ebony darkness dementia raven serket

[mogseltof]

I had a Vriska connect the other night who appeared to be allergic to both paragraphs and context. OOC questions included: "what's she wearing?" "who do you ship her with?"

I've been feeling bad about side eyeing people who use slender as a descriptor ooc but honestly everytime I've encountered it bleh

[Chairubplay]

My number one red flag: "Lithe."

Just the word has been so poisoned for me. And it's ALWAYS that, nothing else, no varying body descriptions, no further detail beyond that.

[Dave Strider]

(furiously takes note in notebook titled "words i never used in my life and need to keep this way")

[mogseltof]

Apr 21, 2016 12:59:03 GMT Chairubplay said:

My number one red flag: "Lithe."

*full body shudder* is the character in question a panther? then no I do not consider "lithe" appropriate well with you there

[Chairubplay]

Also, I'm biased toward this but. Freckles. On everyone. Everybody has freckles, you have freckles, your friends have freckles, your dog has freckles, FRECKLES FOR ALL. Once or twice, yes, but after your fifteenth Dirk and Karkat with a galaxy of freckles, it gets so stale.

[mogseltof]

My biased one is "chuckles" I can't stand the word, objectively there's nothing wrong with it, but it feels so out of place outside of Dragon Lance style fantasy

Other red flags for me usually include "the female" (especially when you know the name EPITHETS MUST DIE), very detailed clothing descriptions when there's no need, including bust size in a character description, "'character' looked into the mirror and assessed their detailed description like I'm in a teenage marketed paranormal romance novel"

[Chairubplay]

EPITHETS!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY WORST ENEMY, COME TO HAUNT ME.

[mogseltof]

I hate them they need to go away for a very very long time

[Chairubplay]

You know what the worst epithet I've ever heard was?

"The dahlia-eyed boy."

DOES HE HAVE FLOWERS GROWING OUT OF HIS SOCKETS?!

[mogseltof]

What the actual everloving shit thank you Cassandra Clare you may return to your seat, leave the flower beds alone from your grubby ultra violet phrasing

[Chairubplay]

"It was like there were flowers blooming from his eyes--" "That sounds horrific and also painful why would you think that's a good descriptor"

[Dave Strider]

Quick question from an ESL: what's so bad about epithets? I don't use them that much, but I'm hella curious.

[Chairubplay]

The short of it is that they make your writing sound clunky and awkward, and they're unnecessary if you already know somebody's name. It's far better to just use a pronoun or, you know, a character's name. That's what names are there for. In a pinch, you can also use somebody's title, such as if they're a detective or a judge, but it's generally considered to be the stuff of amateurs if you have an epithet every place that you could have easily used somebody's name instead.

[mogseltof]

They draw you out of the narrative. Also when you know a characters name there's no point in using them, they end up feeling clunky and they disrupt the flow of the sentence - at some point your characters name should become "invisible" to your reader, so that they skip seamlessly over where you name them only noting that it is that character that you're talking about. It's like using a hideous number of adjectives instead of "said", once you start noticing them entire swathes of writing become hilarious and annoying.

[Dave Strider]

Alright, thanks! I think I get it.

Sort of reminds me when I read Twilight, back in middle school. I dunno about the original version, I couldn't read English at the time - but the French translation was awful. It kept over using obscure words no one ever use anymore in the French language (I had to actually pull out a dictionary and look up "nonobstant", which means something along the lines of "despite" or "however". But "nonobstant? That doesn't even sound like a word.) Anyway, it just made it more difficult to read, and I guess this is a similar issue.