aeromancer

I think there are three so far for the 20th. I have a one-shot I'd like to submit. (Yes, I've been writing a lot of one-shots lately, it helps for world-building.) The title is Quenched, and it's a literal and figurative forging through fire. Same forge.

Historical fantasy happens to be my second favorite genre, so this sounds awesome. I didn't realize you were putting that much research into this. I now feel an urgent need to look up what 1700 alchemists were thinking to assign Libra to sublimation. Suppose it's going to get assign to my list of Random Research Topics (current research subject: quantum characteristics of human consciousness). The pigment use here isn't that bad, it's what S has as a weapon. But, yeah, the pigments have to fail majorly at some point. Well, that's the million dollar question I suppose. The reason I got such a strong sense of S being an alchemist protagonist is because S has a massive drive to be a alchemist, but you need that to be the case at the start of the novel for the character growth to occur over the course. I also got the sense from S's extracts, which strike me as a powerful alchemist weapon. Looking at this, my approach would be a) have side characters (possibly M) question what S's real goals are, and cast doubts over S, but not take away S's drive, so the reader gets the sense that S isn't doing what S should be doing, and b ) point out that fungus pigments are a considered to be 'parlor tricks' among the guild, and not 'proper alchemy'. But that's just a few thoughts.

TAIG: I’m going to do an analysis on the symbols, for fun. Later. The flow in the last paragraph on page 1 can use some work, I think. I’m getting a clear sense of panic from S though, which I assume that is what you’re going for. Wait. If S never studied alchemy under a master, how does S know the basics? “Or did you lay the to trail following them?” – I’m assuming that you forgot to name the fungus in this sentence. Is this the first time S’s age has been mentioned? Because I don’t recall S being that old, and I wasn’t getting the sense that S was 27. This got long, so I reorganized my thoughts into comments. Comments: Symbols: So, salt is a circle with a line to represent the base/acid components, I guess. A triangle pointing down for water, because that’s kind of what a water molecule looks like? Libra for sublimation? I’m drawing a blank here. Libra may be the odd Zodiac out, but I can’t connect the Scales to sublimation. Royal Alchemist R: I have a negative impression from this guy. R is shown to make highly unreasonable assumption (like assuming fungi cannot be bioluminescent) without evidence and doesn’t believe in poly-specialization which is (insert curse of choice here). When developing new ideas and exploring new fields, people who have a hand in a massive amount of skills (instead of just one) are just as important as pure specialists. And he compromises on principles to avoid thanking someone for his incompetence. His personality does offset the impression, but not enough. “What was the purpose of a birthright, if not to give one control over one’s future?” To my understanding, the whole concept of a birthright runs contrary to the concept of ‘control over the future’. Now, if S wants to throw off the birthright, that is understandable, but, generally speaking, ‘birthright’ implies responsibility to a certain goal or cause. ‘Elves are utter nonsense’. Negatives are very difficult to prove, and it’s kind of a downer to see any believer in the scientific method make a negative absolute statement, especially since magic and walking trees have been established. I mean, for all we know, elves could be an alchemically-altered human species in this world. Walking Palm: Yay, an Ent! Moving trees are always something I like to see, though we get precious little about it save for a brief fight scene, which is resolved using pigments. Pigments, by the way, are cool, but if they get used every fight as a one-shot win, the fights will get boring. (Harsh) Criticism: I’ve been debating about writing this bit for a while, but it’s probably something you’d rather be told and it reached a peak in this chapter, so I’m going to say it, but please read to the end. At this point, I’d probably close the novel. The problem is that I don't see S as a compelling alchemist protagonist. Compelling protagonist – yes. Alchemist protagonist - not especially. This chapter actually had a very nice bit a development in terms of that, I appreciate a protagonist who has the resolve to stand for beliefs. The problem, again, is in the alchemical aspect. This is kind of important. There are certain tropes and goals that get attached to genre protagonists. Fantasy protagonists need to be on an epic quest of a sort, Sci-Fi protagonists have a problem that needs to be solved. I expect an alchemical protagonist to want to break Laws. Not legal laws, the Laws of Nature themselves, like G = 6.67x10^-11, and the like. S does not have this, in fact S believes the reverse. S is anti-transmutation, and complains that alchemy reeks of magic, which I assume means S is going to work within the rules as much as possible. Now, I have to empathize (because I’d really hate for this to be taken the wrong way) that S is a good protagonist. However, S clearly mentions the desire to become an alchemist multiple times, possess an incredible amount of practical alchemical knowledge, yet has no goals or desires of a classic alchemist, which means that I don’t find S compelling as alchemist protagonist, which I identify S as. The nearest we get is the desire for the universal solvent, but that’s not even so useful on a practical level, certainly nowhere near lead-to-gold or the unlimited youth. To end on a positive note, (as mentioned previously) I found S's development to be good. S is realizing what S's goals and that S should stand for them.

Forgiven. Critiques are almost as good as compliments. As Edison once (may have) said, 'I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways not to invent a lightbulb'. (Probably false to some degree, the real number is closer to 1,000 I think.) I prefer to think of a critique as things telling me what not to do, meaning I can only make less mistakes in the future. So, thank you. Yes! I'm very happy about this, though the fact that most people missed it means I've got my work cut out from me. Still, at least I'm on the right track. So, shamanism is a system I've kicked around for a while (and under a lot of different names) and it's been developed a lot. It's the most subtle system I've got. North Legend is part of a larger world. Thanks for the feedback.

Between one second to never, then. Interesting amount of time it would take to eat over fifteen thousand pancakes. Follow up question: If you decide not to use maple syrup in the consumption of said pancakes, would that mean more eating time or less eating time?

How long do you think it would take for you to eat 15345 pancakes with maple syrup?

Excellent question, though the answer, I'm afraid, is neither. Although the '-mancer' suffix in modern jargon usually reference a magic user of some sort, the roots of the suffix are actually steeped in the specific art of divination. An aeromancer would be someone who uses the wind to tell the future, and not someone who manipulates the wind (though I do that by breathing). I do not use the wind specifically to tell the future, but I do use something borne upon it. Specifically, the flapping of a butterfly's wings. I'm usually not this philosophical or detailed when it comes to names, but I suppose this website drew it our of me.

That wouldn't have answered the question, though.

You get a stick returned to you with a small handwritten note. "You may not realize this, but the poor Sanderson Vending Machine has been, no doubt, fed more sticks than it wanted, possibly more than it can take, and would kindly appreciate it, if perhaps, you would feed it a bit of variety." *inserts a tattered copy of Lord of the Rings*

Oh. Then I disagree with it. EDIT: After thinking it over, I don't disagree with what #ownvoices represents, but I may disagree with it's usage in certain contexts. Why didn't you mention that when we had a discussion about ownvoice in the Lounge? I didn't mention meritocracies. You did. Now, a meritocracy judges something based off merit. You aren't saying meritocracies don't work, you are saying that the systems in place aren't meritocracies. Okay. That's a valid point. What you are say I'm arguing in favor of meritocracies, and meritocracies cause 'systemic power imbalances', which means you are saying that I support systemically disadvantage of people. That's a horrible thing to say. Oppression is horrible, it's not something I support, I, believe it or not (and I suspect you won't) I have been on the receiving end enough times to know how it feels. Do you need to fight me on everything? You're picking a fight with something you don't need to. I said ' I'm not sure kaisa likes the mess we've made of her feedback forum'. The fact that I think kaisa doesn't like a shouting match in a feedback forum which does not discuss any themes in the submission is for kaisa to decide. So, you want to decide how I think, and, not only that, you want someone else to decide how I think.

@industrialistDragon I was more hoping for neongrey to clarify, as we've hashed through multiple discussions of this before, but I don't mind that you did. That being said, there was really only one statement you made that I felt addressed the point I was trying to make This is the juice of your argument, as I understand it, and this is really two points in one sentence. "As a part of the dominant group, it is important to respect and support marginalized voices." Yes. Agreement. If you are part of a dominant group, you have a moral responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves. "...[ B ]eing part of the dominant majority means that it is difficult or impossible to understand the biases at play for anyone outside of it." No, this is false. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that a human cannot comprehend how a human mind works. You yourself quote several articles citing 'unconscious and implicit bias', and then you claim 'it is difficult or impossible to understand the biases in play for anyone outside of it'? This argument is founded upon a false authority claim, that being 'You must be a member of Caste X or else you simply cannot understand.' I think that we can all agree that all human share the same basic brain structure, so that anything one human can conceive of, another human can do so to, except for actual experiences, which is why, as I said earlier: I do realize that I should have stated it more strongly, perhaps, "I support #ownvoices in nonfiction. In terms of fiction, as I stated, anything one human can conceive of, so can another. I place very little limits on where information can come from, so long as that information is correct. It's kind of ironic that neongrey stated earlier, talking about 'valu[ing a] physicists talking physics', yet I talk physics all the time, and I am not a physicists. If a physicists and a non-physicist were to get in a debate, the winner wouldn't be the one walking in with more credentials, the winner would be the one who's right. An argument from authority is, by itself, a useless argument. Now, speaking of arguments, you (or anyone, really) may want to take this argument further, which I wholly encourage. However, I'm not sure kaisa likes the mess we've made of her feedback forum, so if you want to continue this, either PM me, or ask me about it in my AMA thread, the link is in my signature.

You are asking a question based on a hypothetical situation. Unfortunately, I cannot see how the hypothetical situation would factor into any calculation based on either pancakes or ceilings and you have also neglected to tell me the ceiling in question, or the size of the pancake in question. I still promised to answer the question though. Let's think. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is approximately 5371 square feet. I like large circular pancakes, with a diameter of around eight inches, or an area of .35 square feet. Allowing us to cut up pancakes to fit as many possible, and assuming we get permission to rotate the Sistine Chapel to place the pancakes there, stick them in place with maple syrup, and rotate it back, I would answer approximately 15345 pancakes.

I've got opinions. Not that I'm spouting anything profound, but I seem to have an inability to stop talking about them. Odds are you've arrived at this page from two different locations. The first is that you've reached here from the 'Ask Me Anything' page. In that case, feel free to ask me anything, which I will answer, but not necessarily in the way you want you me to. The second is that you've gotten here by clicking the link in my signature. In that case, feel free to ask me anything, but I will answer in a way which is definitely not the way you want me to. Unless you like long arguments that occasionally reference Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. In that case, you'll probably want to ask me questions. Please do.

Yes. We do have people like that, though I would like you to clearly define what 'black people talking about lived experience as black people' means. I've stated during the ownvoices discussion that I think ownvoices is a good tag for nonfiction, but there shouldn't be any limits towards fiction, as long as the content is good. I have more I'd like to say, but your statement is to unclear for me to say it. Yes, but no. Lovecraftian horror isn't the realization that you aren't the most important thing, it's the realization of things you can't understand. The whole concept of eldritch beings is such that things exist beyond human comprehension, and that, no matter how strong you are, smart you are, etc, there are things out of your reach. The subtle difference between this and privilege is that Lovecraft puts his eldritch abominations beyond you, whereas privilege (or at least the sense that it is used in modern culture) implies that you've either put yourself, or have been put in a place you don't belong or deserve. Okay. Lets. @shadowkissed made a mistake. A reasonable mistake, too. Non-binary people form up a very small percent of the population, and it's perfectly reasonable that it wouldn't be on someone's mind all the time. Now, kaisa's book is set in a rustic fantasy setting, which, historically speaking, is pretty discriminatory to females, so it's a pretty common trope that a female protagonist would fake being male. If I went into the book, not knowing that kaisa's writing it with the explicit intent to be ownvoices, I'd be wondering about the main character as well. I'd think possibly S is non-binary, but possibly S is just trying to hide her gender, seeing as it's never explicitly stated. Never mind the fact that the work is called 'TWD', which implies the protagonist (who's presumably the tile character) is female. The title of a book sets a reader's mindset. Now, in response to a easily understandable mistake, you pointed out her mistake, and then accused shadowkissed of doing something bad because of the word 'fool'. Now, 'fool' would be a bad word to use in 'the non-binary is trying to fool people that she's a girl'. That is a horrible usage, and we can all agree on that. shadowkissed used it instead as: and there is nothing wrong about that kind of sentence if the subject matter is a girl pretending to be a boy for socioeconomic reasons. There's nothing in the sentence condemning a girl pretending to be a boy because the of gender reasons. So, shadowkissed apologized for the statement, realizing that it was based on an inaccurate assumption, and offered an apology for offending you, @neongrey, because you misread shadowkissed's intent in making the statement, and therefore was (rightly) angered by it. You respond by missing the point. I was going to stay out of this discussion, but you referenced me with the most recent post. Not by name, the first instance of you I quoted is clearly discussing the argument we had in Reading Like Writes. I've had enough attacks over the years that I don't mind getting bullied but I don't like bullies. Right now, what you are doing is bullying shadowkissed, who is a newcomer to this group because of an understandable mistake that wasn't meant to be taken the way you did. You may have some right points, but you did not express them the right way.

Social grace is better, but they don't really have a sense of professionalism. Here are some thoughts. “they stood too straight and their red capes were too clean and well pressed.” So, this is the start of it, I suppose. Looking prim and proper is nice, but to look like that on patrol, instead of utilitarian wear, isn’t a sign of professionalism. Also, S accidentally steps on one (with bloodstains on S’s clothes) and the guard’s reaction is to ask her questions, instead of reflexively put S in a hold. They also seem somewhat unsure of their actions, like when they take S in. That, and they should have a basic understanding of alchemy, which they apparently don’t have. I guess I feel there should be a set protocol for dealing with alchemists like ‘take all pouches’ and ‘bind hands’. S doesn't use pronouns at all, then?

Q’s total expenses is fifty million, five hundred and fifty thousand, not counting expenses. Just saying. When you start out a chapter with 000111, I can’t help calculating everything. That being said, the third-person description used during Q segments sound like Q talking. The opening paragraph has a heavy dose of this. Also, this line. “The doctor saw to him, applying his doubtless years of medical training by smacking Toni di Fantano on the back.” –Doubtless years for smacking someone in the back? I know to do that from spending an afternoon learning the Heimlich Maneuver. Also, neurotoxin? I’m not certain those can be absorbed through the skin (though inhaling kind of works) and even if they could, I’m not sure that saliva on skin can help (because saliva can’t be absorbed through the dermis, for the most part), and even if it could, the first time would need to be the only time, because once the poison’s been neutralized, it’s been neutralized, and using the terminology like ‘grade 5 neurotoxin’ makes me wonder why Toni can’t whip up an antidote for whatever he’s been poisoned with, and keeping in mind all this, Q is in horrible position once M hits 21 and leaves his custody. *exhale* So, maybe don’t use neurotoxin, but instead use a virus which requires a specific protein in M’s saliva to keep in check, and have a biological clock (something telomere based, maybe?) which kills the virus in seven years.

TAIG: Blood on clothes scares people. I have a pretty high tolerance for blood, but if I see blood on someone’s clothes, I would be scared, not from blood, but from what they did to get the blood on them. I don’t think blood stains on clothes was that common in the Middle Ages, unless you were a butcher, but S is not a butcher, so I’d be slightly scared. ... “Want to tell me why you’re here, dressed for the fair against regulation, and sopping wet?” -Good question. ‘Sopping wet’ implies dripping. Unless you’re in the thick of the Amazon Rainforest, S would have dried by now ... Locked room mystery? This is getting good ... “Alchemy was straightforward—an extrapolation of the natural with clearly defined limits.” -Ah… sure? Transmutation has some pretty clearly defined limits, I suppose. Limits: The mass of the earth. Excellent limit. I'm getting weird vibes about what alchemy is, and I don't like them. Notes: The Q-guard are a bit better, but they still don’t give the impression of professionalism that I expect from some with a name like Q-guard, which implies somewhat of an elite group. If you want, I could take a closer look to see what gives me that impression. Also, the woodcutter guild seem really strong. Now, I suppose that strapping men whacking at trees would be pretty strong, but the guild seems mostly into woodcarving and dyes, which wouldn’t stack well with against, say, a blacksmith’s guild. So, speaking of locked-room mysteries, time to apply Holmes’ methods to the RD’s calloused and ink-stained hand. As mentioned earlier, she undertook blacksmith training and the callouses indicate that she still works in the smithy, which is a pretty time-consuming process. Most likely, she forged her own dagger. The ink-stained hands means that she can write and (more importantly) does so on a consistent basis, instead of having a scribe do it for her. Meaning, the RD is attempting to be as self-sufficient as possible, and doesn’t want people working for her. That's a lot of deductive work for for five words. I'm also excited for next week, because, hopefully, the universal gender-neutral pronoun will be introduced so I can stop pronoun-dodging with S and use that instead.

There are 10 types of people, those that know binary, and those that don't.

Well,I tried lampshading that when A & K have a discussion about how easy it was, and K responds along the lines of 'well, we're special protagonists'. Also, I am way too far gone for that kind of warning, but thank you anyway.

stares at the alpha wolf mistake... Wow. I feel out-nerded. Good job, industrialistDragon, you've impressed me. Have an upvote. So, the 'bard framing' was a subtle plot device that I intended to use to add an extra layer to the story, and instead just added more text. I'm working on it. Tracking's difficult on a snowy mountain, unless you are a wolf. The North is only snowy mountains. Also, these two people (A&K) are protagonists. A's a trained spec-op, and K can cause hypothermia by looking at people. (plus, K can't do it by himself because of reasons. He explains why.) So, your standard fighty Northmen cannot rustle up a tracker and clean the gang out, despite the fact that they've probably tried. There was, in fact, a resolution, and by that I mean there was supposed to be a resolution, and I messed it up. Long story short, J finds the girl, they sacrifice themselves to kill the chaemira, are frozen in a lake, cryogenics is pseudo-science*, so barring insane magical powers, they are dead. *Clarification: Mainstream cryogenics may or may not be a pseudo-science, but the way it does work doesn't involve freezing people in a tube of water like a popsicle. You freeze someone in water for any decent amount of time, they're dead.

Yeah, A knew beforehand, she spotted the guy's skin paint. But you are right she punched first and asked question later. So did K, for the most part. K's rationale is more of an excuse than anything else. Both A and K are like that, it's part of their character. Due to their Shamanistic abilities, they have an innate connection to the North. One of the checks built into the Shaman system is that when you draw power from somewhere, it slightly affects your personality and that gets multiplied the more power you draw and the more frequent you draw on it. In the case of these two, they draw power from the North, which (as mentioned several times) is unforgiving. It's not even 'once a murderous bandit, always a murderous bandit', they simply are punishing someone who did something wrong. It's not necessarily morally right or morally wrong (but I wouldn't mind discussing that), it's part of their personality to do that. There isn't really supposed to be tension here. This isn't really necessary to the point, it's a consequence of previous actions (part of the Black Ice surviving the previous assault) and, well, someone needed to kill them because I don't like loose ends. *shrug* Worldbuilding note here, I've developed all the characters in an unwritten novel (alpha readers welcome) and A's skills are enough to defeat them all. Maybe I'll just cut it out. Thanks for the comments.

This is my punishment for trying to be subtle. While A didn't find the person she was looking for, K did and the bard isn't introducing a new hero. What I was trying to do was this: The girl in the start/end italics is actually the nameless girl that J is looking for. I thought I tipped enough clues that way, but apparently not. Chronologically, that happens first, the girl goes to the north to seek legends and to become one. Later on, J follows her to the north and helps her eradicate the last of the Black Ice. The Black Ice unleash the chaemira to attempt to stop them, so J and the girl decide to sacrifice themselves to freeze it under the frozen lake. K, realizes this, and subtly hints that A should stop looking for J without tipping her off that J is dead. The 'legend' told at the last italics was a representation of the tale that J & the girl went through, even though the girl heard it before the story happened, meaning that she actually became a legend. That was my thought process, anyway.

Yeah, I know I empathized the fights scenes too much. The story's not really about that so much as the legend. I am glad to hear that I'm improving, especially considering that the some characters from North Legend are also from Scissors & Bows, I've just swapped all the names. The reason for inconsistent narration, by the way, is because this was pieced from three separate word docs. I've been working on this for a while, and I made a lot of false starts, so I ended up mashing them together and writing the rest. I thought I did a good job, but it's hard for me to spot inconsistencies when I've been working on it for about a week straight. Thanks. This could be explained a bit more clearly. K isn't just a shaman, he's the Shaman. He's responsible to guard the North (or will be, once his mother retires) and he has certain restrictions. One of them is a non-interference policy. He can't really change the mountains to a large degree, such as wiping out a huge menace like the Black Ice. Thinking about it now, I can rewrite him to have a more passive role, which I probably should do. The girl has a katana because she fights using iaijitsu. I've never view sword types as a cultural restriction. I mean, zwiehanders show up all over the place, and everyone seems to love using bastard swords despite the fact that ninety percent of people have no idea what they are. Bastard sword is just another word for hand-and-a-half or longsword. It's all the same sword, it was just widely known as the bastard sword up until the 1900s, if memory serves correct. The larger world that North Legend takes place in using everything from epees to falchions to executioner's swords and, yes, katanas and bastard swords. I like swords, if you couldn't tell. I hope so? Please? As a person I'd rather talk to myself than internal monologue, so I assumed the same for K. (It was intended to be a supplement) Can I ask why you felt that way, and what I could do to fix that? Thank you. Shamanism is actually my most complex system, and I'm glad I was able to make it work it this short story.

That I got, actually. (I've read everything of this submission, even though I haven't commented on them all). I just have a problem with a human mind functioning not within a brain without some kind of explanation. This is just a personal thing, as I have an unhealthy obsession with hard sci-fi I love the name Brotherhood. It does get overused as a cliche name for evil societies, but I still love it.