Category: production notes

Man it’s been a while since I posted one of these.

When I first read Crystal Society, the previous episode (ep 12) was the first time I experienced dislike for Face, or any of the society. Up until that point, I had been anthropomorphizing them heavily. Plus I love everything about Face. But then the whole lot of them decide to simply screw over the people that built the tools they need to escape! Not just big corps, but individuals. Without the slightest bit of remorse or regret, and actually with joy that they’ll be able to keep screwing people over, again and again, to not have to pay their bills. It instantly made me reconsider everything I felt about the Society. I couldn’t stomach this much lack of integrity.

I *finally* started to understand that this was the whole point. These are not humans. They do not have human values. Each of them only values one thing, and would gladly murder the whole world to get more of that thing. I was fooled for a long time, and I can understand how everyone who interacts with Socrates and doesn’t have access to his internal thoughts would be as well. This story is a warning, after all. Point taken.

Also of note – the last episode mentioned The Worst Argument In The World, so here is the link to it. :)

Apologies for the reduced quality of the narration audio. I tried using a different microphone, and I don’t like the results, I’ll be going back to the previous one. I figure it’ll mostly be unnoticed, as this episode is all done with that mic. But once the whole audio book is put out in one continuous file, this section will really stick out. :/

This episode reminded me how much I enjoy putting in sound effects and backing ambience. When I was going through Crystal Society for the second time to assess it for audio production, I was kinda relieved to find there wasn’t much in the way of SFX cues. I figured it would save me a lot of time. It’s true that I do save a fair bit of time… but I didn’t realize how much I missed all those little additions until this week. They were fun to do. And with a project of passion, keeping it fun is really important. This is a thing I will have to consider more going forward. I think I’ve overloaded myself with projects lately, and I need to narrow my focus in the near-ish future.

New SFX: Jaguar, Bells, Fireworks

Ambiance: Catacombs, from Tabletop Audio

Music:
Intro/Outro – I Wanna Be Adored, by The Stone Roses

(very minor spoiler for episode 5 below)

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It was neat to switch to doing normal inflection and emphasis for Body’s voice this week. When I first started Crystal Society the robot voice was so unnatural and weird that I had to do multiple takes to get it properly flat and monotone. It didn’t take too long to learn though, but then just as I get it down, we switch to human-inflection, and I gotta uproot all those habits! It was interesting clearing my throat and practicing saying “Mister Potter” in a sardonic tone a few times again. :) Made me nostalgic, but not in a bad way (which I say because I generally despise that emotion).

I did have a lot of self-doubt this episode. On the /hpmor subreddit a few weeks back someone commented that in their opinion, my emphasis was wrong, and wrong in exactly the right way to maximally grate against their own internal voice when reading the story (every single time!) that they just couldn’t listen to the HPMoR podcast. I know there’s many ways to read a text, and a performance is inherently interpretive, and everyone’s vision is different, etc etc. I know lots of people like what I did, and I’m grateful for that. :) But the entire time I was recording this episode a mental thread kept surfacing saying “Hey, is your emphasis off here? Does it make you sound weird and like you don’t get it? Maybe you should try that line again…” It was hard smothering it down.

Which is not to complain about that comment on the subreddit or anything! It’s a valid opinion, and totally legit, and I don’t want the commentor to feel bad for speaking about their experience and finding other people to share in it. That builds community too! ^^ I just hope it evaporates from my brain quickly so I can get back to recording without that whispering doubt bugging me. And I suppose writing about it doesn’t help that process. Doh.

Face is basically doing nothing wrong here, right? One of the things I really love about Crystal Society is how it can be so damn honest about social interactions, even if we (readers) normally can’t. Everyone knows that there are some extreme situations where one WOULD do otherwise-awful things for the greater good, but we aren’t allowed to say it. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that our emotions and social desires are all levers and tools instilled into us by a combination of evolution and society in order to both control others for our benefit, and be controlled by them for their benefit. It’s how we form our neat human-society-superorganism. But you say that sort of thing outloud and suddenly everyone things you some kind of emotionless freak. I have tons of emotions, dammit, and I really like my fellow humans! That doesn’t mean I have to lie to myself about why they exist!

It’s so utterly refreshing to read about a character who unashamedly acknowledges that this is what created us, and a large part of what drives us. Who doesn’t have to pretend they have some higher goal other than just being adored by everyone. Who studies the levers of emotion and uses them systematically to get what they want. Laying bare the machinery of our minds is fascinating for me, as a reader. And then seeing that machinery munchkin’ed and exploited as the tools that advance the plot, well shit, that’s just really damn cool.

No production notes this week, I’ve been having a very busy month! Half the reason why is due to winning a Writers of the Future award, and the workshop that goes along with that. Details for those who are interested in these three blog posts – 1, 2, 3

SFX: Warp Core

Music:
Intro/Outro – I Wanna Be Adored, by The Stone Roses