i’m think about speech patterns! take these for all your fic writing needs! not all of them are done bc i was taking requests for who to do next on the discord lol
Jon: He tends to speak like he’d type, a veneer of professionalism and Oxford education, but one which slips the second he’s shocked out of his facade by worms, or Martin. He’s one for run on sentences; he has a lot of thoughts and he wants to get them all out the second they come into his head, no matter if they actually make sense to the listener or not. If he’s shocked! or upset! He gets snippier! His phrases are cut off, or bitchy.
Martin: He, well, he hedges a lot. He lets people come to their conclusions before he, uh, before he finished speaking. It’s easier that way, y'know? They hear what they want to hear. But when he’s angry, or annoyed, or tired, he lets slip what he’s really feeling. He stops biting back his words and he gives up on being sweet. You know what he thinks? Maybe people better listen to him now and then!
Tim: Tim is a consummate professional, but also? A Lad. A lot of people forget, but he started in publishing! He’s good with his words, and a nerd.
These are two Very Important Things about Tim Stoker that he will ensure that you know by the end of a conversation with him. Tim does his best to make you comfortable, talking casually but without restricting what he knows. He’s not about to back down from a point if he disagrees with you, though. He’s always up for a bit of a Scene, be that imitating his movie of the month, or creating some imagined moment about the people around him. He cares, so deeply, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. His emotions ride high; he can be the class clown if he wants to, but he can just as easily be hurt very badly.
Oh, yeah, another thing to mention! He’s a little forgetful in conversation! He needs to wheel back to things when he remembers them! He also has a habit of asking questions without asking them? He’s more curious than he wants to let on…
Elias: Well, Elias is very similar to Jon. He’s a little more restrained in terms of run-on sentences, though. He’s spent a long time crafting his language to provide authority in equal measure with a non-threatening presence. He speaks slowly, as if he’s thinking over every word, rolling them in his mouth like a sweet. When he realises he needs to intimidate, though, a thrill laces everything he says. He *enjoys* the ability to put those below him into their places. He likes using his words to mould and crush people, and he isn’t above doing so. Do I make myself clear, Jon?
Annabelle: Well, Annabelle is similar to Elias, actually. She chooses her words very carefully. She knows how much affect a single choice can have, even down the stress she chooses to put on a phrase. There’s a smile in her voice, like she knows everything that this conversation is going to include. Though, I suppose, it’s important to remember how young she is. When she died, she was just a poor university student… She’s not sure she’s grown up since then, and it’s much easier to weave a web when people think you’re innocent…
Nikola: Nikola talks Exactly how you’d expect a ringmaster puppet to talk! Grand gestures, bright smiles, all with a plastic coating! Isn’t everything she says just wonderful?! She knows people hate her, and she also knows how funny it is to pretend like they adore her! She’s less self-aware, than some of the others, but she’s there to have fun, not manipulate people! She understands her atrocities, and *delights* in them. She doesn’t have a face, so she has to put all her emotions into her voice!
Peter: Peter is just… Tired. Growing up as he did has him split between an innate human desire to share, and the exhaustion of other people. He settles by picking a confidant, and markedly rejecting everyone else through a professional, bland exterior. He knows, he knows better than you, but he’s not going to stress himself proving it. He’s got better things to do.
Michael: Michael… What an interesting boy… He… I…? Was… Is…? Michael is something else. He knows he doesn’t talk in a way that others understand instinctively… And yet it’s always very clear what he means. He is deceit, but he will never lie to you. It’s easy to understand a lie. Much harder to unravel a half-truth. I suppose that’s what Michael is… A half-truth. There’s amusement in his nonsensical nature, even as he bites back resent. Some remnant of that anxious little boy long to make a joke, to titter anxiously at the things his friends say… Michael is confusion, confusing, confused. And he knows exactly what’s happening.
Great post, OP. I’d also like to point out that Elias tends to choose certain figurative, elaborate, or emphatic phrases that aren’t necessarily common in everyday speech. Off the top of my head, “at a hundred thresholds” (MAG 92), “exactly where [his eyes have] always been: […] watching over my Institute” (MAG 158), “you are a living chronicle of terror” (MAG 160), “[Gertrude] died in the line of duty” (MAG 9 IIRC), or “like fingers on a hand, and I am the beating heart of it” (MAG 92), not to mention that according to Peter he “insists” on a certain metaphor we hear him use on a separate occasion. Furthermore, the final bit of invocation in his statement is in iambic metre, so that’s more proof that he chooses his words carefully as you said. Even when he’s embodying his boring bureaucrat persona, he sometimes uses interesting similes, such as comparing Jon’s wounds to Swiss cheese. All in all, his speech patterns feel very… non-neutral, with his frequent adjective and adverb usage. Often, he shifts into a sort of dry humour where his sentences are considerably shorter, and he delivers them with a bland tone, such as “I am still here” or “I only have two eyes”. Lastly, I’ve also noticed he tends to make other people sound like the insane ones (scolding Jon for scowling, or “sometimes I forget how new you all are to this” when “this” is literally apocalyptic supernatural lore).
![Screenshot of the magnus archives transcript, text as follows: [Door slams shut.] Elias: Thank you, John. Archivist: [Hissed] Shut up! [click]](../media/c8284b9d68f7988add6379987761dcb8cff62b3f.jpg)
