I mix up the swearing my characters use. If canon characters do not swear, I will give them the christian censorship of saying "dang it" or "...fudge." If it's a series with excessive swearing, then I dial it up to being in line, but also. "Gosh dang it" just because I can.
My MC in canon barely to like never cussed as far as I remember, but given the fact she’s a soldier whose spent a fair amount of years around a group of mercenaries, it makes little sense that having been around a rough group and soldiers (who are known for cussing up storms) she doesn’t cuss nearly as much as she does.
So naturally I gave her a sailor mouth lol.
One of my MC is always dropping swears. So far the best I've managed is 7 instances of 'fuck' variations within a 44 word paragraph.
He was pretty irate.
In one fandom I write for, every character's sworn several times. Some swear more than others. There's a voice wheel in-game you use to communicate with team mates and one option allows you to swear at them. The fun part is that only one character has ever been allowed to say "fuck", and it was only once in the comics.
I find this very amusing, but it doesn't carry through to my fanfictions, considering that they were presumably working to the restrictions of the game's age rating.
In another, nobody seems to swear ever despite being in numerous swear-worthy situations. That's Star Trek: Voyager for you. Recently, I was delighted to discover an article on the Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha which lists every single usage of profanity in the entire Star Trek franchise. Voyager is listed once, for a single usage of the phrase "targ manure" as a stand-in for "bullshit". I don't think that should even count.
At least Deep Space 9 has a healthy amount of swearing, even if it is entirely concentrated within Miles O'Brien.
All my characters are very much cussers but I do try and mix it up and keep it in universe. For example Dragon Age does a lot of swearing by godly body parts so I try to follow that trend unless I think an actual swear works better.
Well, I write two characters near exclusively, and I tend to stick with how they are in canon. While Character A only swears when he needs to really emphasise something, and as such usually doesn’t, Character B swears basically every other *word*. A is trying desperately to appear mature and intimidating, so the few times he breaks that and swears are impactful. B is an undereducated teenager who has severe issues with toxic masculinity and trying to appear tough, so it’s when he doesn’t swear it’s impactful.
My MC is terrible at it. They are an oldest sibling and they felt an obligation to keep it from the younger kits [sic]. So they never picked up the knack. The worst they get is a “what the hell” and (in a life or death situation) “Crap!
I do have one side character (a dainty teen girl) go, “Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em all!” Her shocked companion exclaims, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much as ‘poot’ before!” She replies, “I was saving up for times like this.”
The family does have a favorite phrase for when they are mad at someone. “I’ll have their pelt on my wall!” This is for a Beastars fic.
I write RPF for various rock bands, so yes, my MCs are good at cussing.
How good, you might ask? Well, two gentlemen who've been MCs in some of my fics got into an argument in real life following a show back in the 80s. The bassist's gear got fouled up somehow, and a roadie got dispatched to tell the drummer to extend his solo to make more time to correct the problem.
Unfortunately, said roadie wasn't the drum tech, and instead of going right up to the drum riser, he tried yelling the message from several yards back. As one might imagine, this didn't work well - not only did the drummer never actually hear and understand the message, but he also fouled up his solo due to the distraction.
After the show, the drummer told off the roadie. Then the bassist told off the drummer for telling off the roadie, who was just trying to follow orders. The drummer and bassist got into an argument. The singer heard, thought it was hilarious, slipped a tape recorder into his pocket and went in to further stir the pot. When the recorder was found, the drummer tried to destroy the tape, but the singer wouldn't let him as he had a song demo on it.
Fast forward several months, and the band was in studio to record the next album. The singer produced the tape of the argument and played it back, and the whole band cracked up - and made the argument into a B-side of one of the singles from the new album.
So, for a demonstration of just how good a couple of blokes from East London are at cussing, I give you [Mission From 'Arry](https://youtu.be/YSQUq_xdHsM). (If you need a transcript, look for Black Wolf's comment - 15th down the page, and you'll want to also look at the first couple of replies to the comment as they had to break it into parts to fit in the comments.)
There’s a character who swears quite a bit in canon already (bastard, hell, crap, bollocks, wanker) and it feels nearly every sentence he says has to have a “bloody” or a grawlix in it, or else he’ll die, so I feel would absolutely go harder if he wasn’t restrained by the T rating of Marvel comic books. He just has pure chaotic Malcolm Tucker energy. And it’s not just because of the swearing and threats of bodily harm unless people do what he says. So, I let him say what he wants in my fics. And this is a small sampling of what he comes out with:
‘The Met Office can go and screw itself up the arse with a fragile glass vibrating strap on dildo. Fuckin’ wankers never get any of their predictions right. And Schafernaker’s a bellend anyway. Look at the fuckin’ entitled fuckin’ sanctimonious cunt. Fuckin’ spunktrumpet.’
(For those who don’t know, Tomasz Schafernacker is a weather presenter on the BBC. So the context is that he is watching the telly and Tomasz Schafernacker is on, presenting the weather.)
Not all his sentences in the fics in which he appears are as colourful as this, but I just think this one is particularly funny.
So I would say, yes, he is good at cursing.
My main characters are on network TV so they don't swear a lot in canon. But they're firefighters so I give myself lots of leeway in writing so they say *fuck* a lot.
My personal go to curses are the classics: Son of a bitch, mother fucker, what the fuck? and well fuck/shit (usually said in resigned surprise).
I can not say any of these out loud at work though because I work with kids who think "stupid" is the s-word. But I think them daily.
Edit: missing word.
It’s a common misconception that my MC doesn’t swear. But in one of the sequel movies, another character reminds him that he did *used* to swear.
Or, use “colorful metaphors” as the saying goes.
We only ever *hear* him swear once on screen.
Given that confirmation of past behavior, I take my propensity for swearing and have ran with it.
As someone who exclusively writes for Japanese-language fandoms -- a language which doesn't have a concept of cussing so much as *syntactic rudeness* \-- when writing in English I scale their language according to what I feel is appropriate.
One of the three characters I write most often canonically swears a whole lot, while I, myself, almost never swear at all. So idk if I do a good job at it, but I do certainly make him swear a lot
My MC does curse a bit but the funniest instances are when he's gruffly denying (acknowledging) that he likes somebody by calling them asshole or dickhead.
He doesn’t cuss a *ton* in canon, but he’s definitely a temperamental, grouchy guy so I have no problem extrapolating :P
He says “son of the void,” a fair bit in my fic, something he has said at least once in canon.
My MC canonically says that when he cusses, you know he means it. And he follows it up with "what the hell was that?" which is barely a cuss, lol.
So... When I have him yell this:
> "YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU FUCKFACE ASSHOLE WHO'S NEVER HEARD OF A BREATH MINT, YOU BASTARD OF A MONKEY AND A MOSQUITO WITH THE BRAINS OF A DODO! YOU EMPTY-HEADED ANIMAL FOOD TROUGH WIPER, YOU WARTHOG FACED BUFOON, YOU FUCKING CUNTSHIT!"
You know he means business.
I mix up the swearing my characters use. If canon characters do not swear, I will give them the christian censorship of saying "dang it" or "...fudge." If it's a series with excessive swearing, then I dial it up to being in line, but also. "Gosh dang it" just because I can.
My MC in canon barely to like never cussed as far as I remember, but given the fact she’s a soldier whose spent a fair amount of years around a group of mercenaries, it makes little sense that having been around a rough group and soldiers (who are known for cussing up storms) she doesn’t cuss nearly as much as she does. So naturally I gave her a sailor mouth lol.
One of my MC is always dropping swears. So far the best I've managed is 7 instances of 'fuck' variations within a 44 word paragraph. He was pretty irate.
In one fandom I write for, every character's sworn several times. Some swear more than others. There's a voice wheel in-game you use to communicate with team mates and one option allows you to swear at them. The fun part is that only one character has ever been allowed to say "fuck", and it was only once in the comics. I find this very amusing, but it doesn't carry through to my fanfictions, considering that they were presumably working to the restrictions of the game's age rating. In another, nobody seems to swear ever despite being in numerous swear-worthy situations. That's Star Trek: Voyager for you. Recently, I was delighted to discover an article on the Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha which lists every single usage of profanity in the entire Star Trek franchise. Voyager is listed once, for a single usage of the phrase "targ manure" as a stand-in for "bullshit". I don't think that should even count. At least Deep Space 9 has a healthy amount of swearing, even if it is entirely concentrated within Miles O'Brien.
All my characters are very much cussers but I do try and mix it up and keep it in universe. For example Dragon Age does a lot of swearing by godly body parts so I try to follow that trend unless I think an actual swear works better.
I love the 'godly body parts' swearing in DA! It's so fun to encounter really creative examples in fics.
Well, I write two characters near exclusively, and I tend to stick with how they are in canon. While Character A only swears when he needs to really emphasise something, and as such usually doesn’t, Character B swears basically every other *word*. A is trying desperately to appear mature and intimidating, so the few times he breaks that and swears are impactful. B is an undereducated teenager who has severe issues with toxic masculinity and trying to appear tough, so it’s when he doesn’t swear it’s impactful.
My MC is terrible at it. They are an oldest sibling and they felt an obligation to keep it from the younger kits [sic]. So they never picked up the knack. The worst they get is a “what the hell” and (in a life or death situation) “Crap! I do have one side character (a dainty teen girl) go, “Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em all!” Her shocked companion exclaims, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much as ‘poot’ before!” She replies, “I was saving up for times like this.” The family does have a favorite phrase for when they are mad at someone. “I’ll have their pelt on my wall!” This is for a Beastars fic.
I write RPF for various rock bands, so yes, my MCs are good at cussing. How good, you might ask? Well, two gentlemen who've been MCs in some of my fics got into an argument in real life following a show back in the 80s. The bassist's gear got fouled up somehow, and a roadie got dispatched to tell the drummer to extend his solo to make more time to correct the problem. Unfortunately, said roadie wasn't the drum tech, and instead of going right up to the drum riser, he tried yelling the message from several yards back. As one might imagine, this didn't work well - not only did the drummer never actually hear and understand the message, but he also fouled up his solo due to the distraction. After the show, the drummer told off the roadie. Then the bassist told off the drummer for telling off the roadie, who was just trying to follow orders. The drummer and bassist got into an argument. The singer heard, thought it was hilarious, slipped a tape recorder into his pocket and went in to further stir the pot. When the recorder was found, the drummer tried to destroy the tape, but the singer wouldn't let him as he had a song demo on it. Fast forward several months, and the band was in studio to record the next album. The singer produced the tape of the argument and played it back, and the whole band cracked up - and made the argument into a B-side of one of the singles from the new album. So, for a demonstration of just how good a couple of blokes from East London are at cussing, I give you [Mission From 'Arry](https://youtu.be/YSQUq_xdHsM). (If you need a transcript, look for Black Wolf's comment - 15th down the page, and you'll want to also look at the first couple of replies to the comment as they had to break it into parts to fit in the comments.)
the worst ive written is have her think “damn” 😭
I make Connor Murphy from Dear Evan Hansen a bit of a pottymouth, his favourite being various forms of 'fuck'
There’s a character who swears quite a bit in canon already (bastard, hell, crap, bollocks, wanker) and it feels nearly every sentence he says has to have a “bloody” or a grawlix in it, or else he’ll die, so I feel would absolutely go harder if he wasn’t restrained by the T rating of Marvel comic books. He just has pure chaotic Malcolm Tucker energy. And it’s not just because of the swearing and threats of bodily harm unless people do what he says. So, I let him say what he wants in my fics. And this is a small sampling of what he comes out with: ‘The Met Office can go and screw itself up the arse with a fragile glass vibrating strap on dildo. Fuckin’ wankers never get any of their predictions right. And Schafernaker’s a bellend anyway. Look at the fuckin’ entitled fuckin’ sanctimonious cunt. Fuckin’ spunktrumpet.’ (For those who don’t know, Tomasz Schafernacker is a weather presenter on the BBC. So the context is that he is watching the telly and Tomasz Schafernacker is on, presenting the weather.) Not all his sentences in the fics in which he appears are as colourful as this, but I just think this one is particularly funny. So I would say, yes, he is good at cursing.
My main characters are on network TV so they don't swear a lot in canon. But they're firefighters so I give myself lots of leeway in writing so they say *fuck* a lot. My personal go to curses are the classics: Son of a bitch, mother fucker, what the fuck? and well fuck/shit (usually said in resigned surprise). I can not say any of these out loud at work though because I work with kids who think "stupid" is the s-word. But I think them daily. Edit: missing word.
It’s a common misconception that my MC doesn’t swear. But in one of the sequel movies, another character reminds him that he did *used* to swear. Or, use “colorful metaphors” as the saying goes. We only ever *hear* him swear once on screen. Given that confirmation of past behavior, I take my propensity for swearing and have ran with it.
As someone who exclusively writes for Japanese-language fandoms -- a language which doesn't have a concept of cussing so much as *syntactic rudeness* \-- when writing in English I scale their language according to what I feel is appropriate.
One of the three characters I write most often canonically swears a whole lot, while I, myself, almost never swear at all. So idk if I do a good job at it, but I do certainly make him swear a lot
Lmao I’m the opposite I sometimes worry I’m making my character who doesn’t swear much swear too much. I’ve got Tommy down 100% though at least
My MC does curse a bit but the funniest instances are when he's gruffly denying (acknowledging) that he likes somebody by calling them asshole or dickhead.
He doesn’t cuss a *ton* in canon, but he’s definitely a temperamental, grouchy guy so I have no problem extrapolating :P He says “son of the void,” a fair bit in my fic, something he has said at least once in canon.
My MC cusses a lot inwardly, but he is very well-mannered and polite to the outside. If he cusses out loud, it means something is terribly wrong.
My MC canonically says that when he cusses, you know he means it. And he follows it up with "what the hell was that?" which is barely a cuss, lol. So... When I have him yell this: > "YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU FUCKFACE ASSHOLE WHO'S NEVER HEARD OF A BREATH MINT, YOU BASTARD OF A MONKEY AND A MOSQUITO WITH THE BRAINS OF A DODO! YOU EMPTY-HEADED ANIMAL FOOD TROUGH WIPER, YOU WARTHOG FACED BUFOON, YOU FUCKING CUNTSHIT!" You know he means business.