CHARACTER VOICE DESCRIPTIONS

Originally written in February of 2022.

note: there is a repeated principle i refer to as an ‘average english’ accent here which has relation to the whole lingua franca thing i mentioned in an earlier chapter — i’d harken it to very plainspoken english without a distinctive accent, comparable to an average canadian accent or like generic american tts. obviously there isn’t really such a thing as ‘accentlessness’ but i’ve got no word for the sort of ‘plain’ accent i’ve noticed between me and other nonnative english speakers, induced by mostly learning english through the internet. this is a niche thing to allude to but hopefully it makes sense

additionally due to all the constant travel people are generally more affected by accents around them compared to real life, especially older people… which means a lot of train residents have weird blends or variable strength to their accents. additionally there’s influence from revived languages or argots that sound different in their reconstructions or which don’t exist in real life in the first place. it’s hard to describe this kind of stuff in a nonaudio format + without getting into obscure linguistics terms but whatever. let’s go

dalisay:

voice: worn out and flat. a little nasally. grating but not in a screech/sharp way, it’s kind of just an overall roughness. i wouldn’t say they sound particularly hoarse even, contrarily they kind of sound like they’re always sighing or exhaling. talking speed may vary, but usually speaks slowly for the sake of being clear. talking rhythm hardly changes and gives practically no tone away. they’re strangely good at cutting themself off suddenly, i’ve got no better way to say it than ‘they can pronounce words like they’re in a ytp’
speech: often very direct, minimalist and brief — they don’t like to dance around details, and want to keep conversations with others to a minimum. will cut off others if they become too impatient with them, and is good at asking precise questions. mostly steers clear of metaphors, but will occasionally dip into intentionally weird constructed ones. often likes repeating things back at people, often to poke fun at them. dramatises quite flatly, in a comedic tone — for example will interrupt someone in the middle of talking about a problem with something like “oh so everyone will die i guess” — they only do this when they’re like in a conversation they don’t particularly care about. has the quirk of using excessive programming slang that makes sense to nobody.
accent: average english, probably the clearest so out of every character. such is the consequence of the tessellis-raised programming wunderkind.
first language: tagalog
other known languages: fluent english, intermediate spanish, beginner latin. can also read braille. knowledgeable about morse and more ‘modern’ magical interpretations of alphabets akin to it. also speaks in a leet-like cant exclusive to programmers and other similar deep tessellis-exclusive stuff.

mazin:

voice: speaks with overly clear intonation, very slowly — he sounds like he’s reading a wikipedia article and insulting you at the same time. always sounds sarcastic or ingenuine. voice is on a complete middle ground in terms of pitch, just imagine like generic guy in an ad trying to sell you a product voice. but far more unenthusiastic.
speech: extremely fanciful. basically the equivalent of those guys who just use big words to sound smart, with variable accuracy. like you can kind of tell they just picked up a thesaurus and tried to figure out a way to slot a cool new word they found into a sentence. will mess with passive voice and simply saying things ‘happened’ if he’s discussing something that’s his fault, to absolve himself of blame. not much to say here he’s just got that generic fancy manipulative businessman speak. emphasis on there not being much substance to his words when they’re distilled! he talks in confusing circles.
accent: mild arabic accent but often makes the conscious decision to ‘mask’ it with some pseudo-british accent that sounds posh. otherwise often pronounces french loanwords exactly how they’d be pronounced in french to the point of ridiculousness sometimes, this also occurs with the other languages he knows.
first language: arabic
other known languages: fluent english, french, german and latin.

demeter:

voice: tone tends to batter between conversations depending on their degree of interest. generally slow, quiet and soft-spoken but in an ‘about to fall asleep’ kind of manner, voice gets sharper and more focused the more theyre into a conversation. their voice is fairly guttural and deep regardless. occasionally when tired their voice will get very rumble-y, growly and hoarse, akin to a swarm of bees. it’s harder to discern consonants here, and words will blend. comparable to drunkedness. part of their raspiness comes from smoking, but they’ve also always just had that kind of quality to their voice, albeit less prominently. due to being deaf in one ear, their volume control is a bit stilted and they’re often strangely quiet. conversely may get loud in more spacious environments.
speech: hard to explain. very simplistic textbook-y but they’ll suddenly drop a very poetic word, and often run around in circles forming precise metaphor wrt said word. very very composed, more romantic and verbose than they let on to. plainness with their brief replies is misleading, and is often them restraining themself for intentional brevity. they have a lot of thoughts… and do not like voicing them. that is the main idea behind all their speech.
accent: basis in hungarian. often pronounces words overly meticulously, very much in the “oh they’ve never heard this word before and have only seen it written down thus going for phonetics only” kinda way. would say stoick instead of stoic and whatnot.
first language: hungarian, mixed with rromani and german
other known languages: mostly fluent english. technically their german was very rusty and informal and they only relearnt it to the point of fluency as an adult, basically being a second language to then. otherwise knows some conversational greek, french, and dutch, and later learnt spanish (sitting at a good conversational level) through ulises.

ulises:

voice: extremely nasally. talking speed may vary but is often extremely fast — they rarely mess up words though and their enunciation is very clear. frequent tsking and tongue clicking, snaps fingers for punctuation also. may stammer when kicking off a sentence but rarely afterward. shows any dissatisfaction with own phrasing quite visibly — will shake head, scoff, etc and then retry a thought from the very beginning. it’s as if they’re constantly reorganising and resorting their own thoughts on the spot. there’s naturally kind of a divide between their professional tone — what they usually use when conducting experiments or medical procedures, for efficient communication — and their casual one, which they use for leisurely conversations. in the latter, they’re capable of rambling for a long time, going on long tangents, restarting their sentences whenever remembering new relevant details, lightly messing with inflection for the effect… they get really into recounting stories, trying to make verbose word pictures. how can i say it. she’s got the kind of tone that’s good for a campfire story.
speech: speaks in what i refer to as a ‘zigzag’ of quaint simplistic speech and technobabble — kind of like demeter’s fluctuations but on a more balanced scale. compared to demeter who has lynchpin verbose words, so to speak, ulises operates on more extended phrases. fond of idiom, and will often say them verbatim as opposed to other characters who often alter typical sayings. tangentially has the unique habit of referring to things by way of simile, specifically saying a situation or person is like xyz, instead of outright stating them being xyz. meant to contribute to the image of them being more considerate and ‘greater’ than themself as opposed to other characters, who indulge in glossolalic direct metaphor to the point of confusion or obfuscation sometimes. ulises is very… not straightforward, necessarily, but they’re very honest and insistent on being honest.
accent: basis in chicano english — they haven’t travelled much in their life and so their accent is very ‘solid’ and consistent, if only absorbing a few eccentricities from other train residents into their own speech.
first language: spanish
other known languages: also learnt nahuatl and english at a very young age, though lost interest in nahuatl for a brief period of time after their mother died, leading to some language loss. they rekindled their knowledge at around 20, learning from their extended family. now exhibit fluency in all three mentioned above, along with knowing some miscellaneous words from all of demeter’s spoken languages.

freya:

voice: generally mellow tone, but may dip into a ‘sharper’ one when excited — gets more hissy and breathy in this case. in general, very expressive via gasps, squeaks, any kind of subtle noise. though not as volatile as someone like isel she has a fairly extensive vocal range and may occasionally mess around with it for effect — if she’s trying to get someone’s attention and it’s not working she’ll speak in a guttural growl death metal style and if she’s intentionally trying to piss someone off she’ll get all squeaky and wobbly. regular pitch is kind of mid-to-deep, she hasn’t done much voice training and doesn’t really care to. talks at a medium pace, though can get very fast when excited.
speech: big fan of questions, often asked in a barrage. will pester someone about something for minutes and when she actually gets an answer she’ll get bored, interrupt, and change the topic. though her wordage is meek at times, she keeps a steady hand on the conversation and often conducts it by force via subtle turns of phrases peppered in throughout her speech… she’s very persuasive. when talking to her it often feels like she’s leading up to something or about to ask for a favor. exceptionally good liar. likes to sound morbid from time to time, and especially likes to punctuate any wordiness with a very plain phrase tacked on at the end. occasional habit of overextending phrases, mostly through filler like “it’s just like that, you know?” or “it’s only a little bit dangerous, of course, just a slight bit…” or whatever. has some weird habits wrt neologism — partially coming from her own natural tendencies considering her love for riddles and esotericism, partially coming from her friendship with isel.
accent: mixture of north welsh and mle, the latter kind of taking precedence… i imagine during her early train days she kind of ‘tightened’ her accent and focused on speaking in a more received pronunciation type beat, but by the time dalisay arrives she’s completely sunk back into her actual accent
first language: welsh
other known languages: fluent english, fluent igbo, fluent latin. intermediate french. knows some casual spoken korean. also learnt conversational italian and spanish from olzhas and isel, and was fully taught polari by olzhas. i imagine she also knows a handful of other historical argots, whether learned for actual communication or more ‘studious’ intent. additionally knows how to read braille.

olzhas:

voice: specifically grating in the ‘rusty door sound’ kinda way. medium pitch, speaks from the back of the throat, very vocal fry-y. often stresses ‘teeth’ sounds like th and s. though i wouldn’t say it’s prominent/consistent enough to count as a lisp, eir sharp teeth occasionally result in certain consonants getting ‘whistled’ out. speaks remarkably fast, only slows down for emphasis and even then is more likely to just ‘harshen’ eir voice instead. never really gets too loud, volume-wise. eir regular prosody and emphasis i’d compare to famous man jerma985. or whatever.
speech: exceedingly formal, though NOTABLY very natural sounding and unstilted — has a very elegant manner of switching between topics, meaning e can avoid questions quite gracefully. will occasionally engage in some wordplay, especially if talking to freya or isel, and it’s usually in the form of giving gravity to metaphor — ex. “just bite the bullet” “i’d rather avoid the taste”. predominantly cynical and droll but rarely negative toward emself, explicitly at least — e is very much focused on seeming presentable and prodigious even just through speech. although, through a meta lens, e often speaks in an overly fancy quaint register, compared to other train residents it basically functions as an everyman median tone. in-world it’s strikingly unremarkable and ‘simple’ barring the aforementioned versatility!
accent: nebulous pseudo-british because e was mostly exposed to british english as a child, though it’s really only noticeable with certain words. i’d harken it to a transatlantic accent. otherwise has a notable habit of tossing barebones italian phrases (mostly idioms or swears) into random sentences sometimes, which messes with eir pronounciation for a few seconds thereafter.
other: when drunk e leans toward becoming more wordy, though far more cluttered and emotional as well. much more willing to lay out eir emotions, but only using generic words such as sad or tired. greater tendency to swear as well. speaks in a prominent deep groan.
first language: kazakh
other known languages: eir knowledge of kazakh is wholly spoken. otherwise has fluent italian, fluent english, and intermediate spanish later refined by conversing with isel. also knows polari which is a revived cant, and in like 2100s times it’s kind of just a tongue-in-cheek joke slang…

isel:

voice: i consistently describe it as oaky and rumbling, it’s usually fairly deep but he has an impressive vocal range which he likes to exercise. his tone is probably the most dynamic out of everyone but at a supposed ‘default’ he’s still fairly musical sounding and quaint. often extends syllables, exaggerates consonants, readily changes speaking rhythm… you get it, basically every possible element of speech is a slider to him and he will freely wobble it back and forth at any second. he also likes to sing out little phrases sometimes… his playfulness knows no bounds. a very clear indicator of him restraining himself or being like. extremely mad is actually when he’s got a very controlled undynamic tone. even when he’s tired there’s a sort of jeer or drift to his words, keeping him whimsical… it takes a lot to wrung out the sillyness in his tone.
speech: full of neologism and impromptu metaphor. very very quaint. will rhyme or use phrases with double meaning, may dip into odd poetic meter or rhyming schemes, etc etc his speaking style is capricious and unrestrained in a very artistic poetic way. that’s the gist. also fares notable inaccuracies with near similar consonants — ex. alight-align, stash-slash. will also invent words — ex. wristle. this is an aphasiac thing, and the frequency of both of these happening increases with fatigue. additionally he has a habit of ‘avoiding’ questions by going on tangents that only somewhat relate to what was being asked of him, which is an aphasia thing once more.
accent: he often likes to mess with the way things are pronounced in general, reflexively, so it’s hard to solidly name one lol… but when he’s speaking in a more relaxed manner, whispering or otherwise limiting his tone, he’s got a light gujarati accent, though it’s very noticeably touched by his time in boston. he can also easily slip into like. very generic american accent which he learned to do during his radio days but he only uses it to be jarring or when doing an impression.
first language: gujarati and english
other known languages: mostly fluent spanish. intermediate nahuatl, alongside being familiar with nawat to an extent. additionally, a lot of his gujarati’s eroded over the years due to lack of use, so he regards english as his first language. probably knows some obscure codes related to theatre or radio communication but y’know. not exactly languages.

faris:

voice: low in pitch. talks in kind of a sigh or groan, and is exceptionally quiet no matter what. very meandering and ‘dragged out’, pace is exceptionally slow in a very audibly uncertain way. permanent hesitation and strain, as if he’s never happy to be talking aloud. sounds like he’s constantly trying to buy time for himself, extending consonants weirdly and speaking at a very slow pace more often not.
speech: exceptionally reserved and curt. random cutoff digressions and trailing off. habit of starting a sentence, going quiet for multiple seconds, and then repeating himself. leans on semi-verbal indicators a lot — often hums or grunts to show defiance or agreeance. prominent contraction use, and overall use of very vague terms. will get more wordy if he has to explain himself, but again is very self-concious, resulting in fairly disorganised speech. he likes responding to questions more than anything else. tries not to swear, but often does on instinct when he’s caught off guard.
accent: mild levantine arabic accent. maintained a surprising amount of influence from his time in texas though — he’s attained a noticeable enough southern accent.
first language: arabic
other known languages: fluent romanian, basic french and italian. he’s not too crazy about languages.

valerie:

voice: low-to-mid in pitch. tone is soft-spoken, but also constantly borders on being very taut and exhausted. very noticeable switch to head voice when mad or nervous. her voice is often kind of dragged and tired but in a way where she kind of hides it… however, in contrast with faris, she prefers to quicken her pace and talk VERY fast to mask her sluggishness, still trying to give off the impression of being organised and awake.
speech: i wouldn’t say she sounds sarcastic but she often sounds worn and cynical about most things. often goes “well, it really is…” or “it only makes sense that…” she likes her resigned interjections. very much someone who’s deeply unenergetic trying to feign excitement, not really trying too hard to make it believable either. it’s like the kind of register one uses when some plans with some friends end up being cancelled and you didn’t want to go in the first place but you act a bit forlorn as to not be a jackass. when she’s feeling good this turns into a tendency to quip — she often likes ‘conversational acupuncture’ where she interprets words one by one and sort of needles the person she’s speaking to. effectively just extremely fast-paced banter, kind of shit you’d see written out in a play. i think in general a lot of her dialogue orbits around that dramatic context… lot of hyperawareness.
accent: prominent haitian accent, noticeably boston affected with certain words. also has a lot of random influence from places she’s visited just like in general.
first language: haitian creole
other known languages: fluent english, intermediate spanish and french, and like a dozen or so languages she knows at a decent conversational level, whether acquired from pre-fornax travels or from asking people on the train to teach her some langs.

peixin:

voice: high-pitched but very throaty and raspy, ends up in a kind of mid tone. voice cracks a lot, or may bubble, squeak, etc… stresses words weirdly and has almost ‘random’ intonation — sometimes questions sound like normal sentences and vice versa. very tremulous, wobbly. they have a stutter that is most frequently audible with r, t and similar consonants. struggles with volume, can literally go from whispering to yelling in the same sentence; though usually tries to keep voice lowered as loud sounds contribute to their nausea.
speech: oscillates between curt and overly jargonic, sometimes within the same sentence. often seems to lack confidence and backbone but will randomly strike with very precise demands in a very confident tone. they often sound accusatory or mad, even if they aren’t necessarily. may speak in word stacks — lots of adjectives clumped together, ie “this is a terrible, unbelieveable, detestable, gormless situation!”. this is a signifier of them actually being more relaxed. when stressed, dips into shorter sentences, cutting themself off and volleying phrases like concurrent arrows — for example, “i can’t stand it! all of it! any of it! complete nightmare!” it gets all frantic. will also swear more often when unsettled.
accent: majorly average english, though has prominent brazilian influence — though they haven’t travelled much a lot of their english was learned through tessellis and they were often in contact with like. huge international groups when they were making music. so a lot of acquisition there
first language: mandarin and brazilian portuguese
other known languages: fluent english, fluent latin, intermediate spanish and basic german. also note that their knowledge of mandarin is wholly spoken.

somsak:

voice: hypothetically high-pitched but he speaks with really heavy growl and throat emphasis, bringing it wayy down. literally sounds like he eats a box of gravel every morning. he has what i’d describe as really ‘lazy’ rhythm — he speaks slowly but tacks on additions to sentences in a contrasting fast pace, usually making it kind of exhausting to properly follow his speech. he struggles with controlling his voice, often being really loud, though he’s not intentionally yelling or anything. he also has a lateral lisp.
speech: extremely laidback and offhanded, usually talking in brief sentences and then trailing off with more random addendums… it’s kind of like he’s just talking to himself more than talking to others, he’s got the tone of just rambling to himself whilst trying to remember something. combined with his tendency to talk over people it’s like he’s just very unaware of his surroundings. truthfully he’s fairly perceptive and he knows he’s being kind of an asshole but doesn’t really care and thinks its kind of funny if anything. on the offchance that he’s genuinely focused and caring about a topic he’s actually really good at like… showing he’s paying attention, often partaking in brief interjection that doesn’t distract from what the other person’s saying. he’s also just good at reassuring others, often just because he exudes such a thick aura of confidence and chillness.
accent: fairly clear average english — he’s about as tessellispilled as dalisay LOL
first language: thai
other known languages: fluent english. has probably tried to learn other languages for fun but could never feign enough attention to do it properly.

beatrix:

voice: mid-pitch, kind of guttural and ‘back of the mouth’ spoken — leading to a surprisingly relaxed and laidback sound. though they don’t even mean to (usually) their default prosody makes them seem very sarcastic and ingenuine — they like dragging syllables out and accentuating random consonants, trailing a lot of sentences by in a ‘sing-song’ tone. their muted casual affect kind of enforces this idea, but they can actually get very audibly emotive when mad. overall speaks at a slow pace. naturally can sound somewhat grainy due to their smoking habits, though it isn’t too noticeable.
speech: often starts off with a really boring and plain ‘hook’ sentence, reacting to or positing things in a very simplistic manner — kind of tries to introduce topics in a ‘layman’ manner and goes into more specific and niche wording as the conversation progresses. they’re very, very good at explaining things because they express ideas in clear steps and can find silly ways to break things down into more simple analogies… they’ve got the rhythm of a teacher. they kind of stray from the regular flowery hyperbolising most other characters have — instead they utilise very specialised scientific terms, though again, usually not without the aforementioned leadup if they’re talking to the average person. they’re very conscious of their speech being context-appropriate and seemingly ‘polite’, though have no qualms about interrupting others and swerving the conversation into the context they want to explore. they often insist on a shell of politeness, though it’s less out of genuine kindness and moreso to just intentionally ‘rub salt in the wound’ during a dispute and whatnot.
accent: kind of a subdued australian accent, leaning on average english. nothing overly distinct about it.
first language: english
other known languages: fluent in māori, german and french. also has intermediate (albeit rusty) knowledge of japanese and turkish, having lived in each respective country for a few years.

marjolaine:

voice: her vocal cords were permanently damaged due to gruelling overwork in opera and thus she can only speak in a whisper or rasp that’s prone to voice breaks. usually refrains from audible speech unless she’s with a single person in a quiet room or uttering a phrase with only a few words.
speech: main feature is overly verbose uncertainty. epitome of stilted schizoid style speech — she can never express her own opinions as her own, and has to deliver them as suggestions or broad statements paired with a justification. for example, she’ll avoid saying “i’m sad” and instead opt for “it’s a terrible thing to happen, since xyz…” kind of out of the inner philosophy of being too pathetic to be worthy of complaint. it’s a very pessimistic, limiting point of view and so she kind of tries to ‘walk around it’ with her wordiness… constant elaboration and poetic metaphor, more than anybody else — will dive into purple prose-y literary descriptions about anything, will actively quote real and (meta) invented poetry… you can tell she has a past in linguistics with basically every sentence she utters just because it’s so uncannily well-composed. to compare it to someone else, if isel embodies a more jargonic, freeform and lyrical style of prose, marjolaine hits things with a more organised, precise and linear narrative voice — but to stress, they are both exceptionally wordy and prolonged!
accent: kind of indiscernible, she very specifically enunciates words for maximum understandability when speaking aloud, leading to a kind of ‘artificial’ unrelaxed sound.
first language: quebec french and ojibwemowin
other known languages: fluent in english, twi, and italian. has miscellaneous conversational skill in a LOT of other languages. also knows asl and auslan. additionally can read various scripts even if she doesn’t know the precise language that goes with an extract — for example she can read cyrillic but doesn’t know much russian in itself.

sabri:

voice: major note that her speech has unreliable stability due to her jaw injury — beyond occasionally preventing her from speaking aloud outright, it also causes her to randomly let words ‘slip’ and sometimes results in consonant blends, and random emphasis that may lead to ‘hissing’ or overly hard pronounciation (ex. pronouncing a th sound as d), more often than not it’s a matter of ‘excess’ sound. overall has a kind of gruff, subdued tone, always sounding distracted and as if she’s quickly answering a question, even if she’s genuinely focused. very monotone, practically the only indicator for genuine enjoyment is her distinct yowl-y laugh.
speech: keeps things very simple — notably has single word responses to most queries. often grim, will intentionally phrase things weirdly or very suddenly drop an overly serious question to try and get a reaction out of people. she likes being sarcastic but it’s often lost on people, kind of aiding in making her seem strange and morbid. often omits certain words at the start of sentences for conciseness, most prominently dropping the ‘i’ in sentences about herself or addressing others without a ‘you’. has a particular quirk of stacking adjectives in thirds to words — for example, “help a tired, weak, old soul out.” — as a reference to her triptych association. often avoids talking about emotions outright, doesn’t even go through the farce of metaphor and hyperbole or anything… in general she will avoid unpleasant topics by just going silent, forcing the other person to drop the subject. i guess the most prominent principle overall is that she likes ‘pressuring’ others. uhh also her quietness; the most talkative she gets is when she’s explaining something about her plants.
accent: similar note to marjolaine with regards to ‘unnatural’ sound due to overpronounciation, though she doesn’t do this AS consistently and can often talk in a more unfiltered tone. regular accent is heavily influenced by manglish. overall very little influence from dutch, mostly because she didn’t really cross it with english as much.
first language: malay and dutch
other known languages: fluent in english and tamil. additionally knows both malaysian sign language and dutch sign language. she knows a few asl signs from marjolaine, though because they don’t properly share a common sign language they prefer communicating via written text.

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