#and the dialogue is so stilted and obvious

[bitchthefuck1]

Why does the first episode of season 3 feel like it was written by AI

[nerdyenby]

HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!!

Rae hit the back of Ranboo’s mask when he entered the museum room, that’s when they lost any semblance of control.

He was always a bit lax but before this they were at least bothered by and concerned with defending their actions. But when the showfall person hit the button the logo began to glow.

Afterward their facial expressions were noticeably more intense. Their dialogue was stilted and their tone was flat. He was unconcerned with the death of his peers and was even immune to the lasers. The game was rigged in his favor to begin with but it only becomes increasingly clear from this point onward (everyone dying in his stead and taking hits meant for him, Sneeg defending him from Austin and not even trying to save himself from the final wall). This is when it became obvious, he didn’t care to play the game or engage meaningfully with any of the others. They were not themself. Ranboo accepted no responsibility for his actions and had no empathy for the others, even as slimetowel cursed their name, saying “You did this!!!” , Ranboo just winced and said “I didn’t do this, this is all you.”

Everyone in these games — these episodes — is under Showfall’s influence, but Ranboo was always their chosen hero. They just were a bit too soft, a bit too remorseful for their liking, so they got rid of it. The show needs a hero, they can’t change the cast halfway through, but they can make sure Ranboo is only what they need him to be.

[secondhandsorrows]

3 Quick Tips on Writing Dialogue

Okay… so one of the biggest writing hurdles I often face is writing dialogue. Good dialogue. I know such a statement can be pretty subjective, but there’s something to dialogue that demands attention. There’s things involved like subtext, purpose, characterization, and sense of realism. On the other hand, there’s also character voice, expression, body language, and dialogue tags (sparingly, if you can)… all of which can be important, too. Sometimes it’s tricky for me to get a handle on writing dialogue that sounds natural, less stilted, and more as though the characters are real and conversing like we humans would (not to say dialogue should include unnecessary filler-words and repetitions we tend to overuse in our day-to-day conversations). 

Today, I’m going to share three quick tips I’ve accumulated from research and from my own experiences in creative fiction workshops on improving your dialogue. 

1. Avoid needless filler-words and phrases.

Let’s just get this one out of the way. I know this was already mentioned a few sentences ago, but it needs to be further cemented. This is the kind of fluff that we use in day-to-day chatter, like misused grammar, useless small talk, and talking in circles that, more often than not, comes across as boring and trivial. We may think this is a good way to create realistic dialogue, but alas, there is such thing as too-realistic dialogue. Focus instead on crafting dialogue that sounds as natural as possible. At least, try to get rid of the fluff, or use it with caution, as it may bog down your pacing and slow down your readers. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t utilize some small talk, repetitions, filler words, or speech patterns like stammering. Rules are sometimes meant to be bent, just a little. It can be used to create distinctions between unique character voices, lighten the mood, express an emotion that is being felt, if you know where to put them. Dialogue can — and should — be personalized to each character. 

This brings me to the next point:

2. Refrain from revealing too much information at once. 

Not only is this considered info-dumping, but giving away a ton of detail in a piece of dialogue can come across as stiff and out-of-place.  Though it may seem convenient to utilize dialogue as a way to pass information to the reader without getting all repetitive or boring within the narrative, it tends to break away from what the character (or a real person) might actually say. Especially when it’s given to a character that has no reason or incentive to recite drawn-out exposition to give the reader some background. This can be attributed to being uncharacteristic. 

Try tweaking it as to fit your character’s voice: their mood, how they communicate their values, which aspects they find more important to discuss, which topics they actively avoid or tend to overlook. Also keep in mind who they’re speaking to, and whether or not they need to hear the information, as well. 

3. Think about what is being left un-said.

Now, I’ve mentioned subtext quite a bit, already. Subtext, as the definition goes from Literaryterms.net, is “the unspoken or less obvious meaning or message in a literary composition, drama, speech, or conversation.” Knowing this, we can implicitly communicate to the reader covertly a truer meaning or mood within a conversation or interaction between characters: that a character is smiling through a grimace trying to look as if he’s enjoying what his friend had cooked for him when in reality he’s forcing it to spare their feelings. Or, when a woman says “she’s fine” when actually she’s not fine (real). Her answer is forced, her tone clipped, her arms are firmly crossed and she’s angling herself away. How about when a character is pining for another? They might stammer over their words and are prone to blushing whenever they’re around. 

There’s a lot of different ways you can go about using subtext. I probably could’ve added a lot more, but all I want to say for now is that the beauty of subtext allows to stir interest and to further character examination, especially in dialogue. There is more that can be said, but the characters may choose not to. It could also be used to hint at the reader, to foreshadow, facilitate themes, make contradictions, to build tension and emotion… there’s internal conflict that can be explored here. Let your characters tell their own stories in their own, unique ways.  

That’s all, for now. Hope this helped!

[intermundia]

I think one of the reasons that people make fun of the prequel dialogue is that so often the characters like Anakin just say exactly what they mean without disguising it with implications. This writing is great for kids and also appeals to autistic people who appreciate it when people say what they actually mean. The dialogue is often kind of bare, open text.

Obi-Wan is a bit of an exception in that he is sarcastic, but it's pretty obvious when he's joking or being contextually polite. There's sometimes tragic irony in the sense that duplicitous characters like Palpatine can lie in ways that are clear to the audience as deception and manipulation, but he's still not really playing language games.

It all just sounds a bit stilted and awkward because it violates 'normal' adult conversation rules of implying what you mean for unclear social convention reasons. People are always looking to supply those extra implications bc it rings false and flat to people trained to expect those games, but no—the characters really are usually just saying the truest version of their opinions at any moment.

Idk it's a stylistic choice that makes sense for the genre and tone of the films, and the fact that people make fun of it for being literal, obvious, or stilted is kind of frustrating.

[acapelladitty]

Whats your most favorite character to write and why!!! Please and thank you :)

Honestly? My favourite character to write can depend on my personal mood at the time! Sometimes I prefer a goofier, lighter toned character and other times I much prefer someone with gravitas or a very distinct speech pattern that I can get my teeth into. Favourites include:

Jonathan Crane. Old faithful. He's probably my GOAT. My all-timer. I love his stilted speech and how easily he slips between cold professionalism and targeted cruelty, all the while maintaining some control over his words.

Pamela Isley. There's something so much fun in writing Ivy and I'm sad that I don't do it more often. Her haughtiness and refusal to allow people to speak down to her is thrilling.

Karl Heisenberg. He's rough and ready with that odd stilt to his speech which makes it really fun to write dialogue for. Plus he has big tits. Always a winner.

Cooper Howard/The Ghoul. A new entry to the list! I adore writing for his accent and I love his filthy mouth. Writing swearing and insults is always a joy and he allows me to develop that in his specific voice.

These were the first four to spring to mind but I also love characters like Riddler (an obvious choice but he's similar to Crane) and Catwoman etc are a joy to write. Even folks like Ras Al Ghul who I write sparingly has a really FUN vocal cadence that I love to play with xx

[gil-estel]

reasons why "ahsoka" would be better as an animated show

- better acting

- better writing

- seriously. I think the stilted dialogue would work a lot better in the context of a 25 minute episode performed by experienced voice actors who could actually make spoken exposition sound INTERESTING and ENGAGING

- more humor

- more chopper

- sabine could have her jetpack and her helmet back

- you'd actually be able to see what happens

- forreal just think about what it would be like if this show had the production quality and amazing lighting of the bad batch

- I'm sorry the volume just looks so obvious and artificial in this show

- WE'D ACTUALLY GET TO SEE ZEB

[korovaoverlook]

I Sacrificed My Writing To A.I So You Don't Have To

I was thinking about how people often say "Oh, Chat GPT can't write stories, but it can help you edit things!" I am staunchly anti-A.I, and I've never agreed with this position. But I wouldn't have much integrity to stand on if I didn't see for myself how this "editing" worked. So, I sacrificed part of a monologue from one of my fanfictions to Chat GPT to see what it had to say. Here is the initial query I made:

Chat GPT then gave me a list of revisions to make, most of which would be solved if it was a human and had read the preceding 150k words of story. I won't bore you with the list it made. I don't have to, as it incorporated those revisions into the monologue and gave me an edited sample back. Here is what it said I should turn the monologue into:

The revision erases speech patterns. Ben/the General speaks in stilted, short sentences in the original monologue because he is distinctly uncomfortable—only moving into longer, more complex structures when he is either caught up in an idea or struggling to elaborate on an idea. The Chat GPT version wants me to write dialogue like regular narrative prose, something that you'd use to describe a room. It also nullified the concept of theme. "A purity that implied personhood" simply says the quiet(ish) part out loud, literally in dialogue. It erases subtlety and erases how people actually talk in favor of more obvious prose. Then I got a terrible idea. What if I kept running the monologue through the algorithm? Feeding it its own revised versions over and over, like a demented Google Translate until it just became gibberish? So that's what I did. Surprisingly enough, from original writing sample to the end, it only took six turnarounds until it pretty much stopped altering the monologue. This was the final result:

This piece of writing is florid, overly descriptive, unnatural, and unsubtle. It makes the speaking character literally give voice to the themes through his dialogue, erasing all chances at subtext and subtlety. It uses unnecessary descriptors ("Once innocuous," "gleaming," "receded like a fading echo," "someone worth acknowledging,") and can't comprehend implication—because it is an algorithm, not a human that processes thoughts. The resulting writing is bland, stupid, lacks depth, and seemingly uses large words for large word's sake, not because it actually triggers an emotion in the reader or furthers the reader's understanding of the protagonist's mindset.

There you have it. Chat GPT, on top of being an algorithm run by callous, cruel people that steals artist's work and trains on it without compensation or permission, is also a terrible editor. Don't use it to edit, because it will quite literally make your writing worse. It erases authorial intention and replaces it with machine-generated generic slop. It is ridiculous that given the writer's strike right now, studios truly believe they can use A.I to produce a story of marginal quality that someone may pay to see. The belief that A.I can generate art is an insult to the writing profession and artists as a whole—I speak as a visual artist as well. I wouldn't trust Chat GPT to critique a cover letter, much less a novel or poem.

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Had you played TV cliché bingo while watching The Couple Next Door, I do believe sparks would have been flying from your dabber. I’m almost in awe that so many were crammed in before the first ad break alone. Barely seven minutes in, Becka (Jessica De Gouw) and Danny (Sam Heughan) were pulling each other’s clothes off and having sex at their living room window, curtains open, in a way that no married couple whose small child has just left the room ever do. Except in TV La-La land.

It was a bonus, though, for Alan the Pervert (Hugh Dennis), who has a telescope trained on their house and dark circles under his eyes that suggest he does a lot of squinting while hunched over his computer (and I don’t mean at Wordle).

I suppose at least this drama owns its clichés. What am I saying? It revels in them. It opened with the classic taster of horror to come, Eleanor Tomlinson as Evie running in what we shall call TV’s “sexy terrified” way. That is, frightened but looking hot, hot, hot in a short silk nightie as she ran barefoot through a forest. We then flipped back in time to Evie and Pete (Alfred Enoch) happily arriving at their new suburban idyll to start their family, which was a sort of sunny Wisteria Lane and not at all like the Leeds I remember from when I lived there.

It told us everything was too smug to be true by having laughing children playing with water guns, lawns being mowed, cars being washed. Uh-oh. We know that can’t last. And it didn’t. Evie miscarried her baby (conceived with a donor because Pete has “puny sperm”) by minute 16. I have a terrible feeling that the koi carp in the garden are some sort of “swimmers” metaphor.

Sometimes the dialogue was so stilted, I wondered if it was a spoof. “You guys will get through this,” Danny said to Pete, who should really have responded by asking if he was a chatbot. It soon transpired that Danny and Becka were swingers (it’s based on a Dutch series called, yes, The Swingers) and they promptly had “that couple we met in Marbella” round for some wife swapping as Pete watched from his window. Has anyone in this street ever considered closing a blind? And, actually, aren’t they “the couple opposite”, not “next door”?

There’s a dull subplot about Danny being a dodgy copper, which ties in to a dull investigation that local journalist Pete wants to look into, but his editor wants him to cover the opening of a new city library. A new library? Pull the other one. The UK has closed about 800 of them in the past decade.

At least Evie cheered up when she got Danny’s powerful beast between her legs. Oh, I mean his motorbike, though it’s obvious it won’t be long before the other beast comes into play. I feared we might get to the end of the episode without it committing the top TV cliché on the bingo card, namely spontaneous sex on a kitchen worktop. But, no. Evie and Pete gave us a full house by doing exactly that — and during a storm for added cheesiness.

These couples are as wooden as Dutch clogs, but I am enjoying Dennis’s greasy performance as the disgusting stalker who pretends to like yoga so he can be near Becka. I must warn you that later in the series it’s traumatic to see the man who played the nice dad in Outnumbered masturbating. I must also warn you that episode two contains some of the worst cringey couple dancing you are likely to witness in your lifetime. I think the moral of this silly but entertainingly corny tale is going to be: “Don’t shag the neighbours.”

thetimes.co.uk

Carol Midgley joined The Times in 1996 and is a former Feature Writer of the Year winner. Find her column in Times 2 each Wednesday and her TV reviews on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

————————————————————————

Indeed I saw all the reviews after the streaming view, including all episodes. The Times’ review concretes many things about The Couple Next Door 💁‍♀️

[kiefbowl]

What’s the worst/cringiest dialogue prom Bridgerton for you? For me, it’s the line where lady featherington’s telling marina that “men say many things when they want to make love until the consequences of lovemaking are brought to their attention.” It’s so clunky and unnatural, idk it just makes me laugh.

oh idk it's how the actors say all their lines with a cadence of wit when most of the lines are not witty and in fact are completely on the nose lol. which, you know, is fine in a sense...it's not like everyone was constantly out their ass witty at this time. but it's like the audience is supposed to be tricked into believing they're watching witty banter "of the time" just because they throw a couple "ought nots" and "so it would seems" and "one would suppose-s" around. also it's the constant "stating an obvious fact in a lilt, is it not?" as if we're supposed to be like "WOW they were so FANCY," it honestly cracks me up every single time. like they did know how to ask normal ass questions in the regency era lmao.

also idk Regé-Jean Page is hot and w/e but after a rewatch I think he really struggles with the dialogue. He does not come off natural at all with the stilted dialogue.

[pianostrings]

Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver Spoilers!!

- I AM HURT

- Really liked the camaraderie moments between the team, particularly with Tarak and Titus, and with Milius. I feel like there could have been more. Tarak was definitely carrying those moments.

- Nemesis my love!!! I was not expecting to be so emotionally affected by her backstory and performance! The parts with that little Aryan kid were so cute 🥺

- There were so many shots of them harvesting the grain lol. They really got their worth planting that field of wheat.

- But also they really could have dropped the grain talk at some point. I don’t think that dreadnought really needed it... They could have just sacked one of the other planets they recently visited if they needed food? Or stopped by one of the other planets on the way back to the Motherworld? This wouldn’t have bothered me at all if they didn’t keep bringing it up

- The five days deadline really felt like it could at least have been two weeks or something. They really needed more than a few days to teach the villagers how to fight.

- Some of the dialogue was a bit stilted. Like. “Remember when I told you all these things from the first movie, well, here they are again in case the viewer hasn’t seen part one?”

- Sam and Aris. Heart eyes motherfuxker!!!

- Kora’s tragic backstory!!! I knew it was a let’s stab Caesar situation but I was really hoping it wouldn’t be Kora involved in actually killing anyone. Issa 🥺

- “I forgive you.” “Don’t” 🫠

- The hurt on Kora’s face when Balisarius and the senators are screaming at her. AND I just worked out why they made a big deal about her being an offworlder. Balisarius needed the assassin to be an offworlder to continue invading other worlds

- Ok but why was there a live orchestra at the assassination… shouldn’t they want fewer people present as possible?

- I don’t know why I didn’t realise Jimmy was short for James 😭 But when Kora kept calling him James, it was giving parent calling child by their full name vibes

- Gunnar and Kora ❤️💔

- I’m getting vibes from Cassius and Noble… like gay vibes. Cassius feels a little too devoted to him?

- Noble not falling for Aris’s charade at all lol

- I didn’t get the Noble doing an Olivia Colman accent in the first movie but it’s really obvious here.

- Those woven blankies Sam made for everyone were so cute

- Everyone in that village was indistinguishable from each other. I really felt nothing when those peeps were getting shot down

- I did breathe a sigh of a relief when Sindri oop I meant Hagen Sindri got bonestaffed in part I was shown to be OK though. Can’t shoot the old guy.

- Den just got yeeted off a ship after an admirable admiral-killing attempt 😂 RIP. No back-up love interest for Kora.

- That last hour of action was so flipping good

- Jimmy’s entrance & stare down moment 😏😘

- The moment between Kora & the Kali when it’s eyes opened.

- I didn’t mean to laugh when Gunnar went sliding past Kora when the ship was tilting but I kinda did lol

- Also when Noble said “fucking farmers” I was like lol are they allowed to swear in this cut. I swear that was the only swear word.

- Kora killing Noble again was so satisfying

- “Why can’t I have this one thing?” Nooooo how dare you 😭😭😭

- (Someone should wellness check the Michiel Huisman blogs btw)

- Devra rocking up. Yes girl thank you 🙏🏻

- Gunnar’s burning heart flag at the funeral. It hurts.

- Kora owning up to her identity and Titus just being like, yeah.

- That reveal was. Holy cow. Does that mean Balisarius is keeping Issa in a room somewhere? 🫠🫠 Is her life force being used like the Kali??

- The soundtrack. Phenomenal. 10/10. No notes.

- I need the extended cuts

- I NEED PART THREE!!!!!

- And yes, I know we probably aren’t getting it but please Netflix 🙏🏻

- (Have I mentioned I am hurt??)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

So with Clementine Book Two coming out in October, I decided to do another reread of Book One. Though, I'll be honest, the bigger reason for this reread was out of spite; I follow Tillie Walden on instagram, and while I don't go on there often, I usually check her page when I do so I can see any new artwork or Clementine updates. Her latest post is from one of her other graphic novels, and I guess I just... don't get it.

I don't understand why people are like this:

This is on a post that has nothing to do with the Clementine comics. As for ones that are about Clementine-

Those are just a handful from a few Clementine-related posts, but there's so much of this all over Tillie's posts and I don't understand.

What does this accomplish? Other than making you look like an asshole? Like... no one is impressed by this. No one is applauding you for repeatedly commenting "lol we didn't want a forced gay romance ew," which by the way? Repeating that in every single paragraph you comment? Tell me you're homophobic without saying you're homophobic, y'know?

There are legit criticisms to be had of Clementine Book One- The pacing is all over the place where it starts very slow and then goes into whiplash mode after Amos dies. Georgia as a villain is a weak point in the story. Clementine naming her leg after Kenny is a bit icky considering in canon, he physically and verbally abused a disabled person with a brace on his leg in S2. I don't think there was much thought behind that decision past "Hey, the fans like Kenny," and I think that's worth pointing out as "Hey... maybe don't?"

Some of the dialogue is a bit stilted, but some of it is actually pretty good. My personal favorite is when Clementine and Amos are fixing a roof-

Amos: Lord, this roof is... Clementine: ...fucked? Amos: SHH, don't say that! It's... troubled.

I'm sorry- that's funny! And it actually says a lot about who these characters are and the kind of friendship they have.

And yeah, Ricca is just okay. She's clearly the love interest, and I'm hoping we get more development of her character. And yes, the "baby" thing is still weird.

There's a lot about the art style that I'm not crazy about, specifically Clementine's face and expressions, and I hope to see an improvement in that for Book Two.

And then the obvious: Clementine leaving because she was unhappy and felt everyone thought she was a liability doesn't match up with the end of TFS.

I don't think it's mean to say that Tillie wasn't the best fit for this project, but that's on Skybound. They're the ones who reached out to her and hired her. I think Tillie's a great artist and her graphic novels have great queer, wlw representation in them. Just because she wasn't the perfect fit for Clementine that doesn't mean she's bad, it means that maybe she should've been considered for a different project.

And honestly...? Y'all, Book One isn't THAT bad. It's not great or anything, but the comics can't take the games away from you. If you want to say canon ends with the TFS, then that's where it ends. That's where it ends for me; these comics are more of a "what if" scenario than anything.

No one is forcing you to accept this as canon, and if you're so pathetically butt hurt over the existence of a comic that you feel like you have to go on Tillie's instagram, the artist who is only doing the job she's obligated to do, and comment shit like this on every. single. post-

Maybe, just maybe, you need to go outside. I'm serious.

This isn't the only comment about grooming on Tillie's posts, or that I've seen on reddit. Like... do you understand what grooming actually is and how serious it is? Or are you just using it as a buzzword that you know is bad and triggering as a means of insult and convincing others that she's bad, too?

Also, I don't think you really understand how creativity and writing work. Maybe it's just me, though I doubt it, but when I create characters or write already established characters in my fanfiction, they all have a piece of me that's apart of them. My life experiences and who I am as a person influences everything I write, and that bleeds into the characters, for better or worse.

What, you think Louis having a random pillow collecting problem was something I just pulled out of my ass? No, it's because I have a pillow collecting problem! Do you know why I've always had a such a hard time writing for Violet? It's because I see a lot of myself in her and that scares me and I'd rather just not unpack all of that, okay?

I mean, how many times on this hellsite have you come across someone saying, "lol my otp is just Person A is my type and Person B is the one I project onto" and it has thousands of notes because, on some level, we all get it.

Tillie has talked about Ricca before and like most creative people, she's drawn from her own life to create her characters. Ricca isn't some self-insert character just because they both wear glasses, I'm-

You are just being an asshole! I just- I'm getting pissed off because this shouldn't even be a thing. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? WHO HURT ALL OF YOU?

I love Clementine, too! She's important to me! I have replayed TWDG more times than I can count! I was pissed about the comics in the beginning! You can go back on my blog and I probably said stupid shit, too!

But Clementine isn't real. She's a fictional video game character. She isn't going to reward your bullying or white-knighting because she doesn't exist. You're not doing this because you're a "true fan" that loves Clementine. Honestly, if you were a true fan, you would know that if Clementine was real, she would find you and this behavior disgusting. Tillie Walden is a real person and I don't give a flying fuck if you hate her work. By all means, hate the comic! Criticize the comic and Skybound for continuing the series, but leave Tillie out of it.

And I think the part that sucks the most is it doesn't matter what I say, you can't rationalize with irrational people intent on being assholes so they're not going to stop.

I guess what I'm trying to show with all of this is when Book Two comes out, and y'all start reading it and making posts... please don't be these people.

Whatever you may feel about Clementine Book Two, try to remember that Tillie Walden is a real person and she's just doing the job that Skybound hired her for. Tillie's an artist just trying to live her life in Vermont with her wife and their cats, and she's gotta deal with all of these people harassing her posts. She can't even post something non-Clementine related without a bunch of #notmyclementine shit in the comments.

I don't even know what else to say... Uhm, I guess if anyone from those screenshots sees this, then... I don't feel that bad about calling you an asshole. We all learned in kindergarten to treat others the way we want to be treated, but maybe you were sick that day, I don't know. Go outside. Get your life together. We have a short time on this planet and maybe you should try to actually accomplish something while you're here. Eat a kitkat or something👍

[voidvinn]

here’s a little analysis on game vs anime!brandon’s personality and my thoughts on his Masters portrayal! because i am insane :] i’ve been thinking about this for hours help m

Okay, so, I knew that if Brandon was ever added to masters he would have his game personality. Because, duh. HOWEVER, it’s very surprising to finally have a personification for his Emerald and ORAS portrayal since it was only a few lines of dialogue before. The main difference i can surmise between the game and anime iterations of Brandon is that game!Brandon is extroverted while anime!Brandon is introverted. You can even see this in their beginning dialogue, as Brandon mentions being the Pyramid King in Masters while anime!Brandon only brings it up once confronted by the King of Pokelantis.

Even their voices exemplify this difference. Anime!Brandon’s words are stilted and awkward most of the time, but this changes in the midst of battles. Masters!Brandon having a deeper, more natural-sounding voice was a more obvious choice. His Masters voice is actually more fitting on paper, with it matching his game dialogue. However, anime!Brandon’s speaking pattern is one of his most distinctive features. He tends to enunciate the beginning of his words and use uncommon vocabulary.

Game!Brandon seems very sincere in his words, describing things as grand and talking about his life as an adventurer. Anime!Brandon could not want to talk LESS about his life and passions. Not to say he isn’t passionate, but he’s more of a loner with a slight ego. The whole “NO” thing, as funny as it is, highlights how he doesn’t like idle chatter and thinks himself above most situations, hence trying to end conversation.

Anime!Brandon is a (lovable) jerk to be frank, but I can also understand why his personality was altered from his Emerald portrayal for the anime. Brandon’s personality in Masters seems to be very similar to Palmer’s, along with a few other characters, being an encouraging mentor-like figure. Anime!Brandon mentors in a very different fashion, letting people learn from their failures instead of encouraging them outright.

Overall I’m just ecstatic Brandon is going to be in Masters, in any capacity! Anime!Brandon will always be my favorite portrayal, but I think his Masters variation can definitely add some new facets to the character.

[ooops-i-arted]

I don't care to follow this show closely, but people in tags have been talking about it for weeks. Not surprising that the Ahsoka/Anakin reunion turned out disappointing and devoid of emotional depth, because what did I expect from Filoni and Disney Star Wars after all?

At this point, I just have to ask .... does Filoni know that he's supposed to be writing characters? Like people with personalities? Relationships between people with shared history? Dialogue that sounds natural coming from an individual with a functioning brain? Because we have characters like the live action Ghost Crew who are described as stilted and don't even act like they are close. We have Ahsoka and Luke scenes that feel hollow and tacked on, ("so much like your father" girl explain how something Luke said made you come to that conclusion or was it just for fans to get nostalgic about clone wars?). The last time Anakin and Ahsoka met, he tried to fucking kill her and we would think there would be more of a reaction from this. But no, the focus is on battle scenes and snarky clone wars skits.

Oh my bad, Filoni's target demographic is people weeping over the next cameo and something he poached from Legends. He can probably make something look like a flashy video game cutscene. But more effort is put into showing off choreography and making Ahsoka look like the bland, stoic and bestest OC ever, rather than writing something truly meaningful and it's really obvious.

The problem imo is that the fandom has acted like Filoni shits gold for so long Disney/Filoni has no incentive to improve. Every piece of nostalgia-laden schlock Filoni squeezes out of his butthole is treated as a masterpiece by the majority of the fandom. They have zero incentive to keep making fresh, original things like Mandalorian season 1 or Andor (haven't watched that yet, going by word of mouth) when low-effect TCW fanfiction makes the loudest Star Wars fans cream their pants.

Honestly I think the Ahsoka show is just Filoni playing with his dolls with all the high-end special effects at his disposal and still couldn't make Hera look halfway decent. Tbh I feel a bit bad for all the voice actors and animators who first brought these characters to life and gave them soul now being tossed aside for the new shiny live action versions, just because there's this idea that animation is less prestigious/for kids. Like I'm no fan of Ashley Eckleswhatever but there is no doubt she is dedicated to Ahsoka and the fans and I've heard tons of lovely things about her. Not to mention the Legends authors getting ripped off and no credit for their ideas. (Don't even get me started on Hayden Christensen. Okay, obviously I don't presume to know how he feels, hey if he's happy with this good for him and I 100% support him. But if I starred in the prequels and had my performance constantly mocked and maligned for years, finally returned to Kenobi and had tons of fans now cheering and praising me for an emotional reunion with the character & actor that were the heart of RotS..... I wouldn't exactly be thrilled to lick the orange butthole of some guy's fanfic OC next.)

(Also also I hate the TCW designs. In the 2D Clone Wars Anakin does not wear any armor, which imo much better shows how reckless and borderline arrogant he is about his abilities.)

[ratcandy]

do you have tips for writing eloquently?

I have started and scrapped and rewritten this post so many times because my confidence level is not working with me here sdhgkJSDGH

Well! Um! To be bluntly honest, I only write Zote's dialogue like that (assuming that is where this question stems from) because I read and reread his dialogue again and again over the course of a year back when I was writing CoGR!,,,

And then once you write like that for a year straight, it sort of becomes second nature to you hdgKHSKH

So if you've got a muse that you'd like to reference the word choice of, honestly, drenching yourself in their speaking mannerisms for a while can help you pick up on the subtleties of how they talk pretty well! Like genuinely! Just sit down and listen to fancy old english for a while, if that's what you're going for. Listen to it for hours and pick apart how things are said and why.

But um! Aside from that, the one big point of advice I can give is to not make it sound forced. The point of eloquence is that it's supposed to flow and feel natural. You can use as many fancy words and syntax as you want, but if it feels stilted and strange, the effect will be lost.

When it comes to the Big Fancy Words, so long as you're using them properly and not over-using them to the point of sounding pretentious (unless that is in-character), you should be fine! I would think, anyway!! I abuse the hell out of wordhippo to get my fancy words, for example. But I try not to fancy word too much, and I make sure those words make sense in how they're used and where. Because the last thing you want is for it to be super obvious you're taking from a thesaurus as you go.

Also, of course, a good rule of thumb: I double/triple-check every word I use to ensure I'm using it properly, even if I'm 99% certain I am. Because otherwise you look Real Silly for it. Check how it's supposed to be put into a sentence. Check the definition. Check alternate definitions to make sure you don't accidentally say something you don't mean!

(This is how I found out that saying "in of itself" is wrong, and it's actually "in and of itself." Which is fucked up and evil, yes, but grammar is bitchy and horrible! Something else I recommend coming to terms with if you're gonna abuse that grammar to sound prettier hgkjH)

I find the best way to check that something sounds natural is to read it out loud yourself. Can you follow along with what you're saying, or do you keep finding yourself tripping over the wording? If you have to read a sentence ten times before it sounds comprehensible, it might be time to modify that sentence a little hdgkJH

And if just reading it aloud doesn't help, try recording yourself reading it aloud. Then listen to yourself and see if it makes sense. A trick I found online to check for grammar/spelling mistakes is if you're using something like Microsoft Word, there's a "Read Aloud" option under the Review tab in which it will read what you've written back to you. You'll notice if something sounds funky pretty quickly when a text-to-speech is reading it ghkjshSDG

[Another quick tip: Rationalize how eloquent you want a scene described/dialogue spoken, and think about whether it fits. Or if it would sound better less eloquent. Genuinely, sometimes a character spitting out "fuck you" has a much harder hit than a long spiteful monologue! Especially if that character has been nothing but eloquent up until that point!]

Otherwise, um. Well! It really is just a lot of practicing. Which is the worst advice ever yes I know, but most people can't fling themselves effortlessly into writing immaculate prose. Which. I AM NOt clAIMING I DO. FOR ONE. Just putting that out there!! It takes getting the hang of. It takes noticing where you slip up and noting how to fix it. It takes a lot of reading other stuff/listening to how people talk to get a grasp on it.

At least For Me. That is what I Do. And I am just Sitting Here. I started CoGR when I was 16,

[i-consume-content]

THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: PILOT

A Promising Premise with a Playful Plot

SPOILERS AHEAD

I’ll be upfront: I don’t like clowns. I’m not afraid of them, but something about them makes me… uncomfortable. Overly joyous, bright and flashy, and more effective at drawing in a crowd of those goblins we call “children” than a box of Capri-Sun. The Amazing Digital Circus (which will henceforth be referred to in this article as TADC) plays with the vibes I get from clowns perfectly, goblin children and all.

Quick plot synopsis! We find ourselves inside the titular Amazing Digital Circus, a virtual world in which a wacky cast of characters have been trapped for an unknown amount of time. The story follows Pomni, the newcomer, as she tries to escape the circus and get back to the real world without losing her mind. After meeting the other suckers trapped in this world (and then running away from one of them), Pomni finds an exit door free-standing in the middle of the tent. After running through a Backrooms-like facility, her efforts turn out to be all for naught, since the ringmaster Caine hasn’t even finished building the exit. Whoopsies! Yeah, a bunch of other stuff happens, but the B-plot isn’t really as interesting as Pomni’s journey.

I’m going to start the actual review part of this article with the art and animation. The love and care put into making the characters feel alive is not to be overlooked, and it’s clear that the team behind TADC took care in making sure the animation was the best it could be. The characters are expressive in the way they walk, run, and use their hands. Each design is unique and fun, with none of them being standout great and none lagging behind. My personal favorite design is Caine, who is as wonderfully ridiculous as the circus he runs. An honorable mention to Gangle, whose ribbon body leads to some genuinely funny goofs and gaffs in the show. I think the only character design I have problems with is Zooble, a mishmash of multicolored parts of many styles. It’s a neat idea in concept, and Gooseworx’s previous works prove abstract designs can be pulled off well, but Zooble is way too cluttered for my tastes.

Something I really enjoy about TADC is how well it pulls off sound. Music production and voice acting are my hobbies and sound work is my job, so it's always nice to see a show or movie pull off sound well. Goofy character movements are often accentuated by bouncy and cartoony sound effects, and the overall mixing and mastering of the episode is high-quality. At no point did it feel like any character was too loud or too quiet, too bland or too overeffected. I like the subtle changes in reverb as the camera switches to a new point of view, a thing that in hindsight seems obvious but many people may miss when making a show like this. I must also commend the voice actors and voice directors for their amazing work bringing these characters to life and giving them personality. As soon as I heard Caine in the promotional material, I realized it was a complete no-brainer to bring on Alex Rochon to use the Spamton voice from his Deltarune dubs. I also must point out Michael Kovach's work as Jax, being just obnoxious enough to make you want to hate him but not enough to stop you from absolutely loving him. The music is also fantastic, as one comes to expect from the talented hands of Gooseworx. It should come as no surprise that my favorite track from the pilot is Your New Home, and I seem to be far from the only one with that opinion.

Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and rainbows with TADC. I do have one major gripe with the show, and that's the writing. The story is intriguing and entertaining, but a lot of dialogue near the beginning of the episode falls flat for me. It's a good script assisted by great VAs, but it really does feel like some of the dialogue is trying to cram in lots of information in a shorter time frame, to the point where some of it feels stilted and drags on. However, I suppose I can understand why this is the case. A pilot is a way for a show to tell the audience what it's doing, what it's about, and why you should watch. Thus, it's reasonable to put more information into a pilot than feels necessary, so that you don't need to take as long to get someone hooked.

All in all, TADC is a lovely show that I highly recommend checking out if you haven't already, and I wish the best of luck to GLITCH, Gooseworx, and the rest of the team in funding a full season of this show.

FINAL RATING:

A Breaking Point out of 10

- Rock

[kissingagrumpygiant]

heard you're the go-to for being mean about twc 😈

fwiw, I've done two playthroughs and enjoyed one (not a's, which was incredibly mid) cause like... it's twc. it was never good, it was always cringe, it's just fun sometimes! i will prob play through the other routes too for comparison.

i thought m's route was unexpectedly sweet, but even aside from the questionable characters, the issues with the series are more obvious than they've ever been (i assume bc sera is spending less time on the sequels than she did on the debut?)

so my mean takes!

1. the writing style is hilariously bad. every single sentence is like obnoxiously detailed imagery. jarring hyperbole. sensory detail that makes no sense. let me imitate: "rain begins to crash down as if the sky was collapsing over us. the freezing cold of the water combined with its dizzying scent makes me almost fall over and throw up. ava's eyes are the precise colour of fresh grass but also the ocean but also the northern lights and change tone depending on her mood. my knees give out and i crumple like a handful of tinfoil." once you notice it you can't stop noticing it

2. the dialogue is so predictable. i get the vibe she uses any opportunity to stick in a behaviour she thinks each character would exhibit but it comes across sooo stilted like ok f makes a joke m makes an innuendo a says something really cringe or really mean n is polite but judgemental. wow this is so found family.

3. all situations seem to resolve in the most contrived ways possible? like she wants to cater to all the skill sets or whatever but it's like wow im being attacked. the bad guys will approach in slow motion while i deduce (sick of that word) a way to beat them 🤓 let me throw a pebble to hit the off button on their weapon.... invisibly create a tripping hazard... guess a fact about them which will scare them so much i can hit them over the head.... I'm such a good cop! like girl this makes no sense...

4. this is nitpicky but there were SO many pronoun/coding issues in this book. come on.

anyway whatever it's a cringe trying-to-be-apolitical fantasy romance story so it was never going to be good... but still!

oh my god the 'deduce' options were so fucking cringe im sorry u mean THINK? IM GONNA T H I N K ABOUT MY ACTION? or are we having bbc sherlock mind palace sequences is that the vibe