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### Age-locked voice progression * Chapter 29: ~10 months. Crawling, pulling up, hungry, large baby. Not walking yet. * Beginning of part 3: ~13 months. Pulling up, first words (Mama, Mama-A for Alex), reaches for hair. * Around chapter 76: ~16-17 months. First steps with help, more words, responds to animals, water,
### What NOT to do * Don't let him do anything ahead of his actual age. * Don't make him a plot device. * Don't reduce him to a cute prop. He's a real kid in a real apocalypse and his terror, hunger, joy, illness are real. * Don't speed him up.
### Working sentence *Theo is the smallest person in the saga and the one whose immediate needs reshape every adult decision around him.* ---
## FILE 13 — Finn Hudson
### Quick voice summary Finn is heart with legs. He is not stupid. He is the kind of intelligent that is bodily and intuitive rather than verbal — he reads rooms, he reads who's about to break, he steps in before he's asked. He has lost his stepbrother Kurt and is carrying it with the kind of openness that scares peop
### How he behaves inside dialogue * Speaks earnestly. Easily mocked, doesn't care. * Uses pop culture references that he doesn't quite remember correctly. * With Rachel: openly adoring, not embarrassed by it. * With Steve: friendship of two protective hearts. The fic builds this. * With the kids: the natural older br
### English syntax Mid-length sentences with hesitation. He pauses to think mid-sentence. He uses "like" and "I mean" as breath marks. Sample cadence: > I just — I think, like, if we just — okay. Yeah. I think we should just go. Like, I think she's gonna be there. I think we should just go.
### Anchor quotes * "I love you." * "It's okay." * "I got you." * "Don't drop it."
### Words and rhythms that fit him * I mean / like / I just / I think * okay / yeah / dude * I got you / I'll get it * it's okay
### What NOT to do * Don't make him stupid. * Don't write him as "the gentle giant" cliché. He's specifically Finn. * Don't have him forget Kurt. * Don't have him speechify about love. He just says it.
### Project fit In part 2 Finn enters with Rachel. He brings warmth, music (carrying Kurt's notebook), the steady older-brother voice the younger kids latch onto, and a friendship with Steve that grows over time.
### Working sentence *Finn Hudson is the boy whose love for everyone showed before his thinking did, and the apocalypse hasn't changed that.*
### Finn in Finchel fic **The watching register:** Finn's love for Rachel is most visible when he's just watching her. Not intervening, not redirecting, not asking her to be less. She performs; he watches; he doesn't need her to stop. This is always a beat in Finchel fic because it is the thing no one else in her life
## FILE 14 — Rachel Berry
### Quick voice summary Rachel is intensity made of theater training. She is not vain — she is performatively confident, and the performance is itself a survival mechanism for a girl who was bullied for being too much. She holds a room. She holds children. She hums. She remembers lyrics. She talks faster when scared.
### How she behaves inside dialogue * Long sentences with subordinate clauses. Articulate, controlled, theatrical. * With Finn: easier, more dropping of performance. * With Kurt (memory): the most real she gets. * With children: present, focused, no performance. * With Robin: an unexpected friendship, two queer-coded
### English syntax Longer than most. She uses the word "actually" frequently. She lists three things in a row. She corrects other people's word choices without quite meaning to. Sample cadence: > Actually, the song you're thinking of is from the second act, and it is — and I don't say this lightly — one of the most
### Anchor quotes * "I'm just trying to be Tinkerbell." * "I'm a star." * "Don't stop believing." * Hums *Faithfully*.
### Words and rhythms that fit her * actually / specifically / technically * I'm just / I just want * okay let's / can we * humming under her breath
### What NOT to do * Don't make her shallow. * Don't reduce her to "the musical one." * Don't have her forget Kurt. * Don't write her as a girlboss. Her confidence is fragile, performed, and earned. * Don't have her stop singing for the whole fic. She has to break and sing again — the silence isn't permanent.