#just me rambling about voices

[animasola86]

Voice Appreciation Post

I’ve always loved certain voices. Mostly male voices of a certain timbre, I cannot explain their sound exactly, but when I hear these voices, it does something to me, not necessarily in a romantic/sexual way, mind you. I just enjoy them, very much. They are soothing and relaxing and I could listen to these voices forever. They could say the dumbest or most mundane things, but I would still listen to the sound of them.

And it doesn’t even matter what language they are speaking. I’m German, so my first “voice crush” (if you want to call it that) was a popular voice actor we have here (you see, most/all of foreign movies and shows and video games are being dubbed here and that in a very high quality kind of way), who voiced the German version of Ezio Auditore from Assassin’s Creed II or Geralt of Rivia in the Witcher games, etc. (making these characters my all-time favorite videogame characters, btw).

I also enjoy listening to Japanese seiju - which makes it hard sometimes to read the subtitles of my favorite anime/drama, as I only listen (without understanding much) and enjoy. I don’t know what it is about Japanese men, but most of them just sound so good to me.

As for my newest (or oldest) love and obsession and why I’m writing this post to begin with: I also have a knack for British guys. It’s the accent (I’m not an expert on British accents so I couldn’t tell you which dialect it is or from where it hails, except maybe the Scottish accent, but that’s a no-brainer and also a favorite of mine). So I’ve had my voice crushes on, let’s say, Giles from Buffy, or Mr. Sheffield from The Nanny. (Or maybe I always liked older men too? Hmm.)

This also explains my deep obsession with Chamber of Secrets’ Tom Riddle played by Christian Coulson, whose voice is just, so, ugh. (Highly recommend any audio books he has narrated!) I can’t explain it. It just does things to me.

And the same happened when I played Hogwarts Legacy. I became totally obsessed by one particular voice and you might have guessed from the tags. Sebastian Sallow is not only the best character of the whole game, because he is so versatile and conflicted and adorable and whatnot, but his voice... the way his voice actor (Alfie Nugent, you are my absolute hero, btw!) says things, how his voice just vibrates through me, so low at times, the perfect timbre, no matter what situation Sebastian finds himself in, cheeky, flirty, worried, sad, it always sounds so mind-bogglingly good to me.

I find myself listening to his voice lines over and over again (thank you YouTube) and it helps me so much in writing my fanfiction. I love his voice, really, truly love his voice, it gives me all the good vibes love would do (in a completely platonic kind of way). And it’s just a voice.

Now, speaking about voices, I have to address the AI issue. Is it an issue? Well, I do feel bad for voice actors whose voices are (ab)used without their consent, but from a fan perspective it is the best thing that ever happened to this world. (That took a turn, eh?) Having all these creative people of the Hogwarts Legacy fandom create their own voice lines for Sebastian (and other charaters for that matter) is truly such a blessing. Every day I find more and they are all so good and authentic and the way an AI program can mimic these perfect voices is just beyond me.

So thank you, lovely people who have perfected ElevenLabs, and thank you to the original voice actors for providing those voices in the first place. I salute you all. I thank your voices for keeping me sane in these troubling times we live in.

[applestorms]

L can be such a possessive character at times. he always strikes me as the type of person who is deeply aware of everything that he owns, both in a more literal sense and metaphorically-- like, he knows what money he has and how to use it, what resources are readily available to him and what he has to be sneakier to utilize, the habits and tendencies and emotional states of individuals and world governments both. the DN musical really puts an emphasis on the more computer-y aspects of how his brain functions, which isn't as obvious in the manga/anime but i think still works well as a way to follow his thinking. it's kinda what near does too: everything is a factor to them, every tiny detail a new opening to optimize for the best results, every person and location and object a part of a puzzle waiting to be solved. and as a part of that, L is deeply aware of every and any little thing he may or may not have control over, and exactly to what degree.

his habit of stealing titles as depicted in the LABB murders novel is such a good example of this. ryuzaki, eraldo coil, deneuve. he eats people alive and then takes their names for himself like some kind of fucked up fae or trickster god, creating new masks and personas to hide behind from the remains of the people he's devoured. i have to wonder if he would've used the title of KIRA for himself had he won-- i can hardly imagine what kind of power such a title could hold if held in his hands. of course, he could've just used the defeat of KIRA as a way to build up the L title even further, offering up the body of a dead god like perseus showing off the head of medusa. but L is so emotionally attached to the kira case, i struggle to see him allowing it to fade from existence so thoroughly as near does, even if it is only kept close on a private level...

this is part of why i think it genuinely makes a lot of sense that L's ultimate win state would include capturing light to some degree. even if the memory of KIRA somehow manages to fully disappear from the public consciousness, there is no fucking way L is letting light yagami out of his grasp. honestly, the moment that L truly loses this game is not when he starts investigating misa while still under rem's watch, not when light gets back his memories, not even when he dies, but the moment when he allows light to be freed from the handcuffs. the moment when he allows the other members of the task force to turn off the cameras and keep him from watching light and misa talk in the lobby. the moment when he gives up, lets light yagami go outside of L's personal sphere of control, is the moment when L starts the clock ticking down to the end of his own life.

this is one of the key ways in which i see light as a true equal and parallel to L, as after L's death he, intentionally or no, continues the same tradition and takes L's title for himself, twisting the two sides together into the L-KIRA amalgamation. only, the L title functions a little bit differently than every other persona or title that we see in the series-- because L's true name is L. that's all that he is. on a literal, legal, and emotional level, i don't think that L is anything more than L. he is the world's greatest detective, he's an incredible, weirdo super genius, but he does not afford himself much more than that, barely allows himself personhood or humanity outside of his work. light was the one to ultimately defeat L because he did not just put a stain on his character (as BB attempted), did not just kill him, but stole his very identity and took it for himself.

one of the biggest contradictions of L's character that i think you must accept should you attempt to portray him accurately is that he is both deeply detached from humanity while also having all of his work and effort and life be focused around saving it. it's one of the ways in which he is an exact opposite to light-- where light relies on humanity for external validation, to be Seen, while also looking down on it as dumb and immoral and spineless, L is so separated from it that he barely exists as a person, all the while dedicating almost every action he takes to helping it. remember: for all the emotional turmoil that wammy's house and the legacy of L may put on the kids living there, ultimately it's entire existence is nothing more than L's logical solution to his potential demise. if he dies, the world goes down with him, all of the cases that are yet to happen and he is yet to solve being left in the air. he has the foresight to set up a fail safe, but not to consider the emotional implications of what being that fail safe might feel like, how high the price of your own humanity is if you are not already alienated from it, the inability to have your own name on your gravestone-- though perhaps some of the blame also falls on watari's shoulders in this case, philanthropic old bastard that he is.

imo, playing his game really got it right in presenting L and light as one and the same, synonyms on either side of the mirror. in every action they take they are both so selfishly selfless, playing the game for themselves and their own pleasure but plastering the needs and will of humanity on top of it. L isn't invested in saving humanity for the sake of humanity-- he just likes the thrill of having the stakes raised so high. hard to shit on ryuk for wanting entertainment when the humans he finds are just the same as him.

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[sophsicle]

OKAY question

i wanna reread choices and edit it but i can never make myself do it cause im like "ugh wow so long i simply cannot"

but also, every time i do reread parts of it i have like *thoughts* like SO many thoughts about it and about what i was thinking at the time and how that has or hasn't changed and what i was trying to do and what i love and what i hate and blah blah blah

SO the question: if i did like a lil read-a-long with soph thing, would anyone be interested? like maybe in the form of small podcast episodes where i discuss the chapters as i edit them and you guys can like tell me the different stuff you want me to talk about etc etc and then i will have the motivation to actually do this and also somewhere to dump all of my *thoughts*

or is that like, a stupid idea that no one asked for? i cannot decide whether this is leaning more on the fun cute side or the annoying keep this to yourself side, Y'KNOW????? so i ask

[madamemiz]

votv is really clever in how it makes you care about dr. kel as a protagonist despite that he barely has a tangible presence in the game

for the first few days, aside from a name in an email, you don't have much to go on. there are what appear to be fun/nerdy stickers on his suitcase and he brought emergency toilet paper and a plushy with him to his solitary job in the middle of nowhere. so he's maybe a bit practical, a little quirky, but those are just crumbs of information, and these sort of first person games tend to lean a little more on the self-insert side anyway. without much else to go on, the next handful of quiet days proceed with you easily slipping into his shoes, forgetting he exists as the protagonist. you're doing the job, you're cleaning your base, you're getting creeped out by every random noise. you live here now. the game is clever about making you care about the base too, but that's a post for another day

time passes, and little by little, you notice small details that add up. the strange and specific nightmares about work and drowning and mannequins. the roaches you can eat with no ill effects that give you a food boost to boot. the clumsy tendency to trip and fall over pretty much anything, the pickiness over food

you save up enough to get a kerfur, have the bright idea to check their camera while they're in the room with you, and there you see it in the camera; not you, but him. maybe he looks the way you imaged, maybe he looks completely different, but suddenly you're very aware that dr. kel exists

then you start to get a glimpse of how other people perceive him--croissants snuck on the drone for him by a friend who brags about her cooking, sushi snuck to you by another friend who calls him an asshole and says she misses him, both of whom are presumably his colleagues and both of whom seem worried for him. the smiling plushie of him the arirals gift if he gets on their good side, their note calling him cute attached to it along with an ominius offer of help in bad times. kerfur calling him a dumbass if he makes them do the reports twice, but also leaning down to his eye level to happily get pets

he's endearing in an odd sort of way, and people in-universe care about him. you start to care about him, which makes it all the more troubling when he makes pained sounds when he falls from too high, or starts coughing out of the blue. makes you wince when he falls off the radio tower or gets launched from the atv. makes it downright horrifying when he's caught by a wisp and torn apart limb by limb while you as the player can do nothing but watch

you find yourself wanting him to succeed, to be safe, to get out of the situation he's found himself in. or at least, i do. there isn't a ton to go on aside from some environmental storytelling and a breadcrumb trail of personality tidbits, but I personally find that trail to lead to an interesting and compelling character with enough wiggle room for further interpretation. i'm very excited to see what else we learn in future updates

[tariah23]

aisjsjjensnJAJAJ

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[aka-indulgence]

Ok, what's your weirdest monster crush

Uh. Um. Ok. I, hm. I’m gonna ramble about something obscure and I think you’ll agree this is Out There but um,

THESE GUYS

I think I might be. The first on the internet to say “Hey I think I could have a relationship with one of these guys” 💀💀💀 LET ME EXPLAIN MYSELF

Because without prior knowledge and context im also like “what is this choice” jfsdfkgf

They’re from star control 2, also a game i watch clips of (obsessively at one time) to get the lore (and also there are certain game genres i’d get stressed in and this is one of them i think fkljfd) and these guys are the main antagonists- I’m going to do a really abridged version or else we’ll be here all day

Both used to be one race, got mind controlled for thousands of years and got split in two, had to fight through immense pain to free themselves, and due to their background they both have goals to get rid of the threat of ever being controlled again: one by controlling everyone else and the other by just. Killing them

Both have awesome themes and they speak with such authority and conviction/calm unrelenting confidence, and through all the alien races the protagonist meets in this game, they are the *current* biggest threat

I just like imagining some situation where you can. Teach them to accept other aliens… and maybe not change all of their minds but just one individual and I think that’s very romantic o(-(

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I just pictured this for the light arts au

Wally: go here.

Frank: into the dark?

Wally: go into the dark.

LMFAO PERFECTION, THAT MEME WAS MADE FOR THIS AU-

[zhongrin]

passionate people genuinely pulls me in. i genuinely think that i would absolutely adore listening to zhongli's stories (be it his memories or random knowledges) or al haitham's hyperfixation (he seems like someone who would have small projects or interests in different topics and just laser focuses on them until he finds another thing that interests him).

i can listen to people gush about their current hyperfixation for hours on end. yall are amazing. keep at it. i hope it brings you even more joy. ily /p

[ethosiab]

Worst feeling ever is realising halfway through explaining to my friend why I like ethos videos that i genuinely sound like a middle school girl talking to her bestie about her newest infatuation with a boy. Fucking kill me

[ladyramora]

Why is Zoraal Ja kinda cute 😳

[goldensunset]

the indecision between ‘i love this character and i want them to be happy/i want to see more of them’ and ‘it would be most narratively compelling/intriguing if they died or otherwise were (mysteriously) never seen or heard from again’

[charismabee]

about the livestream ama

Jonny Sims saying the Contrarian and the Skeptic were a buddy cop duo was so based and real of him

(And that the Opportunist thinks everyone loves him but they don't)

but what interested me most was him saying the Hunted and Cold would be friends. I've never really thought about that pairing before but it does work. The Hunted's main thing being keeping the body alive could help balance out the Cold's general blasé nature when it comes to death, while being rational enough (focussing on his senses and what he knows is real) for the Cold to actually take him seriously. While the Cold being able to push the Hunted to act somewhat like the Stubborn, but slightly less strongly. He's confident that they can get the job done, and with the Hunted keeping them alive they could get a lot done without either really getting sick of the other. Just two reliable guys.

A little off topic but I think they'd work pretty well as a trio with Paranoid too, given a little time for Paranoid to get used to it. Cold's confidence plus Hunted's survival instinct could give him something reliable to work with, and I think he could help him by pointing out when they're going to far in either direction and going to get themselves hurt, as both can be rather single minded (on different things, mind you, but definitelythings that could leave them with blind spots) while Paranoid thinks of every possibility and could probably bring up flaws in any given plan that the others wouldn't notice, and at least Hunted would probably take it into consideration if its going to get them hurt or killed. Like a scared little peer reviewer of any plans the other two would execute

[moonlit-doodles]

while recording another part for my p5r playthrough today, i went a little bit crazy over these two pieces of dialogue from his first counseling session with ann and akira respectively (which occur on the same day).

bear with me.

i really had to bite my tongue not to say anything about it since i'm trying to keep my playthrough spoiler-free - but this is textbook groomer behavior. calling a teenager mature for their age, expressing awe over how they've made it as far as they have, etc.

while i think that a lot of the maruki scenes with the rest of the phantom thieves after this are incredibly forced and really just used as a plot device to get third semester to work out the way it does, these two scenes (as well as ryuji's) really strike me because i feel like

- and, disclaimer, i do genuinely believe maruki to be a kind person, but i don't think he is a GOOD person because he enforces his kindness upon others rather than recognizing what the ideal outcome for THEIR LIVES is (not his own ideals!) -

i feel like maruki's discussions here with ann and akira are heartfelt and true. he really is trying to connect with them and help them, but his idea of help is different from theirs. he's prodding for their ideal, without recognizing that a teenager's idea of what is ideal may not necessarily line up with the words that come out of their mouth

and in pushing for this, he is grooming them to be more receptive to the way that he prods at them for their wishes and what he perceives as their ideal presentation of reality

this ramble of mine isn't exactly comprehensive and articulate but all this to say that maruki is outright grooming the phantom thieves, ESPECIALLY akira through the rest of his confidant

(discussion i had with one of my friends the other day)

i think my point is that maruki is NOT a saint by any means and in fact on replay when you know what his goals are he comes across as outright predatory even if you know that he IS trying to do what he believes is the kindest, most just thing. and somehow he really has spoken to people - not only the people in-game, but also the people in the fandom -

and it's BRILLIANT writing because he has captured the fandom in the same way he captured the phantom thieves. it's so incredible to have an antagonist who is genuine, heartfelt, and kind, and is truly trying to prevent the protagonists from being hurt, but he just doesn't understand that the things that hurt them to begin with are not only what made them strong but also what made them who they are

(from discussion with my rp partner about maruki and akira's likeness, & how much more like him maruki would have been had he the strength to overcome/overturn rumi's unjust fate)

maruki is INCREDIBLE and he is a STUNNING piece of writing and that's why he is such a powerful antagonist to round out an already brilliant work about the powers of love and grief, trust and loss...

i just think it's worthwhile to point out that from the very beginning he was looking for ways to excuse his own ideals as for the benefit of other people, mistaking words born from pain as the truth - as reality.

this game is so incredible and third semester does not let us down. there is SO MUCH to dig into and it's just..... incredible. truly.

[jinxed-thylacine]

these two being portrayed by the same guy will never not be funny to me