I started looking into this after reading several fics featuring Taako where his speaking voice was…kind of jarring to me? Mainly in the usage of vocatives. Taako uses vocatives (my dude, homie, darling etc) but he uses them in particular ways, and they’re often very overused when people write dialogue for Taako.
Anyway, as I started researching this, it felt a little…mean-spirited? so I stopped lol. but the more I thought about it, the more I was interested in these particular quirks of Taako’s speech and how they add to his character. A bunch of you seemed interested in it too. So here I present the essay nobody asked for but some wanted after I mentioned it: Hot Linguistic Take on Taako’s Speech! Under a readmore cuz it got LONG, y’all. Buckle up.
i just wanted to respond to another thing lots of people have mentioned! i don’t think justin did this super intentionally. meaning, i don’t think he was consciously doing it? like, that’s the really cool thing about linguistics in general. i think this is something justin did subconsciously, using taako’s speech to deflect and create distance, and dropping that guard with people he trusted. (i think that’s something lots of us do in our regular speech! and maybe it’s something justin does too?)
anyway, i wasn’t trying to say this was like, something justin had fully thought out or planned. it developed naturally with taako’s character and i think that’s super cool.
gerard way: people think we’re rich vampires and that’s a common misconception we aren’t rich vampires guys
also gerard way: does roughly twenty jillion photo shoots absolutely covered in blood, mentioned vampires in some capacity on every single album at least once, so pale he more or less glows if any light hits his skin, is always wearing sunglasses even indoors (to guard sensitive corneas?? to disguise dark circles??), LITERALLY threatens to suck your blood as a piracy deterrent, willfully and of his own volition went in public wearing this outfit
ProbablyPartyPoison 