threeskullsinthewoods

[threeskullsinthewoods]

The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater (2011)

[threeskullsinthewoods]

I need everyone to know that the ship Götheborg, the world's largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship, answered a distress call the other day.

Imagine waiting for the coast guard or whatever to show up and instead a replica of 18th century merchant ship pulls up and tows you to the coast.

[threeskullsinthewoods]

little experiment

if you see this post, reblog it and say which fandom you're in

i wanna see how far we can get in a week

we're starting in the ninjago fandom

timer:

alright thank you

[threeskullsinthewoods]

Optimus prime becomes a western highway ghost story.

If you’re driving in the dead of night along those long stretches of highway in the western US you might just encounter a lone big rig who will drive along side you for miles. The truckers will blow their horns as they recognize his custom paint and trailer the truck will slow its steady speed to match them. Those truckers with cbs say that there’s someone to talk to in there but he seams sad and lonely. No one ever sees him stop. Some say he’s an angel who will lead rescue workers to crashes at the dead of night. Those unfortunate enough to wander the highways at night tell story’s of the truck that stopped and got them somewhere warm and safe for the night only to wake in the morning with large sums of money in there pockets and a small note apologizing for the low sum. Children and parents smile as he always honks his horn when asked. The people of the western highways know when you see big red you’re always taken care of no matter who you are or where you came from.

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oh you like my mommy and daddy issues? yeah i got them secondhand. no, they're from my dad. i mean they should technically be grandparent issues but i don't have time to deal with all that. it is what it is you know?

[threeskullsinthewoods]

Something about Tolkien showing absolute love and devotion by choosing your death to be with the person you love. Something about Lúthien and Beren, about Arwen and Aragorn, and choice of the death of men. Something about Sam following Frodo to the undying lands to be reunited one last time. Something about Legolas not having that choice to die together, but he and Gimli do their best anyway. Something about Tolkien and his wife having Beren and Lúthien on their grave stones, side by side for as long as the earth can hold their bodies.

[threeskullsinthewoods]

Romans, countrymen and lovers...

This has been a truly spectacular journey, we've had mistakes and slip ups (sorry Captain America fans!) but after over a YEAR, I am proud to announce our...

FINAL ROUND!!!

CHRIS KRATT VS CHRISTINE ROYCE!

Chris Kratt is known for his work on children shows and animal conservation!

"lesbian icon"

[threeskullsinthewoods]

Your colloquialisms are ruining the immersion (or, non-contemporary dialogue)

I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s perspective and from my experience writing high fantasy.

So what’s the deal with immersive dialogue? I’m going to ignore writing dialects and accents and so-called “old English” with the thee, thy, thou and such. Solely focusing here on the narrative telling me this isn’t set in present times, and yet the dialogue being painfully colloquial like present times.

This is coming from a book I had to read set in HRE times. In it, characters were spouting modern curse words, tacking on verbal tics and crutch words like “or something” and “um” and drawing out words like “daaaamn” and “nooooo”. Rip out the dialogue and toss it in a script with zero context and it would read like two high schoolers from 2009, not two adults from the Holy Roman Empire. Which is a problem, because it completely shattered the immersion. —

1. On so-called “formal writing”

Everybody knows that nixing contractions doesn’t do a damn thing to help your writing look more “formal”, it just looks robotic and stiff, right? We’ve gotten past this as a society? There’s a time and a place for replacing contractions with the full words, but not for every single sentence.

I swear this show keeps creeping into my writing advice but here we go. Transformers Prime. The context for Optimus’ dialogue has a lot to do with his aging voice actor, Peter Cullen, and the perception of the character over the decades from the corny 80s paragon hero everyman type leader to the grizzled and wizened old soul type leader. Optimus isn’t “one of the guys,” he’s old. Very old. He’s the dad of the group (one dad, his grumpy medic is the other dad).

So he gets lines like:

“I fear Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith.”

“But if his return is imminent as I fear, it could be a catastrophic.”

“I bore Skyquake no ill-will.”

He doesn’t curse like the other Autobots. His voice only raises in surprise, horror, or rage. He doesn’t go “um/ah/so/but/eh” and always thinks about what he’s going to say well before he says it. Despite him, Ratchet (the dad medic), and Megatron all being very old, Optimus is the only one who’s “proper” and collected and dignified with his lines. The writers didn’t achieve this simply by omitting contractions, he gets them where necessary and removes them when effective (e.g “We do not.” / “We don’t.”)

2. Thesaurus Rex

Continuing with the Optimus example, no other character in that show would use “zenith” unironically. Or “ill-will”. This doesn’t mean crack open and abuse a thesaurus but there’s a huge divide between:

“Megatron’s gone crazy and he’s going to implode soon” and “Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith”.

I can’ think of a better word to use than dignified, perhaps distinguished to describe his dialogue.

He doesn’t say “what?” when he’s confused, he pauses and says something like “please elaborate”.

This is both word choice and a syntax issue so if you’re struggling to fit a non-contemporary vibe for your work, pay attention to both.

3. When to abstain from cursing

There’s something very special about the dialogue in the Lord of the Rings movies: It’s PG-13 so they can’t curse, but if they had, it would have probably ruined the trilogy. These characters are able to yell in rage and anguish, spit vicious insults at their enemies, and stare down armies that are determined to kill them, all while never breaking the immersion.

Insults like:

“Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear.”

“Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, you witless worm.”

“Your words are poison.”

And all three were said by or about Grima Wormtongue.

Characters aren’t dumbasses, they’re fools, with the exception of Gollum’s insults toward Sam, the “stupid, fat hobbit”.

Even devoid of name-calling, Denethor absolutely trounces his second son by asking (and I’m paraphrasing) “Is there any man here willing to do his lord’s bidding?” right after Faramir expresses some apprehension about a suicide charge with his remaining soldiers, completely ignoring him and implying that he’s not a real man.

LOTR is full of juicy lines beyond curse words, too. One of my absolute favorites is: “Dark have been my dreams of late” as opposed to “I’ve been having nightmares lately.”

Do you see?? It’s poetry. The motif of Shadow and Darkness as if they’re real, physical things, all the lines of poetry pulled straight from the books like Theoden’s “where is the horse and the rider” monologue just before Helm’s Deep.

It’s dignified.

—

This one was a bit harder to, ironically, put into words without doing a full-blown case study into either franchise’s ability to write dialogue and monologues. I didn’t even talk about Ratchet’s several monologues (one of which was done perfectly in the sound booth on the first take) because Jeffrey Combs has a voice like ambrosia.

TLDR: Immersion goes far beyond your vivid setting descriptors and the clothing or the names and languages. I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi and whenever I read or watch fantasy and sci-fi that isn’t meant to be a world different from our own, or about characters who don’t speak modern English, and they go off with modern slang, syntax, and verbal tics, it just feels sloppy and weak. Pay attention to the following:

Syntax

Modern slang and jargon

Filler words/verbal tics

Curse words/curses

Flat, unmotivated vocab

*All of the quotes were from memory because I watch both of these franchises way too often. So apologies if I got any wrong.

[threeskullsinthewoods]

is it worse now? now that the days pass and i can't even say "last year you were alive."

has a year truly passed since i came home to some of the worst news in my life?

[threeskullsinthewoods]

the terrible thing about grief is that you can be fine. you can go weeks without thinking about it and then may is nearly over and this time last year your best friend was still alive. this time last year you walked out in the mud to show him the litter of puppies. it was may, it was beautiful, it was green, and summer was coming.

[threeskullsinthewoods]

“and the universe said…”

[threeskullsinthewoods]

“Vicious creatures, but you have to admire ‘em. They find a way to survive.”

[threeskullsinthewoods]

What's season 3? The only thing I care about right now is the bad batch as horses

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Discord shenaniganery led to some fun speculation about tbb season 3, and I just had to turn @stormyblue90 s goofy dialogue idea into a comic XD

Original post here

Drawing all the expressions was an absolute blast! I’ve been spamming the discord WIP channel with them for weeks

[threeskullsinthewoods]

glad that im not popular enough to have an evil shadow version of my blog that exists just to make contradictions on my posts

[threeskullsinthewoods]

"Remember, there is always a great big beautiful tomorrow"

Rest in peace Jellie ❤️ I'll miss hearing you in the background of videos and seeing your cute face in streams and sponsorship ads, you have no idea how much love there is for you :(

[threeskullsinthewoods]

"My name is Lloyd, son of Garmadon, who was a child of The First Spinjitzu Master..."