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ways_back_room2015-10-06 08:28 am
never_promised) wrote in ways_back_room2015-10-06 08:28 am
Entry tags:
Tuesday DE
Here's one from the suggestion box, from gods_that_haunt_me, because it's a subject that's been on my mind lately: Does your pup have a particular way of speaking? How do you convey it in writing? How do you channel their voice? Do you ever read their dialog aloud?
gods_that_haunt_me, because it's a subject that's been on my mind lately: Does your pup have a particular way of speaking? How do you convey it in writing? How do you channel their voice? Do you ever read their dialog aloud?
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*shoves X and Raven far away under the carpet*
*shoves them farther*
Raven -- I came up with his dialogue choices because if you've been traveling around forever, and you've learned a lot of languages, and then you go crazy and then you forget everything, when you put stuff back together sometimes grammar gets -- weird. So his speech is bits and pieces of different languages' grammar translated into English and kept in the same word order. Or that is what it's meant to suggest, anyway.
X -- she has a limited functional vocabulary when she is not on a mission. She does not use contractions. Slang should also be used rarely. Feeling-words happen to other people. There are pauses between thoughts sometimes as she finds words, which is why she often breaks a longer sentence into two, even if one of those parts is just a fragment.
Ysalwen -- her dialogue shifts to reflect the way the people she's talking to are speaking. It's protective coloration, and it's not exactly an accident and it's not exactly on purpose. It is fun for me, though.
The others are a little harder to break down. I will think about it!
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For my TV show and movie characters (Grace, Jim, Lana, Lizzie), I tend to watch a few YouTube videos before I post them in, just to remind myself of their speech patterns. I'll also read stuff back to myself to make sure it's passable. Many times have I wished I could edit after someone has tagged back, though. MANY TIMES.
For Sparks, I've been doing another run through of all his Thrilling Adventure Hour episodes. So, so much of Sparks Nevada is Marc Evan Jackson's vocal performance. He has such a distinctive.... everything... and I really want to do justice to it.
Karou also has a distinctive voice and way of thinking, so I'll re-read portions of canon for her, which will get more important now that I'm planning to actually move her into it.
Thayet and Alanna, though. That's where it gets more interesting (for me)! Thayet is not from Tortall, and thus has a noticeable accent to Tortallans and sounds different from Alanna. If I recall correctly, Tammy has described her inspiration for Saraine as a medley of South-Southeast Asia and Medieval Europe, with Tortall being way more European. Thayet is a born Princess of Saraine, so there's always been a certain level of formality in her speech, but that has relaxed a lot since she fell in with Alanna and Liam -- especially since she's so intent on being 'just Thayet' whenever possible. She can turn it on in a heartbeat, however, and while she might be an unusual Queen, no one can say she isn't suited to the role.
Alanna's vocal tics are a lot more complicated for me, but in a way I kind of love. I broke away from how she tends to speak in canon early on, not because there is anything wrong with it and not entirely consciously, but because I had a lot more time and space to play around. This is a girl who grew up on an isolated farm, far from Court, with only her twin brother, a retired soldier and a village midwife for companions. She learned to put on a show for her father, of course, who took being a noble seriously. At ten, she moved to Court and started to pick up on the various masks people employed when attending court functions. She got called a country boy, and didn't want to stand out in that or any other way. All of her new friends were blue-blooded -- with the notable exception of George. Alanna went on to spend all her time with either nobles or thieves in the Lower City, and she had to blend in both places. As a result, I tend to have her slightly change her speech patterns based on who she is speaking with -- more formal for elders or other people she respects, and some she doesn't; much less formal for good friends; using more 'Ayes' and contemporary patterns for people she senses are from a world similar to Tortall; and ultimately natural and carefree with a handful of people like Jon, George, Carol, Quentin, Tavi, Charles, and probably now Brienne, but only if they are completely alone. Except with that handful of people, it's always there in the back of her head, blending in vocally with her conversation companion to a certain extent to help her blend in over all, and it can become more or less noticeable depending on their surroundings and how well they get to know each other.
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:D :D :D
(Also, I meant to apologize for that Doctor Evil tag, but then I fell asleep. SORRY, X!)
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(Her face. You are a monster.)
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I still haven't quite pinned down Curtis' voice; compared to other characters in the movie, he's much more quiet and reserved, without a lot of distinctive vocal rhythms or tics. When he's joking around with Edgar, though, I'll sometimes pull in Chris Evans' own vocal patterns or vocabulary. It's one of the few times Curtis is relaxed enough to have some overlap between the character and the guy who plays him.
Gaeta has a big vocabulary, tends to talk like a teacher when he's explaining things, leans toward formal language and rhythms over casual ones, and lapses into clipped words or phrases when he's angry. Early on, I also tried to capture his slightly nasally voice by using more short vowels, but I don't worry about that as much anymore.
Bolin is enthusiastic! About! Everything! His language choices are the most slang-y and casual of all my pups; he can be polite, but it's the kind of polite that definitely wouldn't fly in a business meeting.
...totally unrelated, I know I owe tags to people and I apologize. *sheepish* Guess who forgot to put a notification tracker on the EP Edgar started! I hope to tag up on everything during my lunch break -- if not then, definitely tonight. <3
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Luidaeg is something of an exception as she acts differently in Milliways than she does back home. Back home she has a rep to maintain and is abrasive and prickly as all hell. Within Milliways she starts that way (out of habit I think), but tends to mellow and almost be friendly pretty quickly.
Ahsoka is enthusiastic and out to prove herself, more so when she is younger than the age I've brought her in before. She tends to say the first thing that comes to mind and usually suggests a bit of sass or amusement in her tone of voice.
Izana is *always* polite and courteous. Their tone of voice is kind and friendly, even if they are criticizing or angry.
More later perhaps, but I am definitely in the edit it until it sounds like the pup camp.
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Stiles is a modern teenager, so his speech is, unsurprisingly, super informal. Also he has about nada respect for authority, so again, super informal. He speaks rapidly, which can be hard to render in text sometimes, repeats himself, plays fast and loose with verbal pauses, enjoys peppering his normal speech with media reference, and calls anyone and everyone 'dude.' He is almost always a sarcastic smartass, and is prone to both pointing out the obvious and talking to himself. If he's speaking to you in a formal sounding way (or a really bad accent) he is definitely taking the piss.
The Tracksuit Draculas say "bro" a lot, usually at the ends of sentences. Sometimes the beginning. If you think I'm using bro too much, you're wrong. Some of their dialogue is stolen directly from canon. (I don't think Fraction would mind.) In general, they speak pretty choppy English, mostly subjects and active verbs. Bro. Seriously. Fun story, I spontaneously decided in their thread with X that when speaking Russian, they can speak in complete sentences, but sound completely bland instead of thuggish. BECAUSE IT AMUSED ME.
And finally Mary, the hardest of the bunch in this respect. The side of Mary that most people meet is all artifice. She speaks the most formally (and at the slowest speed) of my characters, and of course has a posh accent. I definitely have to go watch some video occasionally so I can feel like I'm getting the cadence of her speech right. Her remarks are usually constructed in a way to keep polite conversation flowing while revealing as little as possible about herself. She rarely speaks without thinking, unless she's very startled, and rarely raises her voice significantly, even in anger. She does however, sometimes turn icy, and won't hesitate to insult someone to their face. Of course all this has relaxed a little bit over the time Mary has spent at Milliways, significantly because of her friendship with Thayet. Mary is far less likely to insist on being addressed by her title (unless she's angry) and more likely to give honest answers to questions and admit that emotions exist, but it varies a lot depending on whom she's talking to. She's definitely still more comfortable around people of a similar social class, even if they are from different worlds. This includes Mike, because when they met he was wearing a tux, so she's thinks he's a weird rich American. XD But even for Mary, less formal is still going to come out sounding... kinda formal.
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It's really annoying.
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It's surprisingly accurate.
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The absolute top of his anger scale means I have to stop writing his usual dialogue and go find a searchable copy of Paradise Lost, because he tends to start quoting Milton when he runs out of his own words.
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Tars's voice sounds like Willem Dafoe, but with the wry amusement turned up to eleven.
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Sherral: Sherral, meantime, I try to write so that he always sounds slightly stiff and slightly formal, and a shade over-elaborate at times. In Final Fantasy XII, characters who are from the lower classes tend to speak in modern day casual dialogue, and characters from the upper classes speak in a kind of floral faux-Shakespearian.
Sherral falls somewhere between the two - he's lower class, but he's also an Archadian soldier, so I try to make his dialogue somewhat old fashioned, and a bit over-formal for the context. He also has a heavy Glaswegian accent: I am utterly loathe to ever write out accents, so I don't, but I occasionally try and reflect it in a few words. He'll use 'bairns' and 'lads' instead of 'children', for example.
Eden: Eden talks in a combination of short, choppy sentences and very long run-on sentences, and tends to repeat concepts and phrases from previous sentences as he talks. He also tends to not bother with things like 'explaining the context' or 'adjusting his language for who he's talking to'.
In general, Eden's kind of meant to give the impression of someone who knows the mechanics of language and discourse, but doesn't quite know how to use them.
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Will to me has an accent that's clearly older and English. I'm happy with how I write it now but it took me at least a year to get it so it didn't feel too contrived.
Charles speaks in a fairly formal matter and if there's a more precise word, he'll go with that, his language is a mixture of American and British idioms, leaning more towards British. He's also very careful in how he talks about feelings, always using I phrases. For him, I think a lot about talking with my psychiatrist father who's deliberate and makes sure you tell him what you're thinking. He's a teacher too and so will often rephrase something and check in with a person to see if they're understanding. Whenever he uses the slang of his time, its always with a bit of a smirk as I think he enjoys language but has always felt older and also Raven gives him looks.
Quentin goes from very teenage informal and almost insolent to incredibly formal depending on the situation. A big part of his world is that they don't say thank you, I'm always working on that.
William's way of speaking is one of the most relaxed of all of mine, he does get careful with words but his accent is warm to me. I base a lot of how he sounds on the movie which somehow had a good balance of these people are from Arizona and another time and not awful Hollywood, gosh darn it kind of thing.
According to canon, Sameth should sound almost Scottish and I see him as someone who would prefer to be informal but has been trained to be more formal. The Old Kingdom also isn't as formal a court as Quentin's.
Jane is based on the movie and with her, I'm careful with my words. She's someone who is from a time with rules of introduction and in Milliways, she's relaxed them slightly but she is aware of all that she says and why.
Ivan has a warm and almost European accent, according to canon, the Barrayaran accent is kind of guttaral. In terms of speaking, he's another who knows how to be incredibly formal but prefers informal and his speak is between that. He's very good at adjusting his level of formality to the social situation.
Demeter's voice to me is based hugely on her PBs, one reason I chose them is because not only do they look like I imagine Dem does but they both have wonderful, warm voices. Kate Winslet and Judi Dench have some of the best laughs I've heard on film and Demeter's voice is full of growth and warm along with something more Greek than French.
Tumnus is shy and formal, he worries about what he says.
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With Finvarra and Sooraya, their voices have a particular cadence that's hard to describe, but are most like someone who isn't a native English speaker and hasn't quite gotten to unthinking fluency yet. For Finn, he's just not *gonna* get used to it because he thinks English is a language below him (no shortage of arrogance there, nope). With Sooraya, she's trying to be diplomatic and to avoid hateful speech, but she has to think a bit to get to what she wants to say, and have it come out right.
With Noriko, she lets her sarcasm out full-force, and makes no bones about it--she doesn't change her dialect much with anyone. But a lot of it is learned street jive, made to make her sound bigger and badder than the next person. She *can* let it go, and when she does you've either struck a very deep nerve or she is, like Shephard, very, very angry. She also speaks Japanese as a native learner, and French with a nearly flawless intonation.
As for Ganymede, he's...old. I tend to imagine what my grandparents speak like, and then attempt taking human frailty due to age out of the equation. It sometimes succeeds.
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....the sad thing is it works. Yeah, I totally say things in character voices if I'm struggling. It helps the most with Gredya and Helen Ramirez, who both use very short direct sentences, but I have been known to break into Djehuty-voice on this side of the screen.
Right now, obvs, I'm thunking along with Elizabethan thees and thous. And screwing up frequently! But it does help me keep Hal in his own voice and not blurring too much into Bossuet-land, since they're both very talky, with the puns and the dick jokes and all.
I'm probably overdoing it, honestly. Looking at the texts--people are very flexible with thou and you (and...yeah sometimes it's significant but I'm pretty sure sometimes it's just what flows), and with conjugating with -th vs -s. Most of the time Hal is in prose mode, also, which goodness knows is easier. Iambic pentameter is for talking to the sheriff, his dad, nobility...and himself. (Oh, and in Pt. 2, the last things he says before he ditches all his Eastcheap friends and goes off to court.)
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Steve Rogers is simple sentences, unless he's speechifyin'. He doesn't do slang much, not from his youth or current, aside from "fella."
Cecil Gershwin Palmer mostly just reports the facts, unless he's talking about cats or Carlos; and then sometimes he gets very poetic in a very lovely way. (I knew I would love this podcast when he said, "The faint, but pretty, smell of vanilla."I just...yeah.)
Furiosa doesn't say much, and certainly nothing she doesn't have to. She'll answer a question with a look.
Neither Jack Benjamin nor Merlin have a really distinctive speech pattern, unless Jack is imitating Silas--which is a rhythm I have yet to capture. It's harrrrrd.
And then there's Groot. Being expressive with three words is part of the fun.
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Eriond... doesn't really. Except for always being Nice. I have more trouble remembering to be 100% Non-Judgmental than anything.
With Lois my biggest problem is remembering she is not a Class A Geek. Her cadences are enough like mine that it just flows, although sometimes I refresh with Smallville or a little comics or DCAU. But so long as I keep my geek-speak out, I can just write.
Tavi is... interesting. He's rather more formal when he hits a groove of I Have A Point To Make, which is very much a matter of public speaking instincts. He can be pretty relaxed other times. My biggest thing is keeping modern-specific slang or syntax out. He is also interesting in that he deliberately uses Aleran words for which he has learned other equivalents in the Bar, partly because it stands out and marks him--meaning that if he ever wants to go more unnoticed, he just has to talk like Everyone Else.
Anakin I can just watch canon.
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I should probably chime in. Because I am awake.
The Master of Ceremonies -- He speaks fluent English with a German accent, which is the obvious short story. But sometimes I'll slip in the type of phrasing that you hear from TV Germans, like using "most" ("this is most enjoyable") or switching words around, such as saying "You are all right?" instead of "Are you all right?" I don't do that all that often, usually just when I think he needs to sound more like English isn't his first language. I'm also mindful of contractions, but they come and go, depending on who he's with and what he's saying.
Pam -- She speaks with a slow Southern drawl when she's talking to anyone but Eric, because that isn't her original accent (which would be upper class English). With Eric, it's pretty much standard American. After a hundred years of living in different places, I think she just decided to constantly change her accent (and learn new languages) to blend in with the locals. She's not a big talker when it comes to socializing unless she tolerates you, so her responses may be short, bored, and definitely sarcastic, though sometimes sweetly so, thanks to the drawl.
Floki -- Oh my god, Floki. I think he has the most distinct speech pattern of everyone I've ever played. I've often had to describe it as lilting and sing-song, especially when he goes into storytelling mode or when he's giddy and happy. It's very much a "once upon a time" cadence, even when he's being dead serious (and frankly I think that adds to the weirdo factor). I admit to reading his dialog aloud because sometimes it's impossible not to, to get it right. I do a terrible impression of him in the process, but it helps.
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Rae and Floki should talk again sometime. <333
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Next time Rae is selling her baked goods, I could send him along to eat everything :)
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Sariel in canon speaks with the barest hint of an accent; she could sound American or close to it if someone isn't listening or hasn't got an ear for those things, but tune in and there's definitely a hint of... something there. Every so often, a consonant is a touch more precise than is usual, or a vowel is a shade off from the expected. This might just be her PB's own accent coming through, though I've seen other things she's been in, and it's definitely strongest when she's Sariel, or in a Sariel-type mindset. That accent contributed to my giving her the home country I did; to my ears, a Lucian accent in English is quite a gentle one, and distinctive because of it. Sariel sounds well-educated and often slightly formal no matter which of her languages she's speaking. As a note, Francophone pups will definitely hear a difference between Lucian Kweyol and, say, continental French or Quebecois. Conversation can probably still happen - she and Gene Roe managed fine - but accent and word choice may cause a metaphorical trip hazard. Oh, and this mun speaks neither continental French nor Kweyol. Any translation errors or missed opportunities for tongue-tied tangles are mine.
I have most definitely gone back and edited phrases until they fit as something Sariel would say. Many, many times. Sometimes I worry that I'm taking too long to reply, even, because I absolutely have to get her particular speech patterns right before I hit post or it's not her.
As for my one sandbox OC, if anyone's interested: DJ Makosa was an American for much of his life, but now his accent can't decide if it wants to be northern American, Flemish, French or something combining all three. He's gone native, as it were, to the point that he defaults to French or Flemish rather than English half the time. French tends to be the language he uses when his guard is close to or entirely down, when he's making an important point, or both. It's his usual language of greatest candor, basically. His stutter, for the record, remains in all three languages he speaks, and it gets worse when he's upset, embarrassed or angry. He can sound a little old-fashioned by today's standards, or maybe just like a well-read nerd. No 'duuuuude, awesome!' slang from him.