I Saw Your Post About Inumaki’s Cursed Speech And I Wanted To Know Your Opinions Of Adapting The Curse

I saw your post about Inumaki’s cursed speech and I wanted to know your opinions of adapting the curse speech for aus (bc I personally struggled to decide how to do it and I wanted to know more opinions on the matter). Bc I know some No Curses aus see it as “Well of there’s no curse energy then he wouldn’t use Onigiri speech” and for some scifi/fantasy aus some wouldn’t want Inumaki to clash with the setting (especially if media/idea doesn’t allow for a neat 1 to 1 adaption of Inumaki’s struggle to communicate). And I know one possible method to keep Inumaki not talking without the use of things like texting or sign language would be only making him communicate through head/facial movements with some pointing, but since you thought a lot about this topic I was wondering if you had any ideas on the best way to adapt Inumaki’s character outside of canon-based fics

(Sorry if this is invasive or anything I was just really curious about hearing your thoughts more in depth)

Ok, I have been thinking about this a lot. I agree it is hard and to get it right you really have to have a happy medium between accuracy to his circumstances and good characterization of his personality.

This is a common problem with AUs for all different kinds of media. And it really is up to you to decide what parts of their unique experiences from the story are necessary to keep the character intact.

The reason, I think, that inumaki feels so wrong in AUs (and sometimes even in non AUs that lean heavily on texting) is that he has no established voice. Him being able to speak with no limitations feels like a breech of his character.

Some things I have seen people use in non canon fics:

Inumaki being deaf or hard of hearing: this gives him the poasibility of speech but based on whatever backstory you give him, it could explain why he might have a hard time speaking or only speak in a few words

Having him be mute or partially mute: probably the easiest option but I would do some research on it before writing (same with the previous one too, make sure you know what you’re saying so that it feels like a real part of the story not some plot device)

In a fantasy or sci-fi setting, you will have more room to come up with reasons similar or equivalent to his cursed speech (if not, the previous options are still there, sometimes writers forget that fantasy can be diverse too)

Anxiety. Some times people have such bad anxiety that they can’t speak. Especially in public places, around new people or around a group of people.

Also I feel like it’s important to mention that inumaki is a little gremlin and likes to troll people so he might just speak in riceball because he wants to or to mess with everyone. (That would make a good fic as long as you’re careful about it)

I think it’s up to you whether or not to use the riceball words, personally, I like them. I think they make his character more endearing but I understand that they don’t always make sense out of context with the original story.

As for how to have him communicate without words here are some more ideas

I actually don’t hate the sign language thing, from what I’ve read, it can work pretty well and makes the most sense when he’s written as deaf/hard of hearing

Passing notes. Unlike texting, which is faster and easier. Passing little notes back and forth is a way to get across exact information while also not having it feel like he is speaking (also it would be a really cute high school au fic)

Another thing which is kind of obvious, is that most of the people close to him can understand him perfectly without words. Part of volume 0 shows Yuta as he figures out how to communicate with Inumaki and I feel like people forget about this a lot.

Not a general thing but I thought of another cute idea: charades. I’m sure someone has done this before but I think it would be so silly to have random spontaneous games of charades when he wants to tell them something.

I hope this was helpful 💕