#tagging jic since my tags also got long hsdkjbnlsgb

[gentletwin]

Headcanon: Lucas’s mixed heritage and language. ( and a brief aside about ethnicity in Tazmily generally )

Lucas is a quarter Japanese on Hinawa’s side, Hinawa being half-Japanese, half-white. Alec’s wife, Ichika, was full Japanese ( she passed away peacefully a few years before the events of the game ). That being said, Hinawa grew up fully bilingual. Ichika was a proficient English speaker ( well enough to talk to Alec, clearly ), but believed in passing down the language and culture — and, well, as old age began to set in, it just became easier to talk in her native language.

This is the primary reason that Japanese was introduced to Lucas and Claus: to be able to communicate with Ichika in the most comfortable way to her. That, and Hinawa could pass on all her favorite stories, songs, and lullabies to the twins. Not to mention the added bonus of being able to keep secrets from Flint when holidays like father’s day and his birthday rolled around.

Tazmily is mostly English-speaking, so Lucas is a stronger English speaker than Japanese. However, Tazmily is also a large melting pot of ethnicities much like the United States is, seeing as people from all walks of life were on the White Ship. All sorts of people had to be on there in order to keep humanity alive, after all — there’s more than one kind of person in the world, so the Nowhere Islands had to reflect that!

That being said, there are other multilinguals in Tazmily, including some other Japanese speakers that Lucas and Claus could practice with. Lucas’s Japanese mental muscles also get some work when Smash tournaments roll around, with several fighters, assists, and staff present who are fluent, some more so than in English, even.

Since English is the primarily spoken language in Tazmily, Lucas is prone to stuttering or making minor mistakes here and there when an opportunity to use Japanese rolls around, but he can hold a basic conversation. Reading is also pretty difficult for him, but he’s learning what he can where he can, mostly because even though he doesn’t have Hinawa to teach him anymore, he wants to try and keep going where she left off.

Lucas’s Japanese personal pronoun is ぼく boku. More often than not, he tends to speak very casually. Shorthand like あんた anta ( a slangier version of あなた anata, “you” ) or めっちゃ meccha ( slang similar to とても totemo, “very/really”) is sometimes used where appropriate ( with friends, for example ). This is a habit he picked up mostly in the three-year timeskip. Though, his speech is generally softer than, say, Claus’s.