![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Scourge Sisters rewrite for voice practice
I thought I would practice Scourge Sisters voices for the HSO by rewriting some pesterlogs as direct dialogue.
It turns out Terezi and Vriska's voices are actually much easier to translate to the real world than I'd thought they would be! Writing Kanaya and Rose was really challenging, partly because Kanaya's voice looks so wrong with commas in it, even if you're as sparing with them as you can be, but mostly because both she and Rose are so careful and wordy that when you add in all the extra bits around dialogue, the speech tags and real world fidgets and above all the internal POV, it slows the pacing down almost unworkably. Roxy was unexpectedly really hard too, partly because so much of her voice depends on typoes but mostly because she breaks her sentences up in really appealing and effective ways that you can't mimic in spoken dialogue.
I thought Terezi would be just as hard, because she doesn't punctuate. Only it turns out that she does use exclamation marks when she wants them, and she breaks up her lines really neatly into clauses, these short sharp sentences, so unlike with Kanaya, there's usually no need to add commas that aren't there in the pesterlog. And there's so much energy in her dynamic with Vriska that slowing it down a little doesn't hurt it at all.
Anyway, here is Terezi and Vriska's immediately-pre-SGRUB conversation rewritten for real life, if that's a thing anybody else would find interesting ♥
Terezi was tapping away at her husktop and cackling when Vriska flopped down beside her. Probably needling Karkat. Man, that guy had such a bug up his nook about ... everything, actually! No wonder Terezi liked talking to him so much, she was so predictable.
She predictably failed to jump when Vriska threw an arm up on the back of the bench behind her and crossed an ankle over her knee, the toe of her sneaker knocking against Terezi's husktop.
"It looks like tonight we will have to break our truce," Vriska announced. "Or at least suspend it. Hope you don't mind!"
Terezi gave her a blind side-eye, her nose and forehead both crinkling. "How do you figure that?"
"Because tonight we will play a game together. For the first time in I don't even know. Forever!"
Terezi irritably shrugged away Vriska's hand, which had slipped like the tiniest amount to touch her shoulder (some people were so sensitive, gog). "The truce wasn't about not playing games together, dummy," Terezi said. "It was about not stabbing each other in the back anymore. And stopping the endless cycle of revenge." She lifted her chin. "And above all not using your powers to hurt people who don't deserve it!" She frowned and went back to hacking away at her keys.
Vriska dropped her arm into her lap. "Man, you like to give me such a hard time about all that. I can't catch a break!"
She wondered if she could get away with just closing Terezi's husktop to make her pay proper attention. Probably she would just freak out, though. She got so fucking hung up on things. Case in point: "Can't you see I'm trying to put all that behind me and make amends with everybody?" Vriska rolled her eyes and lifted her hands. "No, of course you can't see that. What am I saying!"
Terezi finally turned to face her properly, her nose crinkling again. "It's hard to believe you with all the lying you've done," she said coolly. For a second she actually leaned towards Vriska, sniffing at her, and it made a wave of something push sickly through Vriska, something that was just missing her. "Your blueberry bubblegum breath still smells pretty good, but your deceit stinks!" Terezi announced. She leaned back again and returned to her husktop.
God, she sucked. Everything sucked. No, wait, Vriska had actually come over here to tell her about the totally awesome generous thing she was doing, how could she forget that? "I'll prove it to you," she said, straightening again. "I'm giving Aradia a present that will make her feel all better finally. Then I'll be in the clear." She gave Terezi a blinding smile. "Phew! Totally redeemed." She threw an arm around Terezi's shoulders again. "You'll see." She waved her free hand. "I mean smell."
Terezi's shoulders went spiky and small. "I don't know why you're bothering trying to help her," she said. She stabbed at her keys again. "She won't care. Whatever it was you did to her, I think you broke her brain." Terezi lifted her hands to push her hair back behind her ears. "It's so terrible," she added, her voice a weird mix of meditative and actually upset.
God, why were people always upset at Vriska. Her whole life was just this shitty parade of people lining up to be upset at her! Terezi was supposed to be the one person who found her shit funny. Everything was back to sucking.
"Man, why can't you cut me some slack for once?" she demanded. "It's not like I even did anything that bad to you. I lost seven eyes but you only lost two!" She was getting upset herself now, realising how right she was. "I would say you came out ahead in the bargain."
"I know," Terezi said. Vriska went still. "And actually," Terezi continued, because she was a big jerk, "I never really got the chance to thank you." She grinned, big and bright and sharp.
"Ugh! Your sarcasm really stings when here I am just trying to be nice." Vriska slumped. "Ok, I guess I deserve it," she allowed. She shot Terezi a cautiously hopeful look.
"I'm serious though." Terezi sounded meditative again, and she was back to tapping at her keys, barely paying attention to Vriska. "But I don't expect you to get that."
Aaaaaaaah, she was impossible. Vriska made an inarticulate noise and jerked her arm away again. "Fine, be that way. But you shouldn't sit there and pretend we're so different." She jabbed a finger at Terezi. "Remember Team Scourge?" Vriska recrossed her legs, throwing her foot across her other knee. "How convenient all that must be to have forgotten! You were so nasty."
Terezi ignored her. Vriska was on a role. "Oh man, if you crossed Terezi Pyrope you were fucked!"
Terezi finally jerked her head up. "Yeah, if you were a bad guy," she said. She folded her arms over the top of her husktop screen, leaning forward over it. "We were supposed to be like a vigilante duo dispensing justice," she said, all the upset back in her voice. "And you could take the bad guys home and feed them to your stupid spider." Her voice went thick and jagged on spider and Vriska hated her black as pitch for one clean breath. "But instead you just fed her everybody!" Terezi said. "And lied and lied and lied." Her breath was making fast little whistling sounds around her teeth.
Vriska leaned back, slowly, letting her own breath out. God, she missed ... everything. "Yeah, those were the days," she said wistfully.
Terezi hissed, and Vriska blinked. "I mean, days full of mistakes and regret!" She gave Terezi a sidelong look. "But it was still a lot of fun," she said wheedlingly. "Watching you dismantle huge teams of Flarpers with nothing but politics and head games. Without even using any special powers!" Vriska shook her head, telegraphing impressed as hard as she could. "Wow."
Terezi made a low, dismissive sound.
Vriska groaned, leaning in toward her again. "Come on," she said, stretching out the word. "What do I have to do here?"
Terezi shrugged. She wasn't looking at Vriska. "I dunno."
Vriska hated her again. Not in the clean bright way now, just the miserable dragging way. "Well, if you want to know what I think, you should start changing your tune," she said carelessly. "'Cause even though you've got all these highfalutin' morals and fancy reservations, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer!"
Terezi ignored her. Vriska didn't care. "There ain't no changing your ways for good," she said, everything about her debonair, "and one day you're going to flail that silly little cane of yours and find nothin' to bump into, and fall face first into the shit again." Vriska pressed her hands against her knees, ignoring the way they were trembling a little. "And you're going to do something terrible to somebody and wish you could take it back but you can't!"
Terezi made a little snorting noise. Vriska narrowed her eyes. "And then you'll work hard to win back their trust, and you'll try and try and try, and you'll see how hard it is!" She wished Terezi would. She didn't even care if it was Vriska she did something terrible to. "You'll see," Vriska insisted.
Terezi made that stupid quizzical shape with her mouth. "I doubt it."
"You'll see," Vriska repeated quietly. She leaned in close to Terezi's ear, making her voice low and whispery like an ominous echo. "You'll seeeeee. You'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." Terezi pulled her head away, looking irritated, and Vriska followed her, leaning even closer so her breath tickled Terezi's ear and maybe her mouth accidentally went over her earlobe at one point. "You'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."
"Oh, will you can it, Serket!"
Vriska broke into loud snorting laughter and peeled herself up off the bench. She was still laughing as she walked away, Terezi's stormcloud regard following her.
It turns out Terezi and Vriska's voices are actually much easier to translate to the real world than I'd thought they would be! Writing Kanaya and Rose was really challenging, partly because Kanaya's voice looks so wrong with commas in it, even if you're as sparing with them as you can be, but mostly because both she and Rose are so careful and wordy that when you add in all the extra bits around dialogue, the speech tags and real world fidgets and above all the internal POV, it slows the pacing down almost unworkably. Roxy was unexpectedly really hard too, partly because so much of her voice depends on typoes but mostly because she breaks her sentences up in really appealing and effective ways that you can't mimic in spoken dialogue.
I thought Terezi would be just as hard, because she doesn't punctuate. Only it turns out that she does use exclamation marks when she wants them, and she breaks up her lines really neatly into clauses, these short sharp sentences, so unlike with Kanaya, there's usually no need to add commas that aren't there in the pesterlog. And there's so much energy in her dynamic with Vriska that slowing it down a little doesn't hurt it at all.
Anyway, here is Terezi and Vriska's immediately-pre-SGRUB conversation rewritten for real life, if that's a thing anybody else would find interesting ♥
Terezi was tapping away at her husktop and cackling when Vriska flopped down beside her. Probably needling Karkat. Man, that guy had such a bug up his nook about ... everything, actually! No wonder Terezi liked talking to him so much, she was so predictable.
She predictably failed to jump when Vriska threw an arm up on the back of the bench behind her and crossed an ankle over her knee, the toe of her sneaker knocking against Terezi's husktop.
"It looks like tonight we will have to break our truce," Vriska announced. "Or at least suspend it. Hope you don't mind!"
Terezi gave her a blind side-eye, her nose and forehead both crinkling. "How do you figure that?"
"Because tonight we will play a game together. For the first time in I don't even know. Forever!"
Terezi irritably shrugged away Vriska's hand, which had slipped like the tiniest amount to touch her shoulder (some people were so sensitive, gog). "The truce wasn't about not playing games together, dummy," Terezi said. "It was about not stabbing each other in the back anymore. And stopping the endless cycle of revenge." She lifted her chin. "And above all not using your powers to hurt people who don't deserve it!" She frowned and went back to hacking away at her keys.
Vriska dropped her arm into her lap. "Man, you like to give me such a hard time about all that. I can't catch a break!"
She wondered if she could get away with just closing Terezi's husktop to make her pay proper attention. Probably she would just freak out, though. She got so fucking hung up on things. Case in point: "Can't you see I'm trying to put all that behind me and make amends with everybody?" Vriska rolled her eyes and lifted her hands. "No, of course you can't see that. What am I saying!"
Terezi finally turned to face her properly, her nose crinkling again. "It's hard to believe you with all the lying you've done," she said coolly. For a second she actually leaned towards Vriska, sniffing at her, and it made a wave of something push sickly through Vriska, something that was just missing her. "Your blueberry bubblegum breath still smells pretty good, but your deceit stinks!" Terezi announced. She leaned back again and returned to her husktop.
God, she sucked. Everything sucked. No, wait, Vriska had actually come over here to tell her about the totally awesome generous thing she was doing, how could she forget that? "I'll prove it to you," she said, straightening again. "I'm giving Aradia a present that will make her feel all better finally. Then I'll be in the clear." She gave Terezi a blinding smile. "Phew! Totally redeemed." She threw an arm around Terezi's shoulders again. "You'll see." She waved her free hand. "I mean smell."
Terezi's shoulders went spiky and small. "I don't know why you're bothering trying to help her," she said. She stabbed at her keys again. "She won't care. Whatever it was you did to her, I think you broke her brain." Terezi lifted her hands to push her hair back behind her ears. "It's so terrible," she added, her voice a weird mix of meditative and actually upset.
God, why were people always upset at Vriska. Her whole life was just this shitty parade of people lining up to be upset at her! Terezi was supposed to be the one person who found her shit funny. Everything was back to sucking.
"Man, why can't you cut me some slack for once?" she demanded. "It's not like I even did anything that bad to you. I lost seven eyes but you only lost two!" She was getting upset herself now, realising how right she was. "I would say you came out ahead in the bargain."
"I know," Terezi said. Vriska went still. "And actually," Terezi continued, because she was a big jerk, "I never really got the chance to thank you." She grinned, big and bright and sharp.
"Ugh! Your sarcasm really stings when here I am just trying to be nice." Vriska slumped. "Ok, I guess I deserve it," she allowed. She shot Terezi a cautiously hopeful look.
"I'm serious though." Terezi sounded meditative again, and she was back to tapping at her keys, barely paying attention to Vriska. "But I don't expect you to get that."
Aaaaaaaah, she was impossible. Vriska made an inarticulate noise and jerked her arm away again. "Fine, be that way. But you shouldn't sit there and pretend we're so different." She jabbed a finger at Terezi. "Remember Team Scourge?" Vriska recrossed her legs, throwing her foot across her other knee. "How convenient all that must be to have forgotten! You were so nasty."
Terezi ignored her. Vriska was on a role. "Oh man, if you crossed Terezi Pyrope you were fucked!"
Terezi finally jerked her head up. "Yeah, if you were a bad guy," she said. She folded her arms over the top of her husktop screen, leaning forward over it. "We were supposed to be like a vigilante duo dispensing justice," she said, all the upset back in her voice. "And you could take the bad guys home and feed them to your stupid spider." Her voice went thick and jagged on spider and Vriska hated her black as pitch for one clean breath. "But instead you just fed her everybody!" Terezi said. "And lied and lied and lied." Her breath was making fast little whistling sounds around her teeth.
Vriska leaned back, slowly, letting her own breath out. God, she missed ... everything. "Yeah, those were the days," she said wistfully.
Terezi hissed, and Vriska blinked. "I mean, days full of mistakes and regret!" She gave Terezi a sidelong look. "But it was still a lot of fun," she said wheedlingly. "Watching you dismantle huge teams of Flarpers with nothing but politics and head games. Without even using any special powers!" Vriska shook her head, telegraphing impressed as hard as she could. "Wow."
Terezi made a low, dismissive sound.
Vriska groaned, leaning in toward her again. "Come on," she said, stretching out the word. "What do I have to do here?"
Terezi shrugged. She wasn't looking at Vriska. "I dunno."
Vriska hated her again. Not in the clean bright way now, just the miserable dragging way. "Well, if you want to know what I think, you should start changing your tune," she said carelessly. "'Cause even though you've got all these highfalutin' morals and fancy reservations, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer!"
Terezi ignored her. Vriska didn't care. "There ain't no changing your ways for good," she said, everything about her debonair, "and one day you're going to flail that silly little cane of yours and find nothin' to bump into, and fall face first into the shit again." Vriska pressed her hands against her knees, ignoring the way they were trembling a little. "And you're going to do something terrible to somebody and wish you could take it back but you can't!"
Terezi made a little snorting noise. Vriska narrowed her eyes. "And then you'll work hard to win back their trust, and you'll try and try and try, and you'll see how hard it is!" She wished Terezi would. She didn't even care if it was Vriska she did something terrible to. "You'll see," Vriska insisted.
Terezi made that stupid quizzical shape with her mouth. "I doubt it."
"You'll see," Vriska repeated quietly. She leaned in close to Terezi's ear, making her voice low and whispery like an ominous echo. "You'll seeeeee. You'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." Terezi pulled her head away, looking irritated, and Vriska followed her, leaning even closer so her breath tickled Terezi's ear and maybe her mouth accidentally went over her earlobe at one point. "You'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."
"Oh, will you can it, Serket!"
Vriska broke into loud snorting laughter and peeled herself up off the bench. She was still laughing as she walked away, Terezi's stormcloud regard following her.