[OOC][PLOT] The Third Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[Labster]

Yeah, I gotta catch up in writing to Rob, seriously.

On my ideas booklet.

Soong Electrical

Or Data working as an electrician to pay his way. Since he has no recognised academic qualifications and participation in research activities might foul the timeline - but he does have engineering skills and fixing starship skills.

He then runs into Ireland. And it's utter mindboggling tendancy ot be just a little bit shit

I hope Data gets to meet the audiophile who gets his own power pole.  I mean, that's gotta work even better for music listening than Brilliant Pebbles (no, not satire).

Mikoto nodded. "That makes sense. But we're getting derailed here. What do we do now?"

Oh, "derailed".  I get it!  LOL!

"It's a statement that functions as a request for information, but that isn't important right now."

"Did you just make a joke?"

"Yes. Was it a good one?"

"It's a bit cliched, but it's still funny. What did you want to know?"

Boooooo.  The kernel of a good joke is in there, but the timing is all wrong.  If she's doing it deadpan, which is what I assume for a Misaka sister, then you need a beat (maybe 3 seconds, even), not just a comma pause.  Or just leave off the second part.

Which is not to say that it's OOC, in fact, it's right in character.  Most of my characters have higher standards for humor, though.  

(I could see Anna Heart trying this joke, because she tries too much.  We really need to work on that girl.  She wants to be funny, she knows what is funny, but can't actually be funny because of issues.  The girl needs timing, and she needs confidence.)

One trick I try is that when I need a beat, I jam words into the middle to break up the passage.  `," she said, "` for a short pause, and for a longer pause more words `," she provided the dictionary definition, "`.  Not sure it works for everyone, but it does in my head.