User talk:MatthiasRat/Made Alone

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Hey there. Just added a Wor--Buck 18:04, 30 January 2008 (EST)k in Progress tag. --Buck 13:17, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Thank you, Jon!! I hope you are enjoying this story. You've got a great setting! --MatthiasRat 18:35, 23 January 2008 (EST)

One interesting thing about this story is the way the TG aspect comes out. Since nobody can see Christopher as a woman, it's basically all in his own head. She has to buy bras, and probably hygiene products, all by herself. In Tall Tales, DL decided to go all out for the newbie convention because only other furs can perceive her for what she is. Other than the practical details, it won't be an issue socially for Chris until she starts encountering other furs during her female phases. Once he hits male rat permanently, it's going to make quite a book. :) --Buck 18:55, 23 January 2008 (EST)
I've never really done much in the way of TG in my own works. Though I've written a few in Metamor Keep, I've never gotten into the head of a character who has TGed. The real question for Chris will be if she can admit that she's a she when she's a she, or will she continue to call herself he. ;-) --MatthiasRat 21:19, 23 January 2008 (EST)
For someone who doesn't do much tg your doing an awesome job at it! I only had a one thought on his diet, the part where he looks into the fridge and dismisses most of whats in it including the fruits seems a bit off to me as Brown bears will eat berrys and roots. I wasn't sure of the numbers myself but your char might want to scoot over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bear#Dietary_habits and take a look. :)
Otherwise it's looking good so far! --Devin 16:44, 29 January 2008 (EST)
Thanks, Devin! I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I'll modify the fridge scene to take into account what I should have known already! --MatthiasRat 21:38, 29 January 2008 (EST)

Bras count as clothing, and are thus not affected by the RDF. However, there are likely tricks to hiding wearing one. I'm sure Chris would've devised many. His/her breasts would be like a tail, though. In some situations, it could be sensed by humans. --Buck 18:52, 28 January 2008 (EST)

What sort of situations would that be? And yes, she is very good at keeping her bra hidden. Nothing she wears will ever be see through! --MatthiasRat 20:48, 28 January 2008 (EST)
Details like that I leave up to the writer. :) --Buck 21:17, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Text as images

I notice you're converting text into jpegs for parts of this story. That takes a lot of bandwidth, is hard to edit, and the text-to-speech program I use to read stories on Shifti to me while I do other things is not going to like it. (I'm so lazy, I have machines read me bed-time stories :) May I suggest an alternative? You can accomplish pretty much the same effect by using a little CSS-styled HTML. I've put a demo over in Shifti:Sandbox, if you like I can apply that styling to the appropriate sections of text in the story for you. Bryan 03:06, 26 January 2008 (EST)

Oh, I forgot to mention, if you'll tell me which font, size, and line spacing you used I could probably match the appearance even closer. Bryan 03:15, 26 January 2008 (EST)

I'd very much like that! I struggled vainly to find some way to make the journal entries stand out, and naturally, it proved difficult. If you could get it started for me, I'd appreciate it. The font I used is Technical, size 14 Bold. I wanted something that at least looked like it might be handwriting! Thank you, Bryan! --MatthiasRat 05:57, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Hm. I don't have Technical on my system (Comic Sans MS is very similar though, and a standard font that's already installed on most systems, so I've made that the first fallback choice). When I boost the font size to 14pt and the font weight to bold the words become huge and cartoonish-looking compared to the images, so I've left it at 12pt and normal font weight for now. It's your story, though, so by all means tweak the styles on those divs to make it look right to you.
The text of one of the journal entries wasn't in the story's edit history, rather than retype all of that could you perhaps insert it? I'll do the formatting for it as well, and any subsequent entries you may add. Bryan 14:17, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Well, I know how to use style sheets, at least at a basic level. Seeing what you did, I can easily copy it. I've done so for the last journal entry. Thanks for taking care of this, Bryan! You've been a big help! Now I don't have to go through the agony of printing to PDF, copying to an image, and uploading it!
If I do mess this up, let me know and show me what I need to do to correct it. What other basic font sets do we have that the style sheet will recognize? --MatthiasRat 17:26, 26 January 2008 (EST)
I've made a minor change to make the page look more like the image. This was very tricky, but works — there is a lot that can be done with CSS that people don't usually realize. Some of the tricks (like the columns I stuck in) are counter-intuitive. (Sorry, BD, but your "float: left" scheme from the sandbox doesn't work well - I tried it here.)
As far as the "font families" go, there are enough. There are five "generic" families - 'sans-serif' (like Arial), 'serif' (like Times New Roman), 'cursive' (like Comic Sans), 'monospace' (like Courier') and 'fantasy' (which covers things like "Impact"). These can be combined with a lot of other font-rendering CSS attributes, like "font-style" (normal, italic and oblique), "font-weight" (which gives everything from very thin text (at 100) to very thick, bold text (at 900 - normal bold is 700 or "bold", standard weight is 400 or "normal"), "font-variant" which gives you "small caps" and "font-stretch" (which gives you the ability to change the spacing between characters).
Information about the current possibilities of CSS are available at http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ — I use this resource myself when attempting something I haven't done before. Other places you can look are A List Apart and The CSS Zen Garden – I've used both for help with various ideas.
ShadowWolf 17:59, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Had to undo the columns... Looked like this to me but looked like this to Jon. I'm guessing that the problem comes up when people actually have the proper font and it has different properties entirely from the "backup" and "generic" picks. Oh well, shit happens :)
ShadowWolf 18:12, 26 January 2008 (EST)
The float:left trick I tried over in the sandbox was a way to allow several distinct "pages" of text to move up beside each other when there was sufficient room for multiple columns, just like the images were doing, but as you noticed it actually makes things a bit confusing to the reader by making the text appear strung together out of order. This was a problem with the image approach too. I considered putting a border around each page but that would change the visual style significantly from the original. An alternate method of making it dual column would be to add "-moz-column-count:2; -webkit-column-count:2; column-count:2;" to the enclosing div's style. (There's three different attributes for this because there are several common browsers that don't follow the same standards in this area, this covers all of them. :) Bryan 18:45, 26 January 2008 (EST)

If this solution is acceptable and you're not planning to use those jpegs, shall I delete them now? Bryan 02:50, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Yes, that would be fine. Thank you again for your help, Bryan! The story looks the way I think it should now. --MatthiasRat 07:08, 27 January 2008 (EST)

More Comments

Looking good so far, but you'll probably want to do another pass. I think Bob changed to Rob in the newest section.

And in the other section, I believe you said "But" when you meant "Bus". (There was another glaring typo from Monday I think but I can't recall what it is off hand now.) --Jetfire

Make sure you add the Signature when you comment. Thanks. --Buck 18:04, 30 January 2008 (EST)
Thanks for the comments, Jet. I didn't consciously change Bob to Rob, but I think I prefer it as Rob. I've been printing this out and editing it left and right. I prefer to think of it as the consequence of having bigger, clumsier fingers! --MatthiasRat 20:24, 30 January 2008 (EST)


As someone who is female, I find some of your descriptions a bit problematic. (Though it might be unfair to comment thus, considering that this story is four years old) However, I have never, ever, cried for no reason. Women don't cry for no reason, neither do men. At that point in the story, the character was probably emotional because of the strain such a physical change might bring on to the psyche, but I would not say there was "no reason." This is a stereotype. Think about it like this, if I randomly became male, even if it happened a while ago, I would still get upset about it from time to time. It would be perfectly normal to cry over it. It's not because I would be "female" but because I would be grieving over such a huge lifestyle change. Women aren't a different species, we just have different equipment. Otherwise, I really liked the story, the concept is fascinating. I found myself wondering how Christopher would cope with the various challenges his body would present and how much of his physical presence translates into stuff other people can see. You mentioned his hooves on the flooring and I wondered how he could possibly keep Leslie from noticing that. I also wondered if for all outward signs he was male why he couldn't be intimate with his wife. To me this seems to be a shift in reality, so it's likely possible. I don't know, I seem to have rambled and it's highly likely no one will ever read this. -clicketyclack