#the way you write their speech patterns

[thefanciestborrower]

[I had a thought while watching Ninjago and I'm subjecting you to it, since it's partially your fault <3]

There was something to be said, Jay thought, about the amount of running they ninja did. Buildings blurred familiarly in fine, colored lines that wove in and out of his sight as they darted down narrow alleys and clambered over unstable fire escapes. The rhythm of footsteps drummed like the beat of his own heart, singing of adrenaline and bruises. Of combat and steel.

"Are you still up there?" Zane's voice was something far away, faded in the world of darting, zipping lights.

"Haven't dropped me, yet." Jay's words were more of a chirp, really, unhindered by the breathlessness that came with running, for at the moment, he really wasn't. his heart had stopped hammering long ago—before Zane had even started running—and instead was replaced with a steady, eerie calm. As if everything was too far away to be concerned over.

And, granted, despite the current caved-in-ness of Zane's primary chest compartment, and the disconcerting sparking resulting, they really were too far away to really be concerned over the small mob of rabid (Jay thought they were rabid. Zane less so) unrulies that so rudely interrupted what should have been a perfectly sane perusing of Borg's latest wares.

Sure, they may have replaced one of Borg's flavor pills with those shrink-people diet pills, but it wasn't Jay's fault his batch was soured. It hadn't even tasted good. More like metal and sadness than anything, really, although that might have been partially his initial outrage upon finding himself small enough to hitch a ride on Zane's shoulder.

Anyway, Jay's favorite nindroid currently vaguely annoyed with him, and a definitive lack of ninja vehicle in sight, they found themselves stopping at the old depot. The one Lloyd and the resistance had apparently set up shop in during the Garmadon 2.0 incident. Zane needed to reconnect whatever it was in his chest that was sparking and/or burning (Jay knew roasting-electrical-wire-casing-smell anywhere), and then they needed a way to hail the bounty because, according to Zane, being small would be a lot less about eating him-sized snacks and a lot more about getting chased by rodents if they left him alone.

It was a sad day that any of them had to settle down on a literal wooden box to make repairs, but Jay supposed it was no worse than getting stuck in the Oni realm for a couple of weeks. Still, watching Zane pick somewhat cautiously at the minuscule wires usually hidden by metal and now shot through with various types of shrapnel (okay, so maybe Zane did most of the fighting, since Jay was too busy freaking out about his newfound lack of vertical status) made his fingers twitch.

"Let me do it." Aside from the usual status checks to make sure Jay hadn't been lost in the time it took to run one city block, they hadn't really spoken much since the store. They didn't particularly need to, honestly. Zane knew where they were going, and Jay trusted him well enough.

A click, and Zane turned his head (too far to be normal-looking for anyone but Zane), revealing something like amusement on his face, the more flexible metal-lined silicone lending itself to a wrinkled nose and a perked eyebrow, the lopsided smile laying beneath it a whisper of laughter. "I am perfectly suitable for the task."

As much as he could at his diminutive height, Jay puffed out his chest. "But I'm better." He wiggled his fingers in Zane's face, mouth stretched into a grin. "Little hands for little wires."

"It would make repairs faster." He always knew he'd hit it right when Zane started talking to himself, and soon enough, a robotic hand with a couple joints exposed near the knuckle was lowering him down to Zane's chest panel like a glorified window washer.

The thing was mangled—destroyed, really. Whatever he'd been hit with had caved the entire panel door into itself like it was hit by a bullet. Pieces of it flaked off in sharp shards just large enough to slice through casing, and whatever paint had been on the metal was all-but vaporized. The inside looked better—marginally. a couple of wire casings were slit here and there, and some of the braiding had been cut, causing sparks when it brushed against other strands, but that wasn't something a little electrical tape couldn't fix.

There was something more for Zane to have stopped like he did.

Lip firmly gnawed between teeth, Jay leaned forward, bracing a hand against the outer casing of the port to get a good look. Under the wires, a brass plate parted the limb and internal functions segment. Around where it met the main body, it discolored, turning a darker brown and bending outward. From one of the raised corners, a pale blue fluid trailed lazily toward the wires, viscous in its consistency and somewhat sticky. It was cold, too. Coolant, maybe.

"Hang on, I'm gonna—" Jay's world jumped a little bit as he hoisted himself over the wires (avoiding the bits of shrapnel still stuck in the colorful casings) and shoved his arm—quite nearly up to his shoulder—through the thin gap created by the bent brass. Had Jay actually have been listening, he might have heard the disapproving voice of Zane telling him that there was nothing back there damaged recently, but Jay was never a really good listener, and he was far more interested in finding the source of the mystery blue fluid. Who knew what it could do to open wiring, and Zane probably needed that inside wherever it was supposed to be, so he found himself entirely justified as he rooted around in the back of Zane's switch panel.

What his hand hit first was smooth and almost leathery. Like silicone but smoothed to a finish and reinforced by something. It was almost the same texture as Zane's faceplate, if less porous.

"Hey, Zane, what's—"

"I think that's enough."

Jay squawked as a hand looped its way through the wire holding him somewhat upright and prized him from the depths of Zane's machinery. he was careful—he always was with the ninja, honestly—but his grip was somewhat constricting around Jay's ribs even as he whined and wiggled in an attempt to get back at the thing he was looking at. "I wasn't done. You're leaking something in there! It's probably important!" And yeah, he was a little offended, but moreso, he had nerves rising from his throat. Like a poison, it chilled his heart and made his hands shake.

The silence lasted a beat too long.

"It's nothing."

Zane was, as he always had been, a terrible liar.

DUDE I’M SCREAMING????? THIS WAS THE FIRST THING I SAW WHEN I WOKE UP TODAY AND OH MY GOSH IT’S AMAZING. LIKE. ACTUALLY SO GOOD. I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE partially CAUSED THIS BECAUSE HOLY CRAP!!!! I shall be reading and re-reading this idea for the next few hours because it’s giving me ideas as well

And like....your descriptions of Zane????? Are fantastic???? Oh my gosh??? I may have some new ideas for how to draw him now because my goodness!!! Anyways this made my morning and probably my whole day and I cannot properly articulate how much I love it here but uhhhh please fill free to send drabbles and ideas like this whenever you want because I am LIVING for it

[bumblingbabooshka]

It's impossible to write a TOS x Any other Series crossover [for me] without having to think about whose lens it's going to primarily be from because the vibe of TOS is so distinct and I think quite different from all series that follow it. The way the characters speak and are presented is so theatrical and of course steeped in the past that I find myself considering if this is, say, Janeway meeting Kirk (through a VOY perspective) or if I should write Janeway as she would appear if she stepped through a portal and was in TOS' universe.

[donuts4evry1]

Quiet i am OVERANALYZING over here

[qcomicsy]

Writing Bruce feels like herding a wild cat to a door with a broom but the door it's a metaphor of 'not being an asshole'.

Me, trying to write Bruce being emotionally open and mature: He would not fucking say that.

[paimonial-rage]

The biggest recommendation I can give on writing dialogue that sounds in character for the character to say is, not to read the quests they are in, but to listen to the English dub whenever you get the chance. This may seem difficult especially if you are used to playing it in another language, but listening is key to getting the vibe of a character down. What you pay attention to is, not what they say, but the cadence in which they say it. Pay attention to the emotion in their voice, the speed at which they say things, the volume, etc. Once you get this down, it becomes easier to get an idea of what “sounds” right and what doesn’t. Cadence is an especially powerful thing. By training your ears to a character’s cadence, you can get a better idea of which words they would prefer to use, the lengths of their sentences, and things of the sort.

For example, reader asks Zhongli to dinner and he accepts. How would he respond? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But that doesn’t sound right, does it? Is Zhongli the type of person that uses many contractions? I don’t think so, so let’s fix it. “Hmm, I am not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But would he say “I accept?” Perhaps, but it still doesn’t sound right. How has he accepted proposals in the past? A bit of research shows he has said “sure.” How can I mix that in? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. Thank you for the invitation.” But hmm… the second sentence doesn’t sound right. What else could he say instead? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. It would be my pleasure.” That sounds a lot better.

Some people may ask why you can’t do these things while listening to another language. Personally, I don’t believe you can. If you are not fluent in those other languages, your ears are not properly trained enough to understand the nuance of the ways they speak. The correct emotion and tone will come through, yes, but you still won’t be able to intuitively know what sounds right and what does not. You only will get this sense by listening to it in the language you choose to write in.

The only downside to this is that your writing will become based upon the English translation of the game. As many people know, the portrayal of characters in English often does not completely match the portrayals in Chinese. This is especially so for characters like Zhongli, Xiao, and Kaeya. A lot is lost in the translation and dubbing process. Characters do not vibe the same. Thus, your portrayals will be more true to English, but not how it technically is “supposed” to be. Personally, I don’t necessarily believe this is a bad thing. However, it is something that can bother people. The only way I can imagine getting around it is by playing the game with the Chinese dub and by following accounts that speak Chinese and can give insight on the literal translations and what they mean and imply.

[annalyticall]

"I'm gonna write a BNHA fic that features Stain as a tertiary character and is important to the overall theme" <- said before finding out I fucking hate writing for Stain

[vanmarkus]

I think I used to write fanfics in a more eloquent way, using a bigger and more complex vocabulary, but the thing is... I started to put emphasis on how the characters think about and experience things and I just realised that most of the time, they wouldn't really use the words I picked for them.

I mean, I can wax poetic all I want, but the 20yo dude I'm writing about wouldn't always think that the sunlight hitting his crush's hair is ethereal or exquisite or magnificent or like the liquid honey dripping over the edge of the jar at the summer harvest... mostly, he'd just think it looked pretty.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I started to apply the 'he wouldn't fucking say that' onto the narrative parts more often and if it's good or bad, I don't know, but it makes the process feel a little more authentic for me, personally.

[hp-lonesome-actual-art]

Another batch or Mr. Puzzles quick sketches. I kept forgetting to draw his side pocket in the last couple ones. Random character featured in the little comic-ish Live Interview is some version of doodlesona. Can’t guarantee the dialogue will be believable/sound in character for Puzzles because honestly I’m still working on understanding his talking style and when he sarcastically jokes around or when he chooses to be serious and drop performance act. But in the off chance you wanna read it goes from left to right with reading

[vilevampire]

Hey, you like Raimundo along with Jack, right? And you're Brazilian. Feel free not to answer this if you don't wanna okay. I just thought you'd be best suited. Like when you commented on the "Rai" nickname.

I'm wondering if you perhaps have any thoughts or headcanons on him, family, hobbies, his inner thoughts, cause I wanna flesh him out for my fic and stuff. I'll give you credit for the ideas of course

even though I'm not that active in the xs fandom currently you've surprisingly come to the right person bc I've rambled a bit about raimundo hcs before to my friends. I had to dig up some discord messages to find all my hcs

I hc raimundo to be white-passing and mixed race, which is like the majority of brazilian ppl tbh. side note: in brazil "race" is defined almost solely by skin color, so like if I left my country it's possible I'd be considered a person of color because of my features, but in brazil I'm considered white. raimundo would be in a similar situation

so in these discord messages past!lucas has said "the only mentions of his background is that he has 8 siblings with a lots of aunts and uncles" and "he mentions that the 'rough' part of rio is his 'element'". now, I, lucas of the present, barely rmr this bc it's been forever ago since I watched xs, but I'm trusting past!lucas on this I think he would never lie to me. based on that I'm a fan of the theory raimundo is an orphan and grew up as part of the lower class. I don't think I ever theorized what the fuck happened to his parents, but I like the idea of him acquiring abandonment issues because of it. since he grew up poor I think he'd also have a lot of survival skills, knowing how to make due with very little, etc.

I actually just thought abt this but it's very uncommon for latino people to only have two names. I myself have four, bc the family names just keep adding on top of each other when u marry instead of being absorbed into the husband's name. so realistically raimundo would probably has at least one other family name

not exactly a hc but something interesting to note about mundo is that he is a good example of something we call a "malandro" in brazil. a malandro is a brazilian concept of a cunning anti-hero who outsmarts, deceives and takes advantage of others, usually for personal gain. describing it like this makes it sound like a bad word, but it has a positive connotation. like culturally being malandro is considered a good thing. we even have a saying that goes like "every day a malandro (in this case a scammer) and a sucker (in this case the one who gets scammed) leave their houses.", implying that if you're not the one taking advantage of others, you're the one being taken advantage of. I don't think this was intentional on the xs writers' part to make raimundo embody these traits so perfectly that r culturally significant to brazil but and I find it interesting.

similar thing to above we also have something called "gambiarra", which is like achieving something through improvised means instead of the "correct" (and usually more expensive) way. also very important to brazilian culture and I think raimundo would be adept in it

[meowmeowuchiha]

Yknow I've seen plenty of people complain that writing dialogue for Zer0 is hard bc of the whole haiku thing

But

Honestly

Writing dialogue for Krieg is MUCH harder???

Like yeah there's a good chunk of the shit he says being complete and utter nonsense. But then there's the shit where if you have the context for what he's talking about and you think a little bit, it makes some amount of sense. THAT'S hard to pull off.

Because in THOSE cases, it's almost always a twisted metaphor centered around violence, gore, and/or bodily fluids.

So I'm stuck trying to give him shit to say while finding a way to twist it into some sort of almost incoherent gruesome metaphor that still sounds like something he might say.

[panvani]

I'm gonna be real man I don't think Gary from Ib is transmasc

[bumblebeefromhell]

Do you know how hard it is, as a native german speaker, to write dialoge for Caleb? Bc the guy technically speaks german, but since Liam only speaks very little german, it's super stilted and somewhere between a simple choice of words and wrong. Like, no shade at Liam, but if you know better it's just hard to imitate

[pynkhues]

I'm really, really sorry that happened to your friend, anon. I hope they were able to recover and get justice for what happened to them, and that you've been able to work through it too.

Thank you :) I'm not close enough with her to necessarily be privy to all her deepest feelings, but as far as I can tell, she really is fine and has been for a long time. She's a teacher and doing really well.

And yeah, I don't feel that way--like I'm looking through that filter--anymore, and a big part of that (not to overshare, but hey, maybe someone will read this and it will help them?) was getting diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Since I was a kid I'd felt like violence and death were always lurking, to a degree that was illogical, and then the attack on my friend made that worse because it seemed like oh, I was right to feel that way. But getting worse eventually led to a diagnosis, which has led to getting a lot better! :)

(x)

I'm really glad both you and your friend are doing better and that the diagnosis helped, anon! It's wonderful when diagnoses give us not just a vocabulary and tools for what we experience, but an understanding of ourselves and I guess, context?

Not the same exactly, but my littlest nephew has a severe speech disability which has gone through about five almost-diagnoses and multiple tests which is crazy given he's only 6-years-old. He finally got an actual diagnosis a few months ago (childhood apraxia of speech, or CAS) and while there's complicated feelings involved in knowing talking isn't going to be something that'll ever be easy for him, even just getting to understand it better as a motor disability as opposed to a cognitive one has been extremely useful in helping us to support him in using his voice.

He doesn't really understand what his diagnosis means yet (although he knows people outside of the family struggle to understand him) but it's helped get him into more specific speech therapy and, if my sister wins relocation in family court next month, there's some social groups here in Melbourne where he can hopefully be around kids who are experiencing the same disability (it's a rare one, and there ae just more kids with it in the city) and understand what he's going through as he grows up. So yeah! It's pretty cool when a diagnosis offers not just pathways forwards, but a deeper understanding of self and points of connection too.

[deception-united]

Let's talk about character voices.

Giving a character a unique voice in your writing involves several elements, such as word choice, sentence structure, dialogue quirks, and mannerisms. Incorporating these elements into your writing can really help create characters with distinct voices that resonate with readers and bring your narrative to life, as well as avoiding making all your characters sound the same, which is important especially when switching POVs.

Here are some tips you may find helpful:

Distinct vocabulary: Choose words that reflect the character's background, personality, profession, interests, experiences, and education level. For example, a well-educated professor would probably use more sophisticated language.

Dialogue quirks: Give each character specific speech patterns or quirks that set them apart, like repeated phrases, stuttering, using or avoiding contractions, or speaking in a particular dialect or accent, but don't overdo it to the point where it's distracting or it's hard to decipher what's being said.

Sentence structure: Pay attention to the rhythm and structure of their sentences. Some characters might speak in short, abrupt sentences, while others might use long, flowing ones. This can convey their confidence, hesitation, or urgency in the particular scenario, but also their general demeanor or manner.

Internal monologue: Show the character's unique thought process through their internal monologue. This can help readers understand their motivations, fears, and desires, further distinguishing them from other characters. (This may not necessarily apply to your story if you're writing in a third person omniscient perspective, or if you intend to exclusively follow the internal monologue of the main character.)

Physical gestures/actions: State what the the character's physical gestures and actions are while speaking. A nervous character might fidget, slouch, or avoid eye contact, while a confident character would stand tall and make direct eye contact.

Background & history: The character's upbringing, cultural influences, and past experiences can all shape the way they speak and interact with others.

Consistency: It's important to maintain consistency in the character's voice throughout the story and make sure their speech patterns, vocabulary, and mannerisms remain true to their established personality and don't contradict with anything.

Real conversations: Pay attention to how people speak in real life, and the tone, vocabulary, and speech patterns of different people, to help create more authentic and believable dialogue.

Read aloud: Reading your dialogue aloud can help you identify areas where the character's voice may not sound authentic. If it doesn't sound like something they would say, revise.

Hope this helps!

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[ratgirrrl]

the silly thing about Language is that it will make you feel like a different person when you write something in not your native one

[schadenfreudich]

Ich bemerke erst recht wie gehoben und ein wenig altertümlich ich mich anhöre, wenn ein anderes Systemmitglied mein Sprachmuster nachahmt. Nicht jedoch um mich zu beleidigen. Sondern so, wie ich es auch des Öfteren bei ihnen mache. Aus Zuneigung. Als Annäherung zur Sprache des Anderen, aber nur selten mit Absicht. Meist kommt das automatisch, so eine vertraute Redensart und doch nicht die eigene, nicht die natürliche.