#this is a sitcom and he's the punchline

[beastofthesea]

the best worst part of dos2 is how things just keep getting worse for fane to a borderline comical extent

[thegreatyin]

caeru can finally join his roommate + girlfriend in the funny mirror dimension. give it up for him

[cartoontees]

i like kurtis conner but the funny thing is the less "produced" his content is, the more i like it. i think his podcast is hilarious, and his youtube videos are pretty good too, but i thought his comedy special was barely funny at all i hate to say. i can't tell if his type of comedy really tends to be better the more natural and spontaneous it is, or if that's just my personal preference.

[cherrymoonvol6]

.

[therealbeachfox]

I must humbly disagree about Random Gothamite.

To me, Random Gothamite is an 11/10 option. Gotham is -filled- with people who've had their lives ruined by the Joker. Dead children, dead spouses, dead friends, dead family, dead That Cute Guy Who Sat Across From Me I Never Worked Up The Nerve To Ask Out. Apartment got blown up with all of grandma's things inside. Funeral for a loved one interrupted by exploding hyenas.

There is so much of the city that is just fucked -pissed- at the guy. And also fucking scared shitless.

All it would take is for the Joker to leap out at some poor woman on her way back from a 14 hour shift at the diner, triggering all sorts of trauma from that time he held her Jr. High class hostage and killed her best friend in front of her with a pair of mechanical teeth, and suddenly she's standing over a dead body with her emergency In-Case-Of-Mugging gun in her hand and is freaking the fuck out because "Oh shit, I just killed the Joker, the Bats will want to arrest me, the Rogues will want to kill me, and the City will want to throw me a parade, and there is no way I wont get fired from work the moment the first reporter shows up to ask about me. How the hell do I hide this body?

And then... Nothing. It's been awhile since the Joker's done anything. I wonder what he's up to? It's been weeks since a sighting.

Then it's been months.

Then it's been over a year. And... It's Gotham. There's other things to worry about. Creepers with mind-control hats, giant cannibal lizards in the sewer, the occasional ancient assassin conspiracy, alien realities with too many black metal spikes trying to overwrite our own. The Joker drifts from everyone's mind. It's been ages, after all. There was no grand stand, no widely published videos of the takedown, not even a corpse or a confirmed kill or parade or anything to rally street gangs or rogues or pretenders to the throne around.

There's a woman, maybe a few of her very good friends, who knows what happened. Also some fish in the river. But otherwise...

He's just forgotten.

Like he should be.

It's the only way his story deserves to end.

Best people to kill the Joker ranked:

Bruce: 2/10 this would completely defeat the point of him as a character and throw away the entire Batman narrative but on the other hand his kids deserve it. Also Joker would never see it coming lol

Jason: 4/10 it will never be as satisfying as he needs it to be. And the point is not for him to have to do it

Dick: 9/10 LET HIM SNAP!! That’s his family. It would weigh on him for the rest of his life and he would have emotional problems over it but the Joker’s never touching any of his baby siblings/loved ones ever again

Harley: 11/10 and she doesn’t do it alone, she has friends and support there backing her up while she finishes him off. Someone films it, Harley and Ivy hug after. Ultimate catharsis and taking back her freedom

Tim: 7/10 the progression from baby stalker Tim to baby assassin Tim would be hilarious but it would cause so much family conflict. Jason would be offended that Dick or Bruce didn’t do it and declare Tim his new favorite brother. His undead alias has the last name Drake. He’ll fight Tim’s parents

Cass: -20/10 cursed option. Worst case scenario. She may run away afterwards

Stephanie: 5/10 lmao. I have to assume this is only the beginning of Steph’s reign of terror #chaoswins

Barbara: 8/10 stone cold there is no evidence whatsoever but she let Joker know it was her right before his death

Damian: 3/10 he gets grounded for committing murder but the city of Gotham also throws a parade, so it’s pretty mixed messages. He refuses to state his regret and gets grounded 3x longer

Duke: 6/10 who tf is Batman? The Signal is Gotham’s most iconic vigilante. They’re gonna put him on a coin, a golden coin. It’s limited edition and it does glow

A banana peel on the ground: -10/10 this is exactly how the Joker would wanna go out :/

Alfred: 11/10 and torture was involved. The body was disposed of very thoroughly in a way that absolutely no one ever could come back from. Proof is publicly given to the city somehow so everyone knows not to fear the Joker anymore

Commissioner Gordon: -1/10 there’s no good way to write this. Would not be handled well

Random Gothamite: 3/10 the entire city wants this man dead does he have the secret service protecting him or something? How much do you have to be paid for that to be worth it

Coordinated Justice League effort: 4/10 and they managed to do it without entering Gotham’s borders, which took significant planning. Enough is enough

Any Super: 9/10 completely impulsive, instinctive, and possibly on accident. They have to do a press conference. Twitter cannibalizes itself. Someone turns the scene into a gif. Gotham City decides Metropolis is okay now. Lex Luthor is frothing at the mouth.

[lovebugism]

Hi there 👋🏻 I've been binge reading your stories lately and I love them all! I have a request if you're up for it. Could you write one where shy!reader doesn't like her laugh because some people think it's annoying but Eddie loves it? Totally not self-projecting by the way! 🙃 Thank you!

thank you angel! please enjoy :D — eddie comforts you when he finds out an old boyfriend made you hate your laugh (shy!fem!r, established relationship, hurt/comfort, 1k)

You and Eddie sit on opposite sides of the worn, sunken-in couch — long legs bent at the knees, socked feet wedged neatly beneath your thighs. Your bare calves rest on either side of his lap while his calloused palms rub up and down the length of them. His touch is largely absentminded as he tries hopelessly not to laugh through the punchline of his own joke.

“—And I was like, ‘Boom. You lookin’ for this?’”

You think the brown-eyed look of expectancy he gives you is funnier than anything. You smile wide, hiding the sparkling expression behind your palm.

Eddie meets your beam with a boyish pout. He repeats the punchline, more serious this time. “And I was like, ‘Boom’—”

“I heard you, Eds,” you assure with a small chuckle. A mere breath of a laugh.

His frown deepens. “Oh, c’mon!” he exclaims, lifting his hands in protest. They drop back to your ankles a second later. “That was funny! That always kills with Hellfire!”

You nod rapidly, brows raised and eyes wide, like a parent comforting a child. “It was good,” you assure quickly.

“Then why aren’t you laughing?”

“So, what— I have to laugh if I think something’s funny?”

“Well, that’s usually how it works, yeah,” Eddie monotones with a flat face, nodding until his wild curls sway around his jaw. He shrugs lazily a second later and jokes, “If you’re not a psychopath, at least… You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

You meet his narrowed eyes with a more pensive gaze. Your lips purse to the side of your mouth as you jokingly ponder the silly question. “No,” you answer after a few long moments. “Not yet, anyway.”

Eddie nods like he’s relieved. “Nice.”

“There’s still time, though,” you add with a scrunched nose.

He scrunches the bridge of his back. “I’ll take that risk,” he says with a small huff before lifting his weight on his knuckles. The old couch creaks in protest as he leans over to kiss you. 

With a poorly bitten-back grin, you meet him halfway. Your mouths smack together in a fleeting kiss that tastes faintly of frozen pizza.

You settle back on the arm of the couch with Eddie’s socked toes wriggling under your thighs. His thumbs continue tracing shapes on the insides of your calves. He watches you watch the staticky television screen, too wound up about the whole thing to join in on the stupid sitcom.

The subtly overwhelming feeling bubbles in his throat until it spills like vomit from his mouth. “Do you think I’m not funny or something?” he blurts, then goes all shy right after. “Is that why… Is that why you don’t really laugh at my jokes?”

Your breathy scoff only further proves his point. “I laugh at your jokes all the time, Eds.”

He shrugs, unconvinced. “I mean… I guess. You, like, breathe really hard through your nose or whatever, but you don’t… You don’t laugh.”

“I think if you heard me laugh, you’d break up with me,” you joke and don’t think twice about how self-deprecating it is.

Eddie’s face twists at the thought — that he’d ever want to break up with you, or that there’d be a part of you he wouldn’t automatically adore on instinct. “Why would you say that?” 

You shrug with a vague I don’t know type of sound and turn back to the television. “My laugh is just weird, I guess....”

“No one’s laugh is weird!” Eddie insists. “It’s, like, the one sound people make when they’re happiest— It can’t be weird.”

You flash him a deadpan look of silent disagreement.

He caves.

“Okay. Fine. Dustin Henderson’s laugh is weird,” he concludes. “But… that’s just because he’s Dustin, you know?”

You breathe a faint chuckle at that. Almost like you’ve trained yourself to be as quiet in your laughter as you can. 

“My last boyfriend thought my laugh was annoying,” you confess like it’s no big deal. “So eventually I just kinda… stopped.”

Eddie’s soft features harden into a solemn frown. “What a fucking prick…” he grumbles like a storm cloud.

“It’s okay. I got over it. Mostly.”

He squeezes the backs of your calves with a pair of ringed hands, a warm and reassuring touch. “Well, I don’t think anything you do could annoy me,” Eddie tells you, tilting his head to the side until his wild curls bunch at his shoulders. “Just so we’re clear.”

Something in your chest flutters — like there’s a thousand moths trapped behind your ribcage. “Good to know,” you tease in the same sardonic tone.

Eddie rises suddenly, tugging at your ankles until you’re lying flatter on the couch. A squeal sound in your throat as you watch him rise to his knees and lean over you. He digs his fingers gently into the plush of your sides before you can blink. 

“Get off!” you swat at him, laughing loudly at the tickling sensation before you can help it. The golden sound spills from your lips and fills the dim trailer with so many little sunbeams. 

Your face heats at the proud, lopsided smile Eddie gives you.

“Get off,” you repeat, sterner now but still mostly playful. You’re only slightly surprised when Eddie obeys without pouting. You sit up a bit more and tug your shirt down from where it had ridden up. “And stop looking at me like that.”

Eddie fights to purse his beam to the side of his mouth. Your sparkling, unsmiling disposition is impossible not to smile at. “Can’t help it,” the boy shrugs with a stupid grin. “You’re too cute.”

Your face scrunches in disdain of his compliment. You prop your back against the couch and cross your arms over your chest, averting your gaze to the TV once more. “Just drive me home,” you grumble in protest, hardly meaning it.

“No can do, sweet thing,” Eddie says with a sympathetic sigh, dropping a heavy arm around your shoulder to pull you into his chest. You melt begrudgingly into his sloppy embrace. He presses a kiss to your hair and mumbles into your temple. “‘M never letting you go, actually.”

And, despite your very obvious pouting, you pray he never breaks his promise.

[godzillabreath]

wwdits finale

I feel like I've written one of these chunky text posts after every season of What We Do in the Shadows, but I always feel so incensed about the decisions the writers continued to push.

I really do feel like season 3 reached the pinnacle of what the show was for me, and for me, it hasn't justified its continued existence since then. Ultimately, post-season 3 they decided to go with the overarching theme of "nothing ever changes, this is a metaphor for the long, listless immortal lives these vampires have." Guillermo is upset by this unchanging nature, but we never get to have a catharsis for him. He is ultimately stuck in their mire, and so it feels unsatisfying to end the series by having him continually strung along. It's not only unsatisfying, but it genuinely feels bad.

What would have been more interesting is if the writers had Guillermo push back against the unchanging apathy the vampires experience and provoke them, make them aware of their endless drifting, change and challenge them.

I really loved the idea of Nandor wanting to be human again in season 3 episode 8. I wish this could have been a long-running theme explored with him. Such an ancient vampire feeling so disenfranchised and out of time struggling with the idea of being human again, have some kind of emotional tether to the world. I think it would have been cool if, somehow in the end, Nandor could have been made human again, allowed to live a life he never really had. Guillermo could have easily facilitated this change in him. It writes itself.

Another thing I really didn't like in the finale was the explicit jab at anyone who ever found the relationship dynamic between Nandor and Guillermo compelling. Creating this framework of "Nadja hypnotizes you fool audience members into thinking Nandor and Guillermo are this married gay couple, that's so funny, it all exists in your stupid mind" felt very much like a punch down. I could probably extrapolate this argument out further to talk about the weird "woke homophobia" from the showrunners' framing: how queerness is always used as a punchline, how queer culture is a quippy line or a pride flag but not an actual element of the show, how queer relationships aren't ever allowed to exist seriously on screen in the way straight ones are. So yeah, that sucks.

Lastly, I felt the ending was disappointing because it eschewed any ideas. The showrunners decided to make it meta and self-referential as a opt out of saying anything conclusive for the characters or for the audience. It was lazy, bland, and unsatisfying. It will go down in my mind as a show that was half-good, with all this unrealized growth from season 3 siphoned into 3 additional seasons of sitcom slop.

[luunamoona]

the way community handled queerness is honestly so peak. like, there're 3 main moments i can think of in the show where queerness was apparent and mentioned: advanced gay, queer studies and advanced waxing and britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television.

in advanced gay, the cornelius hawthorne is seen as a villian for having traits like being abusive towards his son, pierce, him being really racist and him being homophobic. this acknowledgement of homophobia being a bad thing is definitely good for the early 2010s, as many shows treated being queer as a joke back then. also cornelius being fucking murdered at the end of the episode solidifies the fact his actions were deemed immoral and he therefore had his comeuppance.

community only ever uses queerness as a punchline in the context of troy and abed's relationship, the punchline usually being "look at how romantic these 2 friends are how silly", which could be seen as homophobia as the same context with a man and a woman would be treated differently by the showrunners as it'd be turned into a romantic subplot.

the next example i have is from queer studies and advanced waxing. having the dean tell richie and carl that he "isn't openly anything and gay doesn't begin to cover it" is much more progressive than many other media at that time, and even now, as they'd usually have the queer character just be gay for convenience. this need for convenience is commented on in the episode with richie and carl basically coercing the dean into adopting a label that is inaccurate but convenient for his straight peers. back to my previous point, presenting queerness as being more complex and having more nuance than just gay and straight is something that is very useful to queer viewers as it presents an option beyond these 2 ends of the spectrum. unlike what other shows may do with this concept, community treats it seriously, showing the dean's inner conflict with presenting with an identity that isn't his, with lines like "i feel sick". (also side point, the line "i make gayness look like mormonism" goes so hard)

finally, there's britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television. in this, the dean protests britta's decision to make him transgender and not "all this other stuff". something i love about that scene is the ability to critique queer represention without insulting it. as a trans person, i've seen a good amount of transphobia is television. this isn't one of these times. being able to have trans identity be a part of the punchline without it being insulted is something that is apparently very hard for screenwriters of sitcoms to do, so i commend them for being able to do that. as well as this, this scene acts as a criticism of how basic queer representation in media is, how they like having one distinct, easy to understand label to give their token character, ignoring "all this other stuff". it's telling us that, like in queer studies and advanced waxing, queer idenity isn't black and white, it's a wide spectrum of identities that comes in many, many different colors.

all in all, community's representation of queerness and how it treats insults to queerness is something a lot of other shows should try to strive for. in my opinion, it has some of the most nuanced takes of queer identity and representation out of any sitcom that doesn't have queer people as a target audience. it feels very fitting, since the show is literally called community and it about a group of misfits who bond over their shared messed up-ness. this show is all about finding your people and accepting everyone, as pierce says in for a few paintballs more, "flaws and all". i think the showrunners had an impression this show would speak to a lot of queer people and i love that they were able to make us feel welcome just as greendale does to the study group.

[snake-eggs]

ok ok ok when I first got into Wicked as a kid in the very early ‘10s, I literally did not know that gay people were real and not just a punchline in sitcoms.

also I had to learn the plot slowly, bit by bit, by talking to other theatre kids and buying the songs one by one on iTunes (lmao) because I hadn’t seen the stage production yet. And when I got to “dancing through life,” I remember being sooo baffled at Fiyero’s presence in the show because “Isn’t this story about Elphaba and Glinda?? What??”

which I now realize in hindsight was 11 year old me not having the vocabulary to say “wait why is he here, aren’t these two lesbians??”

[galactic-rhea]

Do you guys ever think about how the generational cycles of abuse slowly crumble in The Simpsons? Do you ever think about it?

I love The Simpsons, and by no means it's supposed to be taken as a show that takes itself seriously, because it doesn't. But yet it handles heavy themes, it does handle strong subjects, particularly first seasons had certain, strong character's driven episodes meant to actually make you take it seriously. Even later seasons, albeit it becomes less and less of a thing (it becomes a bit heartless), has certain episodes like that. And is what makes The Simpsons a bit unique on the adult shows landmine.

Not to say it's completely original on this, because The Simpsons come from an era where sitcoms were everywhere, and sitcoms tend to be 70% comedy and then a few strong, heart-felt moments. This is because to keep you laughing, you need downs, otherwise, joke after joke after joke, you get a monotone story were there's no stakes nor pauses between a punchline and another. Comedy needs a tiny bit of seriousness, so you feel your feet on the ground, and then they will throw at you a joke, that, if is well written, is meant to surprise you, you don't see it coming. In the Simpsons, many of the classic jokes you remember best? You don't see them coming, not really, because the way they wrote the jokes in the simpsons is actually very clever, if I were to graph them, there would be several curves and points because they're jokes within jokes within jokes.

And then is a bit of dark humour, that is meant to reasonate with the audience somehow. So you laugh a bit at the fact that Homer's dad let him drink beer just so he would stop bothering him, but then the show makes you care, sometimes, about Homer being extremely hostile with his very old dad. But then you also laugh at the fact Homer's mom was a hippie, a rebel hippie, at that, that took him to Woodstock and is one of Homer's happiest memories of his childhood, and then you don't expect her literally dying.

And returning, in a way, just because she wants Homer and his family to continue what she started, and the show makes you care, the show makes you feel for the characters. Because Abe is a war veteran, he was awful to Homer and to his wife, but you also know he cared, and you also feel bad because he lives in a retirement home and wants to live with Homer and his family, but Homer will literally start the engine and leave him there, and at his age, he doesn't deserve that, but what does he deserve? Should Homer forgive him for everything? No, not really, you don't have to forgive abusers, but then it gets messy and complex because abusers don't deserve to be abused.

Homer, however, does forgive Abe, sometimes (and because of the nature of the show, it gets retconned, or forgotten, or brushed away, and etc). But more interestingly, he forgives his mom. Homer's mom was a much nicer parent, she was kind and Homer's refuge for happiness, so it's easy to forgive her, despite the fact that leaving Homer with someone like Abe was certainly, not a good choice, and we know that many, MANY of Homer's problems, all come rooted from either trauma or behaviours he learned from his childhood. And he's rightfully angry about it, he acts a bit like a rebellious teenager, because Homer is fairly inmature and this is because a extremely troubled youth.

But he forgives her right when she's literally a corpse in a chair, and then the closure comes from finishing what she started years ago as a radical environmentalist advocate.

So Homer knows, extremely well from first hand, his parents' flaws, and he is, to some degree, aware of how these affected him, which is more than most of the audience he represents realizes. But he's still an awful parent. He is abusive, towards Bart, but he also cares and tries deeply. He does an incredible much better job as a parent and as a partner than his parents.

And that's still not enough. That's not enough because trying doesn't mean sucess. The nature of the show makes it a bit harder, because sometimes it can be uqite inconsistent. There's a whole episode focused on how Homer decided to give up a lot and to stay under the awful working conditions from Mr. Burns because of Maggie, and then there are episodes where he literally forgets he has a third child.

But that's still better, somehow, than his upbringing. The bar was low, quite low, but he doesn't know anything else, and yet tries to be something different. And that's, from a narrative sense, interesting.

The cycle is breaking, is not completely over, is not a good job, but it is an attempt, it is watering down the abuse, it is making it less awful. Is like trying to purify a river, you're starting to remove the trash bags, you blocked the wastes tubes, the water is still contaminated, there's no grass and the ground is infertile. But it's a start, you need to start somewhere.

And then, in the futures episodes with Bart (and Lisa, and Maggie, even) we learn that, he isn't doing that much better either. Bart is divorced, his ex hates him because he's inmature and his children aren't very fond of him. Lisa's marriage is a bit of a mess, and her relationship with her daughter echoes a bit the one she had with Marge and Homer: She can't understand her, there's a lack of cummunication.

But it's still incredible, much better, than what they knew while growing up. Bart tries to be more responsible, he isn't abusive, his problem is that he's inmature and therefore can't connect with his children. But he doesn't quite yell at them, or tries to choke them (at least in the future episodes I remember, there are several). And unsurprisingly, he resents Homer a lot, which is logical, given everything, but he's also baffled that his children love Homer, and as a grandparent, he actually does quite a good job.

And the cycle is almost completely broken. Perhaps you can't absolutely clean it all, at least not in so few years, but it's happening and the change and evolution is logical, despite it being a sitcom, it is quite well written and sadly realistic. Bart and Lisa and Maggie don't have perfect lives as adults, and they struggle and the narrative shows you that a lot of these struggles come from their toxic enviroment.

And they're still doing better, because Homer and Marge chose to do slightly better than their parents. And so the cycle is near to the end.

I could talk about Marge, but sadly, in terms of her upbringing, there isn't much, besides the fact that she grew in a conservative home. We know her mother told her to held back tears and always pretend to be happy and force a smile, which is how she carried out in her life in many facets. And then we see she tries, at first, to teach the same to Lisa, and then decides to break that rule, to break what she forced herself to do and let Lisa be sad and express her emotions fully.

We also know she was quite bullied by her older sisters, and she's the one to always try to stop fights between Lisa and Bart, and the first one to try to stop rivalry between them when Homer tried to make them fight the other for attention.

Marge is flawed in a sense that she internalized a lot of misoginy and conservative ideals and then, sometimes, she tries to spread it, unwillingly, because is what she knows. Despite this, we know she supports Lisa's interests in studying and artistic skills. We know her mother was cold, and a bit detached, but Marge tries to be as warm and supportative as possible.

The Simpsons reasonates, mostly, with a generation that came from similar home enviroments, and, to some degree, some people in the audience could realize of their own flawed origins or how they carried those flaws, because I think the creators and writers had this in mind, the change and the struggle with trauma, the "not being good, but being better than what I remember".

So there's that. Deeply, deeeply flawed people that were raised in awful enviroments, and ultimately fail at being "good" parents, but they tried to change, and they tried to be better, and trying does matter in the end , because it's a start. They didn't end the cycle, but they planted the seeds for it. And to me, that's extremely interesting, and more so because this is the fricking Simpsons, a comedy, but like the context and narrative it generates, reasonates deeply with me despite not being for any of the generations the Simpsons represent, I'm a queer person in their 20s that was raised and still lives with an awful, awful family, but that I know their upbrinding was just so so so so much worse. And I know they try, and is not enough, and I can't quite forgive that, but I can see they try. And I know the cycle ends with me, at the very least.

[wttcsms]

Hihi i saw ur request box was open & i just couldnt resist! A big confession to make here, uhh ive been such a big fan of u and yr writings and also u were the v first fanfic blog i came across a couple years ago so yea, u literally open my third eye to a whole new world of fics👉👈 🥺

i feel like you havent written angst in a while–and bc i miss ur angsty haikyuu fics– sooo could i request post-breakup college!au with atsumu or iwai (honestly anyone who'd best fit the scenario cuz i trust ur characterization👌) abt the aftermath of the breakup, them seeing us on campus and unconsciously following us with their eyes, reschin to help out on instinct only to realize theyre no longer together, thinking about what could've been just reminisce reminisce

ahhhh im sry honestly dont know how to expand more on the idea

thank you for stealing my ficvirginity😃

pairing atsumu miya x f!reader word count 2.1k content contains exes still in love, college!au, mutual pining author's notes hi <3 i remember you (eycee, right?). don't be a stranger! you can always dm me and say hello :) thank you for the constant support. not sure if this fic is angsty enough, but i wanted yours to be the first req i do <3

“Hi, welcome in! Let me know if— Oh.”

Your voice falters, recognition and maybe even something similar to embarrassment flits across your face, and a split second later, you go back to smiling like nothing’s wrong. Like the two of you haven’t spent the better half of this month actively avoiding each other at all costs, even though the sprawling acres of the University of Tokyo suddenly feels too small. The entirety of Japan has felt too small ever since it became his mission to never cross paths with you ever again. 

This mission of his started just a little over two weeks ago, on the very same day you decide to use his heart as your own punching bag. The worst part of it all, though, is the fact that he doesn’t even hold any type of contempt for you. It’s a cruel sort of joke; sometimes, Atsumu Miya feels like everything bad that happens to him is just some sort of sick punchline in a sitcom instead of real life. 

Usually, when girlfriends find out their high school sweetheart is going to be a wildly successful (and rich) professional athlete, they’ll do anything in their power to hang onto him.

You decided to snip the invisible string tying the two of you together, and you did it so effortlessly, so quickly, that Atsumu had to make sure that he hadn’t been imagining the last four years of your relationship. 

He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, and he’s torn between staring at you like a total creep or looking at everything in the campus bookstore but you. He settles for the former, scared that this will be his last opportunity to really look at you. 

Neither of you is saying anything. It’s a Saturday and so no one else is even in the bookstore this morning, and Atsumu wants to say something, anything, but he’s never been that great at carefully picking his words, and he’s scared out of his mind that he’ll say something stupid and prove once and for all that you had been right to break up with him. Better yet, he wants you to say something. He wants you to give him a better explanation instead of the bullshit you told him in his apartment. 

We just want different things.

What does that even mean? He thinks he would have shouted out that question, if only your little break up speech hadn’t caught him so off guard. Different things? The two of you wanted different things? Sure, Atsumu likes to sleep in a freezing cold apartment, and you need the room to actually be at a reasonable temperature. And maybe Atsumu has a penchant for overly fried, greasy foods when all you want (and deserve) is a fancy dinner. Maybe Atsumu wants to be at a sports store instead of browsing aisle after aisle in Sephora, but he doubts these different wants have accumulated so much that you felt you had no choice but to break his heart. 

“Hey, Miya.” You say it softly, dropping the perky customer service voice you greeted him with before you turned around and realized who he was. And he flinches. He fucking visibly cringes at the way you speak to him, walking on eggshells and going back to formalities like he’s barely above a stranger to you.

Miya.

(Did you know that he wanted to make that your last name?

Do you know that he still does, even now?)

“Hey,” he replies back, curling his fingers into fists inside his pocket. He thinks his voice comes out all scratchy, like how it always sounds when you don’t use your voice nearly enough. He clears his throat awkwardly. Everything feels awkward; everything feels wrong. He says “hey”, but what he really means to say is please don’t call me Miya; you know the color of my toothbrush, you don’t have to call me Miya. 

“Were you looking for something?” 

You.

Subconsciously, Atsumu finds himself seeking you out. He walks by another girl on campus and almost breaks his neck with the speed he turns around to catch a whiff of the perfume wafting from her body because he swears it’s the same fragrance you favor. He walks by the building that houses all the classrooms for your specific major, even though it’s located on the opposite side of his own classes because he secretly hopes against all hope that he’ll run into you, and you’ll see him and fall in love with him again. He goes to the same restaurants the two of you frequently ate at together, and he orders your usual because you can never finish your entire meal and always have him finish off the leftovers for you (and the food is always good, but somehow it doesn’t taste the same when your utensils haven’t touched it first). And he doesn’t even need to be here, doesn’t even care enough about his stupid class to go out of his way to buy the study guide, but he knows you’ve started picking up the weekend shifts at the campus bookstore, and suddenly, he cares enough about passing to get the damn study guide. 

He shrugs. “Just some stupid workbook to study for an upcoming exam, but it’s not that serious.” 

“Oh. Is Dr. Furata giving you a hard time again?” 

“How do you do that?” Atsumu blurts out, wanting to kick himself for giving too much of himself away. You already own every centimeter of his heart and maybe his soul. You don’t need anything else from him; he’s almost certain there’s nothing left for him to give you, but he can’t help but impulsively ask the damn question that’s been running through his mind ever since you left him behind. 

Did you know that when you’re confused, your brows furrow together, and you get this adorable, endearing crinkle in between them? Do you know that he still finds that same expression as cute as he did when you still called yourself his girlfriend? 

“What are you talking about?” 

How can you just stand there and act like you never crushed his heart? How do you wake up in the morning and not feel like your life is missing something important, like you’ll never feel whole again? How can you keep him wrapped around your finger, and then have the audacity to not even realize it? How did you let him go so quickly? 

Practicing caution, he swallows hard before clarifying, “How do you know everything?” Because if you can act like he’s just a polite acquaintance, like he’s nothing more than another fellow classmate, he can try to play pretend too. He can act like there’s not enough history between the two of you to fill up every damn textbook in this stupid store. “Yeah, Dr. Furata’s been on everyone’s ass. Somethin’ about midterm grades being worth a quarter of our overall grade.” 

“Believe me, you’re not the first victim of Dr. Furata’s to come wandering in the store. I think I have a few more of the workbooks he suggested in stock. Let me go check.” 

It’s instinct at this point for Atsumu to just follow you. If he uses his imagination, it’s almost like he’s back to browsing in a makeup store, walking aimlessly in every aisle, following you loyally because he’s happy to have you lead the way and he doesn’t care where he ends up, so long as you’re there with him. 

But this isn’t an afternoon date with you. This is him following a bookstore employee. After you find that study guide, which is really nothing more than his flimsy excuse for seeking you out, you’re going to ask him “card or cash?”, ring him up at the register, and he’s going to walk out that door and have to act like he’s still not in love with you. All the while, you’re doing fine. You’re fine right now, and you’re going to be fine when he leaves, and you’re probably going to be fine, five years down the line, when you’re happy with someone else and Atsumu is alone because in this little hypothetical, he still hasn’t gotten over you.

He is trailing behind you in this bookstore, and your back is facing him, and he’s panicking because he doesn’t think he’s capable of not loving you. 

Just two weeks ago, you knew him better than anyone else in the world, maybe even better than Osamu, perhaps even better than he knows himself. Now, you just give him a polite smile as you grab the small stool to reach the books located at the very top of the shelf. 

“God, I hate the way we organize everything in the store.” You say, lightheartedly complaining. He knows you do. He knows because he’s known you for nearly a decade. The two of you have grown up together. You made this same complaint sprawled out on the couch in his apartment. 

When he doesn’t reply, you look down to see if something’s the matter, only to do it too quickly that you find yourself losing your balance. Before you can come crashing to the floor, Atsumu is quick to catch you, and you pretend that his protective embrace isn’t comforting. You pretend not to notice that he’s wearing the cologne you bought him for Christmas last year, and you continue to pretend that you don’t miss him at all, that you don’t still love him. 

And for a second, the two of you both pretend that you’re still with each other. That it’s perfectly okay to savor this intimate moment, that his arms wrapped around your body right now isn’t awkward in the slightest. He’s staring at you with a sort of starstruck, boylike wonder, and it’s so familiar, so sweet, because it’s the way he always used to look at you. His lips part slightly, like he’s about to say something, and—

The loud ring! interrupts whatever moment the two of you are sharing, and you nearly jump out of his arms. You hear the distinct footsteps of another student, and you adjust your shirt before remembering where the two of you are — what the two of you are. Not a couple. Barely even friends. Just a bookstore employee and a student that needs a book. That’s all the two of you are allowed to be.

“I should probably go check up front and make sure they don’t need any help.” You tell him, biting down on your lip. “Anyway, did you need anything else, or would you like me to check you out right now?” 

He blinks a few times, as if still in a daze. “Uh, yeah, sure.” The tips of his ears are flushed a light pink. “Y-yeah, I’m done here.” 

The two of you practically race each other to the front of the store, and you step behind the counter to scan his workbook. He drums his fingers, looking around the store. When he’s nervous, he likes to be moving. You know this. 

Just looking for an excuse to use his hands, Atsumu mindlessly picks a pack of gum off a nearby rack and slides it towards you so you can also scan it. You know you shouldn’t say it. You know it’s supposed to be a clean break. Instead, you tell him, 

“Actually, if you want, I have the fruit variety flavor.” 

“Huh?” This catches his attention. 

You reach into one of the boxes that have just been shipped to the store, rummaging through a tiny one before revealing a shiny, new package of gum, this one advertising all the flavors based on tropical fruits. “Would you rather have this one?” 

“Oh, yeah!” As if truly forgetting what the two of you actually are (exes, strangers with too much history, two people still pretending like they’re not in love), his eyes light up. “How did you kno—” He doesn’t finish the question. He knows the answer to the question. 

You’re quick to finish ringing him up, the “polite strangers” illusion being completely shattered. It’s obvious, really, that there are always going to be parts of Atsumu that still live deep inside of you. You can only hope that this isn’t the case for him. 

You hand him the bag, and when he grabs it from you, your fingers just barely graze each other’s. Atsumu is scared — scared that this might be the last time he ever feels your touch. 

And because you’re a glutton for punishment, you find yourself telling him,

“Don’t be a stranger.”

You can’t tell who’s more devastated: you or him.

[soulbornincoldandrain]

science of illusion s1 vs having one of the better friendship monologues. maybe better than youre like my favourite friend and i want you to be happy winger greats but the ethos of. ur like the anti-winger youre the heart of the group and im not good at the mushy stuff but if i was then we wouldn't need you and Jeff winger did it scared he did it mortified he did it with love. insane things to me (guy who wants his friends to love him no matter what) (guy sometimes overtaken by the ethos of jeff winger) hey man what if we were friends and loved each other and i implied that i bring people superficial joy the way a good punchline does and youre the underlying current of passion that holds people in for the setup. youre the suffocating torturous heat that people need to endure for my cold sharp gasp of relief to truly land. and i know it sucks and you hate it but i ask you to endure it nonetheless. because you'd hate it without me and i wouldn't be anywhere without you. im asking you to love it nonetheless so we can see this resolution together, not one that's promised but the one we can deliver together maybe with the shitty ropes handed through us. with the help of our good friend Sitcom TV. im saying the mental concrete playground of redstreet in my mind is one silly guy prancing around on the swingset saying people are saved thru tropes and love reaches people thru medium and this one time the medium is tv and it's just abed nadirs face on a poster in the back. im saying shhh. just watch. it's beautiful.

[cdroloisms]

fuck it i'm making this c!awesamdreamity sitcom AU (dr3 edition) a real thing for the funnies alone. why the hell not

premise: they get thrown into a sitcom. that's it. they're in a sitcom world that plays by sitcom rules, which means that everything that occurs Has to conceivably work within the genre. that means no throwing dream in a cell underground and treating him as a prisoner, sam, that's not funny enough. they can't leave or escape, and if they try to do something that Doesn't work within the genre they'll either just be completely unable to do it or they'll be foiled in some genre-specific way (ex: sam tries to build a cell on the property anyway and ends up in a three-episode arc about his fight with HOA)

the main point of this set up is that anything is technically possible as long as it works within the bit. also, yes, there's a laugh track, and whether or not the characters can hear it has everything to do with what's the funniest option (c!sam fucking hates the thing, for the record.)

highlights of this include:

the sitcom Demands A Relationship. because neither c!quackity nor c!sam is willing to do the whole married couple spiel with c!dream, that means that c!awesamq are the ones that are officially "together." this goes so fucking badly and is like, the primary reason why i'm making this a thing in the first place

c!dream isn't Allowed to be a prisoner, but he does have to stay within the house. between the genre and c!awesamq's opinions, he's not really going to end up as just "the roommate" or family or you know, an official third part of the throuple, so the maid it is

a level of violence is allowed but like, the actual pain/consequences has everything to do with whether it works For The Bit or For The Drama. like, c!q might hit c!dream with the car and nothing will happen bc it'll be played off as a punchline, for example, but also a dramatically timed fall might lead to someone walking around with a broken arm for an 'episode' or two. there's no magical accelerated healing here, just the Power Of The Bit

similarly, a lot will be allowed to slide as long as you're genre savvy about it. c!quackity won't be able to get away with outright torturing c!dream for hours, of course, but pushing him around is fine as long as it's funny enough. especially if it comes with a side of romantic drama

speaking of the romantic drama, hoo boy are c!awesamq a fucking TRAIN WRECK. like my god are they so toxic. c!sam is literally the quintessential asshole condescending boyfriend on that server and c!q has a quick fuse, a hell of a temper, and generally reacts to being talked down to with several knives and cursing. they take to a domestic romantic relationship as a fish does to . uh. lava maybe. like it's BAD

think screaming slammed doors things being thrown there's a glass sailing towards c!sam's head screaming over the banisters holes in the drywall fine! FINE! [laugh track] bad. it'd be gloriously, ridiculously toxic. the crowd goes wild

c!quackity has to contend with the fact that his husband is absolutely down horrendous FOR THEIR STUPID GODDAMN MAID .

the maid also wants his husband more than quackity :/ sidelined in his own relationship once again (i wonder why, Q)

how well they adjust has everything to do with how well they acclimate to the genre. c!quackity does the best job--he knows how to play a crowd and do so well. c!sam by FAR acclimates the worst. he's inherently completely offended by the idea of everything about his job and the prison being turned into Entertainment, into something Funny, into A Show To Consume and basically reacts to the sitcom thing by trying to ignore it. this, of course, means that he ends up generally being the butt of the joke

c!dream is. well. at least he's got less stress about dying i guess. and is generally a lot less injured bc starvation and torture lead to lower comedy ratings smh. is still kinda in hell but you know yesterday he got to watch c!quackity hit c!sam over the head with a frying pan and literal cartoon birds appeared so

honestly he's kinda quietly having an existential crisis and lowkey earning sympathy points from the proverbial audience by being the one that comes off the least as Just The Complete And Utter Worst

(meanwhile: c!sam is yelling at c!quackity for how he's apparently cut up all of his dress shirts while c!quackity screams back about something something and he can stick the scissors up his ass)

[laugh track]

[haru-dipthong]

ツッコミ, Japanese comedy, and linguistic relativity

Recently, I’ve noticed that while watching Japanese comedy in Japanese, I’ve started laughing at the ツッコミ, when before I would just laugh at the ボケ, or not laugh at all. I used to complain to my Japanese partner that I thought ツッコミ was unnecessary. So what changed? Why have I started laughing at it?

On QI, when asked if he came to a theory about the nature of jokes while writing his book The Naked Jape, Jimmy Carr said,

“There’s all these different theories from around the world, and they’re all pretty much nonsense. They all work in exactly the same way though. All jokes are sort of two stories. So the first story makes you make an assumption, and the second story makes you realise that the assumption was wrong” — Link to video

This is backed up by other research into theories of humour and is called the Incongruous juxtaposition theory.

ツッコミ, like all jokes, works like this. The first “story” (aka the setup) is the ボケ, usually something weird or absurd. The second “story” (aka the punchline) is the ツッコミ, which points out that the weird thing is weird.

When I first saw ツッコミ on a tv show, I didn’t think it was very funny. Why not just say the absurd thing and leave it at that - the weird part is the funny part, right? I don’t need to be told it’s absurd. However, I now think it’s more complicated than that.

In the english speaking world, usually our setups are pretty normal sounding, and then the punchline is absurd. So we begin to conflate “absurd” with “punchline: laugh now”, because when you hear something absurd, that’s when you’re supposed to laugh - that’s when the laugh track plays on the sitcom; that’s the point in the anecdote when your friends start laughing; that’s when the people around you are laughing and you’re expected to laugh too. In contrast, the opposite is true for japanese jokes: the setup is absurd and the punchline is the status quo.

(I realise this is a gross oversimplification of how comedy works but bear with me)

Japanese people experience the opposite: they conflate “status quo” with “punchline: laugh now”, because that’s when they're supposed to laugh. What is “funny” is such a social question that it’s entirely dependent on culture. Funniness is a self-fulfilling prophecy - if something is considered funny, then it’s funny. Japanese people have been conditioned to find their ツッコミ punchlines funny, just like we have been conditioned to find our punchlines funny.

So, the “laugh now” signpost looks different for english speakers vs japanese speakers. Why does that make me laugh at a ツッコミ joke in Japanese but not in English? I believe it comes from where my brain starts recognising “a joke has begun”. (Side note: I think in English, we’re more likely to retroactively recognise something as a setup to a joke)

For example, let’s take the scene from Ranking of Kings I already partially discussed in my Why Are Anime Translations So Bad post.

In this scene, we’re given a setup. These orcs are harassing Despa's apprentice Bojji in a tavern, but Despa doesn’t seem like he’ll be provoked. He’s controlling himself - acting very mature. Then one of the orcs makes fun of Despa’s face, and Despa immediately punches him through a table and exclaims “You can insult my apprentice, but I won’t let you insult me!” Classic English-style punchline.

But then, Kage comes in and says “逆でしょ！” which doesn’t have a great translation but it’s something like “You've got it backwards!” As an English speaking audience, this feels unnecessary. We already laughed! Kage’s overexplaining the joke!

But when I was watching this in Japanese, I recognised Despa’s line as the setup, and unintentionally waited before laughing, because I knew the real punchline was coming after it. It was only until I was doing research for that anime translations post that I realised Kage’s punchline wasn’t funny in English at all.

All of this to say, laughter is a social and cultural behaviour and (I believe) we laugh to show others that we understood some sort of juxtaposition. That’s why people tend to laugh more at stand up comedy when they’re in the audience as opposed to watching it alone on their phone. Even when we’re alone, because those social and cultural influences are imprinted on our brains, we laugh. And language is the ultimate cultural compartmentalisation tool. When I speak Japanese, I need to be aware of cultural constructs (such as respect hierarchy) that simply do not exist in my native language (Australian English). Which means when I’m watching something in Japanese, the social and cultural influences that I subconsciously let affect my brain at that moment will be different, which leads to me finding different things funny at different times. This idea is known as linguistic relativity, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, made famous by the fantastic film Arrival (it's also apparently quite hotly debated and misunderstood, but that's a post for another day).

To get back to my original question - What changed? Well, I think I finally managed to soak in enough subconscious cultural understanding of what to expect in a Japanese joke that now I end up laughing along with everyone else! Being in “Japanese mode” makes me subconsciously aware of different cultural norms (including comedy norms now), which means I might find a joke hilarious in Japanese, and not funny at all in English, even if it was somehow perfectly translated without losing or gaining any extra meaning. I think this is probably true for all multilingual people.

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomics at Day 100 #9: Dinosaur Comics

Pages read: 2/1/2003 – 12/31/2003 & 4/14/2009 – 12/24/2009 (about 400 pages), plus Ryanquest in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection (15 pages).

Reason for selection: Ryan North and Andrew Hussie were friends as of 2010, and both their websites link and make references to the other’s. In addition, Dinosaur Comics is probably the most famous text-only webcomic – Qwantz isn’t an artist, and uses the same images for every strip, with different dialog.

Current status: Ongoing since 2003 with no major hiatuses. New comics posted three times a week. North has a Patreon, but all new and archived comics are available for free, and North allows their free use for nonprofit purposes.

Content warnings: jokes about gender and other cultures in the context of “post-feminism” and “post-racism”

Overall thoughts:

T-Rexes having tiny arms is one of the most staple jokes of the internet to me, and by making comics with this punchline in 2003, Ryan North was probably a pioneer in this area. That’s my biggest takeaway from Dinosaur Comics – it’s a microcosm of jokes, debates and discourses that came from and spread all over the Internet. Its format is simple: panels one and two feature a T-rex making a statement. In panel three, he stomps on a house as a Dromiceiomimus looks on, and sometimes comments. In panels four and five, the T-rex stomps on a human woman and has dialog with a Utahraptor, and in panel six, the T-rex is once again alone to deliver the punchline. North has repeated this format over four thousand times across more than two decades, and against all odds, it’s still paying dividends.

North plays with the form starting very early on. Comic 12 (2/14/2003) allows readers to choose between two punchlines where ‘the first is for fans of character development and quiet moments of self-awareness’ and ‘the second is for fans of kickin' it post-modern style’. Comic 29 is a ‘choose your own adventure’ where the reader takes a different route through the panels based on their choices, and comic 30 is an infinitely looping subversion of the previous. Comics 35, 38 and 39 are set in a ‘mirror universe’ where the art is flipped, comic 42 riffs on adventure games (though is sadly not playable), comic 54 is styled as a fake history textbook, comic 119 is designed to be printed out for readers to write in their own final line, and comic 168 is designed to be read twice, with different intonation (and therefore meaning) each time.

Some early comics also feature ‘compressed’ retellings of other media – for example, comic 16 retells Jurassic Park, comic 199 retells Superman’s origin story, and comic 232 retells the Bible as though it were in Seventeen magazine. In many cases it’s made clear what’s being retold, but comic 1493 retells the movie WarGames without attribution, so there are likely other allusions I missed. North later went on to write choose-your-own-adventure and graphic novel adaptations of several famous literary works, in an expansion of this format.

But possibly the quintessential Dinosaur Comic is the one that tries to teach the reader something. The main character, T-Rex, is characterized as (essentially) a freshman philosophy student – a guy who wants to understand the world on a deeper level, but is new to it and typically comes to the wrong conclusion, struggling to think past his self-absorption, lowbrow humor, and base desire to stomp on things. The stomping is part of the clipart, which makes the whole characterization static like a sitcom character – T-Rex can’t ever do any self reflection or become a better person, because the images can’t change to match. But T-Rex is also a mouthpiece for North to convey information, giving lessons on discrete math (comic 43), genetics (67), computational linguistics (170), logical fallacies (184), a recipe for chickpeas in coconut milk (196), flatworm biology (1497), the infinite hotel paradox (1575), and various literary techniques (1466, 1558, 1622). As such, while T-Rex and his friends the Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus do have some recognizable, consistent traits, they are more of a framework for North to convey jokes and information than actual characters.

Due to the identical art, panel size and formatting of almost all his comics, North can use overlays in a way that few webcomic artists can, and has made the most of this. I found this list of twenty-four possible overlays where the URL can be edited to apply to any comic. These include one that gives the characters pirate gear, one where every character is T-Rex, one where T-Rex wears various T-shirts, one where the dinosaurs are more scientifically accurate, one that replaces the final panel with the meteor impact that kills all dinosaurs on Earth, and quite a few that replace the dinosaurs with characters from other comics such as Achewood, Penny Arcade, Problem Sleuth, and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

North employs hover text in every comic, which can be an additional joke, a personal anecdote, or a repeat of a line in the comic that he especially liked. The archive page, listing every comic posted to the site, contains a second, different comment for each strip – both of these read like how Tumblr tags are used. This combined with the wordiness of the comics themselves suggest that North has a lot to say, and struggles to fit it all within the format.

Although some fans mention finding the early Dinosaur Comics weaker, I didn’t notice a dramatic difference in writing quality between the 2003 and 2009 strips. The biggest change are the newsposts that now appear under most comics, which are revealing about how popular and widely read DC has become over six years. North shouts out other webcomics and fan projects (such as comic randomizers and transformative versions) which are phrased like ‘hey, this other person is doing something cool with the internet, go check it out’ and don’t mention any official sponsorship or reciprocity. North’s relationship with other creators can be humorously antagonistic, as in comic 1502.

In other cases, the commentary discusses interesting facts, articles about crows, upcoming talks North is doing at conventions and universities, reader responses and corrections, book recommendations, fanart, guerilla gardening projects, and warnings about octopods using tools. North is extremely willing to correct factual inaccuracies in his joke comics and ensure that he also spreads the correct information – in comic 1591 he states ‘I even got some emails from researchers working on this very problem, which was kind of crazy, because I hadn't expected that!’ In comic 1508, he mentions emailing with a professor of linguistics over a recent comic. North’s work isn’t just read by terminally online young men who like his Batman references (the stereotypical 2000s webcomic reader), it’s read by academics and scientists, and publicly stating this gives him more intellectual credibility.

Like with most online personalities, I’m sure part of this is North curating an image and wanting to be seen as intelligent and cultured. But in his case, I think it’s earned – North has a master’s degree in computational linguistics and several published academic papers (all available in open access on his website) and appears to live the academic ideals of experimentation, rigor, peer review, and free access to information. Dinosaur Comics was first created when North was given a random URL and a school assignment to ‘do something interesting with the Internet’. He wanted to make comics but couldn’t draw, so used clipart. Impressively, this original ethos has carried through to today – the DC website doesn’t use ads besides some unobtrusive ones for North’s other work, the comics are crossposted to Tumblr (formerly also Twitter and LiveJournal), and all comics are searchable and include transcripts (though these were originally user sourced).

Looking at his personal website, North has taken many interesting opportunities that have come his way, and talks about them on equal terms – he’s written for Adventure Time and Fantastic Four, but also took the photograph for Wikipedia’s ‘Toast sandwich’ article and reviewed the Back to the Future novelization page by page, writing more words than are in the book itself (shit, this is sounding familiar) and is equally proud of these achievements.

North’s only paywalled projects are physical books and comics he’s written for major publishers such as Marvel, and he encourages fans to print Dinosaur Comics in nonprofit publications – the University of New Mexico has featured DC in its campus newspaper, and others have likely taken the opportunity too. North said in 2023 that he likes being known as ‘the Dinosaur Comics guy’ and being defined by that work, and that if the younger version of him could hear about his life now, he’d want to be that guy.

Between 2003 and 2010, North held fairly regular ‘guest weeks’, where he’d invite other webcomic artists to produce a Dinosaur Comic with no limitations on art or themes. Some guests play it straight and use the clipart, while some draw the standard six panels in different art styles (84, 658, 1324), some poke at the fourth wall and the T-Rex’s awareness or otherwise of the comic’s format (73-77, 1326), and some go meta and make comics about North himself (655, 1484).

The first guest weeks, in May 2003, may have come about because of North’s college finals – and as it’s before the comic takes off, it features North’s personal friends, brother and dad as guests. Later guest comics feature big internet names such as KC Green (Gunshow; origin of ‘this is fine’ meme), Zach Weiner (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal), Randall Munroe (xkcd), and of course-

Relevance to Homestuck: [one minor spoiler for Act 6]

-Andrew Hussie.

On June 12, 2009 (yes, that date), Hussie posted an official Dinosaur Comic where each of the six panels rotates between two to five possible options. The whole comic loops every 84 seconds, and functions as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure where the path of the story is dictated by how fast you read’. Hussie is also listed as a coauthor on comic 2546 according to the archives page, which also reveals that North and Hussie’s conversations inspired a couple other comics in the early 2010s. Following Homestuck’s end of act 2, North shouts out the comic in his commentary to 1571, claiming that ‘Dinosaur Comics and MS Paint Adventures take place in the same universe’ and that the dinosaur seen in ‘WV: Ascend’ is the same dinosaur then featured in Dinosaur Comics’ header image. (The alt text of this comic reads exactly like a Serious Business message). Several days later, in comic 1574, the Utahraptor drops a ‘We’re doing this, man. We’re making this happen,’ a rare grammatically correct Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

It goes further. Comic 1810 features a message directly to Hussie, calling them out for not moving to Toronto. Despite being busy with moving (elsewhere), going to conventions, and updating Homestuck at over ten pages per day at that point, Hussie immediately responded with the fifteen-page adventure Ryanquest (/ryanquest/000001 in the Collection), written in the typical second-person MSPA style. North is drawn wearing a ‘Batman is For Silly Little Boys’ shirt, referencing North’s Batman fandom (and possibly comic 1543), and Hussie is drawn wearing a shirt available in the Dinosaur Comics merch store. If there are other inside jokes, they went over my head – but Ryanquest is absurd, ridiculous, and plays into the same kind of unintelligible internet irony and one-upmanship that Dave and his bro have.

It seems that North and Hussie have similar senses of humor (as well as a shared computer science background), and North clearly likes interacting with other creators, so Dinosaur Comics might be the webcomic with the most explicit links to Homestuck. Besides the obvious references, comic 1505, published July 8th, 2009, features T-Rex rapping terribly. This comes only a couple weeks after Dave’s first bad rap in Homestuck (p.287, 6/22/2009). There may be other parallels and unintentional references like this, as (at this point) the pair actively read each other’s work and talk to each other. So it’s not surprising that themes like time travel, autoresponders, and the tension between science and religion crop up in both – they’re just shared interests. Finally, Dinosaur Comics and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff are also the only two franchises I’ve ever seen official word magnet sets for.

Continue reading? I enjoyed reading what I did, and I have a lot of respect for North’s work, but Dinosaur Comics is a very dense archive due to the wordiness of many comics and lack of new visuals. I think it works best as something to read as it updates, one comic at a time – so I will be keeping the website bookmarked, but I doubt I’ll ever read the full history.

[crimeronan]

just remembered that the himym writers Completely Accidentally made robin a trans woman while, for maximum irony, having her deliver the punchline of some of the transmisogynistic jokes that are ubiquitous in early 10s media. in light of this i have to assume robin has been trans the whole time but ted legit has no idea bc when she told him "yeah my dad wanted a son so he made me pretend to be a boy for years and only accepted me as a woman in adulthood," figuring ted would Get It, he was just like, "wow, what a bizarre and hilarious sitcom backstory for a straight cis woman to have. glad all that's over for you!! :)"

nobody use any of the sex or pregnancy stuff to refute this i don't care. this show is evil and its rewatch value is zero. so in homage to the fake show in my memory i enjoyed that didnt suck, robin is and always has been a trans woman. waow it's so cool how accepting and chill the writers were in 2008. or whatever.