FeatherWriter

Oh good! *goes back to playing Overwatch instead* Nah, seriously, I'll poke Chaos again to post. @Chaos consider thyself poked.

Oh noooo if Chaos actually posts Episode 2 then I have to get off my butt and get Episode 3 edited... I've been enjoying my editing vacation over here...

@Landis963Dalish is pretty much the mascot of my life.

I actually used Audacity for the original Splintercast runs, though now, thanks to my job, I actually have access to Adobe Audition CC, which is very very nice. I have some automated processes set up to remove background noise and then trim silence, but like Chaos said, there's a lot that that doesn't catch. Chair squeaks, page turning, moments that I breathed into the microphone. Actually for this one, because my cat Dalish was crying constantly in the background, the process would cut out everything but her meowing, and the "silent" part would end up just being like seventeen meows back to back in a row. ...So yeah, I edited that out. Ha. That's the kind of stuff that gets trimmed by hand. There's plenty of Dalish crying over even the parts where I was talking, so you guys don't need her in the silence too.

@Slowswift I'm going to go ahead and @Chaos on this one since he handles the SoundCloud side of things. I try to follow all these topics and comments, but I don't think he does.

That is the WORST deal! Man, going to the Nightwatcher's a crapshoot.

Well I just saw that my links didn't work very well up top, so I've added those. If you'd like to play with these decks, you can do so online at Pretend You're Xyzzy, which supports the use of Cardcast decks. I believe Cardcast also allows you to order printed versions of Cardcast decks, if you want actual cards to play with, or to use with the regular Cards Against Humanity game. That should just be on the deck's page, at those links.

So this was kind of supposed to be a Christmas present to the Cosmere fandom as a whole, but now it’s a New Year’s present instead! Cards Against MORE Cosmere! The original Cards Against the Cosmere deck has gotten some good use out of it, but has unfortunately fallen a little bit behind the times as new things have come out. So this is meant to be a supplimental update to the original deck, with 18 brand new black cards and 43 new white cards, for your Cards Against the Cosmere games! This expansion has cards referencing Shadows of Self, Bands of Mourning, White Sand, Secret History, Edgedancer, and the rest of Arcanum Unbounded. Be warned that there are spoilers for these works in these cards! Pairs well with the Original Flavor Cards Against the Cosmere! The original deck has references for Cosmere works before Shadows of Self, mostly Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and Warbreaker. Happy New Year, everyone! If you get some funny combos, let me know what your favorites are!

@WeiryWriter @Chaos Well I mean, I guess we do call ourselves the "Writer Twins" but I didn't realize anyone thought we were actual twins! That's pretty funny!

I probably really say "meant for men." While men are allowed to read and write glyphs, it's more of a only-when-absolutely-needed kind of thing, I believe. Using women's script is absolutely out unless you're an ardent, but even using glyphs is seen as feminine. Aside from Stormwardens and men who absolutely need to write, like Kaladin for his surgery training, I don't think it's a very common skill. I believe the reason that most glyphs are stylized to look like what they mean is so that men who can't actually read the glyphs themselves still know what they represent. We know Adolin, the son of a highprince, can't really read glyphs at all. Renarin is better at reading them, I believe, but I would doubt that he's had much experience at all writing. Kaladin's probably the best at reading them among our male cast, because he needed to read anatomy books while studying, which probably had non-stylized glyphs. Even Kaladin, though, makes mention of the fact that Sigzil writing glyphs would probably make most people uncomfortable. I don't think Renarin would have chosen to do something unmasculine and borderline blasphemous by choice, as insecure as he is. I think he can read glyphs fairly well, since he tends to be fairly analytical and good at scholarly thoughts (much to his dismay.) As someone trying to learn Chinese, I can say that it's far far easier for me to recognize a character than to actually write them myself. Rushu, the ardent who inspects the first set of numbers calls them "sloppy" and guesses that whoever did it was "not practiced at drawing glyphs." I'm guessing Renarin was fairly decent at reading glyphs but had not written before much at all, until the visions forced him to.

Oh, a favored topic for me! And not just because it concerns my favorite character. I've said my piece in pretty lengthy terms over here about what I think is going on with Renarin and his visions, but I tend to be of the camp that he is probably actually a surgebinder, but those visions are not normal Truthwatching. I fall in line with @Demiandre in that I feel that something is taking control of him and the fact that our Vorin characters constantly freak out about the future gives me cause to be concerned. While I do think there is an element of that in his reaction, what sticks out to me is that Renarin, a Vorin man who is extremely concerned about his masculinity and feeling like an outsider, is writing during his visions. I have trouble believing that's something he would do willingly at all, and according to Brandon, there is some kind of compulsion or involuntary nature that overtakes Renarin when he's seeing these things. I feel like his breakdown during the climax is him seeing the worst vision he's seen yet, but also us as the audience watching him lose control of himself and his body and the terror and despair that he feels as it starts happening to him.

If Mara Sov's dead, I'll eat my Ghost, though I suppose what with me being utter garbage I'm mostly just pleased that Uldren survived.

Funny, up until the Taken King, I'd say that Destiny's storyline was easily the weakest point of the series. (And even after TTK, because I'll be real, Rise of Iron's story was pretty bare bones.) Now, I know that there was some stuff in vanilla Destiny with apparently the entire original story got scrapped way too close to the finish and the original scriptwriters were fired or something like that. So vanilla Destiny ended up as this kind of storyline that technically I guess made sense, but was also so meaninglessly vapid that it was pretty dang boring. Did anyone get to the mission with the Black Garden and really feel like this was the climactic culmination of everything we'd been working toward? Hmm, probably not. Destiny original's plot can get summed up as "there are bad things, go kill them" with the set pieces changing behind, and different voice actors saying "yes go kill the things." I mean, we have such stunning voice lines as "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain" and when my Ghost wakes my Guardian up and says "You must have questions," it would... be nice to maybe answer those at some point? But we don't. The mission style is pretty much all the same too: "fight your way through small things and then there's a big thing at the end." And while the cutscenes seem very cinematic and dramatic, when you get to the end of them, it's pretty much just... yeah go kill the next thing. Thankfully for vanilla Destiny, the gameplay's fun, the settings and graphics are gorgeous, and if you take the time to dig into the Lore, it's stunning. But the story itself? Pretty sad, honestly. The Dark Below has Eris, who is the most extra, but you know what, I love her anyway. Kind of a slightly better story in terms of Crota's soul and all that, but also super short. :C House of Wolves is... kind of interesting, but unfortunately all of the really interesting things seemed to happen before we got there. A dangerous Fallen Kell escaped prison and led the Queen's Fallen guards in a bloody betrayal before fleeing? That sounds really cool. Except by the time the first mission starts, it's already over and the Guardians are just on clean-up duty. Which, is fine, but again we're getting missions that are all "go fight through little guys to the big guy at the end" sort of thing. Skolas, Petra, and Variks are pretty cool though, and at least we get some dialogue over our comms during missions now. That's nice. Taken King is honestly the storytelling highlight for me. The Dreadnaught feels alive and the cutscenes and plot are really actually engaging. Cayde-6 shines far and away above everyone else, both within missions and outside of them, but everyone else is pretty good too, with Eris, Holiday, and Zavala doing some pretty fun moments. Oryx is a compelling and terrifying antagonist, which is very much something that helps the story. When playing the TTK story missions, I feel like my Guardian is actually doing something, and the creative mission design on these, with some stealth missions, climbing puzzles, the mission-end fakeout at Crota's soul, all just make it feel really fun and engaging in a way that the game didn't before. And unfortunately, Rise of Iron feels like a step back in terms of story. SIVA feels too inanimate to make a good antagonist, especially when compared with Oryx. It's just a virus thing, and yes, that's bad, but also not super interesting. Shiro-4 and Saladin are okay, but neither carry the same kind of engagement and characterization that TTK brought to the table. I'm a bit disappointed, since it feels like a step backward, but eh, whatever. Anyway, I probably didn't need to type all of that out, but while the lore of Destiny is fantastic, I'd say storytelling (TTK aside) is still a pretty rough patch for the franchise. I think I once compared it to setting a game on Roshar and just... not actually having anything to do except kill random things. It's baffling how the game designers could come up with such an interesting world and just... not do very much with it and sequester all of the really cool stuff in cards that aren't even accessible in the game! Bungie, pls. Hopefully, Destiny 2 can learn from some of these mistakes...

Kabsal uses it twice while talking with Shallan: Ym talks about the Cosmere when explaining his philosophy of the One as well in Words of Radiance. Hoid also uses it while talking to Dalinar, but I figure that one doesn't really count, since Hoid isn't really Rosharan. Dalinar didn't seem terribly confused by the term, though.

This is true, but seeing as it's the only (known) continent, I don't tend to see too much trouble in using it interchangably. I mean, it's up in the air when a character talks about the Almighty "creating Roshar" whether or not they're referring to the world or the landmass, but in most situations their meaning doesn't really change if they're including the oceans (Roshar the planet) or just talking about land (Roshar the continent).

Yes, the books are meant to be understood as "translated" from their original languages into English (or whatever language you end up reading). So long as it's not capitalized, you can assume that the use of the word "earth" is generic, to just mean "world" or "planet" or occasionally, as a synonym for "dirt" or "ground." Running a book search, I can see that the word "earth" shows up frequently throughout just about every Cosmere book, from Stormlight, to Mistborn, to Warbreaker to the others. It's definitely not a forbidden term in the cosmere, at all! Note that the word "universe" is also not forbidden, and does show up from time to time, though you do also see some characters using the word "cosmere" to mean the same thing. Interestingly enough, the word "Scadrial" only shows up once in the Mistborn books, in Bands of Mourning, when Khriss is dancing with Wax. Notably, she, the non-native, non-Scadrian worldhopper, is the one who uses the term. It's very possible that people on Scadrial do not refer to their world that way at all. Scadrians do, however, use the word "cosmere" to refer to the universe, though only in the second trilogy. Rosharans, on the other hand, frequently refer to their world as "Roshar" in both speech and narration. Rosharans also use the word "cosmere" in casual speech. The word "Nalthis" has never shown up in a Cosmere book, nor has a Nalthian ever used the word "cosmere."

I mean, I tend to keep the idea of what happened in WoK Prime as "cool trivia" rather than letting it inform many of my theories, personally. Lots has changed since WoK Prime. I mean, from the first five chapters of it that were released a while ago, we also saw Renarin placed in charge of the Alethi armies, almost get challenged to a duel to the death with Elhokar, get disinherited and humiliated while his father thought this was fair, and then lost his shards, since he was a full shardbearer. It's a very different story. We don't know if the Diagram served the same purpose in Prime, we don't know if it was a Nightwatcher thing like Taravangian's diagram was or if it had something to do with these visions that Renarin's now seeing. I have a feeling that the fact the Diagram has been wholesale ported to a different character means that its lingering influence on Renarin and Renarin's story arc is minimal now, though Renarin now has different things in the Diagram's place.

@Secrets Ayyy, Warlock master race! Mmm, I finally buckled down and did the hours of resource gathering to get my Dark Drinker (I had a Raze Lighter before!) and I finally got to use it against those captains at the end of Wrath of the Machine and it felt so wonderful. I will say I tend to keep my girl on Voidwalker for the most part. With Nothing Manacles in PvE, I can throw grenades about as fast as a Sunsinger in Radiance but all the time, as long as I'm getting kills and triggering energy drain off of them. With max discipline, a grenade kill will replenish my grenade in a second or two, and with two grenade charges, I don't even have to wait. I mean, the Manacles are pretty nice in PvP too, but I also just picked up an Ophidian Aspect and that's just too good in PvP to pass up. Even though I end up using my exotic slot for other things, I have to admit, there's nothing more fun to use than those exotic swords. I feel like such a Shardbearer rushing in to the heart of danger with it!

It's fab. I'm trying to think what the best way to rewrite "How Far I'll Go" into a Cosmere song would be, because I'm dying to cover it.

Yeah, I agree. Signs point to Renarin having a legit Nahel bond. I just also think he's got other things on top of that messing with him.

If I had to make a guess, I'd not be surprised if Renarin is not any further than his first oath. Looking at the way he talked about his Surgebinding in that last chapter, this is something he's been actively trying to deny and suppress about himself. He thought his Shardblade screaming and Glys and, likely, the visions themselves were a sign that he was going mad. I feel like unlocking the Oaths involves a certain amount of acceptance of one's role and an understanding of why they have been chosen and what they're supposed to do with their powers. Not to mention, the other times we've seen Radiants unlocking an Oath, it's usually been at a crux moment, which then turns to a triumph as they realize what it is they're supposed to be doing. This happened with Kaladin on the plateau and protecting Elhokar, Lift when she saw Gawx struck down, Shallan when she needed to get into Shadesmar with Jasnah, and even Dalinar, during his confrontation with the Stormfather. Renarin, unfortunately, due to his sheltered role in the war camps, has fewer opportunities for those kinds of demanding changes. I feel like he willingly throws himself into some dangerous situations in an attempt to help people, such as joining the duel or rushing out on to the plateau, and yet he never reaches that moment of realization of the Oaths, I don't think. On the plateau with the chasmfiend, he's sent back immediately before he can help. In the duel, he's inexperienced with fighting and finds himself defeated, rather than triumphant. The moment in the last battle, at the Everstorm, is probably the most heartbreaking. That feels like a moment where, if Renarin was accepting of his role and understood what he was there to do, he might have been able to find an Oath and really progress in his training. But the experience is so terrifying and overwhelming—losing control of himself, publically committing what his religion says is a heinous blasphemy—that at the end of it, he's even more broken and defeated than before. I think having other Radiants around, who can help him learn to accept his powers and figure out what's really going on with him, as well as learning to believe in himself and stay confident, is going to be a very good thing. My poor boy's been so scared and alone these past few books. He needs some real friends and real allies who can stand beside him and help him out.

Yeah, he's actually kind of a difficult one to pin down into one good Shard-y sounding word. I mean, he obviously has some amorality going on in that he doesn't seem to be disappointed in high-chaos protagonists, and yet, as the devs said, the Outsider is fascinated by the low-chaos protagonists, at seeing someone be given extreme powers and not using them selfishly or violently. I'd be tempted to say his intent was something like "Curiosity" but that's really just him, and doesn't really have anything to do with his powers. "Motivation" or "Consequence" perhaps? Neither sound particularly shardic. "Nemesis" could work, though since the Outsider himself doesn't really have any rivals, it's hard for him to act that out. Honestly, as I think about it, as simple as it sounds, "Power" might be the best fit. The Outsider's motivation, as you pointed out, is seeing what happens when the powerless are given power. He contacts Corvo and Emily only at their lowest points, and presumably he did the same to Delilah, an illegitimate daughter kicked out to the street. The Outsider is most interested in seeing the powerful who are brought down low, and the lowly who claw their way up to power, and playing with the dynamic there with his interference. Also, now that I think about it, if I were to try to name the Traveler something shardic, I might go with "Progress." Some of the lore talks about other worlds that the Traveler visited, and in each case, societies and civilizations blossomed, spreading and thriving in the gifts that it gave them. One of the Darkness' races in particular, the Hive, is morally opposed to this idea, weirdly enough. (The Hive are fascinating.) The Hive's philosophy (and likely the Darkness' as well) is that only those things which are strong enough to keep themselves alive deserve to exist. Therefore, the Hive feel a moral obligation to figure out what those "worthy" things are... by attempting to eliminate every civilization that they come across. To them, peaceful societies encourage weakness, and allow it to fester, which makes the universe weaker. They see the Traveler as evil, because it shelters and coddles weak races that don't deserve to continue existing of their own right.

Ohhhh my goodness, I can't believe I missed that one. Blue, I am utterly addicted to Dragon Age, and the number of times that I've called the Well of Sorrows the Well of Ascension is so many. Honestly. I mean, I wrote almost 25,000 words on a story of all the Stormlight characters in Thedas. And the Fade is definitely a Cognitive Realm equivalent. Perfect, perfect, perfect.