vvardenfellcat

11. How are they vocally expressive? What kind of voice, accent, tones, inflections, volume, phrases and slang, and manner of speaking do they use?

J’hasi’s fairly quiet until he feels somewhat comfortable in the setting, or if he feels strongly enough about the situation to speak out. Around friends or if he gets excited/interested, he loosens up and talks a bit more. His voice is fairly high pitchwise, only dropping low when he wants to intimidate or if he’s not happy about the situation, or the people around. Rarely he drops low if he’s keeping his voice quieter to talk to a friend privately, but it’s not as low as when he’s upset or trying to threaten. His overall volume is a little on the quiet side unless he’s excited (louder) or if he’s trying to make a point, his speech firm and volume a bit louder, obviously loud if he has to yell to get his point through to someone. When he’s really pissed and trying to threaten someone, he’ll drop his voice a little quieter, because people seem to listen more when you’re quieter for some reason.

His voice is rougher if he’s pissed off or if he’s drunk, tired, or just got up, and smoother when he’s happy or trying to calm someone down. He talks a little too fast when he gets excited, and he tends to stammer when he’s anxious. He tends to speak in an overall formal, restrained fashion when he’s first meeting people, occasionally breaking out into phrases like ‘thing’, ‘kinda’, and ‘-ish’ when he can’t quite remember the words for the specific term he wants to use. He relaxes a little more around people he’s met before, or friends, and tends to contract his speech like ‘d’you’, or ‘m’not’. Always contracts when introducing himself properly, ‘m’name’s J’hasi’, which is how his friend who taught him Cyrodilic talked. Also uses more ‘complicated’ or ‘higher class’ vocabulary on occasion when he usually speaks like a commoner, similar to his Dunmeris, which I’ll get to in a sec. It’s not an attempt to sound fancy, but just picking out the words that are close enough to portraying what he wants to say. Cyrodilic is hard.

He has a slight Dunmeris accent in his speech, worsening when he gets drunk. His Dunmeris is unaccented, sounding native Vvardenfell to most outsiders, while native Dunmer can tell that he’s not native, but spent a significant amount of time there. His speech is a little odd, sounding commoner overall, but then you get these odd bits of formal, higher class and that throws some people off.

Jel is his native tongue, but he has a slight speech impediment. Anyone who’s native to Black Marsh can understand him, and can tell that he has more of the ‘inner marsh (tribal)’ dialect, which sounds more alien and difficult to understand to those who learned Jel as a second language, or other such outsiders. To those who learned it as a second language, good luck understanding him x__x

Voiceclaim (closest I’ve found, anyway): Ryan Guldemond

Examples of: | lower range | midrange | upper range |

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17. Are they more shaped by nature or nurture — who they are, or what has happened to them? How have these shaped who they’ve become as a person?

Thankfully, his nature has largely prevailed over nuture. He’s always had a temper, always been a little fiery, but deep down he’s sweet, gentle, kind, and sensitive. While the sensitive bit helps him to be extremely compassionate, it also means that he hurts a lot more when he’s hurt, and man did he have a lot of that growing up and even into adulthood. His nurturing from the few good people he’s met along the way helped mitigate some of the awful shit he’s been through, but the bad shit has left him guarded, mistrustful, and slow to warm up to people.

It’s a defense mechanism, appearing difficult to approach, baring his teeth outright to people that are aggressive, while deflecting other, less aggressive and friendly types with humor or indifference. He winds up hurting himself in the process, as he does get incredibly fucking lonely, but oh no being close to someone means vulnerability, WELL WE CAN’T RISK THAT.

TL;DR him heart hurt ez so let’s keep up walls so nothing can get in! Haha what avoidance behavior?!

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19. How do they behave within a group? What role(s) do they take? Does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? Why?

I feel like I’ve answered this question before, but more or less J’hasi is the quiet one in the group, choosing to listen and watch over speaking unless he’s close with those in the group. Not sure what’s meant by ‘role’, but in a group of strangers he’s the one who leaves first to head straight to the bar, or to leave entirely. Being around people takes energy, and if he doesn’t know them, then he’s not going to waste his energy unless he can get something he wants out of it, either information or something equally valuable.

In a group of friends he’s the one that tends to chill and listen, speaking when spoken to or if he has something to add to the conversation. Being around friends either takes very little energy, no energy, or can even give him some, depending on the friends, so he’ll stick around until people start to leave or if he needs to go do something else.