed romantic interest in women as a child through Laral, (though as Kogi said, most queer people come to a realization of their preferences later in life, when they realize that they can challenge those ideas) we also see him expressing very romantic, crush-like reactions towards Shallan. And there is the mysterious Tarah about whom we know so little, but things hint toward a significant relationship of some sort (though, knowing Brandon, and with how coy the text surrounding Tarah has been, I'm kind of thinking that there's something twisty and tricky there. I'm hoping that perhaps his relationship with her wasn't romantic as we were led to believe...) To be honest, given his youth at the time of his crush on Laral and our absolute lack of knowledge of Tarah, Shallan is really the only outright romantic inclination that we have for Kaladin, and it's really not progressed anything further than fluttery, not-even-yet-realized, possible crush stages. To pull in Vinlend for an example, this is like... meeting on the balcony at the first ball. Kaladin and Shallan have a long way to go yet if they want to turn this into anything resembling something permanent. (Personally, I hope they don't go that direction though, but that's personal preference.) And those initial flutterings of possible romance with Shallan do not invalidate the chemistry that Kaladin has with some of the male members of the cast, the two Kholin brothers in particular. Nor do they invalidate the ideas of those who wish to imagine possible romantic developments in those directions. They're all just possibilities, guys. Some more "plausible" than others. Some more interesting to certain people than others. But still just possibilities. Just because someone doesn't agree with your opinion does not mean that they think your opinion of the character is wrong.

I don't think it's an issue with Chrome, Xian, as that's what I use. If you're having trouble formatting however, you might try using the plain text editor instead of the rich text editor. There should be a lightswitch-looking symbol at the top of the post editor that will let you switch between the two.

Ah, thank you! Yes, that ketek is one of the ones that I'm most proud of. I think the fact that it got posted right after WoR and was under a spoiler tag means that I think lots of people hadn't finished the book and then didn't open it, haha.

...Gavin you and those freaking Aeron chairs, I swear to Harmony. *drags GM off-stage with a hook* In the meantime, here! Have an intermission! (Part one, that is, because there will be more to be posted soon!)

Just popping back in quickly to drop a few comments: (bold mine) I'll admit, I laughed. I agree, Maxal. And there's such an easy solution to that. But I won't drag you all through that again, hehe. Whew, here I'll disagree, at least at the part of his path being the hardest to read. I'll say this: yes, Kaladin's had a hard life, but I've never had anything more difficult to read than Shallan's backstory. You can hear me on Splintercast, just moaning through every flashback chapter. "It's so well-written, but it's so difficult to push myself through." Like, I don't have an abusive family (my family is wonderful, and I'm blessed to call them mine) but I could hardly bear to read some of the awful things that Shallan has been through. As for Kaladin, I think his "moody and grumpy" part is where his character gets interesting. His canonical clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder make him a very rich and complex character in my opinion. I think it's something incredible that Brandon's doing here, even just aside from having a neuroatypical character. Because you're right, Kaladin is very skilled in many ways, yet those ways don't seem to make his life much easier. In fact, during the early events of WoK, they almost seem to make things worse. Kaladin keeps talking about how he's the one who survives when everyone else doesn't. He recognizes his own skill as part of what's keeping him alive in these situations, but it feels worthless to him, because he isn't skilled enough to save those around him. It almost seems to him like a curse. If he were unskilled, he wouldn't blame himself, but because he knows that he's a good spearman and is good with medicine, it seems cruel that he still cannot succeed at the things which matter most to him. Even after he accepts that he's probably not supernaturally cursed, he then realizes that it does come down to the fact that it is his skill alone, or lack thereof which has caused all of these "failures," and that with a little more effort perhaps, he could have saved them. I really think it's interesting that Kaladin's skills and talents, of which he does have so very many, are being used to cause him problems and are a source of character conflict for him. It's really a very clever thing to do and I absolutely applaud Brandon for it.

I've got four days of finals and then I'm home free! I'll probably be binge-editing the rest of these once I'm on break, though as soon as Chaos is feeling better, I've sent him the next few so that he can upload them. I just don't want y'all to be waiting on me! ...I feel like this is now a fun game that Chaos and I play. "Who-is-to-blame-for-late-Splintercast" tennis. Of course, I'm a jerk who will edit a bunch and then immediately turn around and yell "OKAY NOW THEY'RE WAITING ON YOOOOU! YOU'RE IT!" Hey, fandom monster, and all that, right?

Please be careful while talking about unpublished works. If there is a section that has been read at a signing, you may talk about that, but anything that has not been publically released should be avoided, please! Thanks guys!

*cackles madly* Well if there's one thing that I'm grateful to this thread to, it's that more people are reading "Beneath the Bells". I've gotta earn my keep as Fandom Monster somehow, right? It's probably still the fic I'm proudest of. Well, Cosmere fanfic at least. I've got a long-form MCU fanfic that's actually probably my actual favorite. But "Beneath the Bells of Kharbranth" is definitely up there in my favorites. Your talk about historical fiction is an apt one. I mean, the idea of taking stories which already exist and changing them into something new is not a new idea, nor is it one which is restricted to fanfiction alone. You see it in works which are no longer copyright protected all the time. Open source stories, plays, and ideas are there for anyone to modify and make into something new. Think of how many Shakespearean plays you've seen set in modern day or some other kind of time period. Or works that reimagine classic works, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Fanfiction does the same thing, just with works which are new and current. Since those works are still under copyright however, fanfic can't be sold (unless some major things get changed). But yeah, the idea of an author having the exclusive rights to their worlds, characters, and stories is a rather new one, and that audiences and readers can't contribute to the imagining of this world at all is somewhat silly in my opinion. I respect the rights of creators as the only ones to make money off of their ideas, and of course the original creator has more say in what is going to be the original and final canon, but stories have a long history fo being fluid and evolving things, where each teller brings something new and wonderful to them.

Dalinar, just continuing to be the dadliest dad to ever dad. The Highprince of Dads right there.

Swimmingly, I'd encourage it, even if you just try it out. Trying to write someone else's characters can really help you focus in on how characters should be written and it could help you improve quite a bit. As for creating your own characters, I'd say that something I've learned is that backstory is key. I write my characters better when I know where they've come from and what they've been through. On the character flaw front, a few things to keep in mind are: why does this character have this flaw, how does it actually hinder them, and in what way can they learn to overcome it? I'll use Sylvie as an example, because she's probably the character of mine that I've fleshed out the most and she's the one whose flaws I like the best. See, I kinda took a leaf out of the FATE Core book, which has players assign "aspects" to their characters, which are meant to be used for or against them in certain situations of gameplay. The best flaws are things which are not always bad, just bad in certain situations. In other situations they might be strengths! And that makes them interesting. So, I mentioned Sylvie above, she's from The Sydney Scroungers story (which can be read online if anyone's interested.) See, she grew up alone mostly. Raised by an aunt that she wasn't close to at all and she didn't really have any friends. So, she's a person who doesn't have a lot of connections to other people. There's upsides to this: she's very determined and self-sufficient. She's accepted the fact that most other people don't like her and has learned to be content on her own. When she has a problem she tries to solve it herself rather than looking for someone else to do it. She believes she knows how her world works and she knows what she's supposed to do in it. While she doesn't tend to get attached to other people, she also doesn't get hurt by them. In fact, one of the other characters, Miranda, has some jealousy for the way that Sylvie doesn't feel the need to get involved in things, because Miranda keeps getting very attached to other people who then hurt or leave her. Sylvie's disassociation seems like it's an easier way to live from Miranda's point of view. However, while those are mostly good things, obviously there's downsides as well to this! Sylvie's pretty selfish, and at sometimes goes all the way to narcissistic. She's not much of a team player. Not intentionally, just, she defaults to looking out for herself and her own interests and assumes that other people will do the same. Her determination's a good thing when she's right, but when she's wrong about something, it's nearly impossible to make her see any kind of reason other than her own. She's naturally unempathetic, which makes her Drift incompatible with most people (in the Pacific Rim universe, that is) and means that she doesn't naturally have very sympathetic reactions to the troubles of other people. So, two sides of the same coin. Good in some ways, bad in others, and I'm using the story to try to help her overcome some of her issues. Writing Scroungers has been an excellent characterization exercise for me, and it's helping me see the best way for me to write characters.

Silver, that was pretty much everything I was trying to say earlier, but put way more clearly. Awesome! Aether and Swimmingly, I like the directions you're headed too! Understanding the differences between these is important, and I think we're finally nailing it down. I think 17S should be a place where both of these kinds of discussions are encouraged and welcome. I mean, this is the official Branderson fansite, so we should be able to have awesome talks about whatever kinds of Brandon-related stuff fans are wanting to talk about! And hats off to this thread for keeping civil even through disagreements. People in here have been doing very well with that, thank you.

Kogi said pretty much all I wanted to say, which makes my job easy, right? I think pointing out that there are two different kinds of discussion going on over here is important, but I'm with Aether. They're both interesting kinds of discussions and they're close enough on topic that we can keep them all together. It's funny Aether, I'm actually the opposite of you! I tend to try not to get too invested in what's actually going to happen and just have a lot more fun exploring lots of possibilities. Canon's going to do what canon's going to do, and there's nothing I can do to change that. Whatever it ends up being, I hope I'll enjoy it, but trying to figure out what that is actually going to be ahead of time is not as interesting to me as just the pure kind of speculation. It's the difference between a "theory" and a "ship", I think. When shipping "wars" are good, they're an all-out, anything-goes sort of mindset. So long as your pairing isn't harmful I say go for it. So long as you can support the idea of these two characters together and so long as there's something interesting in their dynamic, then it's all good. Maybe your ship is not my thing, but I'm interested in hearing why you ship it and I will 100% support you in your ability to ship it. We used to joke that the Cosmere fandom had ship "spars" rather than wars. We disagree and argue against each other for fun and to sharpen our skills, not out of any animosity between us! Shipping wars go bad when they tend to get into this "I'm right and you're wrong" idea. I think most fandoms where shipping is a major part of fanworks have started to trend away from this, because in the early days of fandoms there were some really nasty ship wars back in the day. Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender had some truly brutal ones. Basically, when you start attacking the person or the validity of the ship and tell them that they way they're shipping these characters is wrong just because you disagree with it is a recipe for fights. Also, Kogi's right in that this thread was not the place for discussing the merits of fanfiction, because... luckily for us we already have a thread for that! Thank you, Quiver for bringing that topic up. And I pretty much said all I want to in defense of speculative fanworks over there. It's not the way that everyone enjoys appreciating stories, but for those of us who do enjoy this kind of exercise, there is value and validity in it.