#skeksis language

[ben-the-hyena]

Idea for the Natives AU : as said, previously, Skeksis speak Skeksish in-universe, and almost all Skeksis and UrRu speak UrSkeksish with each other which is like Italians and Spanish speaking a language in the middle of it that is like Latin but not dead, but the ones we know happen to be perfectly fluent in Gelfling, the standard/main/universal language of Thra like English is to Earth

In the AU obviously it's nor spoken by everyone, only politicians, diplomats, scholars, royals, merchants, traders, army translators, religious and officials in general have to know it. All the canon Skeksis are nobles in the AU minus SkekTek (who is fluent in it for usefulness when studying foreign sciences), SkekSil (who figured it is best to know it to manipulate more people and integrate the court even more) and SkekHak (the Merchant so he had to sell his products to most people possible) who entered the court (in SkekHak's case his own, SkekYi and he living in another town) by themselves

So by this logic so must their descendance. Most do in fact. But some have more difficulties than others, or don't see it as useful. None of SkekTek's kids or grandkids speak it since they barely count as courtiers anyway. SkekSa's adopted kids on the contrary only speak Gelfling since she raised them the Sifan way and doesn't see herself as a Skeksis by the end of her life. SkekVou (SkekZok and SkekVar's middle son) is a bit too dumb so couldn't even get the pronouns and articles thing (SkekSish doesn't seem to have any) and so gave up, and his own child only knows school bases since he doesn't see why they should know it since he is doing well without it. SkekEi (SkekNa's adoptive daughter) had to learn it from the moment she was adopted which was when she was a preteen instead of it being taught from a young age so even if fortunately for her she had facilities and learned it quickly she still has an accent the canon Skeksis don't have. Twins SkekNetk and SkekSsaz (SkekSil and SkekUng's sons) do speak it but badly, usually being mischievous and uninterested in class, resulting in them knowing how to understand it and read it but when they speak it they sound like SkekSil but NOT playing dumb but genuinely because they too have a hard time with the grammar differences and essentially literally translate what they think (a little nod to how it used to be what they wanted to imply for SkekSil in the test audience dub lol) and the fact that not only they butcher that is so simple to him but also sound even more like their mother has SkekUng cringe and enrage when he is with them on a mission that requires speaking to Gelfling. SkekSsaz' eldest daughter, SkekMet, has severe dyslexia so she can barely read her own language let alone another so out of frustration got disgusted from learning Gelfling through books and completely gave up too not even bothering remembering the few she knew finding it useless anyway. SkekFih, mate of SkekLong (SkekVar and SkekLong's eldest son) being just a guard didn't have to but perfected basic sentences for his stay in Ha'rar and learned more there giving him a level like the twins' after 6 unum there with an extra accent. SkekSosh (SkekLach and SkekLi's eldest biological son) doesn't speak it because he never wanted to bother lowering himself to slave language, and with a father as irresponsible as SkekLi who never took care of him and SkekLach who whines about anything bothering her therefore having taught her son to feel the same being the one to raise him, none of them opposed or cared to

[krawdad]

Oh shit the dark crystal is like a significantly better movie if you pretend the skeksis are talking in unintelligible squawks like originally intended

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #852

In the original Skeksis language, the Trial by Stone ritual is called Haakskeekah.

Source:

The Dark Crystal. A. C. H. Smith and David Odell. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. October 1982.

[karanseraph]

Alien robots can have accents

This might be spoilers for The Life and Times of Skywarp fic, but just going through my process in public, because sometimes this helps me think and organize my thoughts.

Alien robots can have accents, because other planets have regions and culture and also because if we encounter them, they can assimilate our language(s) differently.

Also, Transformers media has pretty much always had this as a thing, because, with one notable exception I can think of, humans recorded their voices.

What a character's accent sounds like can differ, like if one piece of media was recorded in Canada, for example, and another recorded in Japan, let's say, then even if a character has a regional accent in both, that character doesn't necessarily have the same type of regional accent.

some non-audio media also calls out quirky speech patterns and accents in the written dialogue.

OK, that's all understood stuff we all know.

Now, I'm trying to think what accents and mannerisms Thrust and Ramjet have when we meet them through Skywarp's POV in a fic.

So, I the writer (and I've noted this bias in the various notes attached to the fic) am writing in English, because that's my language. And mostly it's North American/US/Eastern/Mid-Atlantic because that's my region. But, here and there there may be deviations or variations. The characters aren't actually speaking English on Cybertron, I'm just writing the story in my language.

The POV character is Skywarp, who, like many people, does not perceive his own accent unless someone else calls it out. So, descriptions of the other Cybertronian characters having any dialect or accent difference get filtered through the character's perception.

Skywarp, the character, in this fic, is based in Vos which is in the south and east of Cybertron. He doesn't always know what region a dialect is associated with when he first hears it. He just notices it's different or more difficult to parse.

So like, when I'm writing, I would not say "Nyonienne" is French." It's not. It's really not. It's an alien dialect/accent of whatever Cybertronian languages is spoken in that era. But, I might write that when Skywarp met Eriel and she gave her designation the way she pronounced certain airy phonemes was different enough that he wasn't sure how to spell her name. It might have been Oryal or Ariel or Auriel.

Skywarp knows Mirage, Tracks, Red Alert, Thundercracker, Flatline, and Daytrader are all from and/or based in Iacon, but he also knows they don't all sound the same and supposes this is because Iacon has 'street' and 'spire' differences as well as being a big region with suburbs.

OK, so back to Ramjet and Thrust. Skywarp has never met them in person. He knows of them. He knows they are based out of Unitrex which is generally in the north and has a cliffy Rust Sea coast and is known as City of the Stars. When there was a big Seeker meeting, Ramjet sent Red Wing and Laserbeak as emissaries, but Laserbeak is an older bot with his own fawning skeksis-like mannerisms and Red Wing was a new recruit to their team, possibly assimilating language elsewhere.

I think this version of Ramjet is like if a locally-famous rock star from a metal band (they might be The Heralds or just Heralds?) that sings songs about chaos, destruction, and sometimes romance received some regional knighthood-like honor due to his emotive spark-felt singing and took it way too seriously and acts like he's some kind of Seeker-Rock-Paladin, but it's hard to tell because whenever he's not singing his manner is over-the-top facetious and sarcastic to the point of deadpan lying about everything. But the bots on his team legitimately think he's great and consider him their leader, because he totally signed up for that! Also, he crashes through things a lot.

The Sir Rock Star thing seems British coded, even if organics are more likely to seem him as their mechanical steed than a shining white knight. Does another region have this intersection of musician and public treasure, like if one is an idol singer or such? Ramjet could also be that.

But Thrust is...loud and boasts about how great their team is, but acts mainly as Ramjet's conspiratorial spiritual advisor going on and on about the stars and alignments and the symbolic meaning of colors in other bots' decos and what elemental energies he promises he can sense in others.

Some Thrusts are vaguely Western-like? But is Thrust also Brit-coded but like old British occultist flavor? And he goes about saying every bot is a star and do what thou wilt and talking about magic?

But they aren't really British at all. They're alien robots throwing brutal warehouse raves in Unitrex as a cover to spy on the Titan-building project nearby.

[wd-ghosty]

I just watched the Godzilla X Kong movie and it reminded me of the dark crystal so much (but only in the beginning

Kong think hes the last of his kind hes not - Jen thinks he's the lady Gelfling he finds kira

The iwa people can read eachothers minds and when they touch hands they can see eachothers memories - Gelfling can dreamfast

The money ate supposed to protect the people but their leader went power hungry and turned on them - the Gelfling thought the Skeksies would protect them but in reality they were using them and eventually killed them.

The monkeys tried to find a way to the surface, cyz they were trapped down there - the Urskeks tried to find a way back to their planet cuz they were trapped on thra

There was a proficy and someone who would return order to the world

Crystal powered their civilization

I'm not being crazy am I?

Oh and in the test watch of the dark crystal tubby originally wanted it to be silent aka no dialog or the skeksis language but it didn't work so they had to change it. In God x Kong, they managed to pull off the no dialog thing... kinda.

[sweetsandmemes]

Can you guys imagine, being yourself in Thra as in The Dark Crystal world. That means in a realistic matter with canon in mind; there be a height difference and a  language barrier.

Just imagine, waking up in the fields of some poor Gelfing farmer and destroying their crops just by walking through. They’re only like 3 feet tall. It’s like dealing with a Halfling that doesn’t speak common. Actually they will think of you of some kind of freak.

Your size is that of a Landstrider if you’re like 6 feet or something around there. The Skeksis is like under 5 foot, seeing the canon size is 4’5 (let give them some size differences) Oh and watch yourself around the Podlings, you can accidentally kick them as they are 2 feet on average.

[gretchensinister]

@synisysm also gave me the word demagogue.

Demagogue

There has never been anyone like him. SkekSil is sure of that. If there had been, surely what he does would not be so easy.

He doesn’t pretend that he’s like SkekGra or SkekMal, SkekUng or SkekVar, or any of the other skeksis who drag their swords and claws across Thra to pull every gelfling into the particular seven clans that were already so deeply enmeshed within the system of roads and calendar and script and language that flowed from the Castle of the Crystal.

It’s not the violence—SkekSil loves blood as much as anyone, but he refuses to let it distract him.

It’s his purpose. His power. The way he can shape the world with words.

Even the sharpest sword can be blunt—a resisting town falls, and the gelfling there become Drenchen or Spriton or Stonewood. But do the gelfling feel it? Will a new Drenchen scorn a new Stonewood? Not without SkekSil’s guidance. His finer blades of words cut the gelfling into new shapes, showing them how they are like their new clan, how they fit so well together, they were always-already what they were named after the war. He teaches them to love their clan, and it works. He teaches them to scorn and be suspicious of the other clans, and it works even better.

He loves talking to them, and it feels that there is no end to what he can do. He makes the skeksis sacred to the gelfling, much more easily than SkekZok ever could. He makes them grateful for the tithes, and when skeksis demands strain the gelfling, he can make them blame other gelfling’s needs and never think about what they ever get back from the skeksis. He can erase the excesses of any of the other skeksis by making them into things other clans would do, into things that are done by those gelfling that are useless to the empire. He can even, in certain extremities, lay the blame at the feet of the mystics.

And they believe him. They want to believe him. He’s giving them something they want, though it’s really something only good for the skeksis. And for him.

There’s something wonderful about being able to reshape the world with his voice. It’s almost like magic. It has to be better than magic. It’s so wonderful it almost hurts. It’s so wonderful he’ll never stop.

[chaifootsteps]

hey, not to be nosy or anything, but I have a really odd question: I've heard some transphobic and best/*alty rumors surrounding you the last couple of days, what's happening?

and no, I'm not referring to the Viv stans poor attempt to taint your name, I've heard rumors of you making some "disturbing" shit on AoC3 and that you've continually misgendered someone despite their pronouns made clear, can you... explain this, with full honesty that you can...?

sorry for annoying you with this, it's just that I'm a bit concerned about it, that's all.

Vivzie's stans are passing around a Dark Crystal fic I wrote, and never made any attempt to hide, about the most degenerate Skeksis in the castle fucking a Landstrider that may or may not be sapient. It's covered in warnings that Viv stans are deliberately cropping out, and it's meant to illustrate how Na is the actual worst.

(I guess they're also shitting over the fact that I ship Hiccup/Toothless. You know, Toothless, who can understand human language, negotiation, and the intrinsic value of art.)

The transphobia thing I have no idea about. I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to misgender a person, although I frequently get people yelling at me for misgendering certain characters, even though I'm trans myself and I'm pretty sure I've earned the right to decide which forms of representation made by cis people I want to ignore.

[dreg-heap]

Also funny that chamberlain talks Like That while all the others talk normal most likely because he and the other skeksis weren't speaking English in the original cut of the movie, so anytime he's talking to the gelfling he was speaking in a broken second language

[makiruz]

Watched The Dark Crystal movie to understand the show a bit better.

It's not very good as a movie, it's kinda boring and simple, but it is impressive to watch. However, I now realize I do like the story of Age of Resistance because beautiful effects did not make up for the paper thin story

And I do find interesting to notice that yes, dreamfasting is from the movie, but a lot less prevalent; and I think it's cute because it gives a feeling of a society in decadence, like in the show when the Gelflings are dominant their psychic powers and women's wings are a common thing no one thinks about, but in the era of decadence, when there's only 2 kids who've never met anyone their own species before it's magical and special

Also I see there's a lot of worlbuilding put into this movie, that's not said out loud because this movie was designed to be watched in an alien language without subtitles; and the show decided to run with it, but also might be retconning a bit? The movie say the Skeksis and the Mystics appeared when the Crystal was broken, but the show has them already there and corrupting the Crystal. I dunno, gotta finish the show

[tejoxys]

WIP "Find the Word" Game :D

I was tagged by @gretchensinister, who has given me water, aim, plan, wish, and leaf. I'll do the MalVa WIP again, because it just passed the 30k mark and it's consuming my brain.

water: 40 uses

SkekMal slowed his breathing with effort and focused on the rushing of the water. The woods were silent, most other creatures having fled from the scent of blood and open bowel. They would return for the carrion. Some might be worth hunting, if he cared to stick around. There were good, strong trees here to perch in; he could wash away the last of the Castle stench, repaint himself with sap, and disappear.

aim: 1

He could remain out in the world and keep doing everything by halves, as befitted half a person, he supposed. Cheat around the continued insult of his presence on Thra—like a liar. Give advice, but only in riddles. Teach others to shoot, so they could aim where he could not. Keep one eye on his skeksis, tempering him when he could. Enact the Song without acting upon Thra. Find out how invisibly thin a thread could get before it snapped all by itself.

plan: 17

“We will solve this,” he said softly. “Even he… cannot make it here… in only one day. Tomorrow, we will all plan together.” UrVa hummed and rested his chin on urGoh’s shoulder.

wish: 6

In your tree, you sit and make your call through the sinking of the suns, into the purple-tinted hour when the firebugs flicker on their predatory lights. It’s a low, fluid chant in the language of your birth that goes on a long while before starting over. You got the idea from a bird, voiced much higher and sweeter than you, her call so intricate that the pattern seems lost by the end, only to retrieve itself and repeat. You’ve become an expert mimic, but this call is your own. It makes other creatures unwary. There’s a murky story, passing into legend, of one whose singing brought about the Division. You don’t think it was you—the one who broke apart to make you—but you wish it had been, because they gave your kind everything. They gave you the world. Honor them with your song.

leaf: 0, but leaves: 7

They weren’t fighting on the day when they had discovered something mystics didn’t know about themselves. They lay tangled together at the bottom of a gully, screened from sight under thick brambles and drifts of fallen leaves. They’d lost their clothes a while ago. They were lazily playing a game that had started when urVa realized skekMal had two heartbeats instead of one—that they had three hearts between them. What else was different?

Hmmm I'll tag @darrenious, @sylphidine, @caffeinatedpoltergeist, @phenyxsnest to find try, borrow, delight, blue, and star.

[ben-the-hyena]

In the Natives AU Skeksis UrRu have their own language. Like in canon actually. But the difference is here it is just normal languages that both derivate from a source (UrSkeksish, that divided itself into these 2 that are very close and is still spoken and learned precisely by the 2 and that's what they speak when they interact), and Gelfling's education not being controlled by anyone, anyone can learn them. It just is very hard for Skeksish, so many words being hissed or growled, when you lack the vocal cords for it. In a Natives AU version of AOR, SkekOk and SkekLach would visit Ha'rar for a diplomatic tithe exchange. Brea would have more access to many more uncensored books and many more books were written so she is fluent in several languages, Skeksish included. SkekOk would be impressed/surprised about it as soon as she mentions it, and not that she can read since here it is the normal Gelfling do. For usually, Gelfling being Gelfling centered prefer just speaking their own language which is why the canon Skeks and many more like politicians, militaries or trading merchants are fluent in it too

Ok "Gasp ! [switches to Skeksish] so you can read Skeksish ?"

Brea "[switches just as easily] I can write as well !"

Ok "oh SkekLach, she can both read and write in Skeksish !"

Lach "[gives up with Gelfling] ah ABOUT TIME I get to stop speaking that lame language"

Of course Ok being Ok and being fakely friendly and a gossipy shit, past the amazement he probably falsely praises her and actually mocks her with Lach behind her back or even in front of her a subtle way she doesn't realize for her awful accent when it comes to words that must be hissed or growled and he would twist the knife by using them more

And Aughra being Aughra and the source of all languages with her own she understands everybody and they all understand her

[madamegemknight]

Another reverse unpopular opinion meme: The Dark Crystal! :3

BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS CLAWING AT THE CEILING. I AM SOSOSOSO NORMAL ABOUT THE DARK CRYSTAL <3

Genuinely tied for my favorite movie of all time, the amount of detail in every single scene is incredible and I'm always noticing something new every time I watch it. The stuff that wasn't even caught by the camera is staggering, too - I had the absolute fortune to see the Aughra puppet at a traveling museum exhibition a few years back and the sheer amount of detailing in her outfit is just INCREDIBLE, I genuinely started crying (┬┬﹏┬┬) They made an entire language for the Skeksis and then just didn't use it because test audience didn't understand but I would have understood...I would have appreciated the step above...I would have told Jim Henson his language was cool...

[skekheck]

Has anyone ever tried to “restore” Skexish? Don’t know if it’s really possible to do so with a conlang in which only a few words are given along with the nature of how the language is spoken and organized. I think it would be interesting if they maintained that granted the Vaprans try and emulate the Skeksis’ Gelfing accent. It always seemed off with how rude the Skeksis were openly, so perhaps this awkwardness could be justified by them speaking their own language in front of others.

Not to my knowledge, no. It would be difficult with the bits of information and phrases we do have but I am no expert on these things. The Skeksis language has mostly been abandoned by the franchise.

Keep in mind also if we're sticking to these specifics that their accent can also be caused by their physiology. I feel like their beaks/snouts make it difficult to enunciate.

[accursedkaleeshi]

Accursed Izvoshra: Bentilais san Sk’ar

Behold! The only Izvoshra to be (retroactively) named & expanded upon in the source material! After surviving both the shuttle crash that took Grievous from his people & Thrawn’s orbital bombardment of his colony on Oben, Sk’ar was put to work as an Imperial General. That’s Legends canon bruv. The rest of this is community headcanon!

Long before that Sk’ar was the Prince of Kaleela & the Hand of the West. When he met Qymaen & Ronderu he was young, younger than them by a couple years, but already 9 standard feet tall & accomplished enough to be the Khan of his father’s military. Through the Huk war he would be instrumental in the defeat of the yam’rii & even kept getting bigger, just under 10 feet at his largest. Out of all Kalee, Bentilais worked closest to Grievous for the longest. They were comrades in arms in a way that the term best friends didn’t really seem to cover.

How did big Benny meet Qymaen & Ronderu? I asked some of the other Grievous nerds what they thought & outsourced really liked what TB came up with. Meet-cute under the cut by @tuberculosis-bot-9000. (The Consumption. #bentalais, Kaleeaboos. Discord, July 7, 2023.)

Kaleela is in and of itself a nation. Located on the convergence of multiple major trade routes by land and sea, it’s the largest city on Kalee by a massive margin. It’s influence is incredibly widespread. The Kaleela Tongue is a pidgin language that is spoken almost globally, as a lingua franca is some places and as the default in others. The state-sponsored faith is the most codified “church” type thing Kalee has. The pockets of Kaleela’s elite are deeper than some countries. And all of it bows to the Emperor.

The Emperor of Kaleela is… not what you expect when you imagine the most important person on Kalee. He’s miserly, he’s physically unimpressive, and he’s ancient as shit. He’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from being a skeksis. And he’s Sk’ar’s father.

Because Kaleela is untouched by the war! Yes, the outlying colonies to the east are bedeviled with rumors of invaders, and the southern territories are all but wiped out, and more and more refugees are flooding in by the day, but the Jewel City is safe. There is no war in Kaleela. The Emperor sees no reason to join the war effort, much less bend the knee to some backwoods eastern barbarian.

This makes Q+R very mad.

They just park their army in the city and start making other connections. It’s a careful song and dance convincing cushy nobles to lend their strength and resources, but it’s one they play well. They have to. Kaleela is the crux of it all. Without Kaleela’s army and navy, the war will eventually end in a Yam’rii victory.

Then, at a party, they meet the prince. It’s a celebration of his recent appointment as Khan of Kaleela. He’s the one that controls Kaleela’s military now. So they have to be precise.

Sk’ar is intrigued by the demigods. He’s heard tales of their glory, their cunning, their prowess in battle. He knows the skinny man with a rifle is the best shot on the planet and the woman with the mane and swords moves faster than the eye can see. And he knows he’s got them on the back foot. He’s interested in seeing what they do more than what they say.

They tell him, in no uncertain terms, that the war will come, and sooner rather than later. The Emperor wants to hide behind his money and his wives and his 88,888 things, but the bugs don’t care. They’ll drag him off his throne, crack open his skull, and eat him before his mewling pups if something isn’t done. Sk’ar finds the idea hilarious. He knows his father is weak. But he wants to know why he should follow Qymaen rather than take a throne by himself. He certainly has enough money and warriors for it. Qymaen just shrugs. If he wants to do it that way, he can, and Qymaen will take what remains when the bugs rout the Kaleela prince. Sk’ar throws his head back and laughs. The gall!

He agrees.

(Thank you @tuberculosis-bot-9000 for letting me use your words & the Benny braincell!)

[thatweirdfandom]

Dark Crystal aor behind the scenes

god i love seeing the love for the making of the show. it’s so beautiful

wait they are talking about cg face things but they didn’t do that for the show? or at least i didn’t notice it

labrythin sequels…… by the two main writers of dark crystal aor… mmmmm i would have been down for this instead of a bullshit reboot we r getting :(

cg gelf with puppet skeksis?

it looks very good for sure! maybe if they did that as a game?? that would be super cool

this is why i love creators so so much. there’s just so much love? it makes me cry of a nostalgia missed

henson company i hope one day to work with you i cant make puppets but i can felt…

see here’s the thing for me- dark crystal where history repeats itself is drastically differnt to star wars- star wars rehashed everything for the sake of nostalgia it was a reboot but not.

dark crystal aor pulls a new story a new world they made a new world for us to see. they wanted to expand the story not live in its past.

like again everything is super solid in the writing and series but also it misses a grip on me?

HAHAHA PODLING LANGUAGE I LOVE THIS AHHSJEJAHDA

“i made up the language but i’m not fluent”

WHAY THE WRITER OF A STSR TREK MOVIE IS JUST A VOICE ACTOR HERE HAMFJAKDNS AMAZING

i really wish they added more bright colors like how 80s fantasy does? some of the concept art really shows how insane everything is

rians voice actor sounds like tom holland

OMG BARNY THE GUY THAT DOES FINGER PIPPETS I KNOW YOU

ohhh they did the og big bird thing where they add a monitor inside

god puppeteers are insanely skilled

fruads son was the baby from labrythin??????