#YALL I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT I CANT. DO. THIS. FUCKING. GRAPH.

[kittykatconundrum]

apparently all it takes is one (1) graph to send me spiraling

[iconsumeheadcanons]

this is just off the top of my head, but i wanted to classify diegos stutters (like the 3 times in the show?). im studying speech lang pathology and i got a lot of speech/lang difficulties so this is a mix of my own and others experiences, but also take this with a grain of salt

this is mostly an infodump, but also a way to let fans know that there are many forms of stuttering, not just repetitions

tldr: his main stutters are frontal repetitions, blocks, and elongations

1. so ill start with the flashback before a mission where he kinda jumps from shouting ‘normally’ then stands in front of that green mirror to practice his battle catchphrase 🥺 

i cant remember what he was saying AAAAAA i just, remember the sounds in the back of my brain. in this scene he is doing a mix of repetitions (likely bc hes practicing) and elongation.

im sure yall picked up on the situational set off for diego’s stutters, so i’ll point out here that he wasnt struggling with speech until he was alone and faced himself in the mirror. i’m sure in his head he heard reginald berating him, or villains and even his siblings making fun of him. every kid in that house def experiences some form of self-loathing, and until grace came to remind him and care for him, his stutters/anxieties were strong.

diego probably had more of these stutters regularly when he little, but grace likely worked with him often until his stuttering became a sign of stress. more awareness means more frustration :(

this can be written like “I-eyeeeeeeeuh-I wuh-want that knife.” just sorta sound the words out on your own and try to write that sound until the word is complete/dropped out.

2. shutting off grace/(patch dying??) :’(((

here, he has some of his usual fronting repetitions, but here, perhaps because the pure emotional reckoning hes experiencing, he is strongly producing blocks. he has large gaps in his words and he seems to struggle to move his body regularly in these scenes(i think? oh gosh). his breath kinda dies out after each word--which is emotional distress, but can also be caused from struggling to get a fucking word out and your air just keeps going off to superhell :/

when he was younger, im sure these blocks manifested when he was trying not to cry or when hes pissed. he mightve developed blocks after repetitions and elongations had been solidified parts of his speech

writers usually get this kinda thing down with splicing the quotation marks, but i guess to empathize the speech difference you can do, “It’s gon--ing to buh-be--o-o-okuh--kay.” which is kinda excessive, but bro this is how i hear myself every single time :( find a way to mark the end of a sound block basically

3. season 2 at the dinner table

reginald performs oscar-worthy rant of a despicable pre-dad-dad and diego actually cries here so >:(((((

“yor-ye-you’re--wr-wronggggguh

obviously upset, so we can expect blocks and his usual frontal reps, so this isnt much different from number 2 (ha). i think he elongates he as well bc hes trying to talk back to reg. but i wanted to highlight the way you could see his mouth struggle and contort around the sounds he couldn’t make. this manifestation of his distress can be compared to stimming or even moving around to distract from pain, both of which are actions that can be done to metaphorically whatever bad vibes are going on.

so basically help this dude. yo KNOW reg was ableist as shit, so you can bet reggie being an ass to diego can bring out multiple stutters (and maybe even tics)  whether or not either of them want that.

to add more than just speech difficulties in writing/medium, add descriptive words and repetitive/recognizable habits associated w the stutter. maybe someone taps their fingers or waves their hands for the syllables, maybe they frown or get disappointed or try to force their mouth into a more speech productive shape. personally, i have to draw graphs in the air to sound out words with multiple consonants in a row(which is not a stutter diego seems to have). i draw a ‘v’ in the air to say “si-ix-th”, otherwise i get stuck with “si-si-suh-si-susth place”

Bonus!!: you can even add other speech difficulties like switching syllables (caterpillar->callapiter), mispronunciations (harold jenkins->gerald genkins), volume regulation (diego always gets whispery when he stutters), dropoff sounds and interjections (too many ‘uh’s and running-guh.), and many other things. this is definitely SLP heavy bc everyone does some of this when they speak, but i think at the right moments that empathsis on these traits can reveal the emotional state of the character. prolly dont do this everytime (@myself lol)