Oh my gosh your āthe name is Englishā fanfic is so good. Any advice on getting like. The distinct voices of each of the characters? Iām just dabbling in homestuck fiction and I think I got Dave and rose and jade. But John and the alpha kids are hard
(Edited: I kept thinking about the mistakes I made in this explanation so Iāve finally gone back and fixed them pfffft, Also like... I think I mightāve misconstrued the kind of answer anon was going for, in which case, only the very end end of this long ass response is useful. Welp.)
SO FIRST OFF, I am insanely flattered anyone is asking my advice on how to write Homestuck characters because these are some of the most difficult characters Iāve ever written. Thank you so much! These kids each have an insane amount of dimension to them and I completely understand why they come off a bit intimidating to write correctly. I donāt even think I do that good of a job, lmao. Anywho, Iāmma go ahead and apologize in advance because I got a little carried away with my advice. When I get to explaining things I like to over-explain and hope you just pick out what ends up bein actually useful to you. There is... a lot of shit under this cut, so be warned.
Hello! Welcome to this wordy as fuck space under the cut. (Edit: It wonāt format correctly so ALL this bullshit under the cut. Thanks tumblr. SMD plz). Unfortunately I can't describe the way they talk without deconstructing a little bit on how I view each of their personalities because a part of me insists it's better to provide context and examples, so again, I'm sorry for these unnecessarily long ramblings. Skip to about the center of each paragraph if you want to focus on speech pattern-specific things, eheheheh.
John's pretty difficult for me too because his vernacular slate isn't as colorful as everyone else's, but this is kind of what I've come to understand about him: His general reaction to everything is a mixture of chipper and blasĆ©--going with the flow. He kind of became the āstraight manā in HS to combat the way everyone else was reacting to the wild shit that eventually went down. At face value, the way he talks makes him come off as a simple dude -- what you see is what you get, which isn't necessarily true. He's honest about his feelings but at the same time it seems like he has difficulty processing and understanding them, which makes them come through much milder than what you'd expect for the situation. It's probably why he absorbed his dad's death very slowly and got hit hard when it finally processed that he was gone for good. But not many things get all the way through his initial blasĆ©ness which actually makes him kind of callous in that he can give oddly indifferent responses to things others would consider a big deal, such as when Terezi died in front of him. He looked at her corpse and was just like "Eugh. She's so weird." Like damn dude, thatās cold. Aināt like she bled to death or nothing. Anyway, some speech pattern specific things I keep in mind when I write him: He doesn't use a lot of big words, sticking to casual, simple responses, most of them positive or enthusiastic sounding. He sometimes uses old man speech and idioms, like Jake but toned down by like 85%. He's a bit slow on the uptake, points out the obvious, and says things that he thinks are clever but he's either completely missing the mark or being lame in general, not to say he can't sometimes be particularly sassy/savage, especially when it comes to his immediate friends because he knows them and can see through their bullshit better than he can with other people he doesn't know that well. In the chat client, he likes to divide combined words like "what ever" and "time line". If you're being canon compliant, he adopted some chat quirks from Vriska after they dated, such as multiplying punctuations by 8 for emphasis!!!!!!!! (edit: Ignore this last part. I think I may be thinking of a dead john, lmao.)
Jane's also a little difficult but easier than John since speech-wise, she's more of a balance between him and Jake + if they were super skeptical about everything and cared about being smart. She's actually kind of a wild card to me, because sometimes she has probably some of the most realistic reactions to the more ridiculous things in HS, but has grown used to equally ludicrous happenings such as the assassination attempts on her life in her intro. She also tends to wear her heart on her sleeve, and has quite the temper. She tries to override her more emotional responses with good southern manners because she's polite, god dammit! When her short fuse isn't ignited, her bottomless passion fuels her cheerfulness as well as her fearlessness. She's also pretty inquisitive, about the world around her as well as towards her friends, asking them questions to understand what they may be dealing with better. She tries really hard to be reasonable about things but struggles with letting other things that may be in play ruffle her well-kept feathers. Speech pattern-wise, she vacillates between speaking like a normal teen and a grandma, to a way lesser extent than Jake. Initially, she tries to keep it prim and proper--sophisticated like a southern suburban housewife with an interesting hint of embellished self-narrative like she's the protagonist of a Noir comic (like here), but when real shit starts to go down, she gets quite a bit more casual (like when they're on their quest slabs here). That is to say, I wouldn't say her normal way of talking is something that doesn't come naturally to her because it totally does, but she loses most of the laciness because short and to the point is better, which is the case for any of the kids with more flavorful quirks. She tends to steamroll over other people when she gets passionate about a topic, but when that's not happening, she's actually super accommodating, to the point of viciously ignoring her own feelings so she can be a voice of reason. In the chat client, she uses toothy emojis like :B.
Roxy, on the other hand, comes pretty easily for me because she's really similar to one of my closest friends and speaks much the same way we do when we're chill. We're also from the south, where much of the youth talk like Roxy does, lmao. Roxy is probably the most accommodating of any of the kids, readily bending over backwards to cater to her friends' needs and letting her own needs take a backseat, which probably leads to a lot of resentment she keeps buried. But she's still the chillest one, taking just about everything in stride before and after her alcoholism. She tends to get sad before she ever gets angry. And if she does get angry, it's usually only frustration at others for being difficult. Communication-wise, she's the most shorthanded--thinking and living in chat-speak. She's all about living her best life and taking care of her family so things are fun and peaceful. She wants to be super sure of herself (like Dirk) because she wants to be reliable. When talking, she likes to use a bunch of metaphors (again, like Dirk), and she tends to casually throw in a lot of puns too, such as when she tells Jake that they're still "humanated" when he asks if he's alienated her too. The nature of her responses is typically pretty flippant, even when things are serious. It's probably obvious that getting comfortable with general Ebonics will help a lot when writing her. In chat client, I try to remember these things: typos only happen when she's drunk--when typing her drunk, I avoid actively trying to give her slurred speech. Instead, I kind of let my fingers type a little more haphazardly and leave the typos I made that sound like mistakes she would make. She only tries to correct a small portion of her typos, more frequently the closer she is to sobriety. When she IS sober, her shorthand isn't consistent. One sentence she'll write "u" and the next, she'll write "you". Same thing with "2" and "to" or "4" and "for", etc. She'll cut out unnecessary letters in words, use typical chat abbrevs, and only use singular letters in place of a whole word, like "y" for "yes". Also uses smileys and other signs like <3. She's super fun for me to write because she comes away with a general feeling of "lmao" if that makes any sense.
Jake I'm always worried I'm doing wrong but he seems to be the one people love my characterization of the most so far, lmao. So I guess I must be doing something right. The thing about Jake is he wants to be the "likeable character". He takes what people want in a guy and molds that into this garbled persona. So when he talks to others, even his friends, he tries to be super agreeable, positive and supportive, regardless of the subject matter; heās always talking these people up to make them feel good about themselves so that they enjoy conversing with him. But the reality is that he's extremely (but not necessarily intentionally) self-centered. He also aggressively ignores anything negative or forcefully turns it into something positive even when it doesn't make sense. He only tends to express frustration when others (Dirk) are being difficult; I don't remember if he ever actually gets angry in the comic?? He also likes to express surprise/amazement at things (a lot more than the other kids do at least), at the beginning of his responses, even when someone says something that's particularly obvious. The thing that gets me about Jake is that his superficial shell is so impenetrable, I don't think that issue was ever really fully addressed, much less fixed in HS, which leaves a lot of questions about his character & several different but valid interpretations of him by the audience. He may very well actually just be an oblivious idiot who's suffered brain damage one too many times (there's not too many pieces of supporting evidence to negate this) but I personally like to think Jake is far more complicated than that. I mean, look at how many convos he's grabbed the helm of and steered into a completely different direction just so he doesn't have to deal with something. His speech is probably the one I have to look up references for the most because he uses a fuckton of idioms you'd only hear oneās well-meaning but probably unintentionally racist poppop use, and a weird mixture of western/country and british vocab + bro speech he probably adopted while talking to Dirk. This is one list I find super useful when trying to find words to use (bless this person), but I still have to google a bunch of goofy phrases and words to be sure I'm not exhausting my material. One thing I know I do wrong when it comes to Jake's speech is use modern British slang such as "bloody" and "bloke", which is something he absolutely never does but I use them anyways because... idfc, I guess, idk. lol, I acknowledge it so it's fine.
Dirk is probably the one that comes easiest to me because he and I behave and talk pretty similarly. Either that, or I just like to think that and I'm just projecting while writing him completely wrong, lmao. Either way, Dirk hides behind the fact that he's super chill and levelheaded when really he's a nervous paranoid wreck. He's always thinking and overthinking about everything and he never gives himself a god damn break. He calculates every response he gives so it comes off exactly the way he wants it to, so when it doesn't because he's caught off guard, you get to see these little snippets of this dude freaking out underneath. He's a neurotic control freak that makes sure the flow of conversation stays on a set course he wants it to or else he gets either uncomfortable or pissed off. He skirts around anything that might get personal to him and dismisses any focus that sheds light on his own emotions UNLESS he feels, again, that he can control that flow of conversation. Or he's already emotionally compromised. Either way, he avoids conditions that might catch him actually being vulnerable because he's just too fuckin' proud. He likes to make a lot of comparisons, using extended metaphors and milking the fuck out of them if he can get away with it because the more he talks, the more he feels in control. He likes to smoothly play along with people he finds are being ridiculous, like Jake and Caliborn, or even just because he knows they'll know he's just playing along like Roxy. That's a key thing for me actually--how much he likes to fuck with people and how inelegantly he takes it in those rare cases someone successfully fucks with him. His speech seems to be a balance between Rose and Dave, a chill bro with access to the biggest vocabulary ever. I encourage aiming towards sounding like a pretentious asshole when writing Dirk because that's what he is all the time sometimes. He likes to Dirk-splain because more often than not he knows exactly what he's talking about, but he also doesn't realize his Dirk-splaining is something no one needed or asked for. Even though he's acknowledged and now resents the ludicrous size of his own ego, he still struggles with not stroking it at every opportunity. Heās a super capable, reliable guy and he knows it, but the reality is that much of what he plans for doesnāt work out. Itās only when he and his friends are really in the shit and he doesnāt have time to think that instinct takes over and he ends up doing some hella amazing things (Unite: Synchronization). Thatās why his whole thought process of being better off alone is dangerous--heās capable because he has people he loves relying on him. (I went off on a tangent unrelated to speech here. Iām sorry. I got a lot of feelings about Dirk and his selfishness vs. his selflessness, lol)
With all that, these are some general notes I try to abide by:
The ramblers of the kids are Dirk, Dave, and Jake, the former two especially when they're anxious. Dave's definitely the worst in that regard. The Striders both act like they wanna come off as men of few words and both fail miserably; it seems like being forced to live in verbal silence for a good portion of their lives gave both of these social wrecks a stigma against any gaps in conversation. Jake on the other hand rambles because he's self-important, not unlike Dirk. It's almost like he's not sure how else to contribute to the conversation if it's not about movies or himself.
For me, it actually helps that I think Dirk and Jake may both be on the spectrum. (I'm sorry if the following offends anyone who is on the spectrum, but this is just my general experience talking to people with those conditions). It certainly explains why their joint communication is so shit and why they either both give long-winded explanations that no one really asks for, or extract themselves from conversations they don't have a good foothold in, the latter being way more common for Jake (I hint a little at all this in my fic, moreso for Jake via Dirk's observations). They both want to be heard but may have difficulty being good listeners because their heads are already filled to the brim with things that have been cycling since before the other person has started talking.
On a final note, I find it pretty important to note the changes in each character's demeanor and way of talking after certain things happen. A glaring example is the Alpha Kids' behaviors after the batshit candy juju episode they all had. When Jake's broken out of his glorified, overwhelmingly positive fake self-image, he's actually very self-critical. However, his self-centeredness is hard to break out of, so when he broods on all the flaws he'd ignored in favor of being the guy everyone likes, he directed all of his nervous energy into finding reassurance from Roxy. (This self-deprecation could've also been born from his constant need to be agreeable, so since he thought everyone considered him to be a piece of shit, he felt the need to agree that was the case. Depends on how you read it.) Roxy had a shorter fuse and was a bit more snappy and resistant to dealing with Jake's ridiculousness. Jane remained calm and acknowledged she can be a bit too stubborn and self-righteous. Dirk finally took a step back from the details and absorbed the big picture of his problematic expectations toward his friends and himself. Itās just something to keep in mind if you fear youāre getting kind of OOC with their personalities. Itās natural for people to behave different based on changes in their mood, so donāt be afraid to experiment.
All that being said (I lied about that final note), I go back and reference the comic a lot when Iām unsure whether Iām representing a character accurately. Itās a good habit to double-check yourself. If youāre unsure how youāre writing a response but wanna move on, write it the best you can and then come back to it later and revise after reading a few conversations that include that character.
Most importantly of all: the thesaurus is your fucking best friend of all time. Fuck everyone else. The thesaurus is your god damn hero. I find ādefine:āing words on google actually super helpful when trying to find synonyms that work better for me.
But thatās it! I hope you found at least a few things helpful in that word splurge of fumbling analyses. And thanks a bunch for reading my fic! Itās not super popular so itās reassuring to know there are people out there who really enjoy it. Keeps me trying to update regularly at the very least.
