Isms (Of the Verbal Variety)

I think one of the first memorable things Xaj said was the phrase, "Aight" (as in, "Ya aight, boy?"). It apparently stuck in other characters' heads because they started saying it soon after they heard him using it. Even the ones you would never expect to use that phrase, like Mr. Deadpan himself, Penumbral. I laugh every time Penny uses it, especially when Xaj is around to get weirded out.

Halent tends to be very passive and is a rather generic old man. A quirk in his own right, Halent is an extremely kind Death Knight, and has the patience of a god, if not trumping that patience. His ism would most likely have something to do with being kind, patient, out-going, and having a knack for forgetting your name. He has no real memorable quotes, but his general disposition tends to turn a few heads.

Keedorian has a tendency to mention his ever-in-development project: the Portable Chandelier.  Because sometimes you need to swing by a rope over an angry mob, and if you don't have a chandelier for it, then where's the style?  The fact that this would just be a fancy grappling hook is pointed out regularly by others, and it still hasn't sunk in.  He also has a tendency to say things are "capital" and to say goodbye with "Ta," because he's sort've a 19th century British jingoist in my head.

Kentworth has several catchphrases acquired from my intial playthrough of wandering around with him and being weird at people to see what would happen.  He says things are "quite painless" when he means "good" because of an early conversation in which somebody assured him that experiments upon his person would be quite painless, because he was a nice guy.  Therefore, nice things are quite painless.  In order to reassure people that he is definitely not a death knight he tells them that he is an "Ordinary Citizen of Stormwind" and opens and closes conversations with comments on the weather, because normal people talk about the weather.  When he is sad, he just lowers his head.  This has the side-effect of making people want to hug him OOC.  Still trying to figure that one out.  And he never, ever uses any question marks or exclamation points, except for the rare occasion when I forget this tick.

<3

Niami and her brother share a weakness for epic, epic one-liners.  Patrick delivers them like Duke Nukem, while Niami utters hers in the manner of a Jane Austen character, though a Jane Austin character who cares less about Lord Baconworthy's mysterious, dashing cousin and more about unravelling the secrets of the universe.

Vlasta's expletive of choice tends to be "oh, fel Nether"--not sure if it's original but I assume that's the rough Azerothian equivalent of "bloody hell."

Ah the Ism. Oyam has a few. I admit, she is by far my most fun character to date. First is Oyam replaces 'god' in most common phrases with Bob, the name of her constant companion. Example. "For the love of Bob!" "Oh for Bob's sake." and "Honest to Bob!" Her second Ism I adore is the fact she can not remember names. Not of places, new objects or people. So she just 'Oyamize's' them. Mostly her Oyamizing is a play on words or sounds. Since she is having a hard time understanding all the new languages and accents in the world around her, this opens up some very fun encounters.

"Oh, sweet Light" is essentially Reg's catchphrase by now, really. Typically said in an exasperated or horrified tone.

He also has a tendency to end conversations with "Light be with you." And calls everyone either by title, if they have one, or the generic sir/miss/my lady stuff you'd expect out of a knight.

While we're mentioning funny quotes, my dwarven shaman is a bit of a card for those. Seemingly your average drunken lout, he is quite the improvement upon Low Shaman Blundy though. Despite regarding sobriety as a weakness, Durdin Forgemight has an underlying sense of wisdom that he rarely shows. He also claims that real men have hammers. Women are always men because they are constantly carrying two 'hammers.' The bigger the hammer, the better.

 

"Oh, sweet Light" is essentially Reg's catchphrase by now, really. Typically said in an exasperated or horrified tone.

 

 

Reg and Vlasta should hang out.

I am not ashamed to say I have managed to work in, ICly and without sounding too much like a derp, phrases such as "All the things," in the case of Macaw (complete with arms in the air and shouting this at the top of his lungs), and a variation of "Fuck your couch," in that Meros and M'naa have an inside joke between each other of "Fuck your kitchen."

Macaw is also fond of less meme-related things. He'll shriek, "YOU DO NOT BURN TROLLS" whenever the topic of burning comes up. He'll also shriek (there's a trend that Macaw has one volume setting...) things like "DISEASES!" if he catches someone even holding hands or kissing. All those bearing the brunt of THAT little gem can thank Ti'kalan for instilling in Macaw the "dangers" of anything sex-related.

On the rare occasions he remembers volume control, he'll say things like, "I am always hungry," "I never die," or "Drowning!" because swimming was taught to him by M'naa, and he threatened to drown the brat several times and that stuck.

I find it interesting that one of my youngest characters has the most catch phrases that come to mind. Non-verbal habits I've caught him/reinforced him doing through RP is his constant chewing on his fingers. He can't really feel it, and has to be physically restrained from doing it or he'll end up breaking skin and sometimes going to bone.

I know Noneta is fond of turning things into bad prose when he has conversations or is uncomfortable with a subject or an emotion. He also enjoys deflecting through nicknames, and calls Jabiru "o King," "wader," "stork," etc. when he's feeling cheeky or at a loss emotionally.

Meros gave himself the trollish name Me'notoa based on the crude phrase of "shows teeth" because he's constantly grimacing whether he means to show discomfort or attempts smiles. His smiles leave him looking bewildered and uncertain by everything. He also clicks his teeth together a lot when nervous/anxious, or thinking deeply about something. It's meant to be an obnoxious thing, like people chewing their nails or hair or whistling, etc.

Penny has had to make habits, due to the fact that his face is broken and it's very difficult to understand him or communicate with him. Having a bashed-in head doesn't help. Lacking inflection, tone, or any physical/verbal cues to mood in conversation are major setbacks for him, as well. I've been consistently amazed throughout my RP with him how much he can squeeze meaning out of a simple word like a flatly-spoken "What," which he uses often.

He learned from Tisho to express himself--literally--in verbal statements. The most common include variations on "What" (such as "Je," "gani," and "kee" which display the auditory equivalents of a period, a questionmark, or an exclamation mark), or more specifically stated ones, like "Penny has ask-thought:" (a question), or "Penny has sads" (he feels bad), etc.

As X mentioned above, he also has learned two "slang" habits from interaction with the living. One is fist-bumping to show affection or greeting, and the other is "aight," which both are pretty hilarious coming from someone who is Mr. Deadpan.

He wheezes--a rather horrible noise that sounds like something being strangled to death--when he's amused and trying to laugh, and also wheezes when he wants to sigh audibly and show exasperation. There's subtle differences between those two noises, unfortunately, so nuances of Penny-isms are often lost in spite of his attempts to verbalize.

I bet I could think of a lot more, and this was a fun little exercise, but I'll stop here for the moment.

Edit: I forgot to add, Meros' favourite swear is "Elune's tits," while my druid, Iatrios, likes saying things like "Cenarius' termite-riddled antlers," because both are really bad about blasphemy.

Reg and Vlasta should hang out.

YES WE SHOULD. :D

Re: Blasphemy.. Veri has been known to swear by Velen's balls.

Vandy has taken to saying, "Blessed Light" when especially exasperated. It's usually accompanied by a facepalm.

"Sweet tapdancing Light" was stolen from Verric.

The most-used phrases, though, are probably the ones that let him wallow in misery.

"I don't have friends, I don't keep them."

He'd insist until he's blue in the face that he is "not a good person" and that all of you should keep away from him, right this second.

He's right, too. 

Another bad sign is something along the lines of "Trust me, I've got this."

Iliae's most commonly said phrase...

/e draws her revolver or /e reaches for her flask.

She doesn't socialize much for obvious reasons.

Jaen's would probably be,

'Not a girl's name.' or 'Ain't right.' or '...Iffin I do this, can we have taters?'

Olly doesn't really talk to people, she just stares at them.

Caldwell's is about fifty variations of 'Oh dear' or 'goodness gracious'. He also doesn't talk much, except about '...the most fascinating book about [insert subject that is less interesting than watching paint dry.]'

My characters are mostly silent/should always be silent types.

Mah is constantly saying "Perish the thought!". Like. Every other sentence sometimes. =\ Occasionally "Do not want.". Yes, she speaks meme-speak. 

Kinza ends all of her questions, and at least half of her statements with either 'No?' or 'Yez?'. She expresses surprise, confusion, agreement, and frustration, with the word 'Indeed!'  (I personally think that she chose the word because she can actually pronounce it properly.)

Clare really doesn't talk enough to have any isms. Most of her sentences are one to three words long. Does that count? 

Kitch likes to use 'Hah!' and 'Heh?', and call people 'Matey'.

Caddy speaks in a very rapid intellectual sounding babble that is mostly just nonsense. Most people just nod, and conclude that she is brilliant, which pleases her to no end. Her ism would be something like "I wonder if [imaginary super complicated technical term], might throw off the balance of [super finicky imaginary magical energy] by interfering with [complicated imaginary term], and if so could it be prevented by using a [extremely complex imaginary device] to complete [complicated imaginary procedure] or would [fancy technical and difficult imagined obstacle] prevent it."

"God's death!"

You'll hear Agnes say that a lot, as an exclamation/mild curse. 

She also likes to greet with "Hallo", and generally uses whichever proper honorific title she deems fitting. 'Mister,' 'Miss,' 'Missus.' 

I've discovered that Vlasta is really weird at swearing. She actually said "by Elune's unmentionables" and "Balls of Sargeras!" the other day, and I was powerless to stop her from doing so.....

Mahlar has....a few things that announce his presence. The liberal use of 'love' 'honey' 'sweety' 'hon.' and other terms of affection given to both men and women, regardless of formality or situation.

Another one that I personally favor with him, is his use of "Gods". Being of...well. Being on Azeroth with demigods and gods fighting in wars for our survival, the recognition of many Gods would be commonplace. "Gods damnit all." is a favorite.

I'm coming out of not existing just to give this thread a hearty Shit Howdy.