*taps mic* Is this thing on?
Sep. 1st, 2023 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So! I have been incommunicado on here for Some Time now, but I thought I'd swing by and write a quick update.
In more fandom-y news however, I participated in
pod_together for the second year, and had a great time. I was in two teams: one as a writer and one as a podficcer. I also contributed some line readings to the team I wrote for, because it was a Discworld fic and I thought that having a second reader for the footnotes would help mitigate potential confusion.
I wrote Radio Killed the Semaphore Star which
semperfiona adapted to audio in the podfic version of the story. It's a post-canon imagining of the invention of radio on Discworld (full credit for this premise to
semperfiona! I thought it was such a great idea for this event) in the form of various connected vignettes featuring different sets of characters interacting with and reacting to the new medium. The podfic is very creative and
semperfiona did a great job with it.
The podfic I made for the event was [Podfic] Death with Dignity, based on a fic by
Thebiwife's fic Death with Dignity. The story is s an examination of the social model of disability through the lens of Deanna Troi's backstory and the extent to which she experiences extra sensory abilities having been aritrarily pathologised both on Betazed and Earth depending on what's considered the "default" where she happens to be at the time. In the final part of the fic, she interacts with everyone's favourite ex-Maquis Betazoid murderer, Lon Suder from Star Trek: Voyager, whose lack of empathic abilities have also been pathologised and problematised throughout his life. The fic is very poignant and I think it hit it out of the park.
There is a fully soundscaped version of the audio version I made featuring some intro and outro music, in addition to many bells and whistles as I couldjam in artfully integrate from a combination of sound effects available on TrekCore and Free Sound. This was my first time experimenting with audio effects beyond just trying to get the raw audio of my own recording cleaner with noise reduction and the Audacity de-esser plugin etc., and I had a lot of fun with it.
For people who prefer less busy audio in their podfics, there is also an effects light version that is mostly vanilla audio with the exception of a little echo and reverb added to telepathic lines of dialogue—there are time stamps for the above lines in the work itself as well as information and time stamps for specific sound effects I thought could trigger misophonia in the soundscaped version. I will try and add a completely vanilla version in the near future!
*Possibly these are somewhat related, but it was also just... a mess there for various reasons that I don't think were my fault and I frankly think that it was a terrible management decision to let me go and they didn't know what a good thing they had with me, but you'll have to take my word for it. I also got fired almost immediately after disclosing my disability, so. Lol. [click to return]
RL stuff involving workplace bullying and mental illness
I've been having kind of A Time of it with my mental health and various RL things—I was bullied very badly at work by a supervisor and eventually let go at the end of the probationary period*, which has been a blow. I will be starting a 1–2 year accountancy technician course soon though, so onwards and upwards.In more fandom-y news however, I participated in
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I wrote Radio Killed the Semaphore Star which
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The podfic I made for the event was [Podfic] Death with Dignity, based on a fic by
There is a fully soundscaped version of the audio version I made featuring some intro and outro music, in addition to many bells and whistles as I could
For people who prefer less busy audio in their podfics, there is also an effects light version that is mostly vanilla audio with the exception of a little echo and reverb added to telepathic lines of dialogue—there are time stamps for the above lines in the work itself as well as information and time stamps for specific sound effects I thought could trigger misophonia in the soundscaped version. I will try and add a completely vanilla version in the near future!
*Possibly these are somewhat related, but it was also just... a mess there for various reasons that I don't think were my fault and I frankly think that it was a terrible management decision to let me go and they didn't know what a good thing they had with me, but you'll have to take my word for it. I also got fired almost immediately after disclosing my disability, so. Lol. [click to return]
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Date: 2023-09-01 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-01 07:45 pm (UTC)Some specifics
I never made it a HR issue because I was afraid of retaliation that would be hard or impossible to prove—and honestly, since she always did it when we were alone it would have been her word against mine and I am not confident that I would have been believed.I spoke to the bully about a specific incident once in a way that was not even accusatory or that mentioned making a complaint so much as me saying "Just so you know, I was not trying to be disrespectful when [more diplomatic way of saying 'you verbally berated me to tears and then demanded I look you in the eyes and that I could "faint later" but had to "listen now" because you "weren't having it" when I apologised for being upset and said that I hadn't had a chance to eat that day and was feeling quite vulnerable and faint'], but I am autistic and while I'm usually good at masking, when I am upset it is much harder for me and that's why I couldn't make eye contact when you told me to" and she blatantly gaslit me to my face and denied that it had ever happened because she would "never speak to someone like that" and "wasn't that kind of person" and I must have "imagined it" and remembered it as her saying it to me when it was actually my internal monologue being self critical.
The thing she was shouting at me about was that I had said something to the effect of "Oh, sorry, I was doing it X way, because [manager] told me she wanted me to" a few times that day, which she interpreted as me trying to undermine her authority and talk back when criticised. The same day, in what was probably what got her boiling (that day) in the first place, she also tore part of a note I wrote to the manager about a question regarding an order that one of the curtain makers had asked me over the phone. The note had something like "I checked the system and asked [supervisor], but there wasn't anything on the computer and [supervisor] didn't know either" and she told me that it was inappropriate to write that because there was no reason she "should" know and I shouldn't be throwing her under the bus, to which I was like "I'm sorry, it definitely wasn't intended as criticism. I was trying to explain to [manager] what avenues I had explored so she knew what I'd exhausted and didn't try something I had already done, since neither of us are in tomorrow and she wants me to communicate handovers more clearly" and then she got even more angry and was telling me to drop it and that it "didn't need this level of nitpicking" and that it didn't matter, because "it's just retail." I was, at that point, in serious fear that I was going to lose my job because the manager kept criticising me over tiny perceived missteps and I was trying really hard to do what I was expected to. But... anyway.
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Date: 2023-09-01 10:43 pm (UTC)I may be speaking to my own traumas here, but I let people push me around in school and in relationships like that, and eventually I had to stop letting people do whatever 💩 thing they liked with no pushback, because it was bad for my mental health to not at least say something. But I am one of those Fueled By The Fires Of JUSTICE™️ type of autistics, which not everyone is.
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Date: 2023-09-02 05:31 pm (UTC)*offers hugs*
Date: 2023-09-02 07:33 pm (UTC)I wish we could return that stuff to sender, like “here, Bully, have some executive dysfunction!” Sadly, the world doesn’t work that way. But it should. * glares at your former coworker* 😒
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Date: 2023-09-01 08:59 pm (UTC)Podfics are great! I've dipped my toe into podficcing but never actually published one, mostly because my recording capabilities extend only to "my laptop in my closet," but I did record some audio for an excerpt I wrote to nail down line delivery and even got to practice my accents with it, so there's that, at least. Maybe one day! I must admit that being able to pick out sound effects and do all the bells and whistles (as you say) does sound quite fun.
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Date: 2023-09-01 09:19 pm (UTC)Thank you x It was a very difficult experience, but in a way it's a relief to be out of that environment. Hopefully the accountancy course will open up opportunities for better paid jobs in a non-retail setting.
Oh, hot tip! If you have a smart phone, they're actually really good to record audio on, because they are designed to be good at excluding outside sound and the quality is very good. I recorded the pod that I did for
pod_together on my phone and if anything it sounds better than the ones I recorded on my mic.
In terms of bells and whistles, doing a Star Trek pod was a fun fandom to try out sound effects, because Trekcore has such a great range of iconic Trek sounds to download for free. I definitely think that sometimes people can be snobby in a "podfic is only a valid art form when you have effects/music/etc." which is annoying, but it is also fun when a podfic uses the medium to do things that are not possible in a text format and it's something I'm kind of curious to explore in the future.
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Date: 2023-09-01 09:12 pm (UTC)The event sounds really cool, glad you were able to participate from different angles, that's neat! :D
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Date: 2023-09-01 09:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, it was genuinely nightmarish ngl. I have been on a pretty low ebb since then, but I'm hoping that once I'm getting out of the house again I'll be doing better.
It's really fun! I'd definitely recommend checking it out next year if it's something you're interested in, either as a writer or a podficcer. You can also sign up to be assigned a partner or partners through the match making sign-ups, or you can sign up through team sign ups with one or more other people. I went with the latter and both of my partners were people I met on the Discord server's channel for finding teammates. I'm really glad that I joined two teams, because having experienced both halves of the equation was very fun. I also hadn't thought of doing a Discworld fanwork, so it was really fun to do that! I've written a handful of Discworld fics this year and I think I'm just about starting to get the hang of the third person omniscient style of narration, because starting out with the first few fics I wrote it was hard for me to break out the third person limited mould that I'm used to.
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Date: 2023-09-02 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-02 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-03 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-03 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 05:53 am (UTC)I got so excited at the idea that I skipped a breath, closed the mobile I was reading my notification email on and opened my PC to come and tell you that.
I neither produce nor consume podfic but I truly admire it as an artform.
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Date: 2023-09-04 02:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, there's a lot of skills that go into it! I'm obviously still pretty baby, but I'm very impressed by the community. And honestly the fact that it's got more niche appeal than text-based fic is kind of nice, because it helps me to get some mental distance from the idea that the point of making and posting fanworks is to get lots of attention. Vidding similarly helps me with this. It's kind of a nice return to an earlier form of internet fandom where you interact with a relatively small group of people who are all highly invested in what other people in the group are doing and are invested in building relationships.
I am just now remembering this as I'm writing this comment, but when I was a little kid I had a lot of fairy tales on tape, and my dad then also recorded himself reading my favourite books on cassette for me to listen to, so that I could listen to them when my parents were too busy to read for me, so in a way that was my first introduction to podfic, haha. I think I made one myself too? I imitated the style of a series of books I had that came sort of dual format that you were supposed to listen to and read along with and they would have a bit at the beginning that said, "Turn the page when you hear the chime ring like this *chime sound effect" and in my take on this I also said, "Turn the page when you hear the chime ring like this, 'Brrring!'" so I was making my own foley too 🤣
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Date: 2023-09-04 05:27 pm (UTC)Small communities really are better, and I also try to practice distancing myself from expecting reaction. I know I'm going to get a lot more hits on my Scum Villain fic even if it's inane trash, and a fic I think is better might not get any, and you just kind of have to accept that's how it works. I'm not gonna click on any link for an introspective fic in a fandom I don't know either. XD
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Date: 2023-09-04 06:12 pm (UTC)