For some reason that particular compound word mistake has always struck me as very “cute” – as if it seems especially like a mistake a child would make, even compared to other writing mistakes.  I have no idea why that is

You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE’S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU.

IIRC Dave has never actually done this

sweetbroandhellajeff.com, the URL visible on this page, redirects to SBAHJ IRL

TG: no look 
TG: im busy ok 
TG: ive got a lot of shit on my plate 
TG: i am sort of a big deal ok? 
TT: I know. 
TT: Sometimes I wonder how you are ever allowed to pay for meals in restaurants. 
TT: It must be hard to keep a low profile when you’re always overhearing awed voices whisper, “It’s that guy who has a blog." 
TG: seriously 
TG: dudes be worshipping me left and right 
TG: i cant hardly walk down the street without stepping over torsos of the prostrate 
TT: Navigating the urban landscape I’m sure is difficult enough without an obstacle course of deferential flesh and skyward asses.
TT: Perhaps adapting the art of parkour to your unique environment would help? 

Pretty much every Dave & Rose pesterlog is a gem

Re-reading Homestuck is reminding me just how much better the dialogue is than the narration.  It’s a GIANT gap, as though they were written by two different people

i don’t strictly think the narration is supposed to be “good”, i.e. “the note that desolation plays”

A lot of it is awkward purple prose on purpose but there’s just so MUCH of it that it quickly stops being funny to me.  And it repeats the same jokes over and over again (“you are incredulous about something that is clearly going to happen / has already happened,” “[ordinary idea expressed via misused fancy words]”)

The dialogue is just so much more varied and interesting and clever while also containing fewer solecisms and “is this supposed to suck” moments

Fair enough, but I think there are definitely moments where the narration can shine, like the Act 4 epilogue. Also, the line can be blurry at times between narration and dialogue - for instance, what about when Doc Scratch was narrating the story?

What’s weird about that is that it’s supposed to be playing up how much of a pompous windbag Doc Scratch is, but the ordinary narrator almost seems more pompous to me?  There’s a similar issue with Rose – “writes purple prose” is one of her main character traits early on, and yet her dialogue is almost a reprieve from the cringe-inducingly purple prosy narration

This kind of thing is why I said it feels like the narration and dialogue are written by slightly different people (I guess the Scratch sections would have to be filed under “dialogue” for this to make sense)

Compare

TG: oh god why did i just tell you my dream 
TG: youre going to have a field day with that 
TT: I am currently scrawling notes furiously into one of the many psychoanalysis journals I maintain for you. Published papers forthcoming. 
TT: Because, you know, it’s not like either of us have anything better to do at the moment than to evaluate each other’s radically debilitating pathologies. 

to

Just look at that mystical gaze. To peer into those aloof, glassen eyes is to arrest the curiosity of any mortal. To behold the wisdom concealed in the furrows of that venerable face is to know the ceaseless joys of bewonderment itself. Any man so fortunate as to catch askance his merry twinkle or twitch of whisker shall surely have all his dreams fulfilled.

You find this grisly abomination utterly detestable.

These are both “Rose moments” less than 100 pages apart but Dialogue Hussie comes up with something pithy, funny, likable, and euphonious-even-though-it’s-polysyllabic (“radically debilitating pathologies” rolls off the tongue) while Narration Hussie just writes a bunch of convoluted BS that misuses “askance” and the “to X … is to Y” construction

Why can’t you be more like your brother, Narration Hussie

whydontihatemarrymyself replied to your post: whydontihatemarrymyself r…

Well, I can’t really parse the narrator’s “pompousness” as anything except just messing around. Anyway, Doc Scratch may be pompous, but he also seems to genuinely enjoy telling stories

Yeah, it’s messing around, but not in a way that’s very funny to me.  The best analogy I can think of is that it’s kind of like the Archaic Rap meme, which is (possibly) funny the first time you see it, but gets bad really quickly when you get to the ones that try really hard and use really awkward phrasing because the authors think it sounds more “archaic”

(“Close the copulation upward, Donald” is an example that’s so extreme it kinda wraps around to being funny again)

The last thing you need is sass from a dead cat.