The last thread hit 300 posts, so here's a new one.

Unexploded WWII bomb discovered in Soho, London, and prompts evacuations

I didn't catch Super Bowl LIV, and Super Bowl PR-RCORDD probably won't have the ads. Like last year, what were the best and worst ads?

I've noticed that the number of characters reserved to being in the social circles of particular SIs (i.e., each building's resident displacees) is probably larger than the number of characters that a particular writer wants to focus on. Which is okay, as far as I'm concerned... as long as everybody knows who the "super-reserved" characters are.

Here's my list:

• Akemi Zimmerman
  
• Ami Mizuno
  
• Hyoga Kazakiri
  
• Mii Konori
  
• Rei Misaka
  
• Rob Donaldson
  

Quote:We're fine, how are you?

So... Peg and I were down at Alison and John's place in West Virginia this weekend.  (For those of you playing "Bob's Life Warriors Bingo", that's Ai Jiao Min and Skitz/Major Kanis.)  Late Saturday night, Alison was talking about her writing (Nanowrimo and a couple other projects), and it eventually led into something along the lines of "oh yeah, Bob writes, but he doesn't talk about it; but we really should talk shop".  Those weren't her words, and it didn't get expressed that succinctly, but yeah, that's what it was.

So I discussed the Walk with her (and everyone else there) over the table, and I brought up how I covered the Warriors, and mentioned how I referenced Ai Jiao Min.  Alison's face got blank for a moment, then her eyes got wide as she said, "I'd forgotten about Ai Jiao Min" (which is understandable because I think her last Warriors session was something like 20 years ago), and then she started laughing.  She finally explained why -- when she created the character she was drawing a blank on a codename for her, and in desperation called her "I Have A Name" in whichever Chinese language it was.  Which admission got the rest of us laughing as well.

If I'm lucky, any readers I might have who speak that particular language hopefully thought I mangled a transliteration, or it was something in a different Chinese language entirely...

The lyrics are a pretty good match to Doug's overall predicament - trying to get home, so he can embrace his love again, and doing so with music. I'd be surprised if this wasn't a gatesong, but I couldn't say from where or to where.

(blows dust off forum)

Is ElfQuest still a thing? I was doing some cleanup and found my set of the Ral Partha lead miniatures - all five boxes. The boxes themselves are faded, but the minis are in good condition (but not painted and mostly not primed). Are they worth anything on the resale market?

(And if anybody here wants them, make an offer. Save me the trouble of giving eBay a cut.)

So I get up this morning a little earlier than usual, and I realize after I get out of the shower that I can hear helicopters.  That's not all that unusual; occasionally a copter will go over the house (one did so at a low altitude on Wednesday evening, startling Helen, who was visiting).  And I grew up next to Lakehurst Naval Air Station (as it was called at the time), home to hourly helicopter fly-bys, so I hardly even notice the basso-profundo whup-whup-whup-whup of a chopper overhead.

But these helicopters aren't going away.  And when I mention it to Peggy -- who is up and about because her sleep patterns have been messed up for a good ten years now thanks to allnighters she used to pull for B-MS -- she tells me that they've been at it since the very early hours of the morning.  I wondered out loud if they were some kind of patrol and Peggy half-seriously speculates that Trump's in the neighborhood playing golf.  (Never mind that he owns a course 15 miles away that he would actually be at and he wouldn't be golfing before dawn.)

Anyway, an hour after I first notice the sound they're still going, and I head out to the car.  And I see them -- two helicopters hovering over something a few blocks away to the southeast.], holding rock-steady.  They don't seem to have police markings.   Unfortunately I don't go that way to go to work so I head off NW and leave them behind...  and I can't help wondering what the hell is/was going on over there.  I checked the website for the local news, and nothing comes up.  The last time I saw a chopper or two just hovering like that was over a big accident on an interstate, but there's nothing that way that's close to a major road.

So now I'm going to be wracked by curiosity all day... and unless I can find some kind of news article on it I may never find out what was going on.

I came across this story today, about how some people have an internal monologue, and some don't: Today I Learned That Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue And It Has Ruined My Day.  It turns out that some people just think that the internal monologue is only a trope, not a thing real people do; and of course other real people do it.

Since this is a writer's forum, there are a couple questions I'm curious about: Do you have an internal voice?  Can you have a dialogue with yourself without speaking aloud or writing?  Do you tend to start your stories based around dialogue?

Hypothesis: most of us writers have an internal monologue, because we express ourselves through words.

When you write, remember that everyone really, really perceives the world differently.  It's not just different goals and all, characters' experience of reality can be different.  Some women can see an extra shade of green with a fourth cone -- and given all the color disagreements I've had with my mother, she must be one of them.  Some people really don't have a strong sense of taste.  To the extent that when other people talk about their favorite food, they just assume that everyone else is making a fashion choice, not that they like pizza for its taste quale. Aphantasics think that "the mind's eye" is really just a metaphor, and are surprised to learn that most people really can draw visual images in their mind.

I don't have a particularly strong sense of smell, which I think limits my writing.  I really only became aware of it by reading Jitterbug Perfume, which really beat into me (pun intended) that there's a whole world of scent out there that I really don't experience -- that the women at the perfume counter really are discerning between subtle floral scents.  On the other hand, I'm not so scentless that a job in nursing or waste management sounds appealing to me, either.  It really doesn't bother some people.

Oh, and answering my own questions, I do have internal monologues and dialogues.  I usually "hear" what I'm reading (except computer languages), in my brain it "sounds" normal even though it would be too fast for speech.  I quite often start a scene with snippets of dialogue, and start to grow the description around it.