Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[AceTrainer14]

Just when I thought we had everything sorted, it turns out we need another new judge. If someone is familiar with the stories in the Journey category, please can you message me so we can fill that gap.

Completely non-writing related, but I was truly sad to hear about Anton Yelchin this morning. Anyone ever seen the movie Like Crazy? A really nice movie that he was amazing in. It's a pity he didn't become as famouas as he could've been.

 

[Kelleo]

I do personally think we should stop things here. If we keep going, I think we will just end up going around circles and that will end up cluttering up the thread. The excuse that you can't write reviews isn't actually an excuse as leaving small bits of feedback is actually one of the simplest things someone can do - if you clicked on the link in my last post, you would see that.

And you have done a lot of 'shittalking' in the past, Kelleo. Basically every time you don't move on or someone wins instead of you you complain, and you are the only person that does that. If you aren't willing to read and review people's work, there is not a lot else you can do to try and get more of an audience, but constantly complaining is not the way to get anyone to read your work.

If you want to continue this conversation with me in private messages you are welcome to, but I am not having any more posts in this thread taken up with us going around in circles and repeating ourselves constantly.

Fair enough. But I won't continue this period, because I feel like we wouldn't get anywhere. I have no idea what you're talking about on a number of things in this post, and it won't be worth it in the end to figure it out because I know we just won't agree.

So yeah, fair enough.

And with this, I also decide to take my leave of this place again. Apparently I "complain" too much and such, and that's something that nobody wants. I'm sorry things came out that way even though it was never my intention. So yeah, good bye, everyone. I'm sorry that you all will never see any of my unfinished stories get finished here, or never see that Pokemon/My Little Pony crossover I had planned get posted here. I really wanted to see these things happen too, but I don't feel welcome here anymore. But best of luck to all you writers out there, and keep this place as nice as it's been!

 

[AceTrainer14]

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope we see you back here soon.

Reminder to everyone to cast votes for the three User Voted categories. You do still have three weeks but it would be nice to get the ball rolling now!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Just when I want to make some new arrows I find I'm out of blasted glue and half the workspace is taken up with Dad's old broken ones. This is why I hate sports.

Actually, no it's not, but it's my impotent complaint for today and I'm sticking with it

 

[Lugion]

My impotent complaint for the day is that I have no idea when my Gunpla models will be arriving in the mail.

 

[Kelleo]

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope we see you back here soon.

Admittedly it's possible I'll return at some point given my track record for leaving forums or sections of forums (meaning, there are very few instances where I've actually left permanently), but I highly doubt it'll be any time soon, sorry to say.

Note though, I may still post in here on occasion (and I don't mean this loosely) or come in to read stories. I just won't be posting my work here anymore for the time being.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Just when I want to make some new arrows I find I'm out of blasted glue and half the workspace is taken up with Dad's old broken ones. This is why I hate sports.

Actually, no it's not, but it's my impotent complaint for today and I'm sticking with it

Oh, yeah, off-topic somewhat completely, but this reminds me. So, Beth, I've seen you talk about archery and about various historical stuff before - could I be annoying and ask for a small favour? So, I was wondering, how much do you know about medieval arrows and arrow heads? I've recently been trying to do some research on them for a pet project of mine, only I've so far been unable to come up with much decent information. Just wondering, if you don't mind that is, if you could share a bit of knowledge and help out at all?

 

[Beth Pavell]

I do know some things about medieval archery, in Europe, at least. First things first, medieval war arrows were a lot thicker than sporting arrows today. They were often thicker towards the point than the end of the shaft. The reason for this was so the arrow wouldn't splinter from a) the forces exerted on it by a powerful war bow, and b) to aid penetration (With modern sporting arrows, the tip tends to snap off and leave most of the arrow intact if it hits something hard, like a stone)

There were a variety of types of arrow head used at different periods, for different purposes. Long, tapered, needle-like heads were used for piercing mail. Short, chisel-like heads were an attempt to deal with types of plate armour. Big, triangular, barbed "horse droppers" have been found, used for a fairly obvious purpose. In Europe, especially in England, a hybrid all-purpose arrow emerged, with a shortish, barbed point.

There are a lot of archery myths floating around, and certainly I'm sceptical about some of the claims made by the myth-busters. It's worth remembering that most medieval chroniclers focused on what the posh boys were doing - the knights and other men-at-arms. It's also worth remembering that most modern tests done on archery, and its effects on men and armour, don't take into account the proper wearing and use of armour, the right type of bows, or the right type of arrows. British documentaries tend to be slightly better than most, and I would go so far as to say to simply ignore anything an American documentary has to say on the subject

 

[CrystaI]

My impotent complaint for the day is that I have no idea when my Gunpla models will be arriving in the mail.

Mind may I just ask what did you ordered? I'm kinda curious to know.

 

[Lugion]

Mind may I just ask what did you ordered? I'm kinda curious to know.

I purchased the 1/144 High-Grade Shining Gundam and 1/144 High-Grade God Gundam models. I'm currently watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam on Blu-ray, but Mobile Fighter G Gundam is the one I remember watching as a child, so when I saw how inexpensive those two models were, I pounced.

 

[CrystaI]

@Lugion
I see. Quite an old-fashioned choice. But I do understand that the older the Gunpla, the cheaper it gets.
My brother is currently so crazy at the latest Unicorn Gundam series, he brought 3 different versions of Unicorn-1, Full Armor MG, PG, and Ver.Ka. Including Unicorn-2 Banshee MG, it is actually four of it. And more crazily, he brought it just within 2 months since newly first sales date, hence basically the first original price before depreciation due to time.
Also just mind to mentioned, in the past he had a full series of HG Gunpla models from Zeta up to Wing series, his room was previously a Gunpla museum.

Talk about the person that knows how to waste money for the sake of love of his hobby.
Though luckily, he is wasting his own money, so I darn to care.

 

[Lugion]

I see. Quite an old-fashioned choice. But I do understand that the older the Gunpla, the cheaper it gets.
My brother is currently so crazy at the latest Unicorn Gundam series, he brought 3 different versions of Unicorn-1, Full Armor MG, PG, and Ver.Ka. Including Unicorn-2 Banshee MG, it is actually four of it. And more crazily, he brought it just within 2 months since newly first sales date, hence basically the first original price before depreciation due to time.
Also just mind to mentioned, in the past he had a full series of HG Gunpla models from Zeta up to Wing series, his room was previously a Gunpla museum.

Talk about the person that knows how to waste money for the sake of love of his hobby.
Though luckily, he is wasting his own money, so I darn to care.

Wow. I've never been a very big Gundam fan, but I attended a panel hosted by the Texas Gundam Club at A-Kon in Dallas a few weeks ago, and so I figured I'd give it a try with one of the (relatively) cheaper, more readily-available models. I purchased the HG Unicorn Gundam Destroy Mode from a nearby hobby shop, and found that putting it together was very relaxing.

I don't plan to make it an obsession though! I already have plenty of SH MonsterArts figures I've collected over the past few years and a ton of Transformers figures that I've collected over an even longer span of time. I just don't have the room or the funds for multiple obsessions like that.

 

[AceTrainer14]

Question for FF.net people, but does anyone here ever get suspicious of the attack around their stories? For the past few days every time a new day ticks over on the site I seem to get a weird rush of people reading 8ES but it always seems to be the first half of the story and never beyond. Like 50 hits from one or two people in an hour that always reach a point and stop. Since people can't really be reading that quickly I just always find it very unsettling. Or am I being a bit paranoid?

 

[Misfit Angel]

Might be search engine bots? Though I imagine ff.net would probably prevent them from scanning individual chapters.

 

[CrystaI]

@Lugion
You may not be Gundam fans, but I'm sure you are one figure arts and figure model fans.
My brother is obsess with figure models, not just Gundam. Though, Gundam his topmost favourite, as that is the biggest franchise when it comes to figure models.
When it comes to figure models, his second favourite is Zoid series, then third comes any other mecha anime he is interested.
BTW, it is really funny when the Liger Zero is put in the pose like a cat using its feet scratching its head

 

[AceTrainer14]

Might be search engine bots? Though I imagine ff.net would probably prevent them from scanning individual chapters.

I'm not sure, it all just feels weird. It only seems to happen after I post a new chapter and stops after a little while, and it's only happened qutie recently. I had two chapters I posted the other month/s that both got a weirdly insane amount of views from India, way more than any other new chapter has gotten for about two years, and I have just been very suspicious since then.

 

[Beth Pavell]

ff.net does throw up some oddities. For some reason The Long Walk seems to be popular in Singapore, I can't imagine why. The view count always struck me as too vague to be more useful than as a general guide to how much attention a story gets

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

I do know some things about medieval archery, in Europe, at least. First things first, medieval war arrows were a lot thicker than sporting arrows today. They were often thicker towards the point than the end of the shaft. The reason for this was so the arrow wouldn't splinter from a) the forces exerted on it by a powerful war bow, and b) to aid penetration (With modern sporting arrows, the tip tends to snap off and leave most of the arrow intact if it hits something hard, like a stone)

There were a variety of types of arrow head used at different periods, for different purposes. Long, tapered, needle-like heads were used for piercing mail. Short, chisel-like heads were an attempt to deal with types of plate armour. Big, triangular, barbed "horse droppers" have been found, used for a fairly obvious purpose. In Europe, especially in England, a hybrid all-purpose arrow emerged, with a shortish, barbed point.

There are a lot of archery myths floating around, and certainly I'm sceptical about some of the claims made by the myth-busters. It's worth remembering that most medieval chroniclers focused on what the posh boys were doing - the knights and other men-at-arms. It's also worth remembering that most modern tests done on archery, and its effects on men and armour, don't take into account the proper wearing and use of armour, the right type of bows, or the right type of arrows. British documentaries tend to be slightly better than most, and I would go so far as to say to simply ignore anything an American documentary has to say on the subject

Ah, thank you, this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. So, this may sound an odd question, but do you know any recognised names that're used for the chisel-like arrowheads or the all-purpose ones? Preferably historical, but from what I gather, people in the middle ages didn't have the same obsession with naming things we do today, so if there's a modern term widely recognised by historians, that'd be great too. Sorry if I'm being a bother, I'm getting quite into this topic now.

 

[Hector]

Regarding traffic from India, I work for a firm that handles web scraping requests (among other things for financial clients) and due to the obvious reasons (cost, regulation etc), a lot of the scraping is done from countries like India and Singapore (we hire a consulting firm that is outside the US to handle our scrapes for us).

What you would consider weird traffic patterns from India or Singapore... I'd say with near 100% certainty that it's due to web scraping being done. Don't know why anyone would feel the need to scrape individual chapters on ff.net, but that would be what it is.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I was going to jokingly suggest something akin to WoW's Chinese gold farmer market, but I figured it was a silly idea for fanfiction. Maybe not?