^ Author.

interesting article about Stephen King's pen name: mentalfloss.com/article/502166/…

@Gallifreyan that guy has some great drawings.

In the middle of writing a comment to this answer. Should I encourage Liz to to expand the answer to include why Eliot read the word this way?

Also which posts (if any) about authorial intent should go in that comment?

@Gallifreyan Yes. Some of that went a little over my head (I don't remember all six pieces that he discussed, nor am I confident in my ability to explain it to someone else), and is one of the sections that definitely deserves a better reading on my end.

Also, whoa those are really nice arts that you just pasted in here, @Gallifreyan.

Hiya, @AndrewCarter. What's up? ...I'm curious if you can speak in this room, because you don't (as far as I can tell) have 20 points on any SE site, and shouldn't be able to use chat unless a moderator or room owner grants you permission. Can you talk in here? (Do you want to?)

...that's not actually helpful if you can't speak. Um...

Are you around, @Randal'Thor? I think someone may need to be granted permission to speak in here.

Actually, I don't know if that's possible. I just tried creating a room and granting access, but I was told that you don't have 20 rep (but then what is the purpose of granting explicit write access in a public room?). Hopefully that's different for a moderator.

...I guess that the best advice that I can give you, @Andrew, is to get 20 points on any single SE site. It's not so hard -- one +2 answer will do it.

(Funny, he's no longer pingable when he's out of the room)

@DForck42 Nice article, thanks for sharing it :)

> “This is what Stephen King would write like if Stephen King could really write,” remarked one reviewer.

Changes to comment flagging:

@Shokhet :-D

@Shokhet Wow, interesting.

@Randal'Thor Yeah. People were pretty confused about "not constructive," especially.

Oh, and "too chatty" is gone, as well.

@Shokhet That was often interchangeable with "too chatty", IMO.

@Randal'Thor It shouldn't have been. I can't find MSE guidance on that flag reason atm (and anyway, it's obsolete) but I'm pretty sure that "not constructive" was reserved for Bad Comments that were under the threshold the "rude" reason. But it basically confused everyone.

@Randal'Thor Yeah.

Also, I only just noticed that flag reason guidance is included in the flag dialog! That's huge!

I mean, AFAIK q/a flags always had that, but comment flags didn't.

That's a very good thing, IMO.

Otherwise you're relying on flag names being explanatory enough, which they often aren't.

Yep.

As much as I will go to bat for Twilight on the "not a real vampire story" front, Meyer's treatment of the Quileute Nation is not so defensible:

... the Twilight werewolves were Native Americans?

There's something I totally didn't pick up on.

The word "Quileute" rings a vague bell, but ... duh.

The films didn't help.

I haven't seen the films.

Were they much worse?

I only ever saw two of the films... both at a "Master Pancake" event... live MST3K.

The films are kind of bizarre. It's hard to describe the experience of watching lead actors who visibly loathe the characters they play.

They disliked the roles? Even from the first film?

Based on interviews and BTS and the like... yes, very much so.

Edward and Bella are easy characters to dislike; I'm on record saying Twilight would've been a much better series if it'd been written as a psychological horror romance about two toxically dysfunctional people who are, separately, self-destructive--but together they reinforce each others' neuroses so that they can inflict themselves on the world.

> A dangerous combination of a passionate and powerful [vampire] and a young woman so very similar to him. Companions who are willing to push each other to extremes. [...] One wonders what the pair of you will get up to next.

Well, I guess it's a paycheck.

(Also if it'd had more vigorous editing, but that goes without saying.)

@Randal'Thor Twilight is great example of how genre is as much about how a story is told, as the events of the story.