Random Questions Thread

Muscles could provide the necessary force; they'd have to be pretty strong, but it's not unheard of. Or the fangs could be retracted for normal biting/chewing and only pushed out for the specific act of drinking blood. The corollary is that a vampire who extended their fangs while biting something harder, like bone, could suffer severe damage to their dentistry.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 20th 2018 at 11:40:18 AM

I think some venomous snakes have such retractable fangs. So it's certainly possible, why they would evolve in a vampire is not so clear though.

Some sort of "natural hydralic" system could work. Fluid in and out of a channel behind the fang.

Sidenote: Vampires are subject to natural selection? They have babies, and DNA?

Edited by DeMarquis on Oct 21st 2018 at 11:13:32 AM

I'd imagine that vampires would have DNA given that they are (somewhat) living creatures, but that raises a whole 'nother realm of questions about fantastical genetics and biology that I'm not educated well enough on to give any substantial contribution towards.

Whether or not vampires can reproduce naturally (i.e boinking bits) or only through their bite is something that writers have varied on throughout the years. If it's the former then they'd almost definitely be subject to natural selection and evolution.

Also in the latter case, since presumably the vampire will have some control on what their offspring look like. After all they have to create them somehow.

Attempts to scientifically explain vampires with things like gene-rewriting viruses can explain how a vampire can create another one, but the idea that the modified genes can propagate sexually is quite a bit farther out there.

I know you shouldn't obsess over tropes but what happens when you have a trope you don't like and do not want include in your story?

...you don't include it then? It's your story, you have the power.

You write a more complex story.

You go back in time and shoot the person who first wrote it.

I mean. You don't write it.

...Or you take it apart.

When it comes to having illustrations in a novel, making a comic book or an animated show, does the art style have to make sense with the tone of the story?

The stories I know whose art styles made sense were, in terms of Japanese works, Fist of the North Star, and in terms of Western works, Exo Squad and Harry Potter (depending on cover). Now, if you're to acquire the assistance of an artist, does his or her work have to make sense with the tone of the story?

Any part of any story should make as much sense as it is humanly possible. Art style is one of the main tools of artistic expression in any visual media, so it must be in line (or in dissonance) with the tone of the story.

It's not so much for the written media, but even there the cover art style is one of the main marketing tools.

Yes, the artwork and the story should match in tone and style. That said, exactly what "Match" means is entirely up to the creator. If you have read Scott Mc Cloud, you know that he recommends that minimalist text goes best with hyper-realistic art, and vice versa. That is, when the text carries the weight of describing most of the plot-relevent details, the art is freed to better reflect the mood or atmosphere the creator wants to achieve. And in reverse as well: when the art carries the weight of communicating most of the detail in the setting to the reader, the text is freed to focus on cool dialogue.

That's just one approach, there are others.

Say, would it make sense if members of a merfolk race were depicted as being significantly thicker-bodied than similarly sized humans, on account of them having a greater need for body fat to meet their needs for underwater thermoregulation?

Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 5th 2018 at 10:39:46 PM

A race of sentient underwater beings with humanoid constitution would need to find better ways of handling thermoregulation than just having a thick layer of body fat.

Because of their anatomical characteristics, the blubber would only be thick-layered on the torso (and maybe the head, too), because having fat limbs would limit their dexterity. If they have human-like palms the fat should be nonexistent entirely, otherwise you can forget about having fine motor skills. But doing so would greatly increase the heat output.

It also should be said that there's a reason why most marine animals have a body shape that is of the "approaching the sphere" variety than just being streamlined for mobility's sake. Less skin area and a bulkier build means less headache when dealing with thermoregulation.

If you're going that way with your merfolk, it would make more sense to make them semi-aquatic. Modeling them after frogs and hippopotamuses, for example.

The fully aquatic merfolk would look something like manatees with clawed fingers on their forelimbs, methinks (mermaids were modeled after manatees in the first place, after all). Not really fun.

Edited by Millership on Nov 6th 2018 at 1:30:23 AM

Unless they're shape changers.

Or have innate magic that does reduce — but not entirely eliminate — the requirements for thermoregulation (among other things, e.g. hydrodynamics).

When designing characters as representations of the Seven Deadly Sins, is it plausible to depict Gluttony and Greed in a manner similar to Lust, i.e. being applicable to immaterial versions of "overconsumption" / "possessiveness", respectively?

Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 9th 2018 at 9:21:21 PM

That isnt the original interpretation, but its a plausible alternative.

Yeah, I do find some of the seven sins' typical interpretations kind of unnecessarily limited. It's especially ironic considering that the sin classically known as Luxuria (i.e. Lust) was originally about extravagance rather than sexual pleasure (not sure how the current meaning emerged from Latin luxuria), and the sin of Sloth (classical name: Acedia) was originally about dejection (i.e. despair), which is far more serious than mere laziness.

Just to be sure, this is my rough summary of how I intended the Seven Deadly Sins to manifest in hypothetical character Andrew:

• Pride: The root of it all. Andrew sees himself as better than anyone else (whether he has something to back it up or is just being vainglorious), and will not stand for anything or anyone that naysays or threatens his superiority, even if he has to resort to lies, dirty tricks and smearing the other person's reputation.
• Lust: Andrew derives an almost sexual pleasure from having his ego stroked by praise, fame and being the object of subservience; he'd love nothing more than to be surrounded by an endless mass of people lavishing worship upon him and abasing themselves at his feet for all eternity. More traditionally, he has a huge sex drive and has little to no scruples about how to indulge it, the only thing constraining him being the annoyance of having to avoid being caught red-handed. He's also a sadist with very twisted and sickening fetishes.
• Greed: Andrew is extremely possessive about anything that he deems rightfully his, be it physical objects like money, the masses of fans he surrounds himself with, or more abstract things like fame. If he believes you "stole" something from him, he'll hold a nasty grudge against you forever.
• Gluttony: Andrew's appetites for ego-stroking and pleasure are bottomless and ever-growing in scale; moreover, they're not simply pleasures to him, they're practically as vital to him as food and air are (kind of like a terminal addiction). Even if he somehow managed to conquer the entire Earth and turn it into a monument to his own ego and took the entire billions-strong population as his absolutely obsequious slaves, it won't even come close to satisfying him.
• Wrath: Andrew normally treats violence as beneath himself, such is his pride. But if his hatred towards someone or something grows sufficiently intense to overwhelm even that, he'll demonstrate a terrifying capacity for physical brutality. Even if it doesn't, he's more than OK with having the objects of his hate suffer cruel and gruesome deaths or Cold-Blooded Torture at the hands of others.
• Envy: Andrew cannot stand other people having things — physical or abstract — that he does not have despite wanting them. If he can't have those things, then he'll make sure nobody else can have them either just out of spite.
• Sloth: Andrew is utterly apathetic to anything that doesn't directly concern him (even if he may feign otherwise for his own benefit), and also views altruism, moral goodness and such idealistic concepts as too much work for too little gain ("Good makes you work for her blessings, Evil freely offers them right off the bat") as well as ultimately pointless. Also, if you manage to irrevocably shatter his ego, he will fall past the Despair Event Horizon and attempt a murder-suicide rather than try to actually cope. More traditionally, Andrew typically has other people do his dirty work for him whenever he can, seeing himself above such "menial labor" and preferring to simply plan things that are then executed by his minions.

Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 10th 2018 at 8:20:39 PM

What I meant was that originally, the concept of sins was that any desire for material things or pleasure pulled you farther away from God. As such, it didn't really matter to what degree you felt lust or greed or whatever, it was binary, any lust at all separated you from God, and was therefore a sin. Therefore, it wasn't about overindulgence, or manifesting some trait to the point of it being destructive—it was about desire, period. Desire for material satisfaction was evil, full stop. Of course, such sinfulness was unavaoidable, given our mundane nature, and so therefore all human beings were sinners in need of divine redemption. The point of the seven sins wasn't to avoid them, they couldnt be avoided, it was to feel remorse for having such feelings, and such remorse would earn you forgiveness of having a sinful nature.

But that conception of religious ethics is so alien and medieval to us now that I doubt anyone could incorporate it into a story, except to make a point of rejecting it. If you want to use the seven sins as the metaphysical basis of certain character flaws then you will have to find another way to interpret them. The one you are proposing is as good as any other Ive seen, and a good deal more self-consistent.

By the way, when I first read your question I thought you were planning on basing a different character on each sin, like a demon. Putting them all in the same character is different.

Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 10th 2018 at 8:32:47 AM

You were still right, technically. I do have some drafts on a few sets of seven characters who have a Seven Deadly Sins theme to their personalities and/or superpowers, at least one of which consists of demons that are an Embodiment of Vice.

And I'm not the first person to put all the seven sins into one character; there are already some examples on the Seven Deadly Sins article of that sort.

Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 10th 2018 at 4:36:23 PM

On writing a book, when it comes to how many pages a chapter ought to contain, should the number of pages be the same in each chapters sans an optional prologue? In a book I'm writing, I ended up with four pages in the prologue, eighteen pages in the first chapter, and twenty-two pages in the second chapter. Is that feasible?

Chapter length is as long as it needs to be. But as a whole, if you're planning for 100-200 pages in a book, 20-30 pages sounds okay.

Also keep in mind that you're going to be EDITING 90% of your drafts (bulking up some chapters, slimming down the others), so chapters will vary considerably within a work.