ReBoot

You get two blogs today because I couldn't post yesterday.

As a fanfic writer I learned to study ReBoot episodes to learn their language. Sprites have a language like ours but there are variables based on computer lingo. Those words vary in different forms becoming their clichés', exclamations, swear words and such.

1) Clichés'

User term - Stop and smell the daisies.

Sprite term - Stop and smell the daisywheels.

User term - It's a Kodak moment.

Sprite term - It's a Photoshop moment.

User term - Wet behind the ears.

Sprite term - Wet behind the gears

Substituting what we would know for what they know is important. Have some fun mixing it up and be aware that sprites don't have all the same things we do.

Ex. water = data, ocean = energy C (there are two energy Cs in ReBoot - the AC and the DC)

2) Exclamations

I'm talking about things like "wow" and "great." Enzo is most famous for alphanumeric. Others examples are pixelacous and high density. Famous put downs are calling someone basic or low density. Words like stupid or idiot can cross over but you must remember to mix things up a little.

Also remember to switch out common words.

The word dead is rarely used. Deleted, erased or quit without saving are substituted. There is no use of the word blood. I have used energy since it seems to be the closest example.

Another substitution I like to use in my fanfic is heart drive instead of heart.

Ex. His heartdrive spun faster.

3) Swearing

This is the sticky issue. I've stumbled over the use of certain four letter words in other fics to which I ask if they don't know who the User is, where do they learn this? Games maybe? I guess they play Halo too much.

Anyway, ReBoot vernacular amounts to words such as:

Cursors!

Cursors and crashes!

Covering your ASCII.

"What the hell" has never been used. Every fanfic writer or joke writer has used "What the Dell." Now, I don't know if Dell would want that kind of publicity, but there is a consensus to not use the word, hell. It doesn't work. As for other four letter words, I really don't advocate trying to find substitutes for them. There are younger kids who still get turned into ReBoot fans. Try to keep that in mind.

Names:

This is the one thing that is interchangeable between User names and sprite character names. I've enjoyed taking names in the vain of Dot Matrix to create characters.

Fanfic examples:

Laser Jet

Mack Binary

Chip Relay

Many have got this part down pat. The favorite pitch names I've read are Bit, Cache and Vector but throwing in an occasional, Tom, Dick or Harry is fun too. Just remember sprites don't talk like every Tom, Dick and Harry.