Random Questions Thread

I hope you guys don't mind if I post a visual for a question.

I tried too draw a "pretty guy" for a drawing, for a fanfic character here. It's related to writing as it's a character of a player I am rping with. But I am wondering if I actually succeeded as I notoriously lack a female perception.

Don't worry I am not asking for an art critique or even if the drawing is good (as that would be off topic).

I mean beauty as in "general beauty standard" and not as in "personal preference". Thank you for your help!

edited 4th Mar '15 9:28:27 AM by RPGLegend

Forgiveness is beyond justice, faith is superior than hope, redemption is better than perfection and love is greater than them all.

Say I planned on writing an Alternate Universe story in which a non-OC Hard-Drinking Party Girl character (henceforth called "Alice" for convenience's sake) who is canonically attractive both in-universe and out-of-universe^note Think Misato Katsuragi or Masane Amaha. ends up with an explicitly more attractive appearance by the time the story starts at the first station of the canon, due to having been convinced to adopt a considerably healthier diet and lifestyle many years ago. Does this count as Self-Fanservice, or is it Adaptational Attractiveness? Or some other trope?

What if the increased attractiveness is actually noted in-universe, say by some character — or even Alice herself — wondering what Alice would've ended up like if she had not adopted the aforementioned healthiness-promoting lifestyle? Or by a time-travelling Peggy Sue who compares this Alice to his/her home timeline's Alice?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I'd say it's probably just Justified Self-Fanservice, via For Want Of A Nail.

If a character comments on it, especially the way you're describing (i.e., not just "You're so hot," but "You're so hot, way hotter than you'd be if you hadn't decided to turn your life around ten years ago and start eating healthy and exercising," then it's Lampshaded. Probably also has shades of As You Know, if you do it as explicitly as I just did.

Edited because it's not actually Adaptational Attractiveness unless the character is not attractive in the source work.

...Also, how is she "canonically" attractive out of universe? Real Life doesn't have a canon...

edited 6th Mar '15 9:21:47 AM by SolipSchism

It's not fanservice (or not just fanservice) if it's a plot point.

edited 6th Mar '15 11:00:39 AM by DeMarquis

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Re: Self-Fanservice, Read That Again.

Ah, sorry. I guess I was thinking "obviously designed to be fanservicey" when I wrote my previous post.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I just did. And my point stands.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Two questions for anyone knowledgeable about updating historical homes: Is it possible to have enough plumbing for a shower/toilet, but not for a full water system—at least for the time being? I have someone selling his grandparents' drystone cottage, but it doesn't have any buyers due to the location (outskirts of town right by the walls, so The Fair Folk are a very legitimate hazard) and how the owner's been having a tricky time updating to a full water system due to the house's structure. The cottage currently has a working bathroom, electricity, and backup magic in case of power outages, with drinking/cooking/garden water provided by a well and cistern. If it matters, the house walls are about 8-12 inches thick.

Also, what are the basic maintenance needs for a well (and a cistern)? I know that well-water is often mineral-heavy, so softening the water might be needed, and you need to clean both wells and cisterns every few months. How would daily tasks like cooking, dish-washing, and non-shower hand/face washing be handled? The buyer doesn't have to wash her clothes with well-water since there's a laundromat a short drive off, and she's going to live by herself and her dog, so it's not like she'd need gallons of water every day, but I still really want to avoid the romantic-country-life idea.

I know a bit of rural living since my mother's family lives in the Philippines. Spotty electricity due to lots of minor earthquakes, and a bathroom that had a bath and toilet but no shower. Traditional baths? Not for me, which is why I'm doing a working bathroom but no tap water (at least at the time of buying).

edited 7th Mar '15 10:44:50 PM by Sharysa

If the house was built with only water going to the room with the shower, then it would be very difficult to install it in the rest of the house (unless the architects thought ahead and made sure there'd be space to install more pipes at a later date). Especially if the water is being pumped up from a well and the pump isn't strong enough to pump it to the whole house.

Plumbers can charge a fortune for simple repairs, after all.

edited 8th Mar '15 6:21:23 AM by Bisected8

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Uh... It wouldn't have been built with piping in mind at all. The cottage itself was built about 80 years back out of drystone, with an additional lean-to being 40-50 years old. It also still has a wood stove (and the heating's been modernized through magic, not technology). The bathroom was a very "new" addition—built about ten years ago. Also it's on the water grid, so no worries about water pressure.

The way I've been thinking, completely modernizing the cottage for plumbing/electricity has been taking a while because they have to figure out how to work around 8-10 inches of solid drystone walls.

Still, thanks for the note that plumbing has a lot of price-gouging! That would definitely be a factor in modernizing the place.

edited 8th Mar '15 11:52:17 AM by Sharysa

In which cup size range would 73cm, 77cm, and 85cm respectively fall into?

edited 12th Mar '15 8:17:12 AM by HallowHawk

Are you talking about lingerie? That would depend entirely on both the model's bust and chest measurements, rather than a single measurement or her vital statistics.

For the record, the formula is one cup size for every inch her bust measurement is compared to her band size.

edited 12th Mar '15 8:01:51 AM by Bisected8

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Not lingerie sizes. I was referring to breast sizes, as in, is 73cm considered an A cup?

edited 12th Mar '15 8:25:34 AM by HallowHawk

Which is the same thing, in the absence of any other standards for breast size measurement. Also note that cup sizes are not linear across women with significant differences of height between them; a C cup on a considerably tall woman may very well be actually bigger in proportion to her body than a D or even E on a more average-sized woman.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

... why is it relevant to know exactly how big a character's breasts are?

Be not afraid...

Information purposes, like Character X's breast size is "_cm/_ cup."

Hallow, here's why your question can't be answered: one measurement alone is not enough to determine cup size. Bras, and by extension, lingerie that uses cup , use the ratio of two measurements to determine cup size. The first is the chest or "band" measurement: this is taken around the rib cage, directly under the breasts. It's the circumference of the woman's torso. The second is the bust: this is taken around the fullest line of the breasts. It will be some number of inches larger than the band measurement.

Cup size is how much larger the bust measurement is than the band measurement, at a rate of 1 cup size per inch difference. Alice's band size is 35,and her bust is 36 = Alice wears an A cup. Carol's band size is 54, and her bust is 55? Carol also wears an A cup. Deidre's band size is 35, and her bust is 40? She takes a DD or E (it varies by manufacturer) cup. Erica's band size is 54, bust is 59? Same thing, Erica still takes a DD or E. Even though Erica's bust measurement is 19 inches bigger than Diedre's, they have the same cup size.

So, "what size cup does she wear if she's 79 cm" is undeterminable.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Right, so it's been a while since the update, so I think I should be worried now: I still can't login to my previous handle, and when I try to reset my password, it tells me that my current email account isn't linked to it (which it was before the update). Can anyone help with this?

edited 14th Mar '15 12:49:12 AM by FatBastard

You should take that to this forum.

Thanks.

Hello there, guys. A couple of questions. I'm writing a story about an immortal man. Now, I want to know if it's too ridiculous to have him survive being in the ground zero of a nuclear explosion. I know I said my character was immortal, but how can you heal yourself from nothing? My character doesn't age, can regenerate and nothing can kill him, but he is not invulnerable per se (a plot point).

Also, my story revolves around the fact my character has revealed himself to the world during the first years of the 20th Century, so I was just thinking how would people react to the fact that there is a almost 300 year old guy living among them? Would they fear him? Or would they just try to learn from him?

Thanks.

edited 14th Mar '15 1:31:21 PM by zsax

Surviving a nuclear explosion is not particularly plausible - maybe he has his soul and a germ cell that can regenerate him tucked away in a pocket dimension?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

You make the rules. If you say that he survives a nuclear explosion, he does. If you say he doesn't, he doesn't. Either one seems perfectly plausible to me, and you can find examples of both in fiction.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Whoever said that being at ground zero of a nuclear explosion somehow dooms your body to complete physical annihilation? Sure, it's a vastly upscaled version of more conventional explosive detonations, but it's still nothing more than a rapid release of heat energy and displacement of air. It's not like huge amounts of antimatter are generated that annihilate all nearby matter into energy.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Really, it's down to consistency. Whatever magic keeps him from being vaporized, better keep working the same way throughout the story.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.