A Lot Of Fantasy/sci Fi Make This Assumption, But It'd Creep Me Out If I Could Have A Conversation With

I should start a blog called "How to Do Things Wrong". People can watch I do as much research as my attention span will let me do that day and then witness my anxiety foil all my preparations.

(Sponsored by the fact that it took me an hour to fill out a form that asked me to describe me and my work.)

To be fair, his mentor did the same thing (from inside a pit no less) with ease. I'm sure he grew up hearing the story.

one of my buddies is occupying a fortified position on high ground. i'm going to kick his ass with ease

more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet - five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” - Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) - when i say we use them casually, i really mean it - teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah - our version of “amen” is “ameen” - muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi - the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”

A list of things Steve Rogers would historically be unfamiliar with:

I fell down a rabbit hole of research about inventions circa the 40s and was surprised by a bunch of things that have been around way longer than I thought and some that are strangely reccent, and compiled them into a list. Aka, a resource for fic writers.

Bananas (or rather, the ones we have today. The ones he’d be accustomed to, the Gros Michel, a sweeter, creamier species, went extinct in the 50s and was replaced with the bland Cavendish banana.)

High-fives (the low-five was actually invented first, around WW2, and he may have been familiar with that)

Buffalo Wings (invented in the 60s)

CPR (not really used until the late 40s, not widely known until the 50s)

Tiramisu (invented in the 80s)

Big Macs & McNuggets (while McDonald’s was founded in 1940, the former wasn’t introduced until the 60s, and the latter, the 80s)

Seat belts (the first car to have one was in the late 40s, and only became mandatory to wear them in the 80s. holy shit.) 

Walmart (invented in 1962. Or really, the large-scale supermarkets as we know them today really)

Yellow tennis balls (prior to the 70s they were usually black or white)

Panadol (first sold in the US in the 50s)

The smiley face aka :) (popularised in the 60s)

Now alternatively, here’s a list of things Steve WOULD (or possibly would) be familiar with:

I’m not sure why some of these surprised me.

Modern Sunglasses (have been around a lot longer than I thought, and were mass produced in the 20s)

Nokia (was first founded in 1865. I’m not kidding. They began as a pulp mill and moved into making rubber respirators for military from the 30s onwards)

Nintendo (been around since 1889 as a toy company, during the 40s they made playing cards. Wouldn’t be implausible that he knew about Nintendo, perhaps from Morita)

Krispy Kreme (opened in 1937, didn’t spread widely until the 50s however)

Kool-Aid (introduced in the 30s)

Oreos (introduced in 1912)

Printed/graphic tees (didn’t become a trend until the 60s-70s, but they certainly existed in the 40s)

Hoodies (originated in the 30s, worn by workers in cold New York warehouses. Meaning, it’s entirely plausible Bucky could’ve been wearing hoodies in the 40s)

Malls (they weren’t called that back then, but they certainly had shopping centres or plazas since the 1800s)

Converse sneakers (invented in 1908 and have barely changed since!)

I don't know what to do. I was going through old files on my computer and I found a bunch of stories from when I was still roleplaying. I've got documents that are 35K words or more, but I don't know what to do with them. There's a lot of context missing because I made a whole culture to go along with the characters and I'm not sure anyone else will find it interesting. But I just spent two hours today engrossed in a story I wrote over ten years ago and I kinda wish I could rewrite it.

I hate the culture of trying to be a "successful" self-published author. I'm a part of a lot of writers groups and so many want to over-stress marketing: Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have a blog? Do you have followers? Are you on booktok?

That's great and all, but have you finished your book? Have you gotten it edited? Is your book even worth reading? Like, how do you have time to actually write if you're spending all this time being a social media personality? I barely have enough time to come home from my day job to write, let alone try to market as an introvert who is used to the internet being a lovely anonymous space.

Can't believe you left this in the tags. I'd be finding a new therapist if I found out. I know doctors have to take notes, but it's a completely different thing to be recorded. Sometimes I'm just feeling out what I'm thinking. This makes it even harder to be vulnerable when you're used to things you say being used against you.

our new job launched its mandatory ai transcription program designed to streamline our workflow and not only does it melt down the moment it has to transcribe non-white customers but it keeps hallucinating the existence of a mysterious boy named dorian who shows up in every third call summary

I really like this trend of posting videos of art while jn progress. I'm sure it's to prove that the artist didn't use AI, but as a beginner it helps me understand people's processes and it makes me feel better to see that even talented people sometimes scribble out their mistakes to start over.

It's in this way that the integration robots into modern society has also turned me off to human-robot pairings. Twenty years ago I used to get misty-eyed thinking about a modern day Galatea or a couple that symbolically breaks racial barriers. Now I just want Alexa/Siri/whatever to stop listening to every conversation I have.

It also fucking bugs me that nobody can ever seem to really commit to the cyberpunk premise of the Protagonist Who Hates Robots (see also, the cyberpunk premise of "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, for a company to be able to repo your goddamned arm or turn off your eyes?") during the execution.

Which is flabbergasting, considering we've had almost a full decade of Alexa pinky-promising not to officially listen to anything until you do its summoning ritual and then turning around and emailing your boss a transcript of you bitching about them to your spouse over dinner. We've had at least five years of being able to get your Tesla unlocked remotely just by @-ing Musk on twitter.

The cute robot dogs are being leased to police departments, reputation management firms have been deploying armies of social media reply-bots in astroturf campaigns, customer service chatbots have become damn near indecipherable as their programmers attempt to make them seem more personable, etc. etc. etc.

We don't even need to reach for "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if corporations made simulacra better and better at faking humanity in order to manipulate people?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if your car could mimic sadness or pain if you declined an extended warranty, or if your phone begged for its life if you tried to jailbreak it, or WeightWatchers paid your fridge to neg you every time you went for a midnight snack?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you pointed out how gross it is that your smart-assistant is programmed to act like your friend in order to build a more accurate marketing profile and your buddy acted like you just said dogs can't feel love and his beloved pet only sees him as a walking treat-dispenser?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you were surrounded by unfeeling things that can and would rip you and all of your loved ones apart at a moment's notice if they got the right/wrong order from some unaccountable law enforcement flack, and everyone else just kind of shrugged and went 'It's probably fine, why are you hyperventilating about it, it's not like you've done anything wrong'?"

They're all quite literally right there in front of our faces!

But it's harder to make "the way robots have been integrated into society is bad, actually, and the protagonist is largely right" into a sexy thriller with a love interest or a buddy-cop duo, and the hyperconservative media environment we're dealing with right now isn't exactly amenable to the robots being a metaphor for corporate intrusion and loss of privacy and authoritarian overreach, so here we are, with robots who generally aren't people, except sometimes you find a special robot--one of the Good Ones--who actually is a person, and that's how we all learn that Prejudice Is Bad, or something.