aeromancer

Sabacc in Star Wars, unfortunately, never boils down to skill, and more or less is a competition as to who has more essence of pure Corellian distilled within them and/or plot demands, and the wins are based strictly on this hierarchy. (Which is why only Han Solo can beat Lando Calrrissian in a game of what is supposed to be chance.) It's very entertaining, to be sure, but I wanted to approach games from the way I play them in real life, which is a strict by-the-numbers approach. In light of the feedback I've gotten, I've reconsidered this position. This isn't so meaningful to me, since the only thing I've seen that Joss Whedon worked on was Avengers, but I gather the gist of it. I'll see what I can do with altering the speech styles. Robinski gave me flak for not fleshing out the casino, so that'll happen. You will not be pleased to hear that the main cast for this novel, concept-wise is male. The supporting cast has a far better distribution, but that kind of belies the real problem. Of the three mains (J, B, F), F is the only one I can conceivably rewrite as female (for plot reasons). It'd be a lot of work for me, but doable. The main reasons I submitted this was purely for the gambling scene, but, as you point out, gambling is kind of meaningless without stakes. The difficulty present is that the stakes here aren't really supposed to be explicit as this point in the plot. What J wagers is completely useless, as far as the plot is concerned. What he wants is the potential to ask a question, because his superior believes that the Lady knows something about something which may destroy the world. Yeah, even with the full backstory to this chapter, the stakes are lacking. I'll just have J wager something with actual stakes. And the ending is unclear, yes. It's supposed to be a reveal that J is dexterous enough to roll die with whatever number he feels like, but that kind of got loss. There was supposed to be another reveal as well, but this chapter needs rewriting, badly. I mentioned this to Robinski, and he indicated he'd like to see it resubmitted. So, in the event that does happen, I would hate to spoil the real reveal.

@kais Resent. PM if there are any problems.

I would.

@Robinski Thanks! Let me take a look. (waves hand) S T E A M P U N K need no explanation. (Actually, this was rushed. But I like the idea of a multi-layered city.) And yes, there are columns. Many, many columns. There might even be a massive turbine built through the top plate to help ease the strain. (And, after looking it up, no, it's not cantilevered. I bend physics, not break it.) Noted. Descriptions will be added, and background will be fleshed out. As for the first problem, J has an abnormal hatred for lawbreakers. Like, an abnormally strong hatred. It makes sense for an inner monologue, but it is kind of direct. Still haven't heard it, only read it. No, I've never been to a casino, nor do I know how gambling actually works, which is made kind of clear, from your descriptions of how these things actually work. I will have to change some things, then. The Lady is supposed to be a master gambler. F's original name. I missed one, it seems. (And, on the note of names, I'm kind of surprised no one called me out for naming two characters on the same team 'Julius' and 'Brutus'.) It's kind of best described as a loose mixture of Yahtzee, Liar's Dice, and Backgammon, of which I only know how to play two out of three. So, here's the thing: The Lady can control her rolls to let her roll whatever she wants. Magic. She self-handicaps to stop her from winning every game, because its not gambling if you always win. All (with the exception of one) of J's rolls were generated by a random dice rolling program. Trust me. I hate endless amounts of royal flush hands too. Noted. That, I definitely can do. Helpful, yes. Glowing praised, no. But I don't come here for glowing praise, I come here help. Thank you very much. And, it's not supposed to be a short story, though I did modify it to be similar to that, seeing as this takes place around chapter 3-4 of a theoretical book I might right.

@Mandamon Thanks! Let me jump right in. Oh, I completely expected this. Well, not this in particular, I've just never written characters playing a complex game before, which is odd, frankly, given how often I play them. I knew I was going to over explain things, I just didn't know how much, where, and what normal people do when they play card games. (I'm not saying I'm abnormal, I'm usually just the one counting cards or calculating probabilities, so it's hard to focus on emotions) Yeah, I kind of expected people to skim it. (That's why I didn't feel bad about going over, though that probably means I should have deleted it.) To clarify, J can't manipulate luck. Only the Lady can, which means J can't. (It's actually a rule, of sorts, that two people can't have the same power.) When he mentions that he forced the die roll, he didn't do it using any form of magic, it's a skill he acquired to be able to perfectly throw the dice that way. Through lots of training. (He does have magic abilities, but they aren't used in this scene) Obviously, I should make that clearer. I suppose there's a Star Wars vibe? I happen to be a massive fan (read: my current signature is a Tycho Celchu quote) and it definitely influences a lot of my writing. I'll keep an eye out when I go over the short again. The tech is Industrial Age, by the by, but it plays no relevance for this chapter. That's because I cut the thread out. There's actually a scene where the line breaks happens near the end that I cut out. The Lady answers the two questions they were gambling on, but it roughly reads: "Do you know where [Location 1] is?" "No." "Do you know where [Location 2] is?" "Yes, it's by X.", which is only works when you know why J is seeking that information. (It's in a previous chapter) The suspicion was that the Lady would know the answer to the first, but not the second. Noted. I'll see what I can do to clip it, and perhaps sparse the dialogue throughout the rest of the piece instead of it occurring here. Heh. Change the names and it very well could. (J to Han/Luke, Brutus to Chewie, and F to Lando/Han) Maybe I should do it to see what kind of response I get. What can I say? I like sabacc. (Proper sabacc, mind you, with shifting cards and all. None of this Solo: A Star Wars Cash Grab nonsense.) I could (and should) swap numbers for emotion. even still it'd be tricky because J is very calm during this entire scenario. How would you feel about mostly cutting the numbers, and raising the commentary that B and F have? Also, yes, A (the Lady) can manipulate luck. More correctly, she can control chaos to influence psuedo-random events (which translates to her being to cause die to roll any number, but she can only know J's hand if she causes it, which she never will). I kind of thought that would be self-evident that she was doing something because she dumps her hand the first turn to roll quintuple fives. (The odds of rolling that are 7776 to 1. And now I sound like Threepio because it's really 6 to 7776.) To clarify, the odds of rolling any set of quintuples using five dice are the same rough odds as getting four-of-a-kind in texas hold 'em - twice. Would you rather him swap his heterochromacy to prove how capable he is? Drop a handful of die so they all roll high? What kind of zinger would you look for here? And, again, thanks! It's good to be back. I've missed this.

Sounds good to me. I would support this. And, so long as we're on the subjects, I'd like to sow the seeds for a classic whodunit competition within the same vein. Just the seeds, mind you. For now, let's roll with Robinski and shatteredsmooth's ideas.

Thoughts As I Go: ‘Fancy Dan’ seems like an anachronistic term to be used. That aside, I’m kind of curious why your MC dismisses his ‘mournful’ songs (I don’t listen to lyrical music that often, but sad songs have always been my preferred genre). It’s also kind of funny how there are no children tunes mentioned (i.e. ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ etc.) though those have their own problem when played in a palace. I enjoyed the actual music-playing scene, especially when Je decides to play the national anthem. Always nice to see a cool calculated risk. And now I have no idea what’s going on. The fight is well-telegraphed, but I have no idea what’s happening to your main character.

My submission's a few hundred words over the cap, but I haven't submitted for the better part of the year, so maybe we can call it even. Anyway, this is from a fresh project. This chapter is around the 3-4 chapter mark, but it works as a stand alone submission. There's no actual drugs, but there is gambling which is a similar vice, so D for gambling. (Both G and V are in use already) The game the characters play, Siege, was specially created by me for this chapter. This is my first time writing something of this nature, so all feedback would work. Especially considering that most of the game's mechanics get expo-dumped. It's kind of hard for me to tell, because I love discussing game mechanics. Seriously. Discuss Dominion with me at your own peril.

I'd like to submit Monday too. Undecided on what I'll submit, but I've got plenty of options from stuff I've written. (Help? Anyone have a preference?)

Well, since you asked me: Does marrow derived from different bones in the same animal have different properties, i.e. suppose a bone gave you strength. Would you need to suck marrow from the respective bones for strength to that area (femur for leg strength, humerus for arm strength, etc.)? Does the marrow need to be pure, or can it be extracted and cooked into something like a wafer, or pickled to give rise to a magic drink? Do fantastic beast exist, and does their marrow yield fantastic properties? Is fish marrow useful? If so, what about cartilage-based fish (i.e. sharks)? What about ancient, preserved marrow, extracted from amber (a la Jurassic Park) or from oil (La Brea tar pits)? I would assume that they would have unique powers, but be flawed, in line with their partially preserved status.

Thanks for including all the previous chapters so I could catch up. Anyway, if shouldn't surprise you that I will be discussing bone marrow. It's a cool, if weird concept for a magic system. The impression I got overall was that it's not a grand system full of fireballs (like your protagonist explicitly states) and mostly minor(ish) benefits that need to be utilized properly. Each animal has a unique power which may/may not be associated with said animal, which is fine, because magic. Also, next point: You can't get bone marrow from an old grave. I'm not completely sure (despite looking it up) but my best guess is that in controlled conditions, maybe a month, raw earth, two weeks at most. Also also, birds do have bone marrow (despite the whole 'hollow bone' thing) but it's tiny compared to what you'd get in femurs from any large animal. What power does human marrow give, and can a caster use their own marrow? I do think it's cool, and I like how well you've integrated the world so that sneaking bones is now a major criminal offense (If I had to harbor a guess, I would think vegetarianism is more popular here, if only out of practicality). I just have a lot of questions about it, that's all. Let me give you my impressions some of the characters: MC (Main Character): I don't know if I like him yet. This might sound a bit weird, but he's not flagrantly evil enough for me to cheer him being a rogue, and he's not exactly a 'good person' either. You've definitely set him up to have some kind of moral crisis at some point, which I am interested in when that happens, but not so much now. I am interested in the heist, especially with him promising a double-cross, but it's more for the scene and less for the actors. In other words, good slate, but I have no personal investment. Ch :I'd rather the focus on her interactions be more on the philosophy side, though, that said, she hasn't expressed anything to drive up her status from being a sidekick. Simple honest motivation and straightforward character with a hint of tragic backstory that she gets over a bit too quickly for my taste. Reliable as a secondary character, but I would vastly prefer a plucky sidekick like M from your old Q & M submissions. (Do you still do those? I kind of liked them.) The rest of the characters are good. I mean, I sped-read the chapters they were in so I can't comment any further than I liked them, aside from the fact that I liked Ga the most out of them. To answer your questions: Yes, it holds interest (I like heists. Who doesn't like a good heist?), it unfolds the background with character interaction, but I didn't get any more of the setting from it, I didn't really get any tension? Your primary characters' motivation (currently) is the need for sweet lucre, and this is just them furthering an already-established plot to get it. (That could just be me, though). As for entertainment, that's an odd choice of words for a chapter with that much wood cutting, but I am interested in reading more, so I'll say yes for that as well. In terms of events quick wasn't the term that came to mind (again, the whole wood cutting thing.) but i liked it all the same.

Recently, I wanted to create a fantasy world setting with two moons. And, of course, because I’m a complete mathochist, I decided to have a theoretically possible solar system in which to create this. This lead down the rabbit hole, and I got to have a long worldbuilding session (actually several) to create this world, with some pretty amazing results. So, I figure, why not go over this whole process on these forums? I’ll go into it in detail, explaining as much as I can, but I’ll leave markings if you don’t want to go through all the hard work. IMPORTANT NOTE: Whenever I mention something like ‘full moon’ or ‘equinox’, I’m not refer to the day, I’m referring to the precise position which occurs in an instant. Keep this in mind. WARNING! GEOMETRY AHEAD! SKIP TO WHERE THERE’S MORE CAPITAL LETTERS TO AVOID! Earth has one moon, but, like all orbiting bodies it follows very specific rules, known as Keplerian geometry. There are a few rules to Keplerian geometry, but (for now) we’re just interested in the one which states that all orbiting bodies orbit in an ellipse with two foci. All planets must have the star they’re orbiting around as a focus point, consequently, all moons have the planet they’re orbiting as a focus point. That’s good. All Kelplerian orbits have 5 points known as Lagrangian points. These are fixed points in which objects can be placed to have stable orbits. In relation to the Earth and its Moon, they are as follows: L1 is between the Moon and Earth. L2 is on the far side of the Moon, lining up with the Earth (though not with the Sun, because the Moon orbits the Earth). L3 is the far side of the Moon’s orbit. L4 and L5 are 60 degrees off in the orbit, ahead and behind respectively. (Yes, L4 and L5 are slightly more complicated than that, but that isn’t needed now). I do know (some of) the physics behind it, but that’s a bit off-topic right now. So, it seems that, to have two Moons, we just have to put a Moon on the L3 point, right? Wrong. Because L1, L2, L3 are all unstable points. Can’t put stuff of any decent size mass there. I mean, theoretically, you might be able to put very small mass objects in L3, (like, say, an artificial satellite) but we’d have to resort to magic rock to have a Moon-sized object. So that’s out. We can put a Moon in the L4/5 spot, but I’d rather avoid that because I like the thematic idea of opposite Moons. So, suppose we avoid Lagrangian points, and just have two Moons in the same orbit, opposite each other. Does that work? Yes. And no. The L3 points aren’t enough to keep it in balance, so, (as best as I can figure, and I’m not an astrophysicists) it would need to be perfect placed to avoid them accelerating towards each other due to gravitational forces. A solution, sure, but it’s inelegant and isn’t likely to ever occur naturally. Instead, I decided to follow the binary approach, as in, ‘binary star system’. Binary stars orbit each other (oddly enough) sharing one focus point, while having the other one opposite each other. And, since the Earth is a focus point, we can have two moons orbiting it similar to a binary star system’s. Solved! END OF GEOMETRY SECTION! Long story short, we can two moons orbiting a planet opposite each other. We’re going to assume that the orbital period is exactly 28 days (synodic orbit), because it makes my life easier. (You’ll notice I’m about to make a lot of these assumptions) Now, I could go through the complete lunar calendar with respective positions, but seems like work which doesn’t involve math or writing, so instead, I’ll just list a quick set of rules to follow. 1. There will always be a total of a full moon, if you add the two moons together. 2. Draw the two moons in orbit around the planet. Draw a line between them so it looks like a ‘divide’ symbol. The respective moons can only be seen by people from their side of the planet, both can be seen while on the line itself. The moons can only be seen at night, though. 3. The moon which can only be seen in the beginning of the night is the waxing moon. The moon which is seen after midnight is waning. 4. Once every two weeks is full moon, swapping moons. Once every other series of two weeks is perfect half-moons, swapping waning and waxing Are we done? Hah! As I said, I’m a mathochist, and, what’s more, I’m a Julian-loving mathochist at that. I haven’t even started. Because now that we’ve gotten the moon out of the way, let’s talk about the planet. MORE GEOMETRY! IT’S FUN, I PROMISE! Kepler’s Law of Orbital Motion states that planets have a constant area speed. In other words, time it takes to cover a portion of the orbit such that it has area n between the start point, end point, and the sun (as a triangle, of sorts) is the same time it takes to cover any other points with the same area. Or, bluntly, area = time. (Not entirely right, but right enough for this discussion.) Equinoxes and solstices are caused by the tilt in the Earth’s spin which is completely independent from the elliptical orbit. Equinoxes are when the tilt is in a tangent to the Earth’s orbit to the Sun, solstices are when it is either pointing towards the Sun or away from it. Equinoxes have equal 12 hour day/night, solstices have longest day or longest night (summer, winter respectively). This is important because of the equinoxes and the solstices. Since these occur at 90 degrees from each other, we can adjust the time between solstices and equinoxes by moving the free focus point around and mucking around with length and width of the ellipse. (If you want to draw a diagram, draw a plus. The center of the plus is the sun. Draw an ellipse, with one focus being the center of the plus. Where the lines of the plus and the ellipse lines meet are the solstices and equinoxes.) Time adjustment to is possible, but it is complicated, so let’s move on. I’m just going to assume all the finite little adjustments I’m about to mention is possible because I think it is and because even I have my limits when it comes to this stuff. Calendar math is just a hobby. AND WE’RE ALL DONE WITH GEOMETRY! COME BACK, PLEASE! Now, this section requires some math. You can’t skip it, because this is necessary for orbital calculations. Promise. (Well, okay, you can skip to the last three paragraphs, but come on! It’s calendar math. Why would you want to skip it?) (No seriously. Don’t skip if you want to learn how to do this yourself.) So, let’s say we make the year 364 days, exactly 6 hours. (cough can’t imagine why I’d do that cough) That means (aside from needing a leap year precisely every four years, but see the note on that later) the solstice would move six hours, and we’d have a total of 13 28-day months. What does this mean? Well, let’s assume the winter solstice occur at precisely 1200 hours the first year. At Year+1, it will occur at precisely 1800 hours. At Year+2, it will occur at 2400, Year+3 0600, Year+4 back to 1200 and the cycle repeats. Same for the others. Now it’s easy to see why time adjustment between the equinoxes and solstices are necessary. There are 13 lunar months. If there is an equal amount of time between solstices + equinoxes, only one solstice/equinox can fall out during a full moon. If, say, the distance between them is 5-3-2-3 months (this is possible), they can all occur during a full moon, they just have variable time lengths between them. (In fact, the Earth’s distance between equinoxes is slightly off.) All’s well that ends well? Ha! Because, remember, the equinox progresses 6 hours per year (assuming the year cycle we established. Remember, you can whip up any numbers to your own liking) So, after a perfect solstice / full moon overlap, in 4 years, the full moon will have moved 1 day forward. In 28 years the full moon will have moved 1 week forward, and the winter equinox will now occur during perfect half-moons. In 56 years, we’ll be back at full moon, but with the other moon (remember, this planet has two moons) and in 112 years, it’ll be back where it started. All-in-all, I now have a 112-year lunar cycle calendar to use for my fantasy world. But wait! I was using the winter solstice in conjunction with the full moon as an example but we still have the summer solstice, vernal equinox, and autumnal equinox to use within our 112-year cycle. Can we have a system which only allows one full moon per year to coincide with one of the four? Yes, the easiest way to do this is to add a six-hour gap in the cycles, giving us 5-3-2-3, except each one also has six hours in addition to the months, but giving either the 5 or 2 an extra 12 hours after subtracting a day. (The math works, trust me on this. There may be other ways, but this is my way.) SUMMARY: So, every four years, the winter solstice, vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox all swap between full moons, but these series of four years only occur every 28 years, but every cycle of 28 swaps between one of four options, (Full moon A, equal moons waning A, waxing B; Full moon B; equal moons waxing A, waning B; in that order unless I made a mistake) giving us a full cycle of 112 years total. Now, how does this cycle work when we have a specific 13-month calendar? Evil laugh. I thought you’d never ask. Since every four years adds a day, the calendar is moved one month every 112 years, if we don’t add leap days (which I don’t intend to). Which means, when a winter solstice occurs during a full moon during a specific month, that will not happen again for 1456 years. See? Math and world-building is fun. And, for those who remember me, I'm back. Nice to be here again.

I do kind of hate discussing serious topics in the Lounge, but this is the best place to put this without starting a new thread. I don't think I can justify a new thread, though, and it's a Monday with no submissions, so it's quite around here anyway. I'm leaving Reading Excuses. To clarify, it's of no fault of any one particular member here nor is it cumulatively your faults. To put it briefly, something has come up which I feel necessitates my leaving of Reading Excuses, so I shall take an indefinite leave. I still plan on continuing writing, of course, and everyone here has been a great help. I've been a sporadic member for a few years at least, and even then, I feel my writing has been improved tremendously. Thanks, all of you for the perspectives I've gotten. I know I can be a bit rough around the edges when it comes to clashing viewpoints, but I think I've gained a better understanding of you all. I'm not going to name names, but if you've ever critiqued my work, or even if I've critiqued yours, I've learned a lot. And, while I won't be a member anymore, if any of you want the resident hard sci-fi nut pouring over your settings, feel free to shoot me an email at the email address I use for RE. I won't mind, trust me. May your quills stay sharp, your paper crisp, and your inkwells continually emptied. aeromancer.

@aemetha That's an awesome overview of the situation. I agree with everything you say. The only thing I add is that I didn't even think about any of this regarding Veil for the reasons you stated. However, now Shallan seems to be building a separate personality as an immediate response. As you say, there's nothing wrong with it now. But I smell foreshadowing, and where there's foreshadowing, there's theorycrafting to be had! But, anyway, thanks again for the overview. Please stop bringing up the DSM-V. Please. I see method acting cropping up as a defense for Shallan's behavior. Here's the thing. Method acting is unsafe. Dangerously unsafe. Studios have psychoanalyst on payroll to help the actors use method acting, and there's still numerous horror stories of method actors which do not need to be mentioned. Now this does not mean that the common everyman using psychology tricks like assuming a different role for public speaking, or the like is a bad thing. (I'd be a hypocrite, seeing as I'm using a different role [aeromancer] for my public speaking [the Shard]). But the level that Shallan is doing it is a completely different level than you or I do. I know that a certain Soul Forger can swap between personalities with no consequence, which makes it seem fine, but said Soul Forger doesn't have them all in her head at once. I'm not hoping that Shallan goes insane by any means. I don't particularly dislike her and an illusionists with more than one personality can be very bad.

Just to quickly jump into this conversation, upon further review, I think it might be deliberately ambiguous. It doesn't quite fit into either Pattern or Brightness Radiant perfectly, which is odd because a good author like Brandon wouldn't leave such a statement without a tag. Unless, of course, this was a deliberate move on his part to see what the fanbase assumes, but even I'm not going to assume that. (Okay, I might. Fine. I think it's deliberately vague, and it's going to be nailed down when the published book comes out.) I would disagree with that. Freud has some infamously horrible theories, but I kind of feel that they're all people talk about, and not all the actual contributions he made, like the idea behind the id, ego, superego which lead to the rise of Jungian psychology. Aminar mentions the DSM, which I deliberately left out. I would prefer if the DSM-V (current version) stay out of this, because unless you know how to use it, you can use it to diagnose anyone with some disorder or another. (I follow several classics signs of being a psychopath, by the way.) I can't expressly disagree with this, but that because we're not really disagreeing. You categorize Shallan's behavior over PTSD. Yes, all of Shallan's behavior stems from a central trauma, which is what PTSD is, but the behavior that I'm focusing on, multiple personality, is a coping mechanism use to deal with stress, and is not typically the behavior that people assume with PTSD, but is a result of it. It's quite possible (unfortunately) to go insane as a result of trauma, which seems to be what Shallan is doing. I would also agree that if Shallan could avoid summoning her Shardblade, she'd be fine (well, not fine, but as fine as you could be repressing those kinds of memories). Problem is, Shallan doesn't have the luxury of having that trigger, should she chose to be a Knight Radiant. If what you're saying is true, it's kind of worse than my prediction of sustained multiple personalities, because triggers could cause a relapse, which would be bad. Anyway, thanks all for the response. I don't have a good track record with some of my character analysis in the past, so I'm glad to see this works well for the most part.

Shallan Davar is insane. Now, I know the first reaction of many of you would be to point out that, yes, of course she’s insane. It’s a requirement for the Knights Radiant. I mean, after all, Syl says in Words of Radiance that’s how they [Knights Radiants] all were, silly’ to Kaladin’s complaint that he was ‘broken’. None of current Knight Radiants that we know of (Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Renarin, Lift) are shining examples of perfect mental stability. Also, in Shallan’s defense, she is guilty of both patricide and matricide, so you can’t expect her to be perfectly sane, can you? Which is fine, I don’t. Kaladin's an emotional wreck. Shallan's an emotional wreck. It’s a requirement for the Knights Radiant to have undergone some form of mental anguish. So, why am I talking here? Well, simply put, Shallan’s insanity is getting worse because she’s a Knight Radiant. Whereas Kaladin is getting better, Shallan is just getting worse as a direct result of her Ideals and her Surges. Let me explain why I think that. As revealed in Chapter Fifteen of Oathbringer, Shallan cannot emotionally use her Shardblade because of the truth she was forced to admit for her Second Ideal, that she killed her mother with Pattern. Therefore, to get around the emotional scars, Shallan creates a new personality, Brightness Radiant, to fight in her place instead. Now, while this may seem innocent enough, and one could argue it’s no different from the pen names that we Sharders use on the Shard, it’s not. Not at all. To explain why, let’s take a step back and talk about the human mind, more specifically psychology, more specifically Jungian psychology, most specifically archetypes. Carl Jung, based on the work of Sigmund Freud, claimed that the human mind is made up ‘archetypes’. Now, I’m just going to skim the basics, feel free to look around for a more in-depth analysis elsewhere on the internet. I also must admit to having a cursory knowledge of the subjects, so if you know more and I made a mistake, I apologize. Archetypes can be described as the building blocks of personality. A person is composed of dozens of these ‘archetypes’ each slightly modified and relating together differently to create the full spectrum of personality. This is why we have many common character types across many civilizations stories. For example, there’s always the ‘warrior’, the ‘hero’, the ‘wise man’, the ‘mentor’ (which sometimes overlaps with the ‘wise man’), etc. These form a ‘persona’ or your exterior personality. From this chapter, it’s kind of clear that the alternative personalities Shallan is creating are based off of these archetypes. This makes sense, as character archetypes are one of the basic tools of all writers, so it’d be natural to create personalities using them. Veil seems to be based off the ‘trickster’ archetype, and ‘Brightness Radiant’ seems to be based of the ‘knight’ archetype, perhaps with a handful of ‘stoic’ thrown in. It’s a bit early to tell for sure. The problem now arises that Shallan is separated from these archetypes of hers. Brightness Radiant speaks like Shallan is a different person, and Shallan can’t wield her Shardblade at all. They''re separate. In Jungian psychology, this is a huge problem. In Jungian psychology, one of the reasons for insanity comes from the idea that these archetypes aren’t lining up. In order to treat mental disorders, Jungian psychologists will attempt to have the subject comes to terms with themselves, ending in catharsis. Now, this should be what the Ideal of the Lightweavers force Shallan to do, but it's not, because of it's own Surges. Shallan can’t ignore the truths of her paths, so she must come to grips with them for an eventual catharsis. But she isn’t. She’s using her Surge of Illumination to create these false personas that are Veil and Brightness Radiant. But by doing so, she’s locking herself out of catharsis and forcing her emotions aside to where she won’t have to deal with them. By using Veil and Brightness Radiant, Shallan is repressing her weakness and flaws. She isn’t trying to be fixed. She’s just trying to create an illusion that she is. If this continues, Shallan might get even worse, possibly developing multiple personalities, which would (I must admit) make for a fascinating read. Anyway, these are just my thoughts on the subject, and I have an unbearable tendency to overthink things. I would love to hear the rest of your thoughts on this.

Thoughts As I Go: Pg.1 - The intro paragraph is a bit much exposition. Also, street advertisements would be useless against self-driving cars. The only time I’d ever look out the window is scenery, otherwise I’d be reading a book, or something. Pg. 2 - Eh. Gridlock. I’ve seen schematics for purely self-driving highways, and they completely eliminate gridlock. I mean, they have plans for eight way intersections with no traffic lights. It’s mind-blowing. Pg. 4 – What happened to Walmart? Pg. 6 – I’m running a blank on why A can’t get access to the data. If she works for a car company, they should be able to get the data. If, for some reason, the car company isn’t allowed to use the data, what she’s doing is highly illegal. Pg. 8 – The politics here are a bit choppy, to say the least. The toll road problem is easily fixable (i.e., don’t program toll-less routes, or put out more tolls.) The real problem is a popularity dip when you take people’s cars away from them. Pg. 12 – Ah. What do cars run on, if not fuel? Electricity from nuclear plants, presumably. Water is also an option, though I’ve never seen a realistic model for hydrogen-powered cars. Pg. 14 – I’m not sure how or why this would solve a gridlock problem. Gridlock (pure gridlock, anyway, discounting accidents or road blocking) happens because there are too many cars trying to get from point A to point B. Self-driving cars avoid that because they can drive faster than humans, and can also connect to a central grid which uses massive algorithms to avoid too many cars in the same space. The road-reading tire trick would avoid accidents and stop erratic human drivers who are mucking around with the system. This would be a solution if gridlock was caused by irrational human driving patterns (like behaving illegally, etc.) which you might have meant, but I didn’t get the foresight for it. Overall, I really enjoyed this. Despite the fact that my mountain of criticism seems to the contrary, I’m only criticizing the physical execution (because I’m a nerd when it comes to programming of any kind). Everything else is great. The character depth itself works well for the story, A’s relationship with her father serves as a good catalyst, they both come across as real characters with depth. I particularly like how the stepmother doesn’t show up, because the dynamic works perfectly as-is, and another piece would only complicate it unnecessarily. The story doesn’t work much for the theme of 'cleaner and climate friendly' as-is. There are things you could empathize a bit more to make it workable. Aside from using alternative to gas (which you shoehorned in), you could mention that there are less cars overall on the roads (because travel is faster), less total travel time, so less energy consumed. You could even throw in a line about how the city plans to move the road system underground if gridlock becomes an absolute zero, and the entire surface could be used for parks.

@Paracosmic_nomenclator Thanks for the grammar edits. Last of the three options. Tsaph also get's Destiny's abilities which include rewriting it. (It's why she could come back to life). It's not a bad thing, per say, Rune just doesn't believe humans should have access to that much power. So she kills them. Thanks for the positive feedback. Thank you. It's good to be back. The dialogue was worse before. Far worse. You'll have to trust me. That aside, I've taken a look. The dialogue could definitely use more edits. Will do. Ah. Ven is lying when he says 'white flower', because he doesn't want rumor of it's power to spread. This can probably be made clearer. Will do. The way Ven walks away is quite simple. T is a young human female, with very little physical activity. She probably needs around a thousand kcals of energy per day. Ven, an adult male human in very good physical condition, can easily expend five thousand kcals worth of energy in an hour. In other words, in twelve minutes, Ven can supply her with a day's worth of energy. With a perfect transfer in place, Ven can feasibly just pump energy in her body constantly with the only repercussions being that he needs to eat more steak and has less endurance than he previously had. Solid trade off. The limiting factor (and what exhausts Ven) isn't the energy transfer - it's the mental focus required to mantain it. Ven lasts about three seconds, giving T a total of six minutes. Math is fun. Page eighteen isn't worth reading, it's really just an expodump to explain the deus ex machina. It also contradicts other things elsewhere (which you might have read - I can't remember where I ended up putting it) so I'm going to have to rewrite that somehow to. With the whole 'consequences' thing - this I could actually use some help. I'm terrible at killing off characters. I've managed it once, and that was when the plot railroaded it down my throat. Also, essentially no one in the main cast of this story can die, except should they be hit by Rune's Axe (which doesn't happen). So, assuming that I'm not going to be killing anyone, do you have any ideas for throwing in a sense of reality to this? It's a pun. It's always a pun. I don't make mistakes, I just make increasingly worse puns. Now, I'm going to cherry-pick some of your points. For pun. I suppose when you think water, you think liquid. When I think water, I think dihydrogen oxide along with it's assorted chemical properties (it expands upon freezing, for starters), which is why I felt the need to specify liquid. Especially considering that solid water ('ice' is term, right?) isn't a focus for life, it's actually a focus for death in synergistics. I was experimenting with onomatopoeia to see the reaction I would get. I'll keep the first cough, lose the rest, then. Here's the thing with Sa emotions. The normal spread of emotions I would pick for this are the five stages of grief. Thing is, in order for Sa to be a Host, she needs to be solidly in the fifth stage, acceptance. Acceptance, is calm and rational, it's not an emotional stage. Although, now that I write this, the way to use emotion in Sa would be to have her flashback to the first four stages. Thanks. I reserve the right to give a six year old a naive and optimistic world mindset. Even an exceptionally precocious six year old. The dialogue itself needs changing, you're right about the fact that Ven needs to explain himself better, but I don't think I'm willing to change Haley's mindset. In a nutshell: This is a good foundation for something longer. Now that I look this over, yeah. It really could use another five thousand or so words. Thanks for the support. Yes in spirit, no in reality. The previous Des took an axe to the neck which wiped him from existence. Yeah, @Robinski mentioned similar points. If I stretch this out and flesh it out more, would you guys be interested in reading this again? Really? You can't just drop a line like this. What's illogical about my fighting? *looks over* Oh. Everything. Like why doesn't Rune doesn't take her axe out in the first place? Point taken, but I think I'll keep it the way it is. @rdpulfer Thanks for the feedback as well. The ending sequence needs to be changed, so there's that. I will also make sure to flesh out Rune's entrance. Originally, she actually had a POV, but I took it out to make the 5k limit. The vibe I'm getting is that I tried fitting a square peg into a round hole half it's size.

Thoughts As I Go: Pg. 1 – That is one horrible guard. I can see why anyone else would be more expensive because this falls into the category of ‘friends like these, who needs enemies?’ Pg. 2 – R is humming? Is he a thief? I mean, the bluff was decent, but he got caught by an amateur, and now he’s deliberately making noise. Pg. 3 – The vaulting trick is cool. Not going to lie. It’s well done and executed too. The only thing is, R lands on grass, yet his staff lands on stone, which no one hears. Pg. 4 – I’m not invested right now to care about what’s going on, because I have no idea what’s going on Things are hinted to, sure, but I have no idea about anything, save that R apparently wants to kill people. Notes: Well, it’s a start. The action scenes are well done, and you have no hesitation of spreading hints everywhere about a greater plot. That’s good. The problem is that nothing is explained as of yet. I don’t know R’s motive. I don’t know if he’s a hero or a villain. I don’t know what Shades are or Passions. EDIT: Locpicking! Well, you do seem to have information, but it's about mostly modern locks. Middle Age locks functioned a bit differently. You had a spring holding the end of a metal bar inside the lock (like a zip-tie lock, if that makes sense to you), and the key itself would compress the spring to allow the bar passage outside the the lock. My advice? Just give R a skeleton key.

Thoughts As I Go: The ‘at the time’ line you use at the beginning frames the story as being a retelling, but this isn’t consistently kept up in the narrative. Pg. 2 - Stone walls through me for a loop, until I realized they were actually in a hollowed out asteroid. Except asteroid are made of metal. Stone is porous, generally, to some degree. Bad idea for a spaceship. Pg. 3 - I’m not sure why they’re crying wolf when a botanist’s emblem is on the side. I mean, plants need air too. It’s probably a tree, isn’t it? Pg. 4 – The assistant goes through kind a mood whiplash from amused to suspicious. Pg. 5 – I actually think the thought process of ‘how to kill’ should fits well with Ed’s character. Good tangent. Pg. 6 – The parentheses segment is a bit awkward Pg. 7 – Okay I’m going to go all ‘Hard sci-fi nerd’ here. Skip this bit if you want. Relativistic speeds are impossible for a ship with a meter-thick asteroid hull. Even if the asteroid was made of an extremely dense and hard metal (like say, a hypothetical osmium-tungsten superalloy), at relativistic speeds, the stray molecules hitting the ship have the inertia of near-lightspeed. Remember, Newton’s Third Law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. At relativistic speeds, the molecules won’t just leave radiation. They’ll leave mini-nuke craters And should something like a micrometeor come along – well, let’s just say it’s not hard to clean up messes in space ‘cuz there’s always a vacuum. Put inertia dampers on the exterior. Force shields. Deflector plates. Something. Pg. 12 – A cooking blog? I just … It’s fine, technically. Fleshes the character out, breaks the stereotype. I just … this isn’t Hard Sci-Fi. It's breaking my wonderful immersion of ship parts and zero-G. Pg. 13 – You can’t hear a cricket in a storm. Overall: I’m going to save this until the second part.

It's been a while since I submitted. I'm still working on short stories, and this is another one. One of the characters might be familiar, Rune, who was the protagonist of 'Quenched in Flames'. On an aside ,I think this is the only time I was thankful for the word count limit. I had to seriously tighten up the dialogue to fit under cap. On a further aside, yes, I'm aware the title is a terrible pun. We're Sanderfans. We're allowed to make terrible puns. Anyway, I'm looking for any and all comments you could make, but focusing on the build-up and character interactions would be good.

Anyone mind if I submit this Monday?

Thoughts: S starts of the chapter incredibly defensive and withdrawn. This indicates really strong verbal abuse (like ostracizing), but the text isn’t as clear. The sole taunt is in regard to ‘running out of bones’, which isn’t as harsh as S’s reactions suggest. The river is infested with piranhas, anacondas, and alligators. That’s a lot of predators. Also, the boat captain missed a helpful tip. Never dip your fingers in gator-infested water. They will mistaken it for fish and will bite your fingers clean off. T’s reason for dunking S is never really explained, the only explanation I can cobble together being that T thinks it will label S as a non-guild member. Side note, baling out the boat is mentioned, but the reason why the boat is taking on water is never fully mentioned. As far as worldbuilding is concerned: Hints keep cropping up that this society is on the cusp of the industrial revolution. This being the case, guilds are going to become endangered, if not extinct. This makes for an exciting backdrop. I’m looking forward to see how this develops. Further comment: You keep having S correlate the two parts of ‘Woodcutter’ and ‘Daughter’. One is the issue of S’s mother’s legacy, the other being the issue S’s phenotype. I do understand that the lineage is matrimonial in this society, but they are separate issues, as evidenced by the fact that S dealing with being a Woodcutter while rejecting the ‘Daughter’ aspect would make a strong plot, as would S accepting the Daughter but rejecting the Woodcutter. Your plot has S rejecting both, but it’d be nice to see S deal with each one separately. S’s character is more fleshed out in this version than the previous. I’m given a much better insight into S’s motivations.

As I go: The narrative shift to diary in the middle of a short is a bit jarring. It shifts the reader’s mentality. Also, E’s faith isn’t consistent. His speech follows the pattern of a devout, but his thoughts and emotions lie elsewhere. If E truly believed that the recruitment process was divine, why would he consider it barbaric? Also, he’s consistently portrayed as doubting the testing process, which is odd of it is part of his religion. If it isn’t (it’s kind of implied that the priests chose to do this) then this fate is no worse than the death penalty. It’s find for a man of the cloth to doubt the death penalty, but that’s not directly what he’s doing. The confession scene is well done, it makes me think you’ve read a firsthand confession. I’m no expert on this subject, but all the emotions that T describes himself experiencing as an accurate depiction of real life abuse. The priest also does a good job of acting like a psychologist, though my Jungian-fueled psychoanalysis would chalk up his change in behavior to guilt rather than a 180 redemption shift. Like I said earlier, I’m no expert in this subject (and I do not wish to be), so take all that I say in this paragraph with a grain of salt. The T and Y conversation is done as well as the earlier talk. The only problem I have with it is it makes me feel that T wasn’t as bad a parent as he claims he is earlier in the story (which is entirely possible that he’s lying earlier, out of a guilt complex). The final conversation is interesting. I assume that T can see E’s dream somehow because … reasons? Well, that aside, we again come to E’s faith crisis. The dialogue here is a good inverse of the earlier confession, but it overlooks the fact that E did it to a few other hundreds. I’m not sure this makes for a more satisfying ending then the Y waking up. Overall: This is an emotionally complex piece that you did justice to. A lot of dialogue, but none of it was tedious or just exposition. Well done.

Thoughts: Pg.1: The ‘junk-desk’ chair makes an odd contrast to what’s clearly some form of a military program, along with rooms which are essentially bunkers. This gives me the feel that it’s a program working on little funding, like a last-resort program, or such like that. Pg. 2-3: Protagonist swaps to being ‘terrified’ after not being terrified in the opening sentence. The President line is a good way to introduce gravity of the situation early in a book, but it could a better reason for being pulled out, perhaps by having protagonist being obstinate to an nth degree. Pg. 4-5: Backstory is introduced alongside protagonist’s motives. As an aside, from the text, WWIII has been ongoing for 11 years. That’s an awfully long time to have a war assuming there are nukes involved. Even with ludicrous technology advancements, military will almost always give credence to offense over defense, so I hope there’s a thorough explanation eventually as to how Earth isn’t a radioactive fallout zone. Pg. 6-8: The writing is a bit awkward here, especially when the guard is brought up. We also get an explanation of why swords are still in use, and a lot of exposition. Pg. 9-16: Fight scene. I find it somewhat surprising that the protagonists haven’t undergone any form of hostage rescue training, which (from my understanding) is done is special forces everywhere. Also, I’m thinking aliens when the guard transforms. I mean, it’s nothing a human would ever do to another human, and looks like in requires alien super genetic altering know-howTM. Also, point of order. Katanas are short. They’re around three feet of blade, usually smaller. I’d recommend an iaido blade, if you want to stick to Japanese weapons, and a bastard sword overall, because they‘re far better than either iaidos or katanas. For the future of this character, really short sword will be either a gladius, dirk, or wakizashi. Pg 17-18: As much of a cliché as ‘business-suit-stranger’ is, I’m intrigue. I’m going to assume this is good alien race. Overall, there are a few flaws, but nothing a little polish couldn't fix. I think the door-locking part of the fight scene was well done, it shows us the main character isn't just stubborn and dislikes obeying rules he deems foolish, but he does genuinely want to help people, adding a bit of complexity, which can easily be expounded further on. The setting was also intriguing, as it gives way to many possibilities, of which I'm assuming aliens. It's a good start to a novel.