Random Questions Thread

Depends on what you mean by 'original'.

I mean in what are said song's lyrics?

Hey guys, does natural ochre/ocher occur in shades of blue as opposed to purple? I've been looking for wherever blue ochre occurs naturally, but most "blue ocher" is modern and most historical blue pigment is from ground-up precious stones or herbs.

It's a very minor detail, but it's just been bugging me because I have a crown called the Ochre Crown because it's made of strongly colored precious stones in (black obsidian, red sard, and blue lapis lazuli). I may need to replace the blue stone with purple if there's no naturally-occurring blue ochre.

@Hallow: Anything you write should be creative. If you are asking a question about copyright, well, that's complex.

I've heard of red, orange, yellow, and brown but never "blue ochre".

Figures. There's purple ochre, but apparently it's a form of red ochre that appears purple because... light reflects differently off it than with normal red. Something in how it's physically composed, I think.

Time to change the lapis lazuli to amethyst, then. Thanks!

I'm not sure that I follow: from what I've read and been told, natural ochre is essentially just a colour-rich clay or earth. It does come in purple, but that purple ochre is, according to Wikipedia, chemically identical to red ochre. I'm not at all sure of whether it would be feasible to make ochre from (presumably crushed) amethyst.

As to lapis lazuli not fitting, surely then obsidian doesn't fit, and amethyst fits no better?

Indeed, in your description of the crown, where does the ochre come in? Is dry ochre used as a binding agent for the gems, or as a paint around them?

[edit] It only much later occurred to me that the name might simply refer to the colours being used, rather than indicating the use of actual ochre. I do feel rather silly about that! ^^;

edited 31st May '15 3:13:11 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

How common were female miners throughout history? I understand that they were pretty uncommon, but were there any at all?

edited 31st May '15 4:55:08 PM by BiggerBen

What are some kinds of secret that a king would kill to preserve, other than ones involving legitimacy of the throne?

Anything that threatens national security in a major way? Sounds like a modern-day thing on the surface, but imagine a kingdom having one crippling flaw in its defense, it's generally kept under wraps, and somebody stumbles upon it.

Wording nit-pick: Please understand that "miners" still exist. Like, I live in a part of Minnesota with active iron mines. People still mine coal in West Virginia.
Can't really help you with your main question, though. Sorry.

edited 31st May '15 5:33:15 PM by AwSamWeston

@ De Marquis

Okay, here goes. The song I'm writing for my story is a new, in-universe, national anthem for Japan, and the line in question is like this:

I'm worried because the line sounded like a certain line from the "Horst-Wessel-Lied (Song):"

edited 31st May '15 5:40:28 PM by HallowHawk

I know, but I'm talking specifically about mines in the past. Specifically, the past few centuries.

I think you'd be safe under parody there. Plus if its just the one line (even if its repeated a couple of times in the song) they'd have make an argument about it being a significant infringement.

Lastly, is whoever owns the copyright to the Nazi national anthem going to take you to court to defend it?

Just be careful about singing it in Germany.

One line isnt enough to violate copyright on a song.

@Sam Weston - Ah, I see.

@Bigger Ben: According to Emile Zola's Germinal, which takes place in a coal mine in 19th century France, there were indeed female miners. It's been a while since I read the book so I don't quite remember what sort of work they did (apart from being lusted after by men). The book is a work of fiction but Zola apparently did a lot of research. That's all I have on the matter, dunno if it helps (since this is an European example).

Hello, Tropers. I have faith in you!. I’m about one-third of the way through writing a novel. I’ve finally written out a treatment of the whole story. I’m so sorry, but it turned out to be 5,200 words long. Is there a place to post the synopsis here at TV Tropes? Will someone volunteer as Tribute, please, and read it? I need feedback – even getting a response like, “Sounds like absolute crud”, is preferable to the total vacuum I’m working in now. After all, if I am writing absolute crud, don’t you think that’s an important thing to know? Please, I need your brain and your curiosity. If this request is not posted in the right place, kindly direct me to the Whining, Pleading and Shamelessly Begging page. Thank you.

I think you can fire up a new thread in the Writer's Block subforum (yes, this very one) for it.

We already have a number of threads for this sort of thing. "See If The Above Poster Hooked You" would be the place to start, and "Uncle Drunkie's Writer/Critic Dating Service" is another good one (though that one often takes a long time to get a response, months if not more).

Thanks! I've posted the first 1000 words at the 'See If the Above Poster Hooked You' thread. Fingers crossed...

How important is having your face visible for sign language?

What issues do you think are important to be tackled when considering the topic of therianthrope biology? I'm planning to open a thread for brainstorming and mulling around ideas on this topic, and would like to have at least a good set of starting issues to present in the first post. I'm not asking for detailed stuff; just general headings that I can mull around in my head, come up with a few ideas, then write a full post around them and subsequently put into the new thread. Also, bear in mind that we're probably not going to delve deep into the really technical stuff, and this preassumes that the supernatural is a real thing in the setting that is behind the human-to-animal/animal-to-human transformation aspect (though I'm going to borrow a concept from Shadowrun and justify the genetic heritability of such traits to "metaphysical genetics"^note Long story short: Souls have their own equivalent of the body's genome. Each physical gene is paired with one of those "soul-genes". The soul-genome is a major factor in such things as the presence of magical power (or lack thereof), the existence of metahuman races, and other not-purely-scientific stuff that abounds in the setting.).

What I came with so far:

• Evolution and Taxonomy.
• Genetics and the implications of reproductive compatibility with pure humans.

edited 7th Jun '15 4:22:36 PM by MarqFJA

Why dont you organize it like a Wikipedia article?

I'm again submitting a story to a magazine, but am tripping up a little at their submission form. Unlike most that I've submitted to, this particular magazine doesn't ask for an attachment, but rather for the story's text to be pasted into a form.

This leaves me a little uncertain regarding my formatting:

• First, should I leave in my contact information, word-count and story title at the top? Most of the information in question is given elsewhere in the submission form—but that's also true for attachment-based submissions.
• Second, should I convert my paragraph-indents to spaces in order to preserve the formatting? No doing so results in the paragraph-indentation disappearing, leaving new paragraphs to start at the left-edge of the page.

I don't see anything in the magazine's submission guidelines that addresses either point, unless I've missed something.

I'd say a quick email asking whoever's in charge of submissions should help with the formatting and submission questions. You might need to reformat on your own, but it makes more sense for them to do it for the accepted submissions for the sake of consistency.

edited 8th Jun '15 1:07:44 PM by Sharysa