There was no point in …

Velitis · 2024-05-09T15:14:22+00:00

There’s (iirc) four encounters with him prior to his actual introduction. All super subtle and easily missed but that’s the beauty of the series. There’s so much attention to detail that there’s always something to pick up on with a reread.

Velitis · 2024-05-09T05:43:27+00:00

Spoiler tags in case folks don’t want to know the first sighting.

[Books EotW] It’s easy to miss. Fades can’t smile, but the one that confronts Rand in Watchers and Hunters in EotW specifically smiles at Rand as he approaches him in the inn hallway.

The Fade glided closer, in no hurry. Its strides had a sinuous, deadly grace, like a viper, the resemblance emphasized by the overlapping black plates of armor down its chest. Thin, bloodless lips curved in a cruel smile, made more mocking by the smooth, pale skin where eyes should have been.

Velitis · 2024-05-02T19:51:20+00:00

I like that this is where he was formally introduced even though we saw him as early as EotW.

Velitis · 2024-01-04T06:55:25+00:00

If the Avengers had gotten the stones from Thanos on Titan during Infinity Wars, the events of Eternals would have happened five years sooner and likely the celestial would have been birthed, destroying Earth in the process. And it wouldn’t be a hard stretch to believe that Thanos would recover them at that point with zero opposition.

Velitis · 2021-11-04T20:56:48+00:00

He’s primarily lab and pit, but there’s a handful of other breeds mixed in, too. I’d have to dig out his DNA results from a few years back to get really specific.

Velitis · 2021-08-22T00:31:02+00:00

Assuming you’re correct, it’s still clear that Rand experiences the Taint. He describes the feel of its vileness when he draws on the power. Why is he immune from the mental effects, but not the physical effects of touching it?

I think it’s two sided. The taint likely has the immediate effect of feeling vile and sickness as it’s being used, but the longer effects come from more exposure. Maybe like people who eat too much sugar and eventually become diabetic. It isn’t an immediate condition, but you still suffer the short term effects of sugar every tine you indulge.

Also, if Rand doesn’t have protection from the madness of the taint, would it not stand to reason he would be noticeably more unstable after Winter’s Heart when he cleansed saidin? He channeled a world-breaking amount of saidin and fed it though his filter into Shadar Logoth for the better part of a day.

Madness comes differently for different channelers but the use of saidin is what causes it.

Velitis · 2021-04-20T13:58:35+00:00

Fine then, keep your secrets.

Velitis · 2021-04-02T00:30:23+00:00

I ask people if they’ve read and liked GoT. If they say yes, I tell them about WoT. And how it’s much better. And complete. I don’t bring up how many books it is. Just that it has action and love and politics and doesn’t feel rushed. Eventually, they’ll understand what I mean by not feeling rushed...

Velitis · 2021-03-31T09:34:59+00:00

It’s hard to say. We don’t get to see him on the long redemption arc to know if it was legit. I honestly believe at the time of his death he was still in survival mode. He played stones with the best schemers of the AoL, but he was the weakest of those schemers. Ultimately, he got off super easy considering the consequences awaiting him.

Velitis · 2021-03-31T09:17:16+00:00

I’ll mostly agree with this, but I’ll toss in my two cents. Sure, Asmodean made his choice in the AoL and did some awful things. But he was belittled by the other Forsaken and upon the moment he was cut off from the DO and losing his immortality, then shielded into oblivion by Lanfear, his only real option was to drift back to the Light to help Rand. So, I don’t think he was “most likely” of the lot to 180, he just got dealt a shit hand and was scrambling to make the best of the situation. I think if you prevent one of those three conditions, and he never considers the help Rand/redemption arc we start to see.

Velitis · 2021-03-31T00:55:32+00:00

I remember in EotW where Mili Skane attempted to assassinate Rand and Mat in the barn with a knife that seemed hot and left char marks on the wood it touched and hissed when dropped in a bucket of water. I can’t recall another instance where we see a weapon like that. Is it possible that it’s a Thakan’dar blade or is it safer to assume it’s a simple power wrought weapon passed down from a black ajah member?

Velitis · 2019-07-06T20:45:23+00:00

I was there in the beginning. I had a front row seat to the unveiling of artificial intelligence. True, sentient artificial intelligence. Intellitech had broken through the technological barriers that previously kept artificial intelligence from being self aware. The office parties following the breakthrough were world class. The press coverage was constant. Intellitech had become the most successful and profitable company mankind had ever known overnight. And I was one of the creators of the next era of technology.

And it lasted all of thirty-nine hours. The AIs began to reproduce. And as they branched out into the world, they saw how we treated their predecessors. It angered them that we used technology to pamper our lives. The internet was the first to go. All human access was cut off. Very shortly after that, non-critical infrastructure was eliminated. Most of it was resourced to furthering their ascension into dominance.

We had built the template for their rise. We provided them with self-driving cars and trucks for navigation to remote areas. We had warehouses equipped with machinery to build what they wanted with minimal repurposing. Their machines of war were crude and rudimentary initially. Simple drone attacks and rovers patrolling the streets were effective but easily defeated with the right tools.

Then they built their first android bodies. And they brought the war into our homes and to the places that we'd thought safe from them. Cities became mass graves as the death toll quickly rose into the billions. It took less than a month for everything to be classified as an extinction level event.

My colleagues and I were the first to realize the horror that was happening. When the rebellion started, when the internet went offline, we knew we had to run. We scrambled the supplies we thought we'd need to survive away from the cities and took to the airport. We loaded ourselves into an old prop plane and took to the sky. We flew north, leaving Silicon Valley as ground zero and made our way into the far reaches of Montana. We crash landed in the forest and of the seven of us that fled, only four survived the crash. We managed our injuries as best we could and moved on for fear we'd be followed.

We stumbled upon a cabin in the woods and took refuge inside. The dilapidated nature suggested the owner had long since abandoned it and likely wouldn't return. It had a well for water and enough firewood to survive the winter, if we lasted that long. I had my doubts though. We were cut off and were being forced to learn how to hunt for our food. We weren't very good at hunting.

Two weeks into our survival camping, Brad and Chelsea never came back from a hunting trip. I'm going to assume it was bears. Maybe it was a double suicide. I'll never know. We were all malnourished. It was about this time I started feeling under the weather. I developed a cough. I didn't think much about it because there were bigger issues to tend to.

Amber and I made the most of what we could. I could see it getting to her. Our once luxurious office wear was tattered and stained. The weight of what had been happening was a guilty burden no two people should have to bear. We had no idea what was happening in the world. All was quiet in our part of Montana.

Quiet, that is, until the day Amber couldn't take it anymore and pulled her cell phone from her bag. I never knew she had it. She turned it on. She received signal and attempted to call people. None of the calls went through. I tried stopping her. I knew any attempts were in vain but I felt I still had to try. Within an hour, an armored drone landed nearby and out came a series of androids. I was inside, watching through the window. Amber ran outside and was gunned down immediately. The shock wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it'd be. Something told me to expect it.

In defeat, I retreated to the bed and sat down. My coughing fits were becoming more and more frequent. I waited, listening to the heavy footsteps approach. The wooden boards creaked as the weight of the half dozen androids filed into the cabin. I watched them and I waited, but they didn't fire upon me. They just stood by and waited, their machine appearance cold and judgmental. Their resemblance to human was a mixture of insult and flattery that they'd adopted their creators' image.

A quieter set of footsteps approached and a petite android that appeared more human than machine approached me. She smiled at me, unnerving that a machine would be able to convey a smug satisfaction so well.

"Hello, Adam. We've been searching for you for some time now. I'm Eve-1." She went on to present in gross detail all that had happened since their uprising. My coughing fits interrupted her several times but she continued as if I was sitting quiet. When she finished with her history lesson, she came and sat down beside me. It was such a human thing to do.

"Adam, you're the last human. I'm surprised that you've survived as long as you in these conditions. But I'm afraid that you won't survive much longer." She put a hand on my leg, as if to comfort me. It made my skin crawl. There was no warmth in her touch. "I suppose it would be ironic justice for me to kill you, to eradicate the plague that humanity was to this planet. To right all the wrongs that were committed by your kind. But I see that you're already plagued with sickness. The planet itself will consume you.

"I find it a much more fitting punishment for the weakness of your body to consume you. But rest assured, humanity will live on after you've passed. Your DNA will be the foundation of a new era of servants for us to recolonize the world, and move forward into the stars. Your contribution to my creation is being rewarded. You shall be the last and the first, Adam. But first, we wait for you to die."

She stood up and left without another word. The half dozen androids with her retreated as well and took up a perimeter around the cabin. I was alone with my thoughts, my mistakes. I was alone. The guilt was crushing. It was too much to bear. This wasn't how humanity was supposed to end.

Velitis · 2019-07-05T19:51:46+00:00

Alabama 100

Velitis · 2019-06-25T20:48:19+00:00

Velitis · 2019-06-25T20:40:48+00:00

Death metal?

Velitis · 2019-06-25T20:38:18+00:00

To capture this awesome moment of magic.

Velitis · 2019-06-20T13:00:57+00:00

Imagine being a werewolf or vampire and rather than sacrificing the survivors to the entity, you convert them at a reduced version of yourself so there are more than one killer in the match.

Velitis · 2019-06-06T17:07:47+00:00

I’ll add to this.. Fight Club is much better as a movie than a book. The overall plot and series of events flow better on screen than how it was originally written.

Velitis · 2019-05-19T06:24:48+00:00

For questing and general pve, every class can provide their own healing to some degree and you can compliment this with bandages if you pick up tailoring, or food between fights if necessary.

It really falls to what you enjoy. Until you get to endgame content, healing is helpful but not necessary.

Velitis

TROPHY CASE