#and theres no way to convey my comedic timing

[worldsokayestdragon]

my sister requested I read Gideon the Ninth and report back to her on how similar it was to Homestuck (which she has not and refuses to read) so naturally I made an informative slide show to educate her on the subject. thought I'd share it here. it's been a hot minute since I read Homestuck so if I missed anything feel free to let me know and I'll pass it along!

this was written for an audience that's read Gideon but not Homestuck, but it should be understandable in the other direction probably? like I think you can extrapolate? spoilers obviously.

[sillyassboy]

i should post here more ive grown too accustomed to twitter's character limit

anyway something that's been on my mind about bugbo recently is the way ive tried to kinda shift the perception of the series one way a bit too hard. when i saw even the slightest chance of people seeing bugbo as a horror series or an ARG with deep lore or whatever , i wanted to put it out there multiple times that this wasn't my intention at all and that bugbo was mostly just a stupid fun series in the style of old 2000s flash animations.

anyway im kinda worried now that people are using this to dismiss Any possible meaning behind the series. i love seeing people's interpretations, and there Are genuine things I want to convey through the characters. theres still no meta deep lore, that's for sure, but there a few characters, most notably bugbo and gerbo, who i have very specific ideas for in my head of what kind of people they are. if there's anything in the series to analyse, it's the characters.

I am kind of a dumbass sometimes so a lot of things in the series might contradict each other, but I really want to make sure at least the characters remain consistent. the worldbuilding is absolute nonsense, yes, and a lot of what happens in the series is comedic and stupid and played for laughs, but i really hope I can give everyone a concrete idea on what the characters are like. so far I think it's been relatively successful but im also worried that my constant re-iterating of bugbo just being Stupid Fun may have fucked with that a little bit. there is very much a certain way I want you all to see bugbo and gerbo, who I consider the two main characters.

and while im rambling about bugbo I wanna say here, don't get used to the tone of a familiar foe. as proud as i am of what we did for that episode, i consider it the tonal limit for the series right now. future episodes will be more in line with the feel of episode 1-2, and they will Definitely be shorter for the most part

ok bugbo ramble over

[vampxrebarbie]

an entire fucking thesis could be written on the evolution of vernacular and linguistics in online social culture among the 'online generation(s)'

like. text is flat, which is why punctuation is ungodly important in written fiction. use it right and the audience will read it with the right mental inflection.

that's why tone reading falls flat as soon as you hit online social spaces--we arent narrating in places like tumblr or twitter, we're TALKING. sure we've got exclamation points and question marks and periods and all, but there isnt anywhere near enough punctuation marks in existence to properly convey every little nuance present in speech. in text you have no vocal intonation, no nonverbal communication (expressions, gestures, tics) to further clarify what's being said behind what's being actually said.

so those of us present in online social circles invented our own social intonation to help each other communicate as many of the little nuances not present in text as possible.

like, i'm putting a flat period here at the end of a sentence.

just one.

to most of us who've been communicating online for years, that 'flat' period reads as incredibly harsh and borderline hostile depending on context, so a lot of us tend to omit it entirely in casual dialogue.

the more punctuation marks you use at once, the stronger the 'tone' it conveys. for example:

this topic is so exciting??? i love it so much???

doesnt so much read as a question as the mark implies. willing to bet most people in online social circles will 'hear' disbelief, shock, or excitement from an overabundance of question marks.

overabundance of exclamation points? you are feeling A WHOLE LOT and just NEED TO GET IT OUT!!!!!! doesnt matter what it is you're feeling but you SURE ARE FEELING IT!!

periods? well they sure do draw things out...........and depending on context can function either like a comedic twist on the traditional use of ellipses or a purposeful extension of spoken Dramatic Pauses those traditional dot-dot-dots just don't properly convey.

then there are the little oddball vernacular rules such as:

using a question mark at the end of what would otherwise be a flat statement because, somehow, our brains translate that to a verbal uptick in tone, basically the text format of a shrug, and if someone asks what for all you can do is say "idk it just feels right?"

keysmashes. we all know. we just do.

you're in the middle of typing something and decide you Need To Capitilize These Specific Words. why?

and jumping off of that:

MEMES oh my god. memes. m e m e s. let's talk about memes. i love memes as a method of communication i love them so much. why?

because i can post this

and theres a good chance a majority of you who've been around online social spaces (specifically tumblr) for long enough will know exactly what This Specific Meme is saying without needing a caption or context to infer it.

you just know.

you know the origin of it, you know how it was first used or have seen it used the way it's been traditionally used before, and because of that you can pretty much context clue your way into understanding what it's conveying when used at any other time provided it's being used in a similar way.

and that brand of communication can stack!

take any meme that began with a subtitle/caption that's been in circulation long enough for your brain auto-translate it on sight, have someone else add another caption-less meme in response, and anyone who knows the vernacular of online social spaces will know exactly what the two of you are communicating without a single word being typed/spoken.

we've reinvented fucking hieroglyphics, people!!!

all because us humans are so gosh-darned SOCIAL as a species that we're willing to rearrange our own learned grammar structures and methods of speech for the express purpose of communicating as clearly as possible in a medium that wasnt originally and to an extent still isnt meant to be used for casual dialogue and interaction with complete strangers.

this is why there's such a hard disconnect in online communication between anyone who spent most of their life offline versus those of us--primarily millenials and Gen Z--who grew up online.

we are literally speaking a completely different language from older generations.

[daedalusdavinci]

ok im gonna answer this and then im gonna go to bed but my beloved @dubiousfruitsalad has requested one of those journal things and im going to try and deliver

Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about.

you know for a while i actually wanted to write a sequel to tactical retreat (which, for those who dont know, is a medievalstuck dvekat fic where karkat is a knight and dave is a farmer who inspires him to leave his traumatic job and accept that his dream has changed over the years and tbh i think its still pretty well written i just reread it recently and i really had so many genius comedic moments w that fic tbh sollux is ICONIC but thats neither here nor there (read my fic))

in the first chapter i introduced a character named dave, nicknamed "crow", who was another knight who worked with karkat and frequently had guard duty watching over the prince, john. this was supposed to be davesprite and was a setup for a johndavesprite fic i was going to write after i finished tactical retreat, which was going to focus on a much more traditional knight/prince dynamic bc i am, unfortunately, such a sucker for that kind of thing. i think moreso than any other kid, john fits really well in the role of a prince striving to live up to his dads legacy but chafing uncomfortably under the role as someone who just loves pranks and screwing around. dave is, obviously, such a good knight character, and davesprite and john in particular have such a complicated and tragic relationship in canon where davesprite gave up his whole timeline and ruined his own life just to save john, without ever getting to meet his own john in person, and then for him to butt heads so hard with the john he saved, its just so. ugh. i feel a lot of ways about it. theyre perfect to me. i love a messy relationship

in this au crow/davesprite was going to be an immigrant from derse who immigrated when he was very young and had to work very hard to get his position in the knights, which is part of the reason why he and karkat get along so well, as they both come from similar backgrounds and similarly struggled to prove themselves. hes known john since they were relatively young as dadbert thought it was important for john to train alongside the knights, so theyre extremely close despite how often they drove each other crazy as kids. its very much a situation of john looking towards his future with creeping horror and leaning heavily on crow while he tries to balance his fathers expectations with his desire to cling to youth. on top of that, as they grow out of some of their younger immaturity and into themselves, theres a steadily growing attraction between them that theyre carefully and delicately trying to navigate when they both know johns position wont allow it.

ultimately, however, i ended up scrapping the whole thing as i got further and further into writing tactical retreat, so it never made it past an idea. the message of tactical retreat was so anti knights and blatantly used knights as an allegory for governmental force and police, and i just didnt feel good about writing a followup fic that glamorized knights the way the dvejohn fic wouldve required. i felt like it wouldve undermined what i worked so hard to convey. i still like the story idea, but it definitely doesnt have any place within the tactical retreat universe. however, you can absolutely still see the traces of that idea in the first chapter.

this is unfortunately far, far from the only time i have ever written a fic with the intention of writing a sequel that i never actually wrote. im just following the dopamine babey

[archer3-13]

You need Zanado, Lonato, and Miklan chapters to show how effed up Fodlan is and how dodgy Rhea is though.

no ya dont.

zanado only retreads the kostas fight which... ya dont need hes a tutorial boss that can be axed in the tutorial fight no problem. other then that it provides nothing essential for the plot to actually work

lonato only provides us with lead in to the holy tomb with the information that the western church is planning a hit, information that does not need a chapter dedicated to it to be conveyed

and miklains chapter only provides us with the knowledge that people can be turned into crest beasts. information that coincidentally is also conveyed in the student crest beast chapter, a chapter that provides an important plot beat with jeralt being killed by kronya. thus miklains chapter is redundant and can be axed with little issue.

which is... kinda part of my point here. you say that the chapters dedicated the most to the red herring rhea plotline are essential but are they? rhea doesn't matter once we move into part 2 in 3 of the 4 routes as anything more then princess peach waiting in koopa king edelgards castle, and in the one route shes not locked behind bars waiting for mario to rescue her shes... barely even involved as an antagonist until the very tail end of a route otherwise out to gaslight you by design. the red herring plot is thus unneeded, cause it doesnt actually effect the plot structure of p1 and any information garnered from it is irrelevant once we move into p2 where we learn anything of actual value in relation to rhea.

and on an additional note, neither does it establish how 'fucked up' fodlan is, if anything the longer amount of time spent in p1's idealic schoolday mystery plot undermines that notion because it reinforces that outside of edelgard herself shit stirring the pot everything's pretty peaceful and relaxed in fodlan. enough so that students are more then happy to put aside inter state rivalries to attend the same school and act friendly or form bonds with each other outside of their nations house. theres no tension written between the students, and the moments im sure youd point to as means of showcasing how 'fodlans fucked up' arent there for that purpose their there to throw suspicion onto rhea.

or, why is it that fodlans 'fucked up' when lonato raises a violent insurrection with aims of murdering a religious leader and has to be put down with force, or that miklain a thief of a high value item who operates a bandit gang pillaging its way across faerghus has to also be put down with force. or how students at a military academy, being trained to be in and lead armies and soldiers and to engage in combat, would be expected to acquire practical real world experience in handling combat by bringing murderous thieves to justice in an otherwise controlled situation? If thats all there to show how fodlans fucked up

then why is it that manuela getting waylaid by bandits cause she chased after the wrong rumor of a reaper and then murdering them all treated as a comedic lighthearted affair? why arent the bandits in felixes paralogue or the mercs in lorenzes or the bandits in raphaels or any number of other p1 paralogues treated with the same gravitas both in universe and by the parts of the fandom that always like to bring up kostas and lonato and miklain as examples of how fodlans fucked up? is it perhaps because the narrative itself doesnt treat them in the same shady manner as the preferred examples, examples that all coincidentally are all related to the rhea red herring subplot?

to also deviate a bit lets compare 3h p1 to say... lyns story in fe7. most people who play lyns story agree that its an overly long tutorial section of the game in terms of raw gameplay and it can certainly be cut down in that regard but what about story? could you cut down lyns story in the same manner as 3h part 1?

the prologue would have to stay its an introduction to lyn

ch1 brings us onto the immediate plot we'll be following of the caelian succession crisis

ch2 grants lyn the mani kati and lays foreshadowing for future plotlines after lyns story

ch3 introduces florina giving more insight into lyns past and character

ch4 could probably be cut and dorcas shuffled into a different chapter as it doesnt bring much

ch5 could probably be cut and erk and serra shuffled into a different chapter like dorcas could be

ch6 brings insight into cultural clashes between lycia and sacae, introduces more future plot threads and directly advances the current plot so it can stay

ch7/7x foreshadow the black fang and the ninian and niles plotlines and introduces eliwood well establishing lyn and eliwoods character history and relation.

ch8 advances the immediate plot with lundgrens forces getting bolder and more powerful

ch9 further advances the plot reinforcing how dasterdly and necessary it is to take lundgren down through the tragedy of eagler well establishing why the other lycian marquis are keeping out of the immediate conflict

and ch10 wraps up the immediate plot line with lyn taking lundgren down, meeting her grandfather and resolving to stay in caelia for the immediate future as the various characters take their position for eliwood/hectors story.

certainly overall lyns story could be compressed, but in terms of story beats/chapters that could be outright cut theres only 2 that actually come to mind. or only 1/5 of lyns story i would outright say could be cut compared to the 2/3 of 3h p1 story that could be outright cut and not lose anything important.

[paronomasianist-archive]

nyanzaya mentioned you in a post

…for you guys@fawking-izaya @ paronomasianist (��) Shizuo was anything,…

honestly idk what to say except that drabble was just one of the brest things i have read t???

Shizuo did it so often Iza wondered if he was trying to read his mind. The feline was sure that’s what he was doing it for. How else could he guess he was hungry? Or if he wanted a kiss

okay like this is so legit//../ i think just period that the often shizou does this maybe its like because he wants to be closer to iza an i just admire how iza thinks so much into it and it feels like he thinks so highly of shizuo period because come on?? like its both ways and shizuo does it because its like a feline thing too to convey affection and he just wants iza to feel it and i don’t evne ?

As Shizuo was, he was not a man of many words, opting to explain things through actions and with Iza’s complaint and seeing the flick of the feline’s tail he could already tell that Iza was getting irritable. As if to compensate, Shizuo grabbed the soft of Iza’s back thighs and stood up. An instant reaction from Iza was he had wrapped his arms around Shizuo’s neck, as if he didn’t trust that Shizuo wouldn’t hold him correctly. 

i relly love your description here, its funny and brings so heavy a feelng of affection too and how they just move together so easily? but then tht last line i dont even know, because i can look super deep into it and just say some bs about how iza feels this way ebcAUSE METAPHORS TRUST IN PEOPLE IN HIS LIFE but it just shows that they are kind of still working togther as a couple and they have things to work on

  i feel like i rubbed off on you in the line of “soft of iza’s back thighs” because i write “the soft of--” or “the sharp curve of” and idk, but i just love that little description period because it even indicates maybe how gentle shizuo holds iza or just why shizuo would love to slide HIS HANDS OVER THAT SOFT THIGH and maybewhy hes so ticklish there 

Iza looked at the ceiling, he swore Shizuo was so tall that if he was on top of the blond’s shoulders he would be able to touch the ceiling. The actions were easy enough to read, and vaguely seeing where they were going- thankfully not the bathroom to be dumped in the bathtub again-

iza admies such things about shizou that shizou doens’t even care about but to iza its like wonderment and how simple iza is. and then, theres’ the trust

 because yeap, most times shizuo has iza in his hands like this where do they go?

the bathroom

 the routines they have are so funny and sad but --

Seeing Shizuo lay down and take a cube of ice out of the cup, Iza moved closer to him and just seeing Shizuo place the cup down on the night stand he wanted to knock it off. Until now, Iza always did wonder why Shizuo never had anything that could be pushed off the side on tables or the counter. He was probably the reason why.

again their routines? like im so sure iza has knocked over so many things and shizuo just has gotten into this use of “meh not there iza can toss it” and its so funny? i think its great how you always incoprtate iza’s feline characteristics in a way no one else has? i really dont even know, most anime/manga just ave nekos as sexual kawaii creatures but iza is like a legit cat, but whose a human and understands how to be human but still embraces his feline side regardless of his past and its inspring as a chracter because its like?  nothing holds him back sure he suffers from the past and has moments where hes THERE again and is scared, but iza has come so far from his childhood and the views peple see to him its just pure character development in such a great way. sometimes makes me cry but i mean, what belived character hasnt lmao

“Yeah! It should. If it doesn’t them I’m going to die!” Iza said in a dramatic display of throwing his shirt off to a random corner of the room. Shizuo watched the shirt fly off.

hes so over dramatic, a pure moment of just comedic drama from how iza is when hes with someone whose not intimidating or whatever

honestly i was gonna just sit and rant about everything in this but i think i just picked some of my favorite lines because the whole thing is just intimaticy and humor and how shizuo and iza are, and you captured the way I perceive shizuo so perfectly i think everything tht you can take my place and rp shizuo on this blog. i would write more but i literally wrote so much i cant even feel my pinky anymore or my ring finger r i p