If it isn't "severe" is it still a phobia? Or just a fear? I'm just wondering. Anyway, good luck getting her out! xD

I can't help with the specificity of claustrophobia, but just phobias in general (although, people are different, but GENERALLY) cause someone to feel extreme anxiety--to the point of not being able to breathe, panic can sometimes cause a kind of tunnel vision or lessening of vision, and often the throat closes or feels as though it is. Panic attacks feel like heart attacks and most times, the person experiencing them genuinely feels like/thinks they are dying. Cold sweats, drumming/ringing/tornado like sounds in the ears and palpitations and a sharp pain throughout the chest and head are all common. It's also common for people to react by not being able to move or speak or, but rarer than the first, for them to literally run away as fast as they possibly can.

I didn't even think of that but that's a good point.

I'd tend to agree with Mynoris about the first question; I certainly don't think any of the things I'd choose as superpowers would be plausible though, which would probably be something kick-ass like fire-bending or being able to go all Wolverine or something. If I did have superpowers, I'd like to think I would use them to better the world and save kittens in trees and things, but probably I'd just end up screwing around and accidentally burning something down. As far as how'd I'd go about getting them... I can't really think of a single pleasant way... maybe there's a superpower god out there somewhere that I can pray really hard to and it'll just let me have my way because I'll be amusing.

I like to think that some of the "best sellers" will be lost to time. Maybe fire. 

I will say, (and I can't believe I am) that it's interesting to consider the fact that these creatures are ideas, so, had something like Twilight come out before Carmilla, our cultural connection to the "vampire" would probably be based in the idea that they sparkle and junk. Then, if Carmilla or Dracula came out, we'd probably all be crying "What have you done to our prancing, fanged disco balls?" because we'd have a different concept of what a vampire is.  I don't think anyone's opinion of Bella would change though. She'd still exemplify being whiny, selfish, male dependent, boring, over dramatic and just plain bitchy. 

I like our horror story creatures they way the are, of course, it's just an interesting idea.

I haven't come across any of those (or if I have, I haven't followed conflicting paths and so I don't know it's there) but I would think, or at least to me it would be a little off-putting because it seems to lose a little integrity as a story when it isn't carried out, whether it be from one perspective or just neutral all the way through. But which gender I'm "given", or if I'm even given one, doesn't usually matter, not to me. I'm sure others feel differently, though. But I think it sounds great. I mean story-wise, it's interesting and so my initial thoughts just aren't concerned with what gender I am as your character; I suppose if there was no indication one way or the other, I'd find it easier to put myself in as what I am, a woman. I think it's a good thing, but again, I'm sure there are people who would prefer it was specified. 

I'm still technically a "newb" so I'm not 100% comfortable even putting in my two cents on this, but even without the daily point, I don't think EXP would be an accurate show of contribution. I mean, what about duels? As games, I'm sure they're fun, but playing RPS doesn't actually count toward contributing any more than the daily visit does, if that much. At the very least (and I mean, I do take advantage of my daily points, but I tend to agree with you for the most part), they do give a little motivation to "check in." That's not much in their defense, but still, for comparative purposes. 

I'd tend to agree about the earlier one (I'm sorry I'm replying here; I just figured I'd do them together...?), I tend to go with male but there's nothing in your writing that makes me do that; just my cultural connections. 

In the second one, it's pretty much completely ambiguous to me (and interesting, really, really interesting). 

If you're going for something specific but you're worried it's not coming across in the story (which, I'm not saying that making your work do the actual work isn't the most important thing, because, well, it is BUT), I've see lots of people on here use their descriptions that way. You know:

"You are *name.* You're a twenty year old man who lives in bla bla bla... story plot... etc. etc." So that's an option too, if you're really concerned about making it clear from the get-go. 

Well there is a filter. It's not really a "search feature" but if you're in a category, you can filter by min to max length and difficulty, but only set a minimum rating. And that could at least get mostly the same job done.

And yeah, I read on one of the older forum posts that there's a formula that calculates it depending on words per page, links per page, total pages, total links... somehow. In the magical world of math....

Ok, that helps. Thanks :)