#clownspeak

[rgbelow]

ocs you really like will have you going what if I made a comic.

[countinglegoclowns]

Pops this here because I saw something that pissed me off

[clownhome]

hey. don’t cry. big clown noses that go honk. okay?

[caulroturgy]

Clownspeak: Pronouns

Clownspeak pronouns don't differentiate gender, but they do differentiate 1) species 2) amount 3) location 4) color (the color thing is weird, yes, but not unfounded-- there are analogous systems in spoken languages).

Species

By default, clowns recognize four main living species: clowns, "humans", animals, and "gods". They DO have compound headwords for half-breeds; the symbols are just overlaid on top of each other (the "clown" symbol is always largest, and the others are laid over it. this reflects their belief that clownhood overshadows everything else). Also, once they've established the target, they'll often stop specifying that the person is half-anything. They'll fall back on just calling them "clown" (again, clownhood beats anything else; continuing to specify that someone is only half-clown is actually rather rude, because it's alienating).

Besides living species, they also have pronouns for places, objects, events, and abstract concepts.

(NOTE: The clown concept of "human" is different from ours. "Human" refers to anything non-clown with above-animal intelligence. The tothe’s word for a similar concept is "crate".)

Amount and Location

"Amount" includes 1, 2, 3, 4, "many", and "many many". There are also special indicators for "zero" and "negative", but they're not exactly part of the pronouns so they’re unimportant here. Location is relative to the speaker (see the headspace diagram).

Color

Color is very important to clown society. They use it for distinction in hierarchy, to express identity, and as allusions to events or values. (NOTE: the colors used in pronouns are different from the colors used in verb tense). For pronoun colors, they just pick a color, or mishmash of colors, representative of the target.

EXAMPLES:

-A jester with a motley of green and red would have a pronoun using green and red. (See example clown: Gogo)

-A mime with pink hair (example clown: Captain). Younger clowns latch onto the pink hair as something unique, and they'll use a pink pronoun for her. But older clowns might use a black-and-white pronoun, because they're more concerned with acknowledging her status as a mime.

The same goes for pronouns involving objects. They pick whichever color they think is representative. Some culturally-held colors always trump actual colors; for example, all plants are referred to as green, regardless of whether the plant is actually green. 

God pronouns are kind of tricky, because they're the same as the actual nouns. One interpretation would say that clowns don't rightly use pronouns for that particular concept, but morphologically they get treated as pronouns, so I’m including them here.

[rgbelow]

as I go on writing about my oc world I want to recommend this hbomberguy video to anyone who hasn’t seen it and is interested in storytelling—> RWBY is disappointing, and here’s why. It’s not an advice video or anything like that, but I do find the deconstruction of the story’s world building and lack thereof really interesting. I think it really helped me pinpoint why exactly so many projects I’ve attempted in the past have never stuck with me. How the inspiration of seeing something really cool and going ‘I want to do that’ has never carried me very far, no matter how inspiring that initial spark was. I think its neat :)

[rgbelow]

pondering …. I am always scared of projects . We know how it is . I’ve wanted to do a Comic of some sort for fucking ages . But I’ve always wanted to “make a comic” more than I’ve wanted to “tell a story” I think. It’s not that I never care, but trying to make a story so that I can finally make it into Images just causes me to lose momentum. I’m not invested. I don’t feel like the story is doing anything except moving points to an end.

these characters are different to me. And maybe I’m being silly and this will be another long text post idly rambling about something I’d love to do but never end up getting to that I look back on and feel very silly about. But . I dunno . I have a lot of hope . Because I like these characters very much and their story is becoming something beautiful to me . Finally taking the first few steps will be scary , but I really really hope I can do it. I want to tell a story.

[rgbelow]

things I am learning while drafting this damn comic:

-I would put gaps in the script that just says <dialogue goes here> and assume I could figure it out on the fly. I cannot. I need to have at least a basic dialogue written out. It can change in the thumbnailing but it GOTTA be there

-I keep trying to make the first panel of every page an establishing shot and it’s gunkin up my compositions. Workin on dat

-I am so scared to have to start drawing action scenes oh my hod. Guy who’s never made a comic before voice what if it was a fighting comic < booboo the fool

-my projected chapter 1 was TOO DAMN LONG . The actual chapter 1 is gonna be taken from the first third of what I had written down initially . Break er up.

[rgbelow]

taps on my enclosure. This might be niche af but I’m trying to find voiceclaims for my main three girls for fun and while I’ve got decent ones for Ger and Crank, I am struggling for my lifeee to find one that I feel would sound right for Rosie. would anyone in the audience have any potential suggestions for voice claims for Rosie… I would be very curious to hear any thoughts…. Blinks