Random Questions Thread

What does surface level criticism mean? And how do you give out something more in depth, nuanced and critical?

Short answer

Surface-level: I read your thing, and wow, that's dumb.

In-depth: I analyzed your thing, considered every possibility, and the test result came back, I regret to tell you ma'am, it's dumb. As you can see in this picture your continuity is completely broken, and there is a big plot hole in the middle of your chapter. This is because you didn't do enough preparation before you do a plot twist, you also didn't cover the trace afterward, you will be needing some good story telling to hold your story line back together for the next few chapters, meanwhile I will suggest you to go get a subscription of plausible excuse to soothe the pain and wait for it to get better. And next time, remember to use some heavy implication if you want to do a plot twist again, and make sure you make the impact on the story, not on the continuity, it's very dangerous, do you know how many stories die per year due to bad plot twist?

Edited by Andermann on Apr 2nd 2019 at 3:54:05 AM

That's a bit flowery, and if you submitted it to an English teacher, they'd write "See me" in large red letters.

The gist, however, is accurate. Surface criticism is exactly what it implies: superficial. It touches only on the surface of issues that you may have with a work without going into any detail.

"You wrote an emotionless character" is surface criticism. "This character failed to react in a situation [with details] where any normal person would have shown a lot of emotion" is in-depth criticism, because it provides a specific point of improvement. The author can then decide whether to make the character react more or justify the non-reaction with some backstory.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 1st 2019 at 3:43:14 PM

The most important thing is when you're criticizing is that you have consider how something might make sense before you consider how it doesn't.

And sometimes "is it justified" is more important than "does it make sense".

Bob wants to kill Alice because he loves her, does that make sense? No, but it doesn't have to be since Bob could be an insane asshole, and that's justified.

Which one is the more effective way to propel oneself forward? Jump forward while standing onthe ground or push forward while clinging on a vertical surface?

Edited by Andermann on Apr 2nd 2019 at 1:20:11 AM

I cant think of any inherent reason why there should be a difference. It's just force against air resistance in the presence of gravity either way.

So let's say I have a draconic humanoid character who needs to "conveniently" suffer a wing injury so she can't just fly her friend to her next destination. What sort of injury would keep her grounded for a day or two without any long-term damage?

First thing that came to mind is that the wing membrane got torn.

Edited by Millership on Apr 2nd 2019 at 9:25:20 PM

That'd take too long to heal, though. I only need to keep her down for a few days at most.

Strained flight muscles, perhaps? A minor case of sprained ligaments could work, too, but they generally take a couple of weeks to a month to fully heal, depending on the physiology.

Also, something as trivial as flu could keep her down for from a couple of days to a week (potentially) without long-term consequences to her health.

Edited by Millership on Apr 2nd 2019 at 11:16:21 PM

How fast does she heal though? We need reference, I mean I assume she is not human.

"I cant think of any inherent reason why there should be a difference. It's just force against air resistance in the presence of gravity either way. "

Well if she jump forward from the ground her whole body will be facing front and create a lot of drag.

Why cant she lean in the direction of the jump?

Regarding forward propulsion, one or the other might be more biomechanically easy—although which, if either, I don't know.

Also, when clinging to a vertical surface, depending on how its achieved I wonder whether it might not be harder to gain vertical speed, and thus increase distance—but then, if one can cling to walls, perhaps one can simply gain height by climbing, and so gain jump-distance. But all of these are very much a layman's thoughts.

that's the whole idea behind jumping from a vertical surface so her body will be in a straight line with the direction she is jumping, also in my head jumping vertically works like a spring, also something about the friction and the area of contact of the feet and the ground, which I don't really know how it work.

To be fair, the whole move is that she will hurl a large piece of the ground into the sky, jump up and cling on to it in mid-air, then push herself vertically towards her target at full force with the speed faster than a railgun, essentially using herself as a projectile.

I also imagine she will have easier time aiming at targets on the ground this way.

Edited by Andermann on Apr 3rd 2019 at 6:28:52 PM

What would be a good flower motif for my characters, Claire and her mother, Al Enna.

Claire is an 11 year old girl with horrific supernatural powers of biological manipulation and shapeshifting. Despite her strange powers, she is a good person in heart and actually loves a human girl.

Al Enna is an immortal, ancient being who resembles a loving female deity. She is capable of many wonders and sorceries with her eldritch abilities. In her true form, she wants to make the world beautiful by mutating humans and creating an Alien Kudzu infested world a la The Mist. She is enigmatic, manipulative and powerful temptress.

For the first, black daisies. For the second, it's almost cliche to represent such a character by a wall of choking Rose vines, thick as barbed wire.

What animal can represent small, clever, weak but determined?

Spider. Rat. Mouse.

Weasel.

~De Marquis

Give me your reason for the choice?

Daisies represent cuteness and innocence in a positive way- black daisies invert that, forcing the viewer to consider the contrast between the flower and the nonstandard, darker color. All this comes from your description of the girl as having a gentle, affectionate personality, if you had described her as violent or dangerous, then I would have recommended crimson ones instead.

The tangle of rose thorns, as I say, is a standard symbol for a dangerous yet alluring female mystical figure. Had you described the mother character as simply dangerous or intimidating, like say Malleficent, then it would be the wall of thorns alone. Putting some roses in there makes her seem more attractive and feminine. To adjust the how intimidating vs. alluring, just adjust the thorn to rose ratio. For added fear factor, put some blood in among the thorns.

Is it possible for a mother to resent their child and have to “warm up” to them like a stranger?

Certainly. It happens more often than people would like to admit in real life, and can be a source of great tragedy.

Doing some research on USSR-era micro districts and I can’t seem to find any info if a MD building (being the apartment) would have an emergency exit/staircase.

Depends on the era, but the answer would be "mostly no, and even if it had it would be slightly more safe to use than burning to death◊".

In the earlier, late 50's to late 60's micro district houses (khrushchyovkas, as they are called since they were built mostly during Khrushchev's reign), emergency ladders and exits were an exception rather than a rule. The demand on the living quarters after the War was high, and khrushchyovkas were being built fast and were considered a temporary solution to the problem and thus luxuries such as nice design and fire exits were not on the list. They are literally concrete boxes that people can live in.

The later, 60's to 80's apartment houses (brezhnevkas they are called, guess why) were being built when Soviet Union's economy improved after the war and in the conditions where there was an actual demand for comfortable houses, were better in terms of fire safety, but they were still being designed and built with the same approach as their predecessors.

I've spent my childhood during the 90's when many of the old buildings were still intact, with people living in them and almost none of them had proper emergency staircases that were safe to use in case of a fire. Heck, even the fire ladders that a monkey high on methane wouldn't dare to use were in such a poor condition, most of them didn't even reach second stories of apartment houses (probably a result of looting - a common occurence in the 90's, and not so rare before the fall of the USSR). Granted, Kazakh SSR wasn't held in the same regard as Moscow Central, but what I've seen was a typical situation in most of the Soviet Union.

Edited by Millership on Apr 8th 2019 at 11:06:05 PM