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#i'm also gonna main tag that for IWSY
flecks-of-stardust · 10 months
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¡¡Hola, Stardust!! Esta pregunta es opcional, te la envío en caso de que quieras escribir algo en chino hoy.
Cuando escribes alguna historia, ¿te gusta pensar en qué patrones de habla tus personajes tendrían si los escribieses en tu idioma? ¿Qué personajes te imaginas que usan mucho "slang"?
Que tengas un lindo día c:
hi fran
finally getting around to answering this but! i am using this to share more about the characters of IWSY! because yes.
i've actually,, never really thought about my characters speaking cantonese before, bar one character? but i specifically made her because i wanted to see myself and my origin in a story, and she's for a very different story i haven't talked about on this blog. for the IWSY characters i've never done it before, but tbh it's comforting to think about it. i'm gonna put the rest under a cut because this is pretty long.
the baby group is the easiest to answer for. they're all intended to be kids (or, well, 'kids.' relatively speaking.), so slang is going to be pretty common for them, especially slang that's currently used. anything vulgar is free game, but really it's just about like. modernity, i guess? my classmates were very crass when talking to each other LMAO and that's kind of how i think the baby group would be. loud, chatty, every three words a slang term is thrown in, etc. des and prayer i think are the ones to use the most slang as well. des because... des. i don't know how to explain that, it's just right, and prayer because it will Absorb whatever it hears into its vocabulary. so in a way it's des' fault i guess FKJGS
i don't actually have examples of the slang they'd use because i myself don't know jackshit about the slang because i live under a rock 👍 but that's how innocence is as well. they and moth use slang the least, but they don't Not use it. these two are just generally the quietest, and cantonese is. ah. loud. :D it depends obviously! but cantonese is definitely part of those languages where if you're talking cheerfully and excitedly someone that doesn't know the language might go 'hey why are you arguing?' and that's definitely a thing that des and prayer and grace, sometimes, will run into, but usually innocence and moth are quiet enough that it never comes up for them.
silver is the one who uses the ~fancy~ words because he's a fucking nerd. everyone makes fun of him for it. they love him but they dunk on him for it fJKNJKSD but he'll fire back readily, it's all in good fun. second place for fanciness would be grace, but silver definitely wins on this front. they're both pretty eloquent for sure, and would just know more literature and so more, like, idioms than the rest of the baby group. silver just does it more, and grace does it when he's being dramatic. though granted, he's dramatic pretty often.
night is just chill, as it usually is. it and innocence are just chill vibes generally, with moth usually in that corner as well. night isn't quiet though, that's something else. just chill. probably has the nastiest mouth though actually. night would curse your family out in a very mellow tone and not bat an eye :D
as for day, she's much, much older, so her speech patterns are going to be more reminiscent of someone who's approximately in their 60s. her pronunciation will be different, with less 'lazy' sounds, so like there's a more clear separation of /l/ and /n/ phonemes and also the nasals are more distinguished. she also, by default of being older, sounds a bit more fancy, like she's sometimes. less direct about what she means i guess? but it's also because of how much she knows and the experience she has. she's easy to talk to still, she just markedly talks Different because she communicates with what is common in her generation. it's basically like talking to your grandparents. i guess. actually idk if that's applicable generally, but for me talking to my grandparents was always a little different. something something chinese culture i guess, idk. also regarding slang, idk she probably uses slang from her generation. no idea what it'd be though.
for reference, the approximate human ages i'm working with here have innocence as around 19, the triplets (des, silver, and night) being 18, grace and prayer being 17, and moth being 20, almost 21. these are Very rough approximations that don't match up to the actual age difference between these seven. day is somewhere in her... early 60s i guess? mid 60s maybe? to compare with the timescale in rain world:
unparalleled innocence — first came online in late 1515 clandestine question, nine silver linings, no mournful night — came online in mid 1522, in that age order. they were turned on only a few cycles apart each, so they consider each other to be the same age mist on the horizon — came online in 1503 gracious mercy — came online in early 1529 one final prayer — came online in late 1528 delight of day — powered on in 808
for reference, pebbles came online in 1509. these 8 are all part of the final generation, while day is part of gen 1. also, my generations are probably pretty different compared to a lot of other people's headcanons. moon and wind are gen 18, sig is gen 19, and suns is gen 10. there's more generations and different generation cut offs. the point here is that day is Very, very old, and the baby group are really really young.
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