*whispers* hey do you have any tips for writing the boys, pls & thanks
*yells* hey nonnie you’re a sweetheart and I absolutely do, prepare for a wall of text
Shane
Vocal patterns
Verbose, softly spoken, proper. A little awkward, but usually in a way that makes it clear he’s very self-aware and capable of playing it for laughs.
Uses archaic turns of phrase.
“ol’”
“musta’”
“why don’t you head on in” (Voodoo)
“boilerplate” (Natalie Wood postmortem)
“..., baby!”
Has a generally slow/drawling and almost grandiose manner of speaking. Lots of qualifiers, very evocative. Frequently ominous.
“Children will come here and tell tales of me” monologue (Goatman)
I wanna be swept up in this” monologue (Voodoo)
Honestly the fact that he has bits on this youtube ghost hunting show that can be reasonably described as monologues says a lot
“I think it’s a little bit more fun to believe that humans are capable of some truly horrific things.” (Salem)
“There is an emptiness there… and it is growing.” (Isdal Woman postmortem)
He loves double entendre. This is especially evident in the Queen Mary episode.
Personality
Pretty much un-flusterable.
Usually - though not always - the instigator of their most morbid bits.
The entire DB Cooper bit - do you realise how long that thing goes on for?
Lounging on the couch where Mr Borden was murdered, waving a prop axe around and joking about what it would be like to die the way he did.
“We’re here for the cult stuff!”
I like the fanon that says that Shane is typically the more in his own head of the two of them - he mulls his thoughts and feelings over slowly and with great care, and tends to try to keep them to himself as much as possible until, or unless, he decides to act on them.
Physicality
Shane is physically awkward. That being said, I think he turns his physical awkwardness into a joke in the same way he uses his social awkwardness - he exaggerates things that are already there, like the slouch, the stiltedness, the long moments of stillness.
Sometimes he stops exaggerating - for example, that one ig story of him playing pool in Savannah. He straightens up to his full height and becomes much more fluid and graceful in his movements.
He has this expression. I’ve described it as hungry before. He turns it up for the bit sometimes, as he does with everything - see the True Crime season 5 promotional photo - but it also makes appearances in the attic at Bellaire, the hallway at Eastern State and a few other places where it just feels… well, demonic.
Ryan
Vocal patterns
Colloquialism-heavy
Fast speaker
Makes a lot of use of filler words - “man”, “dude”, cursing,
Makes up lots of nicknames for Shane
Sasquatch
Big guy
Robo-squatch (Waverly Hills) (seriously)
Not necessarily the best at coming up with eloquent arguments on the fly - his strength is presenting a case with research and preparation to back him up, and without them he can get flustered.
Personality
He strikes me as incredibly intelligent, but also emotionally driven. He’s passionate about his work and has a tendency to hyperfocus - “we don’t like to approach Ryan when he’s working” (Isdal Woman postmortem)
Ryan Bergara is in no way a scaredy-cat. He gets scared on location, yes, but in general he has a fascination with dark, creepy, spooky things and I think he gets a great deal of joy out of indulging that.
He’s a huge horror connoisseur. He listens to horror movie soundtracks while he researches for episodes, which I have to imagine would be creepy as shit.
There’s a bit in the Worth It dates episode where they go to a horror-themed escape room, and Ryan is cool as a cucumber the entire time.
He’s also got a morbid sense of humour to match Shane’s, and he’s always delighted by Shane’s darkest jokes.
His sense of humour sometimes comes out in the form of threatening (highly detailed) physical violence, especially in the more recent seasons.
Especially in the early episodes, Ryan would work himself up trying to get out from under the slightest, most accidental innuendo.
“I’d like to see you put on a dress from that time period” (Borden)
“That… that made us sound like a couple, we’re not a couple” (Goatman postmortem)
However, that’s changing! He’s become much more comfortable, probably as a result of the stuff he internalised as a frat boy fading with time.
Physicality
First, the obvious: Ryan’s a prototypical jock in a lot of ways. He’s got a solid sense and control over of his body. He plays basketball. He works out a ton.
When he gets scared, his eyes get huge and his voice gets high.
He also freezes up, widens his stance and gets low to the ground - for all that he talks about how his “mind is melting” and loves the part of the night where they get to leave a location, I think he has an instinctive fight response.
I hope all that was in any way helpful to you, nonnie! Obviously, all of this is just my observations + interpretations. Anything you feel differently about, you should absolutely go with that - unique takes on these boys as characters is what makes writing them and reading them so rewarding.