Introductions

So, I’ve been putting this off for a while, but here goes:

Hi! I’m Crazy Minh, but you can just call me ‘Minh’. I’m an Australian university student, and I work part-time as a IT support worker. I’ve been a member of the Whateley community for…uh…*counts on fingers*…five or six years now. I first discovered the site when I was bored one afternoon, and decided to browse through TV Tropes for something new to read online. Whateley looked attractively lengthy, so I lurked for a bit, and found that I really enjoyed the stories.

I like to think I’m the biggest nerd in Sydney. I’m probably wrong, but so far I’m yet to meet someone in my city whose knowledge of science fiction surpasses (or even rivals) my own.

I dabble in writing, with the bulk of my work being infrequently posted over on ’m an avid tabletop gamer, with my main systems being D&D 5e and Warhammer 40k.

In terms of video games, my tastes are eclectic, but the bulk of my Steam library is taken up by sci-fi games. The five games I’ve played the most are Stellaris (700+ hours), Skyrim (~550 hours), XCOM: Enemy Unknown (380+ hours), Fallout: New Vegas (350 hours), and Borderlands 2 (320+ hours). I guess that this makes my two most played genres Strategy and Roleplaying.

I’ve probably read enough books to fill three public libraries (I’m hyperlexic, I’ve been reading since the age of three, and I can finish a six hundred page novel in under an hour), and have some *very* strong opinions on audiobooks. Most of my reading needs nowadays are fulfilled by frequent visits to the handful of libraries in Sydney I haven’t torn through yet.

I play the violin, although it has been a fair number of years since I’ve picked it up. As a kid, I was part of the Suzuki violin program, and I was lucky enough to play on the main stage at the Sydney Opera House (yes, the iconic one with the sails) during graduation ceremonies. Outside of playing music, my musical tastes are a mixed bag. My favourite band is AC/DC; but my favourite song is Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra.

When I was in high school, I was incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to attend & Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with space exploration ever since I first watched Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time as a six year old. My dream is to one day work for NASA or SpaceX, and maybe even get to go to the moon someday.

I also occasionally watch anime. My father introduced me to anime at a young age via Astro Boy, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and the works of Studio Ghibli; but I tend to watch less arty stuff nowadays. My favourite anime right now is Evangelion, but I also enjoy some of the less…unique…offerings out there.

Other than that, I’m generally just the guy who asks if someone’s tried turning their computer off and on again. I’m also the guy you’ll see having the occasional flip-out over the latest insult CBS/Paramount has put out. An insult wearing the skin of the Star Trek franchise like the Bug in MiB.

…

…christ, I need to find something else to rag on about.

I'm Mylian. I'll accept any pronouns. I've been here for a while. Through a couple of sites at least. I found my way here through WhatIF posted somewhere, read everything, decided to write some WhatIF myself. It gets weird.

"It gets weird" called probably be the schools motto, or the Latin translation.

Commander Knight wrote:

"It gets weird" called probably be the schools motto, or the Latin translation.

Nothing so pedestrian as Latin. Whateley would use Olmek, or Sumerian or somesuch. Unless they go for a culture so long gone and obscure that it takes a genius among geniuses to destill some of their spoken language from fragments out of fossils, shared dreams runic magic and Jungian archetypes.

Hi all
I'm Solus Nova, Canadian currently on long term disability due to some serious health issues
I joined up with Whateley back on the old board, kinda drifted away just as Gen2 was starting now I'm drifting back
Looking to write some WhatIF when I am satisfied with my writing skills

Hey there, fellow Canadian.
Happy to meet you.
If you have any questions feel free to ask here or on Discord.
Cheers.

Hello!

Looking to write some WhatIF when I am satisfied with my writing skills

I can't argue against the idea of holding off until you like what you're writing. Mileages vary. However, I can recommend against setting your bar too high before opening the floor to feedback.

Agreed, my biggest issue is when writing I miss words like 'a', 'the', 'of', but when I re-read what I've typed my brain fills in the missing words.
Bad brain.
Recently I found a decent free text to speech plug in that is simple and free and am going over an old story and polishing it up, hearing things works, were seeing doesn't, at least for me..

TTS is great for catching awkward phrasing, odd-sounding things, overlong phrases and stuff like that, but a lot of typos (particularly the ones that result in homophones) will escape. For the good ol' typo-hunting, there's an old-school proofreader's trick: read the text backwards.

I vote for a school motto in proto-enochian