Now that you updated the definition it makes a little more sense, but not a lot more since HN is not a creative writing assignment. It was unclear given your initial reply:
"..." would be a quote, albeit an entirely weird one.
"..." is a convention I first found in manga, which indicates a character has no verbal reply to what was previously just said.
Yeah, my initial reply failed in a sense because there's no distinction between italicized and plain periods. The first that you quote above was entered as double quote star dot dot dot star double quote, but rendered the same as the second without the stars (asterisks).
