Member Spotlight: Atreyu Silverstar

Author: Taelinn Dolivras, October 2014

Yep, you guessed it. In keeping with the theme of our last few issues, the next subject for the Member Spotlight is none other than the current Captain of Recruits.

Atreyu Silverstar has been a member of the site for about 10 years cumulatively and aside from being Captain of Recruits, he is a staff member in the Department of Community Outreach, legal counsel for TarValon.net, and a Library editor. In Real Life, his name is AJ and he lives in Long Beach, California. He enjoys video games (usually FPS or RTS, though you'll have to ask him about that, since I know next to nothing about gaming), movies, and reading. "Obviously," he said. I'd have a hard time believeing anyone on this site didn't like to read much!

Moving on, I asked Atreyu how he found about about the Wheel of Time series. "I had seen a number of the books in my school library in high school and they seemed sort of interesting," he told me. "I read an article about some guy who committed some sort of suicide because he read the book. It sort of caught my interest, so I grabbed the book to check it out and sort of fell down the rabbit hole." I suppose that would make the books intriguing... I then asked him about his favorite character. "Lan would be my favorite," he said. "[T]here's a real progression in the character as the series goes on, especially if you read New Spring. The whole arc that he moves nicely and makes a lot of sense at the end of the series." Next we discussed his feelings about the end of the series. "It was sort of bittersweet when the books ended," he told me. "The books had been around with me for so long (almost 15 years) and then there was no longer another wheel of time book to look forward to. During this time I graduated from two degrees, met the love of my life, moved to three different cities, and am here now. Also with the passing of Robert Jordan there was a lot of mixed emotions. However, the series has been over for about a year now, I am looking forward to the compendium, and of course there are no endings or beginnings to the re-reads of the Wheel of Time." Well said!

For Atreyu, joining TarValon.net came down to chat. "Before TarValon there was a chat channel I used to hang out in called #wot, where I would hang out with Rand and some other people. Some people from Tarvalon came over and convinced us to join (Fae and Aliandra)." He was pretty succinct when replying to my question about why he chose his Tower name. "It sounded cool," he said simply. I then inquired about his decision to join SDS. "When I guested with them I thought there was a lot about the people in the company which I thought would be good towards aspire towards being. This made me want to join them," he revealed.

We next talked some more about his time here on TarValon.net. Atreyu was very clear about his favorite thing about TarValon.net. "The people," he said firmly. His favorite memory was not related to just one thing, however. "I remember when there used to be a stable, we used to go into there as recruits and hang out and do whatever," he reminisced. "Being a recruit was actually a pretty interesting time then because there wasn't really a whole lot of pressure to do anything and we could do more without responsibility. Also there was the fact that we didn't have to worry about our actions reflecting on anything." I also asked him which of the Real Life Events that he attended was his favorite. "I have attended a number of Anniversary Parties and two Fall Balls," he said. "I don't think I could really chose a favorite off the top of my head easily, but if I was really pushed to it, I guess I would go with Charleston Anniversary. There was a lot to do there, and I really enjoyed the tour of Robert Jordan's house."

I next asked him about the Unsung Servant Amyrlin Award, which he won last year. I was curious to know how he felt about winning, and what has inspired him to contribute so much to the site. "I'm not really sure how I feel about it," he admitted. "Everything that I have really done or contributed to the site has basically been me standing on the shoulders of giants and trying to maintain and build on what has been done to me. I think that my work is more a reflection of the hard work of Amyrlins, Directors and all of the Admins and Moderators who work very hard to make the site the great place that it is." It seems pretty clear to me that this kind of spirit is what makes him an ideal winner of the award.

I began to wind down the interview by asking him how he is enjoying his time as Captain of Recruits. "I became [CoR] with the idea that I really wanted to help people be welcome in the site and learn about the site. I had been a recruit twice so I definitely knew about all of the issue and problems with not really feeling like you belong anywhere, but at the same time having a lot of people around you who were involved in their own things. So I really wanted to work with that." Nice ambition indeed!

To round things out, I asked Atreyu if there was anything he wanted to add. His response: "Be excellent to each other."

Definitely a good adage to live by!