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austere old guy who removed the stick from his ass but sometimes likes to larp that it’s still there
((Lol that was for grand, but on a more personal level vaguely faytouched individual with more fashion sense than I have. I love your looks))
...THAT MY RIGHTEOUS SELF INSINCERE OR A ROLE PLAYS AND LIE TO SELF GIVES RESENT, but broadly cannot description this refute.
((You're very kind, and I'm very touched.))
where did your url come from? i mean i know it’s a chumhandle, definitely, but what made you decide on it?
also, what’s your opinion on isopods?
OKAY. so I made this account, and this title, way back before we saw the dancestors. We knew Gataca was how the chum handles worked and that John being EB ruined the pattern.
My thoughts were: I want his (my GHB) handle to be half fitting, and I wanted it to... seem meaningful. His language structure was based on AUSLAN, and on the subject object verb structure of the imperative mode: both put the thing you "most need" first, and the action last where it's the most present, the most threatening. Then Kurloz was mute! Worked well.
(Grand's actual chum handle is celebratoryTorture. Same letters as Gamzee, same order as Equius.)
I like isopods but don't understand the High Key Fascination with them.
Fun bonus I misremembered the word "hexapod" as "isopod" so please enjoy Artie's Second Longest Running Permanent Fixation Snippet.
((Oh shit i would dig an additional explanation from you in not-clown english
((oh shit son, let’s GO.))
So essentially: people have a surface level of thought where things change all the time. It’s where you take in what’s going on, and have the thoughts you interpret as thoughts, like, did I leave the oven on, I like that hat, whatever. Even novice clowns can get in here because it’s not something that’s hidden? It’s like, the working pages of an exam.
A little further in, you have the bit I’d reckon I’d call your inner thoughts? You’re not responding to stimuli directly, you are constructing a framework within which you respond to things. You pick up deeper opinions from the outer layer and braid them in here if you want to keep them, or sometimes without thinking. For instance: I like that hat, but I’ve noticed she only wears them when she’s feeling self conscious, I should make a joke about something. This is as far as Grand is happy to go? Because this is where people themselves are as deep as they’re likely to go. The consciousness, I guess, of your opinions. Memories or traumas or whatever might bubble up from even deeper, but they’re not going to stick around, they just further inform the framework that exists, but you’re not aware of 100% of the time.
Deeper is the memories that make you who you are, a collection of feelings and tangles of patters so emeshed in who you are that you can’t really undo them. To give a personal example, I don’t like behaviours that leave others feeling belittled and I’ve stepped in on what others call ‘teasing’ or ‘harmless hazing’ before. That shit’s not going anywhere. It’s not something I might change my mind about when presented with new information, for better or worse. the memories behind this rarely come to the fore, but they’re here and they’re important.
Deepest down is the shape of who you are, and that’s something that slowly spreads outwards. You are a person, and that is important, and your nature and the outside bits, that which is nurtured, expand out, I guess. You might grow to be more like a person you admire, without ever realising it, you might be stifled by propaganda, whatever.
What Grand hates is anyone who attempts to like, mould people. Shape them like topiary by cutting through the mess of thoughts and bias and opinion at the second layer, give them new traumas at level three or even 4, and change the pattern of their growth artifically and too fast into exactly what they want it. Even if you only reinforce the surface thoughts you like, again and again, ever after, you will eventually see that sift down into the core of who a troll is.
Does that make sense? More questions are welcomed!
((Hello! I love the way you do your GHB; there's lots of genuine personality, and that can be pretty hard to pull off. <3 Would it be alright to ask for a guide on how to write sentence structure the way you do for him? And would it be alright to use it for a recurring 'magical and mysterious' D&D NPC? If you'd rather we didn't jack your speech, that's completely understandable and I apologize! Either way, thank you so much for letting us see your great muse <3 ))
OKAY SO. Way more than 48 hours later, here we are.
The first thing about GHB’s speech as I do it is to make it sound like a bible and a Shakespearean era play had a child, and they are accustomed to giving orders. He uses a very old register, and while sometimes messing around with modern idiom, like “to clown down am” is fun, sometimes it just isn’t going to work. After 5 years writing with him, I am pretty good at even speaking his way, but the time of writing him gives me some space and leeway to experiment.
The orders part comes across in his verb, subject, and object order. The Verb is the doing word, and it comes last, as in the imperative in English. Instead of
“(Subject) I (Verb) walked to (object) the shops”
It becomes
“TO SHOPS WALKED”
He omits the subject as much as he can, especially the personal subject, and tends to refer to people as belonging to themselves. This is a personal idiom and leaves room for personalisation in the form of, “My righteous self” or “her assertive self”. This is distinct in his speech because most often, the adjective or adverb comes after the noun or verb respectively. To return to our previous example:
I walked quickly to the local shops
QUICKLY TO SHOPS LOCAL WALKED.
Break these rules when he’s upset, feels condescended to, or livid, or sometimes just when he’s asked. The important thing is that GHB knows he is difficult to understand and is perful enough that he can get away with not caring. Use the breaks sparingly, though: this is heartspeech, it is his way of speaking from the pusher.
That’s the main thrust of his speech, with different terms of respect, like “Motherfucker” “sibling”, “Sempai” and Imperial, thrown in which you’d probably change a little depending on setting, and a whole lot of emphasis on the religious structures of his world propping it up.
The main thing: the paint he wears is his face, his flesh face is his head. No one he does not trust should ever see his head. Little insistences like that go a long way in making a character for me.
I’m pretty sure I have more in the Tutorial linguistic and tutorial personal tags? Possibly in chronological order is best.
Do you play any instruments? Oooh can we hear??
SEVERAL. :o]
the piano and harp and lute and hand harp all play. CURRENTLY HORN LEARN, and the drums, WITH NO PROFICIENCY ESPECIAL.
have not any recorded in nights recent, THOUGH COULD IT HUNT.
((Making alternates sound almost, but not entirely, like GHB is a fun pastime but also hell))
((This one doesn’t consistently put descriptor after verb, doesn’t use motherfuck, shouts only when he feels like it, and all capital Es get a trident. His smilies have horns he stole from his KISMESIS, the yellowblooded Summoner.))
So I just realised: I was thinking about how the game screwed everyone over in a lot of ways, and about my GHB, and about my belief that the ancestors fulfil some aspect of what the dancestors wanted to be. I don't think much of Kurloz as we see him in canon. He has betrayed his friends for his beliefs in the most insidious way possible, wounding his quad mates or allowing them to be wounded and mind controlling Meulin? Really? These are all good villain traits and GHB shares them to some extent. However, he's not as callous as Kurloz. He's more balanced, less of an Edge Lord, Lord of the Shit. But he ought to reflect Kurloz's ideal self because the ancestors do that thing. So either I'm too hard on my head canon Kurloz, or the thing he wanted to be was a better person.
As far as dads go, GHB has no experience. Trolls don't do the social parent thing, though he has mentored initiates. His lusis was not interested in parenting him at all, and would dump food on the beach, demand to know why he was still not a sea goat, and a pretty terrible troll, tbh. Matespritship coming with the responsibility of coparenting is a new concept to the 2000 year old troll man who is at his best legislating, killing, making art, and by compulsory reproductive standards is a bit of a failure romantically in red anyway.
