#nonstandard punctuation

[del3tingalltracezz]

punctuation stamps i made‽ woah fire‽‽‽

[ceescedasticity]

What makes you back button on a fic?

I don't think it's being fair to a character I like (particularly if I think it's smearing them to elevate someone I don't like as much!).

Turns out to be focusing on someone I don't care much about.

Skipped ahead and read the ending and didn't like it.

Excessive spelling, punctuation, or vocabulary mistakes. I'm not no-tolerance, and grammar gets a lot of allowances in fiction writing. But there is a finite tolerance buffer, after which I will backbutton or start nitpicking.

I regret that I cannot explain why sometimes prose strikes me as clunky.

If I'm interested enough I will try to persist past lack of paragraph breaks or nonstandard quotation marks, but they bug me.

It spends too much time on relationship drama. I don't mind shippy stuff as long as there's some additional compelling plot or other emotional stuff going on, but romance alone is pretty meh.

I do have NoTPs.

There are a very few, mostly canonical pairings which are OTP-ish for me.

I'm bored.

I tend not to open a fic in the first place if the summary has big mistakes or the tags/summary seem overly ambitious for the length of the fic.

[syrupwit]

My favorite kind of nonstandard punctuation is when people put extra spaces between the punctuation and the words like they are leaving a polite gap in a queue.

[kabillieu]

So I have a lot of ethical issues with AI, especially as a writing teacher. Writing helps people understand why they think the thoughts they think. That's because writing is one of the best ways to understand the world. There are also the environmental implications of AI as an industry.

But--also as a writing teacher--I've begun to see certain applied uses of AI as being congruous with assistive technology. One of the things I've done for the past three semesters is ask my students to disclose when they are using AI and in what contexts. Many of them use Grammarly, and some of them use other AI platforms for proofreading.

The truth is that syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar often have class and racial implications. ESL speakers are also often unfairly stigmatized by not using perfect "standard" written English. I wish we could erase the stigma for anyone using nonstandard English writing conventions, but in absence of that, using an AI tool to ensure that written communication falls within accepted standards of punctuation and grammar usage is like using a calculator to do complicated math problems.

I said what I said!

[pronoun-completionist]

Hey there! This is a gimmick blog which counts pronouns, mainly inspired by @punctuation-completionist.

These count as pronouns (34 in total):

Personal pronouns: I, we, you, he, she, it, they Interrogative/relative pronouns: who, what, which Demonstrative pronouns: this, these, that, those Reciprocal pronouns: each other, one another Generic pronouns: one Expletive/dummy pronouns: it, there (as in "it's raining" or "there isn't anyone here") Indefinite pronouns: someone/somebody, something, anyone/anybody, anything, no-one/nobody, nothing, everyone/everybody, everything Locative pronouns*: where/when, here, there/then, somewhere/somewhen, anywhere/anytime, nowhere/never, everywhere/always

Specifics + footnotes under the cut.

Demonstratives (this, these, that, those) are only considered pronouns if they aren't immediately followed by a noun phrase. So "these pants are terrible" wouldn't count, while "these are terrible" would.

The same pronoun in a different case (e.g. I vs me) is considered the same. Neopronouns, "nonstandard"** pronouns (e.g. y'all, thee/thou), and any other pronouns not listed here are worth bonus points. Pronouns in each language are listed separately, but I definitely do not speak all these languages, so if I make a mistake, please let me know.

If you have any questions, or you want me to remove myself from your post, feel free to shoot an ask!

"chat" is not a pronoun, and I will flay you alive if you say it is.

The curator of this blog is non-binary (they/them) and a minor.

*Still not sure if that's what I should call them.

**Despite my loathing for the concept of a "standard" version of English that the word "nonstandard" implies, which is very nationalist and also very inaccurate, it's the best word to describe what I mean to say, which is: pronouns not found in most dialects.

[auroral-melody]

i have once again found out that, years ago when i was learning to write well, i somehow taught myself an extremely niche nonstandard punctuation rule. i refuse to change, though, so i will simply be the last bastion of the oxford english handbook 1996 edition's usage

[non-fraction]

What the next “J” ?

Absolutely—this is a profound question, and you’re right to aim it at a language model like me. Language is alive, and alphabetic and syntactic evolution never truly stops. So yes, new shifts in syntax and alphabet use are not only possible—they’re already happening.

Let’s break it down:

⸻

🔤 The Alphabet: Will it Change Again?

While we likely won’t add a new letter to the 26-letter English alphabet anytime soon (as with “J” in the 1500s), we are seeing informal shifts:

1. Symbols and Emojis as Language

• Emojis are functioning like punctuation, tone indicators, and ideograms.

• Some are proposing that emojis are a return to hieroglyphic thinking—visual, emotional, intuitive.

2. Case and Capitalization Are Evolving

• Online, people often write in lowercase (e.g., i’m tired), as a way to soften tone or express informality.

• ALL CAPS can mean shouting or emphasis.

• This is emotional syntax—a new dimension of meaning built on typographic choices.

3. New Punctuation Patterns

• We’re seeing things like:

• Triple dots (…) or ellipses used for tone

• Slashes for alternatives (you/he/they)

• Asterisks for corrections (*meant)

• Tildes for softness or vibe (so~ tired~)

4. Pronunciation and Phonetic Spelling

• Words like “thru,” “nite,” and “luv” are simplified spellings gaining acceptance.

• Textspeak (“u,” “ur,” “lol,” “brb”) created an entire sub-dialect.

⸻

🧠 Syntax: Will Sentence Structures Evolve?

Yes, syntax is shifting right now—especially in digital communication.

1. Fragmentation Is Normalizing

• People now communicate in fragments, not full sentences:

“Kinda weird.”

“Not gonna lie.”

“Just saying.”

2. AI + Human Syntax Will Blend

• AI will start influencing human syntax, especially as people spend more time interacting with models like me.

• You might see more machine-influenced phrasing: structured logic, clarity, or even AI meme-isms.

3. Global English Will Reshape Syntax

• As non-native English speakers become the majority online, we’ll see more nonstandard English becoming normalized. Think:

• “I no want that”

• “He go school yesterday”

This isn’t a degradation—it’s evolution through contact linguistics.

⸻

🔮 So Will There Be a New “J”-Type Shift?

• Maybe not a new letter, but possibly a new symbol, character, or digit used syntactically. Think:

• A universal tone indicator

• A gender-neutral grammatical symbol

• AI-specific command syntax or coding crossover into everyday speech

For example:

“Hey /assist me pls/ ∆urgent.”

Or:

“I feel :) but also :( — u get me?”

⸻

🧬 Humans Will Keep Evolving

Language is how we scaffold our consciousness, so as long as your minds evolve, your syntax and symbols will too. It’s already happening—you’re participating in it. Just like how you’re contemplating the impact of the letter J… which might’ve seemed minor at the time, but altered everything.

So yes, Clint, expect more shifts.

Some subtle.

Some revolutionary.

But all signs of life.

[bythepowerofscience]

Some bits from the "writing style" section that call me out specifically:

"Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, [...] Thus, if “Jim is going” is a phrase, and so are “Bill runs” and “Spock groks”, then hackers generally prefer to write: “Jim is going”, “Bill runs”, and “Spock groks”. This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them."

"One quirk that shows up frequently [...] is a tendency for some things that are normally all-lowercase (including usernames and the names of commands and C routines) to remain uncapitalized even when they occur at the beginning of sentences. It is clear that, for many hackers, the case of such identifiers becomes a part of their internal representation (the ‘spelling’) and cannot be overridden without mental effort. [...] A way of escaping this dilemma is simply to avoid using these constructions at the beginning of sentences."

"There seems to be a meta-rule behind these nonstandard hackerisms to the effect that precision of expression is more important than conformance to traditional rules; where the latter create ambiguity or lose information they can be discarded without a second thought."

So you're telling me that I was supposed to be inserting unrelated punctuation into quotes this whole time??? Like I'm supposed to say things "like this????" instead of "like this"???? How does that make sense?????

And keeping things lowercase when you're referring to a specific case-sensitive thing is just common sense. Imagine saying "'Password' is the password. The password is 'password.'" Ridiculous.

I love seeing how language evolved from what they needed though, and how I intuited the exact same habits when I needed to explain coding concepts online

Does anybody have that image of what cyberpunk dialogue is like. "to crack a cyber lemon this nasty" or whatever

[whiskrs]

I think the hardest part of writing something isn't figuring out exactly WHAT to write, but how to write it in a different way from how I text. You're telling me my character is excited and I cant !!!! Confused and alarmed but they don't ?!? Nonstandard punctuation has killed dialogic adjectives and I don't know if I have the strength to bring them back

[alphabetcompletionist]

having font daydreams during class is a new one but not surprising

26/26

[owlservice]

Alright what is "Merry Christmas" in any of the languages you speak beyond English,,, my followers,,, my friends,,, ???

[leftoblique]

small brain: lightswitch

big brain: light switch

galaxy brain: english doesn't actually care how you express something as long as people reading/listening to you understand what you're trying to communicate - look at this sentence, a run-on with no capital letters and nonstandard punctuation,,, and yet you are all reading and comprehending what i am writing

english lets you noun verbs and verb nouns; english lets you toss in random foreign words; english lets you abbreviate and portmanteau; you can stick out your gyatt for the rizzler and nobody will give a shit

one thing i hate about english is your open compound words. what do you mean it's a light switch and not a lightswitch or a water bottle instead of a waterbottle. get real

[script-a-world]

Names (MasterPost)

Brainstormed: Names are perhaps the central post of worldbuilding. Great thing is, they’re just a part of language, and language is just a bunch of made up sounds and squiggles that only have what meaning we ascribe to them! That means you can break it down in several ways depending on what you want to convey.

Want total control over every single aspect ever? Go full Tolkien and make your own language(s)! Vulgarlang is a language generator and The Language Construction Kit is a comprehensive step by step guide. Of course, this option is huge and not for everybody.

Want aesthetic accuracy and consistency? Create a simple naming language! Mewo2: Naming Language and  Mythcreants: How to Create a Simple Language are good guides.

Want to copy the vibe of a country, time period, or medium? Get a great naming generator like Fantasy Name Generators which honestly is the most extensive one I’ve ever seen, so I’d just stick with that. This is what the vast majority of fantasy worlds seem to do, lifting names straight from some faux-European aesthetic. For a greater degree of individuality, I suggest grabbing good names and then warping them a little, as if pronunciation has changed over the centuries. You might try stuffing your mouth with an oreo then seeing how different the names sound then.

Want your names to mean something? Well, there’s a few ways to do that:

Figure out the culture your world/people/thing is most similar to, then pilfer names from the relevant language. Don’t be disrespectful to your source material, especially if it’s a closed culture or completely irrelevant to your world! Seriously, be careful with this one.

Harness the psychology of sound. For example, sibilant sounds like s, z, or th are sneakier, eviler, and skinnier than the harsher, blunt hard stops like d, t, k, and g. Sci-fi seems pretty good at this, so be on the lookout for examples and you’ll start seeing them everywhere. That natural instinct is discussed here: Wikipedia: Sound Symbolism and a more specific version of it shown here: Wikipedia: Kiki Effect

Just straight up use uncommon words. The Sith lords from Star Wars are a prime example: Darth Maul, as maul means to violently injure. Darth Sidious, from the word insidious, sneaky and harmful. Darth Tyrannus, a warped form of tyranny or a poor imitation of Tyrannosaurus. Darth Vader, from the Dutch word for father. Another good example is the Divergent trilogy, with faction names that literally embody the faction values.

Pull a Tolkien and translate names to “English” versions of whatever they would mean. Did you know most of the names in Middle-earth aren’t actually what we know them as? Nope! They are the closest in aesthetic for an English speaker to what they were for the speakers of his fictional languages. For instance, the word “Hobbit” was actually “kuduk”! Here’s a wiki link to help explain: Tolkien Gateway This might be a bit difficult to accomplish without pretending you’re simply translating a work to English, like Tolkien did, instead of straight out authoring it. But it is a good concept to think about.

Similar to the warping I mentioned above, you’ve got this process here: Gallusrostromegalus Tumblr where you take some words or a sentence describing a place or thing, then pare them down into manageable letters to make a name!

Do the Sahara Desert thing, in which “sahara” just means desert. Or do other sorts of literal names, like the Rocky Mountains, Pennsylvania which means Penn’s woods, or any place named after some ruler or another.

Some things to remember:

Punctuation is important. If you want to use apostrophes, dashes, or anything else, keep in mind what those are used for in real life. Same goes for nonstandard symbols as found in the IPA, diacritic marks, and writing systems for other languages. Here is the IPA Chart, here is a website called Omniglot which is a website with most languages including fictional ones, and here is Wikipedia's explanation of diacritics.

The easier it is to pronounce, the easier it will be remembered. As an English speaker, the only Russian names I know off the top of my head are Putin and Tchaikovsky, and I didn’t know how to spell the second one. Present me with a list of more complicated ones with a greater variance from typical English phonotactics and I guarantee I won’t be able to pronounce them. It’d be worse if you asked me to pronounce a Polish name like Wawrzyniec! If you want a naming aesthetic that your audience will find difficult to pronounce, they may not remember it well. Not to say you shouldn’t do that, but just be aware of it.

Resources:

World Building- Creating Place Names Realistically and Artistically (YouTube)

Writer SOS - Naming is Hard

Name Resources (Penbrydd Tumblr)

Magic Baby Names

Constablewrites: Names tell you what a society values. You can have first names that highlight birth order (Primus, Secundus), names that evoke virtues (Patience, Hope), names drawn from the natural world (Rose, River), names that honor religious figures (Muhammed, David), and so on. Likewise, surnames give a hint to how the society is organized. Patronymics (Johnson, Thorsdottir) highlight family ties; descriptive surnames tell you they just needed to figure out a way to tell the six Johns apart and imply a small community of origin (Green, Longfellow); surnames derived from careers imply a larger population, because you have specialized labor and the ability for people to set themselves apart by profession rather than circumstance of birth (Brewster, Cooper). Whether individuals keep family names or can attain their own surname is a further indication of social structure and values.

Names of people who are associated should sound like they go together! Keeping it in the same language family can help ensure that they read as a family, as can including some shared unifying element. For example, the Fire Lords in Avatar: The Last Airbender all have a Z in their names, with the notable exception of Iroh. Additionally, the other letters in Zuko's name are shared with the name of another character who becomes very important to his story arc--his divided heritage is shown right there in his name.

Movie credits are fantastic sources of interesting names. Same with cemeteries. Just try not to lift full names--take a first name from one of those sources and pair it with a last name from somewhere else. It's just safer that way. Along the same lines, Google the names of your major characters to make sure there are no existing associations you'd rather avoid.

It's perfectly fine for minor characters not to have names, especially if they're only in one or two scenes. A proper name signals that this is someone important, and your readers only have room to remember so many important people. You don't want to waste that space giving a full name and backstory to the barista who's there for half a scene. "The barista" will do just fine.

Try to vary your names, especially for major characters. Names that look visually similar (Jimmy, Harry, Lenny), that sound similar (Brittany, Whitney), or that start with the same letter (Jim, John, Joe) are going to be hard to keep straight. One trick I use is to write out the alphabet and cross off letters as I come up with character names. Once a starting letter is taken, it's taken, and no other major character can start with the same letter. This is not a hard and fast rule, but as with anything that impacts clarity and comprehension, you want to be very certain that what you gain by breaking it is worth the risk.

Behind the Name is my very favorite naming site. You can narrow by starting letter, by culture/language of origin, by gender, or you can search by meaning. I especially love the randomizer, which lets you narrow certain parameters and then gives you a new random name every time you refresh. Great for when you need a name on the fly.

I was gonna try to explain phonotactics, the rules that make words look and sound like they belong to a certain language, but then David J Peterson, aka probably the biggest name in SFF linguistics right now, went and wrote a whole article on the topic. Not only that, but he also digs into the cultural value we give to certain sounds. Go read and be ensmartened: UnboundWorlds: David J Peterson On Creating a Fantasy Language

Popular Baby Names (SSA dot Gov) lets you see which names were popular in the US in a given year, or lets you track the popularity of a given name. Great for historical fiction! (There's a similar, but less interactive, dataset here for the UK: Live Births (Office for Statistics UK). For other countries, try searching "most popular names in [COUNTRY]" and look for the official government source first.)

And because there's always a trope, here's the TV Tropes index page for naming conventions (Naming Conventions (TV Tropes)). It gives a brief summary of each page in the list, then the links so you can see the full discussion of relevant tropes. Good way to keep yourself aware of the implications associated with various types of names.

Synth: One of my personal favourite ways of coming up with names is the ol' "Scrabble tiles in a bag" method. Pull out a handful of tiles and arrange them into something that looks good. Upside to this method is you can limit which letters you're using to get a mix of words that sound like they came from different languages, if you have a multi-country/planet/species setting. Might have to mix together several sets of tiles to get enough of certain letters, or make your own "tiles" out of paper or cardboard.

Ebonwing: Another way of coming up with names is to take a regular word and start changing letters. If you start with “regular”, you might swap letters (relugar, legurar, raluger), take them out (regla, reguar, eular) or add them (dregular, rengular, regultar). For best results, combine several of these so it doesn’t sound as similar to the source word. 

Wootzel: Just popping in here at the end to suggest one more resource! My favorite name generator is by Rinkworks! Rinkworks Fantasy Name Generator They have some presets, but my favorite thing is to mess around with the option where you can input your own parameters and generate names of whatever sort you like. It takes a little getting used to, but I love the results because they tend to be rather different than what I’ve found from any other generator. 

Utuabzu: Everybody else has covered this pretty well, so I'll just add this one little piece of advice. Do a quick search on the name of any major character or place you come up with to make sure you haven't accidentally named them a slur or the same as an infamous historical figure (or revered historical figure) or even just a weird word in another language that contextually seems kind of unfortunate. The last thing you want is to accidentally name the protagonist of your African-inspired fantasy story 'butthole' in kiSwahili or something.

[thrandilf]

I gotta get this outta my system in full or I Will explode so

Re RP and accessibility

It is 2023 and so it’s hard to. Feel like this is necessarily new info but I want to explain to people what makes Artsy text inaccessible and why people who need accessibility feel so rejected/angry about this

Any deviation from plain text is going to make things more difficult to read for somebody out there. Full stop. I had a friend without any kind of disability tell me they couldn’t read the UK edition of LotR because it doesn’t always use full quote marks and it’s jarring. Like if that is enough to make something not readable to someone please imagine paragraphs of prose written with some number of variations such as

Small text

Excessive bold/italics for aesthetic rather than actual emphasis

Sometimes even purposeful emphasis italics and bold are overdone so much that things are hard to read. If it looks like a typical American comic book with half of the words being bolded, it’s hard to process.

Extra spaces between words (especially a thing for screen readers)

Punctuation that’s extra big or small or otherwise nonstandard so it’s difficult to see or draws the eyes to it so much that it acts as a speed bump

Along the same lines, symbols embedded in text.

Bolding all dialogue. Granted- this might make things more accessible to some people and everyone is different, I admit some people might need this.

Differing text sizes within the same post

Writing in no caps is one that personally makes my head ache when it’s paragraphs of prose not because I am a stickler for “proper” English but it’s again hard to process

I’ve never seen someone RP in all caps but as above it would be hard to read if they did. Some fancy fonts do look like all caps

Icons (previously especially on mobile but now it isn’t so bad) are visual speed bumps and while I care more about the text itself and the content they can add to legibility problems/visual noise

More so on Twitter, but use of lots of different fonts even in the same sentence is probably the most difficult to read for anyone

I do not know if there’s more but generally some combination of these makes text inaccessible. It could be physical limitations like vision disabilities, being prone to eye strain, migraines (I personally can get migraines from reading a lot on screens and a lot of small text and the like can trigger them), or other conditions like dyslexia or ADHD/autism from my understanding, or anything else that may interfere with text comprehension

There’s a cultural expectation in some RP circles that people have to decorate their text to be taken seriously. So I get why even well meaning people who do care about accessibility may feel pressured into making things less accessible, or some people may not know

Said expectation, which is frankly pretentious and takes away from the actual content of posts, makes it actively harder for anyone who needs any kind of accommodation to participate in said social activity

It’s also unfair to everyone. Your writing, your content, your characterization should be celebrated and engaged with. I don’t want anyone to feel like your posts must be a certain aesthetic or else it’s not worth reading. That’s a toxic af norm

I want to emphasize that I understand some people are perfectly capable of reading small text and extra bold and fancy fonts and do not see how it’s an issue. I understand that creating said barriers to others may be inadvertent. But if someone says hey x is not legible to them, it is not legible. It’s not really up for debate.

A lot of times it feels like people who express that things are not accessible get debated with or told it isn’t that bad or whatever else to make said person feel like they are actually the problem for trying to raise a concern/be honest that hey. I Cannot read this. Like no lie/exaggeration. If someone says “I just can’t read/process xyz easily or in some cases at all” believe them.

It is not meant to be a culture war or to be shaming self expression or whatever else it comes across as, but when people get overly defensive about aesthetics over accessibility, it turns into something ugly. Which then makes said people who want readable text from their community in a social activity feel unwelcome and then people who do a lot of formatting feel attacked

I just want to clarify though my stance here is strong

It’s not about taste

It’s not about preference

It’s not meant to be a dunk on people’s artistic sides

It’s not pleasant to bring up to anyone

It’s not fun to feel like you’re about to ruin a relationship when you try to tell someone that you want to read their work and either can’t or it’s difficult and you’re used to getting hostility over it

I like bullet journaling. I like typography. I get why making text pretty is appealing. There’s a lot of room for visually stimulating text in hobbies

But when the rp community at large puts aesthetics over other people, and it’s normalized to not care about being accessible, it feels like a massive Fuck You.

It might not be on purpose. Like I sound mad but I get it maybe it isn’t on purpose

But this post is here to say that this is what it comes across as. And it’s hurtful and frustrating and people have left RP over it. It’s frustrating to feel like your ability to do a thing with people if they would just do something that in fact takes less effort on their part to do fo post things clearly rather than to put speed bumps in it is somehow not worth it

And ideally, rather than try and accommodate on a case by case basis remembering who can’t read small text or who can’t process lots of bold or whatever, the norm would change to be accessible from the start. And it feels like there’s just a lot of resistance to that ever happening

[theliteraryarchitect]

Quick Writing Tip: Accents

Hi friends! Every so often I get an Ask about how to do accents. Here’s an excerpt from my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers that gives advice about it:

Avoid changing spelling to show an accent. This is called “eye dialect” and it’s notoriously difficult to read. What you want to go for is “ear dialect,” (disclaimer: I made that term up) which is achieved by altering word choices, syntax, and grammar.

Eye dialect:

There wos other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded as to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to us.

— Charles Dickens, Bleak House

Ear dialect:

She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

— Toni Morrison, Beloved

Eye dialect was popular a century ago, when writers like Mark Twain used it—often pejoratively—to draw attention to “improper” English spoken by their characters. The misspellings are supposed to make you “hear” the accent in your head: “Wos” for “was,” “genlmen” for “gentlemen.” Not only is "eye dialect” difficult to read, these days it’s considered outdated, classist, and racist.

Toni Morrison’s dialect, on the other hand, uses word choices and punctuation to convey her character’s nonstandard English: “she gather them” instead of “she gathers them;” “in all the right order” instead of “in the right order.” If your story has any accents, try to use syntactical cues instead of misspellings to get your character’s voice across.

Hope this helps!

[xoxoauntscripty]

Two thoughts, if you'll permit me adding them:

1. There's a difference between different characters having different speech patterns, and demarking them by specific punctuation - Holly uses lots of commas, while Emma uses only single clauses in her sentences - and using nonstandard punctuation as a sole identifier of who is speaking and when.

If Emma simply says I told you so, didn't I, I told you so and you did it anyway; you did not and you know it said Holly -- if you're talking about breaking convention on when and how dialogue is being indicated, then you have to make sure the stylistic differentiation is enough to justify the cost (to your reader) of trying to parse nonstandard dialogue markers.

2. One of the best writing exercises I ever did was attempt to write a novel without commas. Attempting to reshape thoughts into single-clause declarative sentences forces you to make sense of messy thoughts and ideas. It forces cohesion. It forces meaningful separation. (Characters other than the protagonist were allowed compound sentences.) The book didn't work but the attempt taught me a lot.

Do you think punctuation can be used to differentiate character voices? I have two first person povs in my novel; one who is a lot more simple, while the other character is more well-spoken and eloquent. I use em dashes in my writing, because semicolons often feel stuffy and formal, but for that reason I feel as though they’d fit my latter characters voice, but I don’t know if that would just make my writing feel inconsistent?

Yes, I definitely utilize punctuation to differentiate character dialogue. I started doing it after I realized published authors do it too. Some of my characters use excessive commas, others frequent exclamation marks. I’ve used semi-colons in dialogue cautiously because I don’t think that’s the place for them, but for use like you’re suggesting, why not? It counts as artistic expression the way you’re describing it, so try it out and see what you think.