It does, in the sense that it seems to mirror sentence-level emphasis in speech.
(Even your comment sort of works - I'd drop the emphasis on "up" and "place" though.)
It's definitely atypical. I think it wouldn't impact readability all that much, if not for the lack of capitalization at the start of sentences - the two abnormalities together make the text much harder to read than it should be.
Except when we read sentences, we expect to be reading sentences, not someone’s interpretation of what their voice would sound like transposed onto a sentence, using obscure formatting cues to accomplish this.
Generally I find that the more people rely on emphasis and formatting, the poorer their writing skills are.
Maybe don’t use “we” like that; I certainly enjoy when I can get a sense of a writers vocal pattern, and I am supportive of using text formatting to help with that.
(Even your comment sort of works - I'd drop the emphasis on "up" and "place" though.)
It's definitely atypical. I think it wouldn't impact readability all that much, if not for the lack of capitalization at the start of sentences - the two abnormalities together make the text much harder to read than it should be.