Does anybody have that image of what cyberpunk dialogue is like. "to crack a cyber lemon this nasty" or whatever

That's the bitch

If you want an idea what more authentic oldschool hacking language sounds like, there is an absolutely ANCIENT webpage called the Jargon File (seems to have been updated from the early 80s up through 2004), aka the New Hacker’s Dictionary, that kept a record. It’s not far from Gibson’s idea but if anything it sounds even dorkier, peppered with coding terms and prehistoric memes

official linguistics post

speculative fiction writers i am going to give you a really urgent piece of advice: don't say numbers. don't give your readers any numbers. how heavy is the sword? lots. how old is that city? plenty. how big is the fort? massive. how fast is the spaceship? not very, it's secondhand.

the minute you say a number your readers can check your math and you cannot do math better than your most autistic critic. i guarantee. don't let your readers do any math. when did something happen? awhile ago. how many bullets can that gun fire? trick question, it shoots lasers, and it shoots em HARD.

you are lying to people for fun. if you let them do math at you the lie collapses and it's no fun anymore.

YOU GET IT

[ID: tags from @/thepioden that say:

/end ID]

tips for writing good romance tension

Some of you on this site are so scared of writing fairly conventional anatomy-based sex porn because of the cringe-words and general discomfort with sex. It helps to have had sex, but that's not necessary. After the break, as it is somewhat explicit, here is all you need to do, and it is not a list of euphemisms for penis or vagina or xenoapparatus:

if youve never physically been in the presence of like, a real live wolf, and you probably wont get the chance to, heres some stuff about them you should know

I wanna know who did this research.

well, i did!

in the interest of science, have tested & can confirm

I am not the first person to attempt explaining this, but let me tell you about some of the nuances of Bless Your Heart™. It does not solely or even usually translate to “you are a dumbass.” It is more subtle than that:

It is primarily a thing you say to clarify (or falsify) the tone of what you DID say

OR

it is secondarily a thing you say instead of something ELSE to maintain 1) plausible deniability 2) a moral high ground.

“Bless your heart”: You genuinely deserve blessings because you are going through it right now and you need them. Gratitude, sympathy. “I’m going to have surgery next week.” “Bless your heart! Is there anything I can do for you?” (“Oh, bless your heart for asking.”) Original face-value meaning.

“Bless your heart”: You need a blessing because God knows you’re lacking (manners, intelligence, common sense) right now. Synonyms could include “Well, isn’t that precious” or “Well, that’s different.” It often comes in clutch when you don’t want to tell someone to their face that they fucked up. Your nephew has mowed the front yard for you. He has also mowed over all your flower beds. “Well… bless your heart.” If you were going to use it as a stealth insult to someone’s face for a more egregious occasion, it would be this category. It can be a mean girl move (the classic “It’s so brave that you dress like that” vibe), but it’s also a way of saying, “I want you to know that I see what you’re doing and I don’t approve of it, and you fully understand I’m expressing that, but I’m not going to give you the justification to clap back at me because I didn’t SAY that.” Someone wears a fancy white bridal-looking gown to your cousin’s wedding: “Well, bless your heart, that sure is a dress!” (If they understand you: “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” Because they know, but they want to make you SAY it. Combat engaged.)

“Bless their heart”: I am sharing news (gossiping) about someone but I like them and I want you to understand that I do, truly, bless their heart. “It’s been so hard for her after her father passed. Bless her heart, I’m gonna make her that red velvet cake she likes.”

“Bless their heart”: I am shit talking someone and I want to cover my ass, of COURSE I am just concerned for them. “She wore white to her sister’s wedding last week! WHITE! Bless her heart, I guess some people’s children just don’t know better.” (“Well you know they say she was always after the groom—“ “NO! Bless her heart.”)

That last one is the BYH they would need to deploy (but didn’t) in the Make Some Noise clip, but I feel like it honestly wasn’t necessary because the “prayer request” already served as a cover for talking shit. It probably would have come out if they’d been allowed to keep the skit going and they needed plausible deniability for spilling juicier details that maybe Jesus didn’t actually need to hear about. Thank you for coming to my Performing Southernness While Being Neurodivergent talk.

Would like to throw in one additional usage that falls somewhere between the last two: "I am genuinely sorry for this person, but at the same time I acknowledge that they did indeed bring this problem upon themselves."

official linguistics post

I knew someone from Georgia who tacked on another piece to help her calm down. One sexist asshole literally had a sentence before she could answer him on anything because it took her that long to calm down and not just start using every inch of her Sweet Georgia Peach personality to eviscerate him in such a way that he would either become broken and die or become broken and come back better.

So she was generally in category two

fun behaviors to give dragons that aren't feline/canine based

cause as much as i love dragons purring and roaring i wish there was just more variety in how they would act

and im not saying canine and feline behaviors are wrong or bad to give a dragon (people wouldn't write dragons with those behaviors if they weren't fun in the first place!) but i feel for creatures that are mythological giant winged lizards that you can do more and get experimental with it. often the more unfamiliar behavior the more dragons get that much more dragony