#and this is an audio medium

[whoopseydaisy]

"it is the realm beyond, and between, and through, and past the world"

since the release of the character playlists, and the rain road in the arc 1 finale my brain has been absolutely spinning about musicality in the wizard, the witch, and the wild one. and the relationship between music and the spirit realm, and then how that intersects with umora.

because since the beginning there has been this emphasis between the world of spirits and music. eursulon's theme, when we first meet him, before he crosses over, is this beautiful choral music—the first time we hear singing in the show. and then there is your honey is quiet, honey with a note of song. the first diegetic song we hear performed, is sung to honour the spirits.

(edit: eursulon’s breath!!! the thing that brings him back to himself, after it had been lost!!!!)

so i have the rain road on repeat and i'm re-listening to fireside chats and in the one for the first episode brennan describes the world of spirit by saying "it is the world beyond, and between, and through, and past the world" and it reminded me of the scoring. we hear the stories of umora, but beyond, between, through, and past the world; surrounding it, but separate from it is the score. (making me feel like us, the audience, is sitting and existing in the spirit realm. and if it is supernal, if it is what is beyond and between and through and past the world— aren't we?)

but that called to mind eursulon's character playlist, and how it, especially in it's representations of eursulon's early journey, was so instrumental. and that led me to ponder the intersection of music and language. how young eursulon's theme was choral but not lyrical.

the structure of language is the domain of umora.

and how that intersects interestingly with what we have seen of the lingua arcana. suvi's rhythmic somatic components. reflexive indicative and null clef alluding to the structure of grammar and music theory.

and then how the rain road is choral and lyrical, together. the first breaking of that line between the score and the world. connecting, like ame does.

and that is why in the wizard the witch and the wild one ame is a meta narrative representation of musical theatre. in this essay i will—

[hephaestuscrew]

Prior to the revelation around the aliens receiving his logs, Eiffel's logical expectation is that the only people who'll listen to his logs are people at Goddard Command. And yet the way he speaks in those logs is often not really addressed at Goddard staff. For example, in Ep8 The Empty Man Cometh, he says:

Oh, hell, speaking of logs... I guess you caught all of that, so you might be able to pick up the effect your twisted experiment had on us. Hint: IT WAS AWFUL. Sorry if things got a bit crazy for a while there, dear listeners, but... well, you see the kind of things we have to deal with.

The first part of that quote is obviously directed at Goddard staff, at the people who create many of the situations Eiffel and the rest of the Hephaestus crew have to deal with (such as the empty man panic). But the second part - the part addressed to Eiffel's "dear listeners" - feels like a switch, like it's directed at a sympathetic audience who are witnessing Eiffel's plight without having any role in it. In other words, it feels like it's directed at us. Before the aliens come into the picture, we are the "dear listeners".

There's no logical reason for Eiffel to make this kind of switch between the listener he blames (i.e. Goddard Command) and his more sympathetic "dear listener". He's mentally constructing a listener to his logs who is on his side, when he has no in-universe reason to believe that there is one. It's an interesting kind of coping mechanism - potentially linked to the unconscious, perhaps misdirected, desire for connection that led him to transmit his logs into deep space.

There are other signs that the "dear listener" Eiffel directs his logs towards has very little to do with Goddard, such as the way he explains things that Goddard staff would obviously know (which is obviously useful from a storytelling perspective, but also feels in-character and in line with his other behaviour), as well as telling the listener things that could land him in trouble with Goddard.

Eiffel is the kind of genre-savvy character who is regularly on the brink of fully breaking the fourth wall. He doesn't know he's in an audio drama, but he's so prone to narrating his life that he might as well know. He's always constructing the narrative of his life in his head, so perhaps he finds that it helps to imagine someone on Earth who is listening sympathetically to the story he's telling himself. In his world, at the beginning of the show, he doesn't have that listener, or doesn't believe he has. But his words reach across from the universe of his story into ours. And his voice finds the kind of dear listener he was imagining without hoping for - someone who has no role in anything that happens on the Hephaestus but who is willing to listen to his story. In pressing play on your podcast app, you become the listener he was longing for.

[umbrellajam]

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #734 - Mark of Cain, pt 2

Oh, I love this, how the three bottom panels are descending and the silhouette of Gotham's skyline is rotating in the background to show they're falling, falling, falling, but the nameless girl and her father - the father she's desperately determined to stop, the father who does love her despite how complicated and terrible that love is - are timelessly still, as if the rest of the world has paused in this strange moment of re-connection. Shards of glass flying about them like a melancholy snowfall. Iconic.

[24601orwhatever]

consume the davidvert propaganda. LISTEN TO HIM

audio @medium-observation

[jenijro]

Hey, you mentioned on a post "#I can do an essay on this whole topic [gay horror podcasts with a plot] and why it’s an important event in history #even though not many people know about horror podcasts it’s still quite important " and... if it's not too audacious to ask for an essay, I'm really curious?

I know Welcome to Nightvale, Alice Isn't Dead, and The Bright Sessions, and I do have a vague sense that Nightvale in the 2010's was a watershed moment of some kind... but I don't know if I know the gay horror podcasts that you're talking about (also I'd so take recommendations) and I'm sure there's more to the history...

So if you should feel like infodumping, this is a info request ;)

Well. I never thought I’d actually get this question but hey, why not.

Okay so maybe I was over exaggerating a bit about it being a big historical event… but I don’t think I am completely wrong either. I think audio dramas are very important in general and I can give you some reason why. And I just want to say I’m not going to act like I’ve known about audio drama for many, many years because I only started listening about two years ago but I will give you what I know about podcasts since before then. (Not going to do an essay but I will yap a lot)

This won’t be just about “gay horror podcasts with a plot” by the way, it will be about audio dramas in general, whether it’s horror or whether it has an overarching plot or is an anthology, etc. It most likely will be gay though. I mean, it’s kind of hard not to do gay.

Now I’m specifically talking about audio drama podcasts because, obviously, audio drama has been around since the 1920s on radio and even before that, so I’m really not getting into all of that. When we are talking podcasts, usually people believe that Welcome to Night Vale was the first, or that it started it all. Welcome to Night Vale was definitely very important to audio fiction (and it’s also really good), but there were fiction podcasts before it or fiction podcasts that came out around the same time that are also well known, now at least, or sometimes less known. At the top of my head I could think of We’re Alive and Our Fair City, but there were definitely podcasts before that or around then, back in the 2000s.

Since then, people have started making their own audio dramas in the 2010s (after WTNV). Let’s see, there’s obviously The Magnus Archives, there’s Wolf 359, The Bright Sessions, The Penumbra, Archive 81, Wooden Overcoats, and there’s so much more, those were just the ones that came to my mind. I can’t say I know how big the audience base was then, but I can say that it definitely grew in 2020.

Oh yeah. The pandemic.

So… 2020 huh? May have not been the best year for the world, but heck, did it give way to audio dramas. Like I said, I don’t know how the audience base was before 2020, but they DEFINITELY got big. And it inspired people to create their own. Let’s see, podcasts created JUST from 2020 itself: Hi Nay, The Cellar Letters, Red Valley, Spirit Box Radio, Malevolent, Mistholme Museum, The Sheridan Tapes, Hello From the Hallowoods, Midnight Burger, The Scarab Archives, Woe.Begone, yeah I could go on forever. This was around the time when more people decided, fuck it, I’m doing my own thing. And fiction podcasts have only grown since then.

Please stick with me, I’m getting to my point through a lot of yapping.

Since 2020, more people have found out about fiction podcasts and even have decided to make their own. And (this is the important part) it allows creators to express themselves. No no nooo, not just express themselves. I mean EXPRESS themselves. No need for any filters of representation. Wanna make everyone gay? MAKE EVERYONE GAY. Wanna make a podcast with a batshit insane plot? MAKE A PODCAST WITH A BATSHIT INSANE PLOT. Wanna voice act every character in the show? DO IT. Wanna use your podcast to secretly (or not so secretly) talk about some real world problems? DO IT. You know that you can’t get banned. Books can get banned. TV shows and movies get banned or cancelled. Audio dramas can’t. Not easily at least.

Please check out this post and this post from @clinical-space-podcast because boy, do they explain a lot of what I am saying very well.

Have I mentioned the gay part? Audio dramas are probably the queerest form of media we have. I feel like before finding audio dramas, I was sort of struggling to find a story with queer people AND an interesting plot. It’s always “queer person slice of life/trying to get through life as a queer person as the entire plot” and I’m not saying those stories are bad. It’s just that sometimes, queer people can just… exist. Or they can be in an actual story. Also, since audio drama opened up an opportunity to more writers, obviously more writers are… writing (I have such a way with words), and this means there are more stories, meaning there are many more GOOD stories that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. So. Good plot AND queer representation?? I’m eating that up.

The first podcast I have ever listened to was The Magnus Archives and even without the queerness, I fucking loved it. The queerness actually surprised me. I was like “wait… they are QUEER? And the story is NOT all about their queerness? Holy shit.” I didn’t know about the entire platform of audio dramas, so after tma, I just thought “oh. I’ll never get anything like this again” (I was talking about a great horror story with an overarching plot and queer characters in said story. Never even thought I’d find a good story ever again). Boy, was I WRONG. Long story short, I found the whole community and pretty much dissolved my entire life into it.

So finding these podcasts really opened my eyes to something new. They also made me realize “hey… I can write whatever the shit I want”. People won’t force me to tone down the queerness. They won’t say it’s too diverse. They won’t say my writing style of horror doesn’t fit in. And this is what I needed.

That being said… I just want to say here that I will be straying from the topic in this paragraph but there are a few things that have to be said about bipoc rep. Motzie Dapul (creator of hi nay) talks about it a lot too. I wish bipoc podcasts were more popular. I can’t say I know a lot of them because they are kind of hard to find, which sucks all by itself. And this is why I love Hi Nay so much. I see people like ME (queer people of color) in this story, while it also has a great story and lovely writing. But the problem is Hi Nay is honestly quite small, even by standards of audio dramas. I wish there were more listeners. And Hi Nay is literally one of the more POPULAR bipoc podcasts. This is just to say that bipoc podcasts should get more attention. Headcanoning a podcast character who’s not canonically a person of color as a person of color does not make a podcast bipoc. I mean obviously, you can headcanon anything you want for a character (as long as it’s not canonically stated otherwise of course), even I do that, but you should just keep this in mind.

Back to topic. I need to say that there are many other reasons why audio dramas are very important but I’m not covering all of it (I’ve done enough lol). This whole thing is just to say audio dramas are important. To me. And hopefully to you too. And if you read all of this, you can see that I’m not great at the whole essay thing, which is why this isn’t an essay, just a shitload of yapping. But I do appreciate that you read all of this.

This is also to say DAMN, I am tired.

[belovedbow]

some new boys and some boys i haven't posted before

[wiseabsol]

Hey. Hey Urbina. With the most respect possible, because I love your work: what the FUCK?! How do you expect me to sleep after that episode 1 ending?

This man never misses, I swear. Genuinely, folks, if you enjoy Dracula, world-weary ladies, and vampires who are actually terrifying, you've gotta listen to Dracula: The Danse Macabre. I have never been more in love with Mina and more unsettled by the Count. Also the tweaks to the vampire lore? UNHINGED. I am haunted by it!

[slushiepizza]

I don't think anybody in the Redactedverse embodies Radiohead's Creep more than Marcus with Asset. Not in the way where he's a creep and a weirdo, although that's true lmao. But the part where he feels almost not good enough for them and seeing them as an ethereal being, wanting to be seen and remembered when not around. The self flagellation, the disgust at himself that's proportional to his love of them, a computer that's like an angel. Also the run, run, run! Part at the end and how James uses literal running metaphor to represent Asset's corruption from Marcus' code. Fuck!! He's so human and they're so machine but he instills his humanity in them through his social engineering and code, as a result they're more human than ever (having flaws when before they're a Perfect Being).

[jazzically]

OOOOOGHHH MY GOD these animatics are really making tma hurt all over again

to everyone who makes tma animations/pmvs with songs just remember you are basically creating an entire movie by yourself. sometimes you dont even use the podcast audio (which would still be amazingly impressive of course) ur just whipping out these whole entire incredible videos for us to enjoy based on the great story some people are telling. it's fantastic and i just?? how?? blows my mind

[8cfc00]

obsessed w all the Mike Walters (species) who have place names like its SO interesting that in a world with instant travel geographic places are still important to certain characters' personal/ascribed identity, even when the Mike's stay in their respective location was temporary

[piffany666]

Ok controversial opinion

Friends with benefits to lovers is better than Friends to lovers

[jerreeeeeee]

something about “you hear a voice and it is a very, very familiar voice and when you hear it your heart swells up” and “that was the last conversation you ever had with your sister” and “you hear your sister’s voice say”

[cherrywhite]

OKAY. OKAY YA EPISODE 10 SEASON 2 FINALE OF FAWX & STALLION. YOU GOT ME.

[aq2003]

omfg . radio play version of much ado with david as benedick from 2001

[hephaestuscrew]

When Minkowski hugs Eiffel in Ep31 Sécurité, she just grabs hold of him without making a sound, and the listener only knows about the hug because of the "oof" noise Eiffel makes in reacting to having "the wind knocked straight out of him", and the script directions say that Minkowski has "tears silently streaming down her face", and Eiffel is the one who directly acknowledges the hug verbally ("Don't apologise for hugging"). If all we had was Minkowski's side of the interaction, we probably wouldn't know that they hugged. 

When Eiffel hugs Minkowski in Ep54 The Watchtower, he first tells her "C'mere, give us a hug!", and he makes a happy sound of effort as he squeezes her, and Minkowski - under the influence of Pryce's restraining bolt - doesn't seem to have any reaction at all, which Eiffel doesn't appear to notice. Once again, if all we had was Minkowski's side of the interaction, we wouldn't know that they hugged. 

The question of 'in what ways is the hug made audible?' feels much more significant in audio than it would in any another medium, and I do think it reflects something about these characters and their willingness to be open with their affection. Minkowski "grabs him and hugs him" hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but she does so silently. In a somewhat similar but also very different moment of reunion, Eiffel "embraces her" and he's not quiet as he does it. There's something about how Communications Officer Eiffel is always the one who verbalises their physical affection, whether or not he's the one who initiated the hug. The closest Minkowski gets to verbally acknowledging a hug is through an apology; Eiffel is the one who makes the hugs real for the listener.

[vaguely-concerned]

I listened to the first episode of vows and vengeance and... god. god forget waiting for veilguard, how the fuck am I going to survive the wait between each episode of this???? tl;dr: I loved it, I love dragon age, I love audio dramas, I love voice acting and music, I love thedas, I am IMMEDIATELY painfully invested. if nadia doesn't get her sweet fancy lad back whole and unharmed by the end of this I am killing everyone in tevinter and then myself.

more thoughts under the cut! not a lot of deep analysis just flailing and feelings today haha

I hadn't realized that elio would be a magister! idk if it was in any marketing beforehand, but if so I didn't pay enough attention to remember it lol. he sounds like he might be prime lucerni-material politically, so I'm a little sad we didn't get even a subtle dorian or maevaris easter egg in there, as far as I could tell, but hey, you can't have everything. (honestly unless BIG changes are upon us (which tbf they probably are) it might be just as well that this went down as it did, b/c I'm not sure how long elio would survive in the magisterium that we've heard tell of, he's quite -- either soft and shortsighted, or politically reckless, I think nadia was right there.)

I found nadia, elio and their dynamic very effectively introduced -- the fact that they haven't quite figured out how to be good to each other yet but so clearly both desperately want to be and are willing to work for that is a smart place to start the story. it makes it feel all the sadder if they never get the chance to work it all out, because I think they could have every chance to, given the time.

The voice actors for the central characters are all wonderful (orin's was. fine! doing a good enough job with a slightly more thankless role, let's call it that.) also so nice to hear people humming the tavern songs we heard in inquisition. god I love thedas I'm so glad we're getting to go right back in there soon

The episode was longer than I thought they would get, and it was all the better for it! I'm so happy it seems they'll get the space they need to tell this story, especially since nadia appears to be setting out on quite a continent-spanning odyssey here (I'm so sorry about your life nadia)

SOLAS solas solas! solas. solas!!!! he is such a BITCH and I love him so much. he is being aggressively himself and I didn't realize just how much I'd missed him. no one gets me frustrated quite like you baby you know better than this I KNOW you could know better than this why do you never learn a single thing I know you have the capacity somewhere in there. patron saint of endlessly fucking up. WHERE do you get off being condescending to nadia when all your ~*brilliant*~ plans backfire catastrophically on you every single time solas. yeah of course you're sorry, and you fucking better be, if she stabbed you I'd be sad but also like 'yeah I mean you had that one coming sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯' about it!!! what the fuck. come home please

such a weird feeling to have him be an ominous stranger on the road to elio and nadia while I was standing there with my arms crossed and my foot tapping irritably like 'oh so now he shows his face, there he is. my husband. my ex-husb -- my nemesis and poor little meo -- it's complicated alright. he's in the dog house, but the dog house he's in is still mine'. I do adore how unstoppably solas clearly wants to be a teacher, he works so hard to be mysterious and aloof but the lonely insufferable chatterbox knowitall jumps out at every turn.

neve trying and almost succeeding in freezing the whole bay I'm

like. okay then! much to think about

the only thing I'm not a big fan of is the characters calling out in-game spells in sort of a self-indulgent way, but hell if I know how else you'd communicate exactly what's going down magically in an audio format like this so y'know. very easily forgiven from my side honestly