#the funny part is that this technically isn't a shitpost

[prokopetz]

"Do you read Kill Six Billion Demons" I mean, of course – everybody knows I'm a big fan of Homestuck spinoffs.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 19/10/2023

Take Me Home, Country Snow

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: E3 2019 Press Kit

Ripped by Smoky

For as many memes as SiIva creates or helps popularize, be it Grand Dad, We Are Number One, Totino's Mania, and so on - there's just as many, if not more jokes that wholly eclipse SiIva in terms of popularity. A meme legend in the gaming community, shitposts of Todd Howard have been around long before SiIva's creation, yet only truly took off in 2015 thanks to his presence at Bethesda's E3 show. E3 in general is a holiday of sorts for the gaming community, not just because its home to a bevvy of announcements and trailers for upcoming games, but also for its unavoidable memetic quality - there's just so much SILLY shit that happens at E3, be it awkward live speeches, technical mishaps, ill-timed reveals, or the inevitable barrage of Phil Spence saying the word "gamer". The SiIvaGunner team are not ones to leave such fresh meme produce out to rot, and are always immensely quick on the draw when it comes to each year's E3 highlights.

But lets be real - out of all memes and jokes that spawn out of E3, I don't think there are any that even come close to being as timeless and eternally funny as Toddposting. Year after year, Bethesda show after Bethesda show, Todd is always there, always pushing and promising that THIS time will be different, THIS time the game will truly let you do all of those things that were promised last time. Coupled with the company's insistence on having you purchase Skyrim over and over, and its no wonder his name is so well known. And though Todd took over the entire channel for a brief bit in Season 3, it would take yet one more year for the magnum opus to be released.

Take Me Home, Country Snow is such a perfect instillation of everything SiIvaGunner is capable of doing, and of everything that SiIvaGunner IS. 2018 already solidified Fallout 76 as a complete catastrophy of a game, a symbol for just how many empty promises Todd Howard will do in order to get his game sold. By E3 next year, Todd's infamy was put front and center as he was made to step out on stage and admit the faults of his game. Take Me Home, Country Roads, as the anthem to Fallout 76, became laced in a sort of ironic melancholy, the realization that its idealized game was never going to truly happen...and yet here, its celebrated - mashed up with Snow Halation of all things. I discussed in Snow halocean that much of what makes Snow Halation rips so special is that they feel like a sort of inauguration ceremony for individual memes - a seal of approval that a meme has truly "made it" on the SiIvaGunner channel. The ever-consistent visuals, the insistence of having them only feature one joke at a time, and of course the per-rip "speeches" each joke provides near the last quarter of the runtime - it all gives these rips a sort of celebratory vibe. By this point, Todd Howard's meme status was wholly, unavoidably, cemented as part of SiIvaGunner.

All of this isn't even to mention the quality of the rip itself - the self-titled "Nuclear Winter" mix of American country vocals paired with cheerful, snow-clad idol pop creates a vibe wholly unique to this rip - Take Me Home, Country Snow creates an image of optimism and celebration that otherwise seems so foreign to Bethesda games within the wider gaming sphere. Yet that's just the thing - Todd Howard isn't on this stage for his achievements as a game developer, but for his legendary status within online shitposting. This rip celebrates everything we love about E3, and at this point feels like a farewell to the event as a whole.

Todd's indirectly put smiles on so many faces all over the world, even if it most definitely wasn't in the way he ever intended. Take Me Home, Country Snow.

[rbbess110]

Hi, and happy WBW to you! (as usual I am @writeblr-of-my-own) Sorry that I missed last Saturday ask, but it was a busy week and stuff happened!

So, for today's question something a bit easier and relaxing: tell me a piece of worldbuilding you are extremely proud of! Go on, blabber about it as much as you like!

hiii, happy worldbuilding wednesday right back at you!! thanks so much for the ask!!

i don't do much worldbuilding for my stories (i'm a fairly realistic realm kinda guy), but i think i actually have an answer for that!! it is kinda silly and i'm not 100% sure if you can call it worldbuilding, but it was the first thing that came to my mind so might as well talk about it :D

so there was this fanfic i was working on back in 2020 - it stared out as a coffee shop!au, but grew to something a bit bigger than that with time. it took place in a fictional small town, and since i've rewatched gilmore girls like, 3 times almost in a row in that time, it was hugely influenced by that. just so you have some context.

anyway, in that wip, i was all for this "small town charm" and i kept coming up with ideas for local events and traditions for that little town. i barely remember most of them now, and they were probably ridiculous, but hey, it was supposed to give off rom-com vibes so it was kind of the point. anyway, i had those events planned in great detail: as in, their origins, how they're technically supposed to be celebrated, and what actually happens there which technically isn't planned but it's becoming a tradition of it's own.

one of the examples i remember now is that every year, there was a thing organized for the night of shooting stars - yknow, people getting together to watch, probably some kind of picnic was organized with that and all, i don't remember that clearly now. i do remember though that the actual thing that made people attend was the annual "are constellations stupid?" debate between a father and son - it started one year when the father was telling his kids and friends about stars and constellations, and the son thought it would be really funny if he started to doubt his father's words and support it with absolute bullshit arguments. he'd say the most shitpost crap you could imagine. it was supposed to just be a joking banter, and everyone knows it's a joke, but the father is not letting it go until the son admits he's not serious, and the son is definitely not letting it go because he still thinks it's a really funny bit. it's been going on for years, and they prepare power point presentations every year now. the town is very much there to watch.

and on one hand i feel like it's really silly, but on the other, i'm still very attached to this little community i've created in that fictional small town, with all their silly little traditions. it's probably that it was simply fun coming up with all of that and i'm nostalgic, but yeah, i think that all those little events and traditions and everyone's part in it is a peace of worldbuilding i'm actually very proud of :D

[subzeroiceskater]

I thought, "why don't I try making story for RR? I've never done that before" before I thought, "wait."

Then I thought next, "why don't I try making a serious story" before "oh".

Then finally, "no, how about I write straight prose" and then I thought, "do you really think they'd really want that? From you? Especially now, after you've seen how they treated your first stories?"

Then I thought nothing because I forced myself back to sleep.

-

Imagine joining Yuletide or Robot Rumpus for the first time and being forced to come up something for someone like me.

-

So the most recent written story I have for MM is "The One Who Jumped" which is a more straightforward story than "The Man Who Married a Whale", but still probably not the typical story. I still like it a lot. I'd say I'd love it but I don't think it's that good, technically speaking. I'd have the idea forever and I was surprised when I tried putting it down. It was different from what I've always imagined but I still appreciated for its weird imperfections.

Now there are some stories that I know I won't do well, solely because of their content and/or execution. "The One Who Jumped" and "Arc Weldy Feels the Love" both occupy this space for me. If nobody ever read them, if nobody liked them, I'd understand. These are the types of little stories that are just designed to occupy a weird little corner--it's not like sweeping ongoing shippy romances/epics that I've constantly been turning in my head. These are the types of stories that are very one and done. It's one of those weird little stories that isn't easily designed to be "get". I could've written "The One Who Jumped" to be a lot simpler, to be more easily understood, and honestly, that's how it existed in my head, but the story that came out is instead one is one that's gonna ask something from the reader, which I don't think is a lot, but more than typical, especially with my usual jokey shitposts. There are some confusing imageries, some quick jumps between perspective without warning, abrupt pronoun changes, but those are intentional for my part. I get if it won't be successful, that it won't hit, but I did it to the best of my ability and when I read it every now and then, I am still satisfied.

As of this writing, it has three kudos--two from signed in users and one from anonymous guests. No comments.

I wonder why those two (maybe three, I don't know if that anonymous guest is an actual person or not) people left kudos. Did they click the story simply because I put Tundra Man as one of the characters? Did the story mean something to them or was the kudos, like some ao3 readers have reasoned, a sign they simply reached the end of the story and wanted to reward me for putting something readable? Did they read through the story, perhaps skimming for dialogue, and when they reached the end, did they think the story was just a big joke? That I was trying to be funny?