VortexGaming wrote: ↑02 Oct 2018, 23:26
Alright I have some problems. One the story is rather short with the synth only talking three times. The quirk is as said a bit overboard. And I’m sad that I was never used as an example *cough* but Alicia? Calls people by pronouns a mother would call her child and occasionally if the situation isn’t very troublesome asking some people who seen a bit down if they would like a hug and such. Very simple yet noticeable as “appearently” it creeps everyone out. You have to be a walking dictionary from the 15 hundreds. From the words you use and how you speak in your story it would take me two minutes to respond to any question. Very troublesome and grueling when needing to multi task with say 5 wounded and the xo is screaming questions and orders at you. I’m going to have to go with a -1. Also what the fuck is flogging and what the fuck is a knave like that would honestly confuse me in the middle of a round to the point where I would genuinely ignore you or walk away.
I like you and all and I like how you wanted to make a unique character but some people are just too unique. Like if I were making a robot I can see used of all the synths dialogue in modern places, as previously said
Mortimer some rich guys house
Alicia a nursery
Zane a father figure
And others listed before this post.
-1
The story was intended to be short as I felt it portrayed the character well without additional length, short and sweet!
I'd stress on what I've said above regarding the vocabulary choice, and how I've mentioned the lexicon can easily be simplified by word choice, but if it helps to demonstrate I'll compare some basic dialogue lines:
"Where do you require my aid?" compared to my synthetic's version of "Where dost thou require my aid?". "Dost" is-in the most basic senses-akin to "do" with the added -st, whereas "thou" for "you" still shows the evident "ou" ending. Context in mind, or simply reading the phrase alone, makes it clear of its meaning.
"I shall be helping with requisitions and attachments." compared to "I shall be helping with thy forge in the smithing of attachments." Adding the addition of "attachments" provides enough context to show that the synthetic would be doing work related to attachments, and as mentioned above, rephrasing could simply provide different angles of expressing this same statement.
"I will be deploying onto the planet (big red) to help with the FOB." compared to "I will be aiding the masons in constructing a worthy fort upon the surface of these red sands." The key mentions here are "constructing" and "fort" along with a description of the planet's surface (big red, red sands) which elaborates on the meaning even if you don't happen to know what a mason is.
"There are aliens in the ship." compared to "Ah, the demons invade our kingdom!" Provided with context that the round would provide, I'd like to think the meaning of this phrase is very evident.
Ultimately, a lot of the actual word usage isn't that difficult to understand in context, and at most archaic words such as knave will be fitted into enough context to explain their meaning--at least in that context. Flogging, flagellation, whipping, or lashing are all akin to the same exact word, just various synonyms. The actual word likely wouldn't show up in day-to-day conversation, but my entire word choice and sentence structure present in the short-story were meant to play upon this comical exaggeration. A knave is defined as "a dishonest or unscrupulous man." Keeping this in mind with previous examples, let's look at some new ones in some story related scenarios:
Let's assume military police are discussing with an officer, the commander, or any other individual about a troublesome crew member, survivor, etc. The usage of the word "knave" on my behalf might be added in a jestful comment referring to said individual, "Ah, what a pity, but the poor knave shall earn his just dues yet!" When dealing with words you don't understand in any scenario such as reading a book, playing a video game, talking to another individual, etc., context is an important factor in easily discerning what someone is saying. Most often, you can read the beginning and ends of a sentence and your brain will "autofill" the rest, so for the example above: You might read "Ah, what a pity... earn his just dues yet!" Even without the adjectives and nouns within the middle, the meaning of the sentence is clearly present.
Returning to the last section, I'm not understanding this emphasis on the fact that the synthetic quirk must fit in a generic, modern setting. I believe the character fits well for their time and place, and it emphasizes the "outdated" portion of the character while referring to still less-used and modern examples (poetry, royalty). If I had to compare it to a modern setting, it'd be most easily compared to the latter two I stated. Regardless of my digression from the main point, I hope the above explanations helped you and anyone else get a clearer idea of the dialogue that might be evident in day-to-day scenarios. I apologise if you find the concept to be an uninteresting or unfitting one, but I'd just have to disagree!
EDIT: It came to me that an elaboration on how it fits into the cultural tropes above might be desired, so I'll give one now:
One of the two common points beyond the dictionary is that the character doesn't "fit in" into any modern cultural norms, to which I mentioned that of royalty is where it may belong. The most likely place out of the almayer the synthetic would belong would be the court, castle, or palace of a ruling monarchy or place present with a royal governing body (primarily that of the English.) Modern examples of this are still present, even in today's society, with my personal example being the Queen of England/the royal family of England. Yes, you may consider these outdated by today's standards, but they're still present and real themes that exist, which is the duality the character represents.