Random Questions Thread

To the contrary — one of my relatives in England, a teacher, actually runs an after-school Magic The Gathering club. Then again, he's out in a quaint village. Maybe they just don't give a fuck out there.

edited 5th Feb '13 4:16:53 PM by KillerClowns

What's a good language for magic?

edited 5th Feb '13 4:23:37 PM by UmLovely

...Aklo? :P

@Loni: I went to a private school too, but we never had anything like that.

You have a respected, if not particularly noteworthy or famous, archaeologist. How many peer-reviewed journals could he be expected to be published in during a period of ten years or so?

Would "We are the relics of the bygone era." be good Arc Words (or whatever you call it) for a story that deals with individuals trying to adjust to the rapidly changing world?

edited 5th Feb '13 8:49:09 PM by dRoy

How many peer-reviewed journals for archaeologists are there? Not trying to be flippant, but that makes a big difference; the number of articles published in x amount of time and the number of different journals published in are highly field-dependent. I would recommend finding several real-life archaeologists in your character's area of study and looking at their publishing history.

Sounds fine to me.

Anyone here familiar with rural Southwest Alaska? I need a beta reader to check the cultural accuracy of something I'm doing.

edited 6th Feb '13 8:26:19 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

I need some Chinese and Japanese newspapers with an English webpage.

For China, here are the websites for People's Daily and Chinadaily.

And for Japan, there's the Yomiyuri and Nikkei, two of the five big newspapers of Japan.

Thanks.

Can someone please help me out? I'm afraid I'm writing something with more holes than Swiss cheese...

I could try, although it's nearly three in the morning, and my brain is full of fuck.

I can't vouch on the differences between different parts of Alaska, but Jean Craighead George's Julie of the Wolves trilogy, especially the second book Julie, goes into some detail. That's with more Eskimo-populated places, though.

@Game Spazzer: I could send it to you later.

@Sabre's Edge: My protagonist is half-Eskimo and Aleut, but she's half-Yup'ik rather than Inupiaq like Julie.

Speaking of that, is there a specific name for a storm like a nor'easter when it's not happening in the Northern US? I thought of nor'wester, but that refers to something else. Or can ''nor'easter" be a generic term?

edited 7th Feb '13 2:33:39 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Nor'easter is a specific type of storm that only happens in the Eastern US. A quick gander at Wikipedia suggests the term "extratropical cyclone" for storms with some similarities to nor'easters but which are not specific to a given geographic region.

edited 7th Feb '13 8:00:46 AM by Nocturna

Character is from a Squishy Wizard Witch Species. Because her parents and then her foster parents died to protect her, she's a bit of a Broken Bird some hang ups about being protected.

I don't know how nor why she would join her kingdom's forces to protect people. She would probably have to use her magic for it, but...

Any thoughts?

What about "nor'wester"?

4 people who loved her very much died to protect her. She feels she has to give that back.

If you want to make up that term and use it, go for it. I'd recommend checking that such storms can actually have wind from the northwest in the region you're thinking of, though. (Nor'easters are called that because the wind blows from the northeast.)

For something else... What would lead a Visionary Villain to try to create an organization with the sole purpose of being an opposition to the rest of the world, so people wouldn't fight against each other?

@Noctuna: I've seen the term "northwester" before.

EDITED: I actually discovered that a similar storm in Alaska is a "burga."

edited 7th Feb '13 9:58:43 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

When you developing a character in a story, do you have to go one rigid path or can the character develop in any number of ways? Lets you have a character who is particularity arrogant yet you don't want him broken in any way, what can you do to still keep him arrogant yet developed?

Have him actually gain the skills to bear out his arrogance; conversely, over a longer period of time, decrease his vocal arrogance. That way, an observant reader would notice that the character in question is learning to talk the talk in proportion to his ability to walk the walk, without having to do anything like admitting he was in the wrong. Character development by omission, essentially.