I will never get over how hot the phrase "I told you so!" is in context of sneeze- and sickfic. All the implications it comes with... The missed chance of avoiding the downfall, the slight shift in power relations between two characters as the hubris of a character is punished by a son of a b*tch of a cold. The subtle, yet blatantly implied smugness of the other character... 💕
For your consideration:
A Character went out in the rain only to catch the sloppiest, most miserable cold ever, even though their SO explicitly asked them not to? - "I told you so!"
A Character stays up all night only fueled by coffee, energy drinks and a perverted need to master a workload as high as Mount Everest,l in the span of a week, never resting or taking a break even though their SO leaves food and invitations for rest at their door? - "I told you so!"
A character recklessly shares a drink or food with a sick person, because their immune system is the Hulk of all immune systems and will never fail, no matter what their SO says. - "I told you so!"
I present to you the concept of someone's sound shifting by circumstances. Like, slightly three different spelling base between colds and allergies and stifling -- maybe not by much, but enough the discerning viewer can realize what's going on just by their sound.
This is something I've done with a couple of my guys but specifically ran into it as I finalized one of my ladies' snz sounds a chapter and many sneezes into a fic and came up with the (clever?) excuse that the difference was she no longer had the oomph to restrain herself / control the sound. Which scans, because everyone else does actually have variations in how their sounds develop per irritant.
Examples under the cut so this is rebloggable without having to read about my specific blorbos. Would love to see others' examples.
Brandt is interesting to me not only because he tries (with some success, even) to shift his sound a little for each of his Others, but also it changes based off of how irritated he is + how much restraint he has left in him, and there's generally a fair bit of hitching either way.
Just starting into a fit / lesser irritation with shorter, harsh sounds, a lot of K's and KS-es (“uhh-kscht!” / “ih-kt! iih….ksggch!”)
A fair bit into a fit / very irritated sounds full of strong starting vowels where you've got sort of an emphasis dip between a strong start, breathy middle, and emphatic ending ("AESSSHHIH! [...] ESSSSHUu!”)
Wolf is a top tier example of this, just comparing him with a cold, where the sneezes come with very little hitching at first and some "uh / hu" sounds at the end (“NkiiiSHU! ekKTCHII! nkiiT-CHHIIUH!”)
Or him having issues with rain, where his breathing staggers and he hitches and hesitates between sneezes with lots of itchy "iiih" sounds (“H’htt-nih… iiiiHH…” [...] Hihschiih! Iishhiich! Ihiii… iKKSHTchiih!)
Umbral is also a good example. When he has a cold and is forced to sneeze freely, it's a loud, unmistakably powerful sound with some variation in the exact sound, but often with minor attempts to restrain himself in N's and irritated H's (“hnngSTCHHIH! NGHSSHIISCHU!”)
But he can't stifle worth a damn, adding in harsher xx and g sounds. (“hnxxgschhu! H’nnXSHIIH!")
And then I've had fun with Saphina, lately, so within the six-nearly-seven chapters with her I've noticed patterns.
When she's trying, indeed somewhat successful moderating her sneezes / suppressing them she ends in a stifly sort of "hiih" sound, lots of shh too (“Hiih—! hikktshhIH! HiiKSHHIH!”)
Compared to just giving in and letting her body have its way, she starts ending in a higher pitched "hiiu" sound ("Ht-niii— IKKSHHIIU! ktshiu!")
Examples taken from where I've written them in snzfics.
But yeah! I find that fascinating. If you read this, feel free to share your own!
