#i cant pick a type of irish accent because they all sound really cool

[banisheed]

Describe your character's voice. Do they speak with an accent? Are there certain words they use more often, or certain quirks to the way they talk (such as using filler words or mumbling)? Are they soft-spoken, or typically louder? Do they like the sound of their own voice, or is it something they try to avoid listening to when possible?

this got long im so sorry. also such a fun ask i love reading everyone's responses ..... thnx u...

TL;DR: Siobhan doesn't really have a unique voice and she doesn't want one. Most of the time she tends to talk very formally (like her mother) other times she is more chaotic (like her great-great-grandmother). She alternates her formal and casual language; she will use proper and improper words in the same sentence she doesn't care. She has an Irish accent (dont ask me what sort I can't decide) and also she AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

THE SOUND: My weakness….exposed…..I haven't decided what sort of Irish accent Siobhan has….she just uh….has one. Just imagine one. When it boils down to the sound of her voice, I imagine it is similar to the tone and cadence of Anne Hathaway’s voice, just with an accent. She does love the sound of her own voice. Because she’s Siobhan. I think she carries a photo of herself around and kisses it before bed or something.

She does tend to have a more up-beat, chipper, sounding voice. Very, “oh, interesting, tell me more”; the friendliness of her voice is juxtaposed with her love of threatening people. If speaking more formally, there’s a more haughty quality to her voice. EITHER WAY, Siobhan constantly adjusts herself to fit whatever mood she’s in or whatever she thinks the situation calls for

THE STORY OF IT: Siobhan doesn’t have a voice of her own. A voice is an identity, a claim to life, both things Siobhan wasn’t born to have. No one wanted her to be unique, no one wanted her to have a voice that can be used to express sacrilege. She developed a very particular way of speaking; both formal and informal, chaotic and structured. Siobhan is a product of her influence, trained to speak with the voices of the women she grew up around: her mother’s formality, her great-grandmother’s probing questions, her grandmother’s saccharine tones and her great-great-grandmother’s chaotic leanings. The biggest influences on her voice are her mother and her great-great-grandmother, who are opposites in expression; her mother is calculated, structured, and sadistic; her great-great-grandmother is wild, informal, and unfiltered. Siobhan alternates between these modes of communication the most but they’re still imitations. Sometimes she finds one more easy to communicate with than the other; big emotions might call for her mother’s unflappable touch and boredom might require her great-great-grandmother’s chaos. 

What she didn’t learn from her family she picked up from the literature that brought her comfort (stories and poetry). All of her is an imitation of something: her mother, something she read, her great-great-grandmother, her idea of what a banshee is, the manners she’s been taught etc. You could say that this amalgamation of a voice IS a unique voice unto itself, Siobhan would certainly like to think that.

The truth is, when she’s speaking more honestly, the words are clumsy and emotional and she loathes it. Whatever woman exists underneath the brainwashing of her life, she hates her. She doesn’t want her. She’ll do whatever she has to to get rid of her. 

*ADDING THIS IN NOW but also her family is super old. and she herself is 106. she would speak more antiquated. this is a very important factor idk what i forgot it

SINGING: she can sing, and sing well (very disney princess-y; that clear, gentle voice, very soprano…but not like the TV show), but also she’s a banshee so maybe don’t let her sing. She sang a lot at Saol Eile, with the folksy lilting they did

FILTER-WORDS: she doesn’t use them because they would imply weakness. Though, if being honest, she does “um”, stutter and mumble--she’s the least confident trying to “be herself” and she’s unpractised and uncomfortable with it. 

LANGUAGE (idk what to call this part just go with it): Siobhan likes the word “insipid”. She does use some Irish slang on occasion but I’m dumb and forget she’s Irish sometimes so probably not as much as she would. She would prefer to speak in Irish, as it’s her first language, but feels like she can’t because of her exiled status and because a woman who wears a “humans suck” t-shirt and speaks Irish is a little too obvious, even for her. So she defaults to English and peppers some Irish around like a garnishing 

SCREAMING: when she screams she sounds like "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"