Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Misfit Angel]

A wooden pencil was a vital tool to have when working with cassette tapes. People usually had them taped to the back of their boomboxes.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I didn't think that naming popular YouTubers would count. Oh well.

How do audiocasettes work?

I didn't realize it was a YouTuber, my apologies. You're right, it doesn't count, as long as things don't get out of hand!

I forgot about the existence of audiocasettes... Man, I loved my cassette player. ;o;

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I meant, how is the audio stored?

 

[Beth Pavell]

Judging by how easily the damn things failed, I'd say a combination of hope and witchcraft

 

[TRNatalie]

that Over Two Rainbows put more effort into being original than Da Boom Crew, because one shot in the latter looked like a shot in Samurai Jack. ???

I have the same problem with the Lion King/ Kimba thing. Can't it just be that two completely unrelated groups of people wanted to make something about lions? I've watched them both and the biggest thing they have in common is that they're both about lions and the main character's father dies.

VHS tapes

The struggle of your VCR player breaking, you're unable to find a new one because no one makes them anymore, and half your movies are VHS tapes.

Man, I loved my cassette player.

Me too. We had Disney ones that my dad played in the car all the time when I was younger. Those are some of my earliest memories.

Judging by how easily the damn things failed, I'd say a combination of hope and witchcraft

Really. Mine lasted until my middle school years.

I meant, how is the audio stored?

Does this help at all?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@TRNatalie So it's vaguely similar to those music boxes with little bumps that make a sound when something goes over them?

 

[canisaries]

i got curious and got my dad (a professor in electronics and an overall curious-about-how-stuff works guy) to explain it to me. a summary: the tape has little magnetic bits in it. since electric currents cause magnetic fields, a changing current is used to align the magnetic bits in certain ways (since magnets want to align in a magnetic field, imagine a compass needle in the earth's magnetic field). this is the recording process. to read the data stored (aka, play the cassette), the tape is moved like before, but this time there's no original current in the conductor. now the bits moving in the tape are the ones giving off the magnetic field. and just like currents induce magnetic fields, they're also induced by (changing) magnetic fields. so now a changing current is induced in the conductor, and it is in turn monitored and changed into sound/video.

cassette tapes and VHS tapes work on the same principle, but the "reader" component is differently shaped and placed, making the VHS able to store more data but the cassette tape able to be flipped over.

oh hey, look at that. i guess i'm not so awful in physics after all. i may become an actual good IT major eventually.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think this qualifies as one of the more bizarre reviews I've ever read:

Spoiler: Actually quite long

If you can see what's happening in the world today, since it's all over and the problems are only getting worse, just know that these are the end times; the days Jesus warned about. He gave us signs to look for which can be found in Matthew 24 in the bible and told us to watch. To not let these times come upon you unaware.

Understand that the rapture is at hand and can happen any moment. The day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night and you do not want to be left behind.

When I reach out to people I encourage them to come out of this world and to seek the father in heaven while he may be found since 1 John 2:17 tells us in the word of god aka the bible:

"The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever."

A lot of popular anime, games, movies, books and etc is of the devil. You don't want to be indulging in something that has no place in the kingdom of God since it will only hinder your walk with Christ. 1 John 2:15-17 and James 4:4 is important to remember since you can't be holding hands with the world and Jesus.

Realize that fiction by definition is "invention or fabrication as opposed to fact" along with other definitions out there... and you want to be careful. I use to be a fanfic writer myself but I gave up a lot of things because a lot of it was related or connected to the world.

There is nothing wrong with writing... but when you're writing about worldly things or fabricating stuff, you're putting yourself in danger since we're to walk in truth. Liars won't inherit the kingdom of God so you want to make sure you're speaking truth at all times.

Jesus told us at John 14:23-24 that if you love him then you'd obey his teaching. He also says at John 14:15 that if you love him then to keep his commandments.

I'd get away from fan fiction altogether and focus on your relationship with Jesus Christ since it's important but that's a decision you will have to make.

Just know that all the issues going on in the world has already been foretold in the bible.

If you are awake and aware to everything going on, then please: seek the father in heaven, repent of your sins, let go of this world and follow Jesus as mentioned at Matthew 10:37-38; everything we need to know is in the word of god so please read the bible for yourself. You don't want to be deceived since a lot of churches out there aren't doing what they should be doing.

Know that there isn't much time left but don't adopt the spirit of fear since greater is he that is in you than what is in the world. You need faith since without it, it's impossible to please the father in heaven so never let the devil steal that or your peace. Just draw close to the father in heaven and he will draw close to you.

Jehovah is the god of Abraham, Issac and Jacob but nobody comes to the father but through the son Jesus Christ so you want to accept and follow him since it's by his blood we're redeemed back to the father in heaven.

Take care and keep your eyes on Jesus. You want to be ready. Unless you're born of water and the Spirit, you won't enter the Kingdom of God.

I don't have my Bible to hand, otherwise I'd delight in picking apart the theology in this

 

[canisaries]

but what if you write fanfiction of the bible

Spoiler: :hyperthink:

(yes i know the bible specifically forbids adding stuff to it, just go along with the joke ok)

anyway, realized something recently: i have little to no clue how to describe buildings. i have no idea what to call things (and VERY little interest in going in architecture 101 for all that fancy terminology) and how to make the reader visualize the building in the intended way. this is actually being a kind of roadblock to me in my story now, since i want to make a specific location memorable and i have a real world building in mind i want to base it on because it really had an effect on me.

also in unrelated news: poked around a dead animal with a stick today, was cool and definitely didn't make me seem like a weirdo

 

[Nitro Indigo]

There's actually a Bible section of Fanfiction.net. I've never looked in it, though.

I'm currently reading a laughably bad Cars fanfiction (which I'm not going to specify because I don't want people to harass the author or anything) purely to see if my favourite character shows up. Everyone is even more eerily gleeful than in Cars 2, not to mention out-of-character, the word "evil" is used in a way that sounds childish, there's a joke about wetting yourself, and cars can apparently climb trees.

 

[Anime Psyclone]

Wow, that’s funny

So I'm thinking of writing short, one chapter long stories. The first is about Missingno. What do you think of this plan?

 

[Gengarzilla]

You mean one-shots? I say go for it. I like the first of these stories you've put here.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I gave up on the bad Cars fanfiction when it mentioned Siddeley going into Radiator Springs. For the uninitiated, Siddeley is too big to be in Smash Bros. Earlier on in the same chapter, I spend about ten minutes laughing to myself over the words "gassed up and ready to go."

In other news, I've made a start on the PMD video, by which I mean putting all of the necessary files I have into PowerDirector. I still need to find someone who's uploaded footage of Rescue Team without any designs in the borders and responds to YouTube comments.

 

[zoroarctic]

@Beth Pavell where'd you see that? That's incredible.

but what if you write fanfiction of the bible

Spoiler: :hyperthink:

(yes i know the bible specifically forbids adding stuff to it, just go along with the joke ok)

If you do it right, Hollywood can turn it into an Academy Award winning film starring Charlton Heston that gets preserved in the Library of Congress.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Yay! My first notification on this site for 29 hours!

Did you mean to link to the Wikipedia article of the book, though?

I thought you were talking about The Passion of Christ at first, for some reason.

 

[zoroarctic]

Maybe it would have been better to link to the movie. Oh well.

The Passion did get a few nominations, but I don't think it won anything. Plus, I don't feel it fits the definition of fanfiction as much as Ben-Hur does. I was originally going to link to the Ten Commandments, but didn't for the same reason

On a semi-related note, I met Jim Caviezel once when he spoke at my school a couple of years after The Passion's release. He was a nice guy, if a little intense.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I once saw this CGI movie called The Ten Commandments in an RE lesson, not to be confused with the live-action one. I've also seen this weird stop-motion short film about the origin of Sikhism, and part of a 2D movie about Islam.

 

[Beth Pavell]

where'd you see that? That's incredible.

Somewhere on fanfiction.net, I forget where. What's most bizarre about this is how half-hearted the preaching is. The review has basically nothing to do with the story - it's not like this guy has spotted M/M in the summary and decided to denounce the normalisation of sinful sex. You'd assume, therefore, that they've been spamming every story on the same page with a generic sermon, but nope, so far as I can tell it's just the one.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Can we make the preachy fanfiction review a new meme?

Also, recently, I've been thinking about things trying to hard to be British, by which they mean London, if that makes any sense? Like, at M&M's World London, there's an anthropomorphic M&M, in a beefeater costume, holding the Union Jack, in a front window, and there's also a London bus. That's how Cars 2 feels.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Unfortunately that's par for the course when it comes to British culture in international media (As you probably know, now I think about it, because something tells me you're a fellow Brit). You can partly blame this on British media. In British media land, the UK is about 70% London, with the rest of the country represented by the green and pleasant Home Counties (Dotted with cute American-friendly Edwardian country houses), a smudge of post-industrial Oop North, and the occasional admission that Scotland exists. Wales is a weird aberration and the Midlands doesn't exist