aeromancer

Requesting to submit for next Monday.

TAIG (Thoughts As I Go): I like the setup. The quotation about Wardens sounds nice, though I wonder if it could be introduced differently. A social commentary about perceived expressions embedded within a loose dialogue … this is very good. I’m greatly enjoying this. Hmm, the classic four humors. Notes: Overall, the setup delivers. I’m ready for a story, and not just a story about a soldier and a necromancer, but also a story detailing more of the moments within the story and the way to tell a story. This is a great opening. It may require a bit of cleaning though. Grammar is a bit spotty here and there, but that’s always the case, and can easily be rolled out.

Slight shift of conversation. What's the weirdest fighting style you've ever written / seen? I ask this as I am currently writing a character who uses an Iaijitsu inspired sword-fighting technique. The character wears up to four sheaths on her person and she uses one sword. Her fighting style is such that she attacks with katas that unsheathes the blade, attacks, and sheathes in a different sheath faster than the eye can see. The visual effect is such that her sword appears to shift between sheaths ... and the battlefield around her erupts in blood.

Thoughts as I go: Excellent, a claymore. I always appreciate it when authors opt for more than ‘he swung a sword, and the sword went shiiiiiiing!” Your fights scenes are excellent, as well. As much as I enjoy swords, I prefer protagonists who don’t wield standard weapons I see. Vorin is the dominant race, and they are empaths. The flashback is a bit long though. Maybe cut out the last paragraph? Notes: I’m not sure about extending the bouts, as the first is done well, but you could make a reference as to how each is one to fill it out a bit more. I was initially confused about the Tah’sword, you may want to clarify that. All in all, I appreciate the start. Maykn looks like a good protagonist, a free thinker in a depressed world who fights with an atypical weapon. Maykn could also use more of the spotlight in the opening paragraphs, Jess somewhat steals it.

Thoughts as I go: The sentences are very choppy, so-to-speak. They all work, I’m just not getting a smooth transition sense, which I would like for the exposition at the beginning. The wheelbarrow scene gave me the sense that either L is paranoid, or crimes are frequent. Notes: So, a Quaestor is a law keeper of such? I’m getting a very vague sense. Also there’s magic in the form of Atramancy, which is quasi-legal. This is kind of vague, and while I get a sense of L’s character (somewhat), I’m not getting a good world building sense. The dialogue seems fine though some of the dialogue seems to run-on with the narration.

Um, actually, if you directly converted the Electoral College votes to popular votes percentages, it ends up with no clear majority and then the election gets thrown to the House of Reps. (I have a longer bit about this in the Rogue Admins thread somewhere around page 216, but you'd have to go into the black zone of the election aftermath to find that.)

That I can actually agree with.

There was going to be a sarcastic comment here, but I'd like to avoid another forum war. The American voting system is not a direct democracy, nor is it entirely FPTP. This link does a sufficient job explaining what exactly the Electoral College is. The Electoral College system is not perfect, no system is perfect, there are always flaws, but I'll let Winston Churchill explain why democracy is a good thing: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" EDIT: Mmmm, those downvotes are tasty. Goes especially well with a side of First Amendment. Remember: Scorn has only the bite you give it! EDIT2: Upvotes are also tasty. Thank you.

@TarinielI think this thread is an awesome idea, and I love playing around with sci-fi ideas. I will warn you that I''m a bit of a hard sci-fi fan though. Hmm, about your gun idea... In Isaac Asimov's End of Eternity he mentions that the protagonist mentions that the organization known as Eternity literally rewrites history to prevent a weapon from being created. Said weapon targets only nerves and stuns the target through sheer pain. Maybe you'd rather have a gun that doesn't target pain nerves exactly, but more affects the neural networks as a whole, and just scrambles it, rending the target incoherent. Then, someone with a bit of of technical know-how could alter said weapon for more interesting effects. Once where on the subject, how do you feel about a self repeating organic virus a la the gray goo scenario?

Overall thoughts: The dialogue is weak, and could use a fair amount of work. Your descriptions are excellent, though. Story: I’m … not quite sure what happens in the middle. At the end, the protagonist must make a choice of sorts, her life or four others. The beginning is fine too. The middle is where you mesh physical science with religion, and I lost track of things. The weird drug-haze thing going on, then it switches. If you wanted to work this further, I’d recommend having the drug induce some form of a precognitive dream (with her remembering the choice, but not the reason), so the choice is clearly one to still make. Also, one final point of creepiness is that most people who take the pill survive, apparently. Meaning they choose themselves. That’s a bit dark, I’m not sure if you were going for that. (What does the number means?)

This did get out of hand. Like most of America, I was very unsatisfied with this election, and that meant that there was a clash of egos and people pretending to argue while needlessly pushing their own agenda, while the rest of the Shard is scared to intervene, for fear of getting either called out or caught up in the the fireworks. I won't say that the fire was started by me, but I will say that I threw a hefty amount of gasoline onto the discussion, and felt the need to not let up. I am sorry for these events occurring, for what its worth. In a week or so, I may be able to have a rational discussion on this forum. Until then, I sign out with a single message from the American national anthem: "'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

@TwiLyghtSansSparklesTook me a while, I'm sorry. This is written by a woman (Christina Hoff Summers), which is the only qualification you gave me, but for some general background, it is a Time Magazine article, originally printed on 9/2/14, updated 6/17/16. I'll stop spoiling things, and just give you the link: 6 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die.

Clarification: There is a wage gap, but the data on it is grossly inflated due to a statistical phenomenon known as Simpson's Paradox - this essentially boils down to data being averaged where it shouldn't be. I'm sure you can find sources that say that Simpson's Paradox doesn't exist in regards to the wage gap inasmuch as I can find sources that it does. If you need more information about why the wage gap doesn't matter, I encourage you to watch this: Milton Friedman on 'Equal Pay for Equal Work' EDIT: Milton Friedman was a world-class economist, winning the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976. If you want more information, just click here.

Something like what @Vreeah said, except set B will not catch up, and I have no compulsion against killing characters. (Not saying anything else) Thanks, this is actually pretty helpful.

Your suggestions are helpful, I just wanted to clarify for the other people who are going to comment. (cricket cricket) Other people's comments? Please?

Its not flashes, per say. More specifically, in set B, there are two characters (they're actually siblings). One of them is seeking out the set A characters. The other set B character is the one who can 'read objects'. The story is meant to be told partially through these readings, and partially through this set B character talking to the other one.

"Hilary would have won if the Electoral College was abolished." Please stop saying this. This is false for more then one reason. Reason #1 - Hillary did not win the popular vote, Hillary did not take more than 50% of the popular vote. That is by definition a loss. In America, you need the majority of all votes to win. If the Electoral College votes were adjusted to match the popular vote, neither candidate would have the necessary 270 votes, and thus the election would be thrown to the house, where they would vote between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnston, Jill Stein, and any other candidate that won more than 0.18% of the popular vote. Reason #2 - You don't have the data to prove that. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the data is that Hillary won the popular vote when people were voting for the Electoral College system. Would that remain the same if the voting system were purely popular? Maybe. We don't know. There are large segments of the Republican voter base, especially in areas that Republicans cannot win who didn't vote. The same can be said for Democrat. We don't know what a voter turnout could look like if the voting was changed to popular. Is Hillary more likely? Yes. Win for sure? No more than this election.

If everyone's feeling helpful, I could use a bit of help with storytelling. Essentially, the story I want to tell is a pretty simple short story, two characters (set A), a conflict, resolution. What I want to do is something a bit complex – I want to tell through a third person perspective of two different characters (set B). The way I envision it I that one of the characters in set B is looking for one of the set A characters, and the story is told by this set B character finding clues to what happen, and then a flash to the events which led to the clue. (One of the set B characters can read the history of objects by touching them). What I’m asking if anyone has encountered this style before, or if anyone can offer advice on how to do this.

I disagree with points both of you are making. I have no objection to have a clean discussion of politics, nor to an argument. I also understand that there are a lot of Americans who had a bad morning. I'm not sure this thread is the right place to have this discussion either. However, if you're going to attempt to cut my thunder by nitpicking and mocking one line, then I feel a need to clarify. EDIT: Popular vote is meaningless for two reasons. One, because it's not what wins the election. Harsh, but true. Two, because many people in New York, California, and actually people in far right states didn't vote for Trump because their vote wouldn't have done anything. If the US vote was pure populous, I know a lot of people who didn't vote Trump that would've.

Fine. Let me try this, then. To quote a politician: "I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead." Try to guess who said that before looking at the spoiler.

Hi. Nice to meet you all. I'd like to get two things out of the way before I go on a lecture. 1) I dislike Donald J Trump. He's a bigot, liar, and is unsuited to be President. 2) The only bitter thing I swallowed this morning was a mug of black coffee. The White House is the office of the president, which is the least powerful out of all three branches of government. Least. Yes, the Republicans have Congress, but it's not Donald Trump, it's Republicans from across the country which were voted in by their respective districts and states. They represent the will of the people, and they will be there to stand against corruption if all else fails. Stop pretending this is the end of the world. Stop pretending that racism and bigotry will be allowed to go unchecked, if it is allowed at all. Stop pretending there's a wage gap between men and women. Stop pretending the world will slide into a dark age. Stop pretending that Republicans aren't caring people, and the entirety of the party is made of sexist racist bigots, because it isn't. Anyone who claims to have lost faith in humanity has never had it in the first place. The nature of hope in it of itself is to be the strongest when it should be the weakest. I don't want Donald J Trump as president. I don't want Hilary Clinton as president. But I will tell you that my hope for the future is as strong as its ever been. I am a Republican, and I stand with our government. I don't stand with Trump. I stand with our government of the people, by the people, for the people.

"It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea."

Just modded my copy of Generals: Zero Hour to Generals: Rise of the Reds. (strategy RTS) Not sure if I would recommend it, I have yet to play through all five factions (two were added) and it's going to have a steep learning curve, even though I'm a decent Generals player. I haven't played Age of Empires in a while, but I used to play Age 2 a lot. Speaking off, my favorites civs are Vikings and Japanese. I stopped using Byzantines because Cataphract-ing people stopped being fun after a while.

On the subject of Lies of Lockes Lamora: Final Fantasy! Well, Locke's name actually comes from the character Locke from FFVI (apparently), in which Locke is the game's thief, and has some of the most character development of the massive roster. What I mean to say is that I learned a lot of character building skills from playing RPGs. It's a bit tricky to find a good one, but if you go back you can find some incredibly well-developed protagonists with little dialogue. Take the golden olden Chrono Trigger. The entire cast (I feel) is developed, with only a few lines of dialogue (the protagonist doesn't even speak!) and one sidequest per character. If you ever want to find an object lesson on how to cram in character development with only a few dialogue lines and one or two scenes, dust of a few old titles and see how they did it.