I Won't Lie When I Say I'm Kinda Disappointed In The Quality Of Animation For This. It's Just Kinda "okay"

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

Chronicles of Darkness Index

Last update: Dec 11, 2022

Adaptations

Ghastly (Ghost)

Articles

Lancea et Sanctum and Theology

Let’s Read Parasite Rex - Introduction

Let’s Read Parasite Rex - Chapter 1

The Shadow and the Gauntlet (Cosmology)

The Wolf and the Raven (Dark Era)

Items

The Perfect Dress (Memento)

Night Horrors

Black Cat (GM Angel Familiar)

Burning Spiders (Spirit)

Claimed Echo

Damned Jack (Supernal)

Galvanism Cult

Ghost Bats (Animal Ghoul)

Grandfather Moros (Chthonian)

King of Silver (Spirit)

Lionel Hawk & Associates (Conspiracy)

The Master’s Hound (Animal Ghoul)

Melione (Chthonian)

The Monk in the Cathedral (Temple Guardian)

Old Man Mackenzie (Fey-Touched Hunter)

The Phantom (Temple Guardian)

Watchful Elves (Angel)

Winter Murder Floofs (Spirits and Claimed)

Yule Devil (Werewolf)

Zipperhead, Claimed (Claimed Vampire)

Plothooks

Beasts

Changelings

Ghouls (and apparently I talked about them twice, so here’s post #2)

Horrors

Hunters

Mages

Mummies

Prometheans

Shaunkhsen

Sin-Eaters

Spirits

Unchained Demons

Urged 

Vampires

Werewolves

Stereogram is an autostereogram (Magic Eye) platformer that you can only see by looking closely and unfocusing your eyes!

Read More & Play The Full Game, Free (Windows)

I want a womb tattoo

Funeralopolis is a dread-filled apocalyptic body horror game where you discover a strange crack in your kitchen wall!

Read More & Play The Full Game, Free (Windows)

Gameplay Video:

Tried my hand at Essek specially after it seems he’s trying to make amends with the mighty nine. Absolutely one of my favorite characters this campaign can’t wait to see what happens next. Also swear that he had curly hair at some point if he didn’t o well lmk and I’ll fix it.

How To Write Good Dialogue (Part 1)

I'm gonna start this by saying I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all. I am just tired of posts like these being absolutely fucking useless. I am aware this is basically me screaming into a void and I’m more than okay with that.

This guide is meant for intermediate screenwriters, but beginners are also absolutely welcome. :)

(about me)

-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-

I've noticed a rise in film students who want to make films that have no dialogue. Probably after your professor showed you Doodlebug, right? Fuck that.

I'll make another post about writing a short film, but all you need to know is: Don't waste the audience’s time. Most of these no-dialogue shorts have very little substance and take way too long to tell the shortest possible story. Not a good idea.

Useless Dialogue

Plain and simple, don't write useless dialogue. Useless dialogue is dialogue that just doesn't fucking matter. Dialogue matters by having ✨subtext.✨

What is subtext? Subtext is the meaning behind the action. That's it.

If I tell you that I love you and I got big doe eyes while I say it, it means I love you. If I tell you I love you through a clenched jaw without looking at you, I don't necessarily love you right now.

Simple, right? Great.

Now think about the subtext behind every line. Does your character mean what they're saying? Are they doing it to get what they want? What is going through their mind as they say it? As long as you know your character, you’ll have these answers ready to go. If you don’t, you’ll figure it out eventually. Just keep writing.

When you write your character walking into a Starbucks and saying, "One venti iced coffee," does that do something? Why do I need to see someone's boring Starbucks order? Do I need to know that your character's boring? Why are you writing a boring character? [Of course, in the rare situation where this is some revealing clue to the massive crime investigation, then it makes sense.]

Useless dialogue is any dialogue that has no meaning or purpose in your script. Delete and move on. You don't need to write entire conversations or scenes that bore us, just write what we care about.

I took a class once where my professor called a version of this "trimming the fat." Get us into your scene and out of your scene in as little time as it takes to have it achieve its full purpose in the script.

[P.S. You don’t “inject” subtext into your lines. Idk who started that vernacular in subtext teachings but I hate it.]

Show vs. Tell

I remember a glorious fight I got into with a Redditor last year about show vs. tell… TL;DR: Dialogue is “show” if you write it with intention and subtext. If someone says that dialogue is inherently “tell,” they’re wrong and can go fuck themselves.

Dialogue that is “tell” is expositional dialogue. But, hot take: Exposition isn't just in dialogue. It’s also those annoying clichés that make you roll your eyes in the theater (which we just call clichés and not exposition). I’m sure every professor I’ve had will disagree with this and then get me into a long conversation about it, but let’s ignore that for right now.

Have you ever seen a movie where a character rubs an old, worn-out photo of a young girl while looking depressed? That's exposition. That character has a dead daughter. No shit.

Clichés are incredibly annoying. We all know that. Assume that any cliché you see - in this context - is exposition and try your best not to write it. (Tropes are different and sometimes necessary, so I’m not talking about that.)

Point blank: When you have subtext in your lines, they are "show,” not “tell.”

Before moving on, I'll bring up that while technically the dead daughter photo is subtextual, it is as close to the character saying “My daughter is dead,” as you can get. Don't treat the audience like we're fucking stupid.

The First 15

If you don’t know what the Inciting Incident is, please look up “3 Act Structure” before reading this.

The first 15 pages of your script is the part that comes before the Inciting Incident. This is the part you want to get right because, although people probably won’t leave the theater, they will absolutely find something else on the streaming service they’re using. The people making said movie will also just toss your script in the trash before it’s even produced, so it's best to get it right.

Dialogue in the first 15 generally follows the same rules, but carries a heftier additional rule. All dialogue in the first 15 minutes must, must, must tell us something about your character.

Remember when I talked about that boring Starbucks order? Why is your character boring? Don’t write that. Don’t write nice characters. Or pleasant characters. Or friendly characters. No one cares.

You want empathy. This does not mean “relatable.” It means “empathetic.” There is a difference.

I personally relate to Vi in Arcane, but I empathize with Theo in Children of Men. Both are excellent, but one personally resonates a bit more with me. You cannot write a character that deeply resonates with every single person, it is impossible.

With each line of dialogue, you must be saying something about your character that generates the empathy. Instead of telling you how to do this, I’ll direct you to a movie that will do better than an explanation: Casablanca.

Watch how Rick interacts with the world. What kind of man is Rick? Watch what he does, what he says, and how he treats people and himself. Watch that empty glass on the table. Watch his contradictions. Everything. Those things matter and it’s what makes you want to watch Rick for the entire duration of Casablanca.

“Realism”

This is maybe more directorial, but make your characters human enough, not too human.

Too human is when you’ve tried your best to capture all those little life-like speech patterns. You know, the ones that no one fucking cares about.

If your character coughs, they’re sick. If they clear they’re throat, they’re uncomfortable. If a bruise isn’t going away, they’re going to die. Simple.

Every moment on screen matters. Everything the audience sees is meant to lead them to a conclusion. Not the conclusion, just a conclusion.

The realism you want is in the choices your character makes, not how many times they say “Uh,” in a sentence.

Conclusion

Dialogue matters and should not be treated lightly or without care. Once you have this all engrained in your mind, dialogue should become effortless.

If you want an excellent way to think about this, Robert McKee's Story has an excellent chapter that helped clarify this all for me. Here's an excerpt and the context.

Warning, spoilers for Chinatown.

"If I were Gittes at this moment, what would I do?"

Letting your imagination roam, the answer comes:

"Rehearse. I always rehearse in my head before taking on life's big confrontations."

Now work deeper into Gittes's emotions and psyche:

Hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, thoughts racing: "She killed him, then used me. She lied to me, came on to me. Man, I fell for her. My guts are in a knot, but I'll be cool. I'll stroll to the door, step in and accuse her. She lies. I send for the cops. She plays innocent, a few tears. But I stay ice cold, show her Mulwray's glasses, then lay out how she did it, step by step, as if I was there. She con-fesses. I turn her over to Escobar; I'm off the hook."

EXT. BUNGALOW-SANTA MONICA

Gittes' car speeds into the driveway.

You continue working from inside Gittes' pov, thinking:

"I'll be cool, I'll be cool ..." Suddenly, with the sight of her house, an image of Evelyn flashes in your imagination. A rush of anger. A gap cracks open between your cool resolve and your fury.

The Buick SCREECHES to a halt. Gittes jumps out.

"To hell with her!"

Gittes SLAMS the car door and bolts up the steps.

Story by Robert McKee, pg 156

The context of this page is McKee's way of explaining how to write characters. I found it very helpful.

-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-

Thanks for reading! I probably forgot something, so I made this a “part 1.”

I hope this helps someone since I’m really tired of finding short films on YouTube that are all fucking silent. The few who have done it well have been copied to death, so please write some dialogue. I promise you it’s so much better if you do.

Asks are open! :)

I bought a pretty circlet today. My husband says it makes me look like an elf :)) I love it!

I also bought a Jester's cap. It is Black&White and has annoying bells and I will be wearing it to Dungeons & Dragons sessions!

Been reading a book over the last few days called 'How To Think Like A Woman' by Regan Penaluna. I've never been so inspired and also angered by someone else's writing before. I feel so inspired by Penaluna's writing and memoir, as well as the stories of the women she's recounted so far as I've read. What upsets me is how blind I've been to 2000+ years of nearly every major philosopher you've ever heard of being a massively misogynistic prick, and how that's affected civilization as a whole. No matter how much good they may have done for philosophy, politics, etc, what's been hidden from history classes are their vitriol-saturated opinions of women. Despite being hidden from modern eyes in order to keep the good moral image of these philosophers in proper condition, they still had massive impacts on the culture of their day and decades or centuries into their future. For my whole life I had this kind of blasé attitude to Philosphy like it was just a bunch of dudes theorizing about the nature of life, and while it is that (simplified), it is also very dangerous because these philosophers (VERY OFTEN MALE) would hold wide influence over many and their ideas became the basis for communities and civilization moving forward. Their grand plans for humanity and their ideals that humanity should strive for were really only meant to prop up the egos of men, and to keep women subservient.

One of the things that stuck with me and bothered me most was this notion that seemed to be a commonality between many of these "great thinkers", which was - "It is virtuous for a woman to be silent, but not for a man, a man should always speak his mind."

That one kinda killed me a bit. To shared that near carbon-copied sentiment over the course of centuries, misogynist philosopher begeting misogynist philosopher for 2 millenia and some change. It kills me a bit inside. It makes me angry.

What does it mean to become radicalized?

Loyalist World Eater

by Konstantin Void

A Queer Native Feminist Reading List

Readings

Decolonization is not a metaphor (Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang)

Everyday decolonization: Living a decolonizing queer politics (Sarah Hunt & Cindy Holmes)

Refusal to forgive: Indigenous women’s love and rage (Rachel Flowers) 

A Glossary of Haunting: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Eve Tuck, C. Ree, Angie Morrill, Kathryn Recollet, and the Super Futures Haunt Collective)

The end of (the capitalist white supremacist heteropatriarchal hate-full order of) the world, a survival guide (Zoe Todd)

Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation (Leanne Betasamosake Simpson)  

Can the Other of Native Studies speak? (Billy-Ray Belcourt)

These are stories of resilience. Or, emblems of resistance. (Naomi Sayers)  

Not Nowhere: Collaborating on Selfsame Land (Eve Tuck, Allison Guess, Hannah Sultan)

Of Dogma and Ceremony (Tara Williamson)

Ahkii: A Woman is a Sovereign Land (Gwen Benaway)

Video & audio

Embodying Self-Determination: resisting violence beyond the gender binary (Sarah Hunt)

Indigenous Feminist Resurgence, Love and Resistance in Indigenous Women’s Contemporary Storytelling (Dory Nason)

Making Love and Relations Beyond Settler Sexuality (Kim Tallbear)

Coming In: Indigenous Resurgence, Body Sovereignty and Gender Self-Determination (Alex Wilson)

Our Bodies and Lands are Not Your Property (Erica Violet Lee)

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s 2016 NWSA keynote address