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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:13 am 
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@Szat: I read your article on sapient species. Say you've got a sapient, alien species spread across all five colors. Would a magic-enhanced allopatric speciation event provide sufficient explanation for slight differences in physiology/appearance (maybe some leylines or something similar reinforce the geographic separation and hence breeding barriers)?

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:17 am 
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The fourth (and final, for now) rule is to have consistancy in your naming: Aerith and Bob is not, I repeat, not desireable. Don't make a distinction to readers unless you want things to be distinct: It's okay to have names cut from a different cloth when the characters themselves are, but characters with similar backgrounds (if they aren't cosmopolitan) shouldn't have completley dissimilar names.

Jakkard, when taken correctly, kicks the everloving crap out of this rule. There is zero naming consistency even within races.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:44 am 
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The fourth (and final, for now) rule is to have consistancy in your naming: Aerith and Bob is not, I repeat, not desireable. Don't make a distinction to readers unless you want things to be distinct: It's okay to have names cut from a different cloth when the characters themselves are, but characters with similar backgrounds (if they aren't cosmopolitan) shouldn't have completley dissimilar names.

Jakkard, when taken correctly, kicks the everloving crap out of this rule. There is zero naming consistency even within races.

That...might be mostly my fault.

Let's see...Antine, Muck, Savt, Nynca, Vamuel, Aerock, Blue, Jaran, Harrish Krell...

Yup, that one's on me. Sorry, everyone!

[EDIT]: For the record, though, I LOVE the name Harrish Krell for a noggle. Love it.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 2:30 am 
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[EDIT]: For the record, though, I LOVE the name Harrish Krell for a noggle. Love it.

Krell just faintly sets off some sort of alarms in the back of my brain that this would be a fellow best fed to the Baloths.

Ugh... I really gotta finish Wild Card...

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:38 am 
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The fourth (and final, for now) rule is to have consistancy in your naming: Aerith and Bob is not, I repeat, not desireable. Don't make a distinction to readers unless you want things to be distinct: It's okay to have names cut from a different cloth when the characters themselves are, but characters with similar backgrounds (if they aren't cosmopolitan) shouldn't have completley dissimilar names.

Jakkard, when taken correctly, kicks the everloving crap out of this rule. There is zero naming consistency even within races.


That...might be mostly my fault.


Eh, I should line up for my share of the blame as well.

That being said, I frankly think that Jakkard is a case where the inconsistency of naming is a feature, not a bug.

We're talking about a plane where a lot of different cultures have been swirling and mixing. First in a single, large city, where it wouldn't be unusual to see a lot of cross-pollination of names (think about large, diverse urban areas in our own world). Now you have a massive and often chaotic outward expansion, which is yet another opportunity for people and their names to get jumbled up, and for people to both figuratively and literally make new names for themselves.

Then, on top of all that, you have a long, tangled history of certain cultures being persecuted and even deliberately eroded, which often involves the loss of traditional names and the imposition of foreign ones.

So I think there's a good, in-flavor reason for why naming on Jakkard might be awfully jumbled.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:28 am 
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Yeah I think it definitely ultimately works... but it doesn't exactly make it easy for newcomers to the plane to figure out names :P


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:12 pm 
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Well yeah, but it also helps immediately capture all those things OL said with out it having to be specifically explained. THe jumbled mess of names just adds to the chaos of the world.


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PostPosted: Sat May 03, 2014 3:57 pm 
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Hey, so I noticed this thread has been pushed down the page a bit. I've still got a few things I wanted to unload (so I don't have to keep the tabs open anymore- I mean, so that everyone can benefit) of What I've Been Reading about Writing.

So, entry 1:
NY Times article - Writers On Writing - Elmore Leonard (I understand it's part of a series).
Followup: The Onion's Obituary for Elmore Leonard, taking everything he always said not to do to the extreme.

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PostPosted: Sat May 03, 2014 6:41 pm 
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Hey, so I noticed this thread has been pushed down the page a bit. I've still got a few things I wanted to unload (so I don't have to keep the tabs open anymore- I mean, so that everyone can benefit) of What I've Been Reading about Writing.

So, entry 1:
NY Times article - Writers On Writing - Elmore Leonard (I understand it's part of a series).
Followup: The Onion's Obituary for Elmore Leonard, taking everything he always said not to do to the extreme.


Oh, Luna, you said one of my magic words!

(Or, I guess, technically you said two of my magic words.)

Elmore Leonard is one of my very favorite writers, and I think it's fair to say that his books had some of biggest influence on making me want to try my own hand at writing. His prose style always just seemed so effortless - he made it look so darn easy.

Except, of course, that it isn't.

Case in point - The Economist's obituary for Leonard, written in an imitation of Leonard's own style: http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21584311-elmore-leonard-crime-fiction-writer-died-august-20th-aged-87-elmore-leonard. And it's not half bad. They got it pretty close to right.

Except, that little crack of daylight between "close to right" and "right" turns out to be momentous, because the style here feels slightly forced in exactly the way that Leonard's work never did. His best writing just felt so natural and organic; you were left with the sense that he wasn't making up the story so much as he was a fly on the wall watching his characters at work, taking dictation, and just conveying the notes to the reader.

Anyway, if anyone ever wants to jaw on and on about Elmore Leonard, y'all know where to find me!

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PostPosted: Sat May 03, 2014 7:35 pm 
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To be completely honest, I have never heard of Elmore Leonard outside of those two articles I just linked. Also to be completely honest, I don't think I would like his writing style, though I mostly base that on the knowledge that virtually all the stories I have loved have broken his rules. I do, however, still think that the article is useful (as was the original article/blog post that linked me to it in the first place).

In completely unrelated news and coming from meatspace: Ugh, I have reached my bull____ quota for the day.


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PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 10:54 pm 
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I'm going to go mildly off-topic here for a moment. But the impulse to preserve media has been discussed by multiple people here, and I'm having my own little crisis of conscience along those lines at the moment, about which I need to unburden myself.

Which, of course, means it's time for another episode of America's least-favorite game show: Orcish Reminisces. Feel free to surf channels if that isn't your thing. Something good is probably on FX.

Storytime with Old Man Orcish

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PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 11:25 pm 
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@Orcish: I'm not sure if there's anything I can say to help you with that, but it sounds like there might be a story there. But I do know what it's like to have something that means a great deal to you that doesn't seem to mean much to anyone else. For most of us, the things we create will never mean as much to anyone else. I've basically come to the belief that if they mean something to you, that's enough.

But I will say this, and trust me, it's no judgment, because I don't think there's anything wrong with you taking 60 posters from a project that means a great deal to you. However, my parents are borderline hoarders, and I've come to believe it's mentally dangerous to confuse objects and the meanings behind them. My parents do that. My dad still has my grandpa's toolbox. It's rusted horribly, barely opens, weighs a ton, and takes up space. When I asked him about it, he told me a story about how he used to work on his first car with my grandpa. That story, that memory, has meaning. The toolbox doesn't.

Basically, I guess I'm just saying that when I think about what I want to have, I always ask myself one question: Do I want this because keeping it will make me happy, or because not keeping it will make me sad? It's not always an easy distinction to make.


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 12:39 am 
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Yeah, I'm going to side with Raven on this one. For one, I can't see anything wrong with taking something of meaning and keeping it from being thrown away, but you've also got to know what your personal possession limits are. In this case, you have your personal poster already and they're just taking up valuable space you could be using yourself. Unless you know relatives who would like it, I would suggest offering them at a gaming convention or something, where you are more likely to find people who will appreciate them.




Anyway, in my own personal news, I gave a group presentation yesterday in class.

For a little context:
We were split into a couple of predefined groups, 4-5 members each, two weeks previous. Each group was given a particular topic that we had covered this semester to put together some form of presentation on. An example was shown from last years' groups that put together some illustrated poster boards and all. I was in a team of four, and we ended up doing a mostly video presentation. We recorded our voices for portions of it but also paused the video to explain more in-depth at parts.

Now, most of the legwork was actually done by one of my team-members, using powtoon.com (a free web-based flash video-making site), but due to circumstances, I had to do some final editing the day before it was due, like adding background music for the entire thing. Not a hard task for a five-minute video, but I was initially at a loss for what to do. Then it came to me.

Now, my equalization was horrible, but a Nightmare Night piano cover and also a short portion of a full orchestral rendition of Winter Wrap-Up played during the video, and I don't think anyone was the wiser. It was kind of a yay/aww moment for me. Yay that I was able to get away with it, aww that no-one recognized it and I could have something to talk about.

At least the presentation itself went over really well.




Oh, I suppose I should warn people that those links are to ponyfan music. A solo piano cover and a fully orchestral piece, but just in case anyone wants to avoid it.




Derived from that, having to edit a video for the first time, after getting all the programs I needed, I found was really fun, if time-consuming. I think I might just enjoy editing/proofreading in general. Being able to put finishing touches on things. I guess that's why I ended up in charge of the Archives.


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 12:47 am 
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@Luna: Anytime you feel like doing a video for one of my poems, just let me know! Those things are murder. But I've got audio recordings for most of them now... ;)


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 12:54 am 
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@Luna: Anytime you feel like doing a video for one of my poems, just let me know! Those things are murder. But I've got audio recordings for most of them now... ;)

I haven't got the time at the moent, but that might be an excellent idea to start getting into simple editing. I've got Audacity for audio and Windows Movie Maker for video, so I should have some useable tools once I start using them.

This week is crunch time before finals, though, and a friend is visiting during his off week, and at this moment I'm fighting sleep to post a few things that I thought it wasn't too late to say when I started a half an hour ago.


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 1:31 am 
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Oh, yeah, not a problem. I was mostly joking, but if you're ever interested, I'd be game. They would be exceedingly low priority, though. You know, something to do if you're bored or need a somewhat creative outlet. After all, that's the bulk of the reason I write them in the first place!


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PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:25 am 
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@ Raven & Luna - Thanks. You guys are, unsurprisingly, on target.

Basically, I guess I'm just saying that when I think about what I want to have, I always ask myself one question: Do I want this because keeping it will make me happy, or because not keeping it will make me sad? It's not always an easy distinction to make.


That seems like a useful mental exercise.

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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2014 12:38 pm 
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I just thought I'd mention something noticeable in the Archives: Two Bullets remains our most-read story with 644 views, with the next closest being Day in the Life of Obstinate Baloth with 496 views, which I also specifically advertised on the AF&S forum as "The greatest story the M:EM has produced" or something like that.


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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2014 9:32 am 
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Given how good those two pieces are, can't say I'm surprised.

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PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2014 1:43 pm 
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Given how good those two pieces are, can't say I'm surprised.

Agreed.


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