Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

I posit to you the following age old question: What happens when an Awakened Burrito meets an Awakened Pear? And if that wasn't pun-ishment enough, get a load of what the Awakened Corn has to say about all of this:

There has to be some benefit of joining Dalinar's coalition, it's basically a mutual defense pact. Spanreed communication is instantaneous, commanders on the field can be recalled/redeployed. @ConfusedCow's tactics seem sound, except for maybe relegating Dalinar to the Tower. He's a proven field commander and can recharge Radiants, he should be in command of the most important assault, probably the mission to the Horneater peaks. He should also be accompanied by a Windrunner capable of aerial intelligence gathering and moving him around the battlefield and possibly taking him back to the tower to address important concerns. From the field he can still address leaders of the coalition through his High Storm communicator if necessary. Sigzil and Zahel should be in charge of training radiant recruits. The only other modifications I would make to your battleplan, confusedcow, would be twofold, 1) Charge Queen Fen with managing the finances of the coalition, including regulating the gemsupply for soulcast reprovisioning and the gemsupply for stormlight consumption. There probably already are speculative Thaylen merchants trading in their reserves for higher denomination and better quality gems, because in a world were Stormlight is power the gems that can hold more of it and can hold it longer are going to be more valuable. Also gemhearts, with their increased soulcasting capacity, are going to be even more valuable and essential. 2) Diplomatic efforts to bring the Singers to the side of the humans should be pursued in earnest. Venli's interludes showed that Odium understood the need to wage a propaganda war, the humans likewise need to make this realization. Venli switching sides and maintaining envoy form will go a long ways towards achieving this, and the locating and deploying of Rlain to convince the Singers of the dangers of siding with Odium should be a top coalition objective along this line too. Hopefully the large number of recently restored singers will realize it's in their interests to join Dalinar'coalition , it would be pretty brutal if their journey from labotomized slaves just ends with them becoming grist for the mill of war.

There's a way to get the physical copy novella and ebook, here's a qoute from Brandon's kickstarter page. From the add on store, you can get the physical copy of the novella and the ebook for $15 (plus shipping). So the cost would be $16 plus shipping, this is the route I'm going to go with it. The leatherbounds are beautiful but I just don't have that kind of money to spend.

Another marvel of the modern age, Amazon!

The problem with Utopian novels, and the reason they are so rare, is that it's much harder to agree on what is perfect than to point out what's wrong. One person's Utopia is another person's dystopia. But, if you want to read a book that is incredibly positive and can help you see the wonder in the world that is all around you, I would suggest Konrad Lorenz's book, King Solomon's Ring. Lorenz was a scientist that studied the behavior of animals, but more than that he observed the animal world with a desire to understand things on their level. He lived with a lot of the animals that he studied, and approached his subjects with empathy and a true desire to understand them. One of the best things I've ever done was follow his advice to scoop up samples of pond water, and with a hand lens look at the incredible variety and multiplicity of life that exists in just a small jar of water. The world looks different when you take the time to observe the other beings you share it with, and this is totally an activity that you can do in the times of the Covid.

Brilliant @Sorana! You got his voice perfectly. Only Gaotona would roast people by being disappointed that they haven't fulfilled their potential. This is the only roast I've seen that is based on humble dissapointment. Great roasts everybody!

Possibly the greatest invention known to man, spoilered below

I've been playing Final Fantasy 7 (not the remake, the original one with 1st generation 3d graphics) with my daughters and they got to pick the names for the characters. Cloud is named My Poop. Barret is named Poopchute Tifa is named My Abs And Aerith is named You Idiot. Hilarity ensues during the dialogue portions of the game, spoilered below are some classic moments

What a beautiful song! Here's another, one of the prettiest songs of all times. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)

I like this explanation of Cusicesh a lot, and it would explain its moniker of The Protector quite well. We know from the Puuli interlude that some serious rust is coming from the Origin, so even if it's not housing the Cognitive shadows of dead Radiants, it seems highly likely that it's function of protection will be triggered by the assault from the Origin. This is definitely a speculative theory, but there is that WoB about the afterlife in Roshar being funky, and there's the fact that a central pillar of Vorinism is about training in this life to take back the Tranquilune halls. This sounds like myth based on perception of a seemingly inexplicable phenomena (namely that there's somethings strange about dying on Roshar), and I really like the idea that Cusicesh houses a tidal force of Rosharan soldiers to battle against the tidal forces of Odium pouring through the Origin of Storms. Further, this sort of development of people along specifics line, especially martial lines (the Vorin principle of self perfection) and the long rangendeness of this plan smacks of Cultivation's involvement. Cucisesh could quite possibly be Cultivation's Horn of Valere.

Great Roast @Gears! Your rhymes and rythym were great, and I don't know if you realized this, but I think you were way into the rhyme zone cuz Your post about your roast, though you didn't boast, had the most delightful riposte. I hope that doesn't make me sound like a Gameshow host...

Awesome! That's a pretty short wait after RoW, and I couldn't imagine a better subject for the Novella, Rysn, Wandersail, Aimia, and Dawnshards. Hopefully we'll get an appearance by the scourer of Aimia too, Dai-Gonarthis. I think it's interesting that the Ben McSweeney art on the cover appears to show a small Larkin in a sphere...What does that mean? Maybe she'll be riding a Laceryn dragon before the novella is done.

Nope never clicked that notification, I have no idea what you're talking about. (Mutters under breath half hearted consolation. Tis' better to have lived and Lost then to never have lived at all)

I wonder if stormlight might still be necessary though, due to the extreme weight of the plate. Maybe, like you suggest, instead of needing stormlight for just simple movement, stormlight fueled living plate would be a super charged version of deadplate. Able to leap 100 feet in the air, able to withstand a 500 foot drop, able to punch through a solid wall, etc. I think one of its capabilities will be that like a living spren blade its form can be modified by the Radiant. This could be something as simple as membranous wings stretching between a flying radiant's arms and their torso (like a flying squirrel) that could allow them to glide. Or, another adaptation would be turning into an airtight space suit for Windrunner led exploration of the moons. Another similar adaptation would be an underwater diving suit for the exploration of possible underwater caves in Aimia. With the surge of adhesion (pressure and vacuum) it might even be possible to extract O2 directly from the water. I would personally love to see a strike force of 4th ideal radiants in their shardplate diving suits exploring the underwater mysteries of Aimia, with Daigornathis waiting like the Kracken beneath the waves, that would be sweet! Lightweavers might be able to mould their plate so that it's like body armor, wearable underneath their clothes, but still imparting the same protective benefits. Stonewards might be able to augment their plate with extra layers pulled from the rock they are standing on, or shields, or extra padding on their feet before they jump off a cliff, etc. Extreme manipulations of plate might also be possible, like the addition of a large resevoir of air in the back of the plate (functioning kind of like a diving bell) to facilitate underwater and space exploration. Thankfully we don't have that long to wait to see what the capabilities of living plate actually are, I can't wait for the preview chapters!

I read about it, the play mechanics are interesting and it actually sounds like a fun game. I used to work with Kenny G's sister, she was super nice, and if anyone is curious what the G stands for it's spoilered below

Doh, I knew it was a trap but I clicked it anyways...

Nice, that's a great song! Heard Someboday Say (Devendra Banhart)

Nice find @Smye, those covers are beautiful and I agree that it definitely looks like Shallan and Adolin in Shadesmar. The sun should appear as a black disc, but it looks like (in the Peter Penev cover especially) that all of the covers are depicting the Cognitive Realm manifestation of either a passing Highstorm or a passing Everstorm. @ChickenLiberty, thsee covers seem like a mini confirmations of your group 2 pairing being Adolin and Shallan. I see two distinct possibilities as to what the Nature of Shallan and Adolin's journey into shadesmar would be for. The first, and most probable, would be to find Sja-anat, who in OB told Shallan through a corrupted spren proxy that she wants to defect, and who also the Ghostbloods tasked her with finding The second still probable scenario is that Adolin and Shallan are investigating Cultivation's perpendicularity from the Cognitive Realm. This seems far less likely because of the extreme danger of this mission, and the likely fact that only two POV characters would be going on this mission. Seems like a job for a larger group of Radiants. I'm really excited we're going to get more Shadesmar in RoW!

Here's a Video link for it That is such a beautiful song, thanks for sharing it brother! The ending actually got me teary, so good! I'm going to have to buy their album Emotionalism now.

This could be evidence that Philip K Dick was right, and there is a pan galactic Pink laser that encodes engrams into the fabric of subconscious thought that function as triggers to produce certain actions based on precoded triggering signals. This allows for freewill and a teleological controlling force to simultaneously exist, and interestingly too it allows for this force to exist outside of unidirectional time. This precognition episodes might in fact be signals of a future event that you are being prepared for, while the imperative decision might have nothing to do with the snatch of remembered future it is quite possibly a symptom that some such important encoding has taken place, and the residual future impression is jusy a sign that this has occured. These (I find at least) very interesting thoughts are explored in the Valis trilogy, and more interestingly in Philip K Dick's Exigesis. It's a deep rabbit hole, but it's a fun ride.

Is there an optimal specification for pixel dimensions for Profile pictures and Cover images? I was turning some art into profile and cover images recently and I noticed there's quite a bit of variation in how they can display on desktop and mobile, especially the cover image. Some images were cropped sometimes, sometimes they weren't proportionally scaled, but they all seemed to be based on image positioning from the top left hand corner. The site is great, and it looks great, it would just be nice to know the technical details of what is going on under the hood especially with cover image scaling/positioning. I think this is the right place for this question, and thanks again for all that you guys do to make this the nicest forum on the internet!

The Ballad Of Mack the Knife (sung by Sting, the Bobby Darrin version is great too and is spoilered below)

The Nightwatcher gives you a hug and says, "Don't worry about it, you're great, really you are. Quit being so hard on yourself". You walk away from the glade feeling much better, when, with a slight shock, you turn around and shout, "Wait! What's my bane?". "I've given you an Epiphany. Everyone else is annoying." I wish I could save time in a bottle.

In the Great Beyond their is no Game. Only puppies with puppy breath, flowers always in bloom, fleas that are incredibly skilled Trapeze artists, etc. It is the lot of us tethered to this mortal coil to suffer the Game and it's many losses. If you prefer to not lose the game, I'm pretty sure this video will drive out all other thoughts, but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease:

These words are accepted. I've always been a fan of your theories, I'm really excited to read more of your stuff and see how you apply your understanding of Realmatics and principles of physics in general to new Cosmere magic systems, fun stuff!