User Since (Avengers)

[susan_voight]

Story: User Since by rageprufrock

Reader: susan_voight

Fandom: Avengers

Relationship/Characters: Gen.

Author's summary:

To: PC (loyaltothedream@hushmail.com)
From: Buck (bucky1956@yahoo.com)
Subject: Report!
Date: May 10, 2012

Phil — where the hell are you, man? Let us know if you're all right, or if there's anything we can do to help. HQ's freaking the fuck out.

Content notes: major character death. Author's rating: general audiences.

Length: 27 minutes, 13 seconds.

Download or Stream: at the Archive of Our Own (to reduce time spent fighting linkrot). If AO3 is down, check out my reader page at the audiofic archive or my Google Drive.

Reader's note: I really like reading epistolary works, and I was in the mood for something varied and emotional as a break from a long fic that is 99% the POV character being in deep denial.

For anyone listening to the podfic first, I made two minor adaptations for purposes of reading out loud: I added the word, "link," after any hyperlink in the text, and I omitted subsequent phone numbers in an exchange of texts between two people.

Feedback and constructive criticism: better than mint-condition trading cards.

Also posted to amplificathon, avengers_2k, and AO3.

(Archivists: can the AO3 link be my "comment" link, please?)

Comments

[paraka]

Ugh, this fic, it's so beautiful and I'm really looking forward to listening to your podfic of it.

I've actually been working on a podfic of this story myself as a weekend project this weekend. So, I hope you don't mind repods, because I'll probably be posting a version of this soon too. :)

[susan_voight]

I am excited to hear how you approach this story too!

[susan_voight]

Sound effects! Very cool. I did think you sounded a little congested at points, but I wasn't sure if that was just your voice until the reader's notes. (For the record, I did not cry during recording, but did during editing.)

It was fascinating listening to another interpretation of a text I know practically word-for-word right now, and I enjoyed it! Also this made clear to me that not everyone feels free to silently correct obvious typos, for better or worse. :)

[paraka]

Yes! I wanted a way to indicate the different types of writing! Especially during the texting scene, it wouldn't have occurred to me to cut out the numbers like you did. :)

For the record, I did not cry during recording, but did during editing.
Interesting! I listened pretty closely to yours and there were a couple spots where I wondered if you were crying (I'm surprised by how much crying doesn't come through, tbh). I actually had the opposite, I cried a lot while recording, but only cried a little during the editing (and most of that was on the end listen through).

It was fascinating listening to another interpretation of a text I know practically word-for-word right now, and I enjoyed it!
Yeah! It can be kind of a trip! Because I'll expect to hear the line one way and then it comes out another. It's cool to experience the different feels to the story telling (that's one of the reasons I started the com multipodicity :)

Also this made clear to me that not everyone feels free to silently correct obvious typos, for better or worse. :)
Heh, sometimes I will. I'll generally try to read it as is and see if I can make it work (there have been a couple times where I've done this and realized that what I originally thought was a mistake was what was intended and I had been emphasizing the wrong thing the first time round, making it weird). In this case, well, I've seen how people write in forums and whatnot, there's not always perfect spelling/grammar, so I figured that leaving it in made it feel a little more authentic, ya know? :)

[susan_voight]

Warning: process geeking! :)

It didn't occur to me that sound effects would be useful to distinguish the formats! This is probably because I'd done another epistolary fic before I got into sound effects. But if it had occurred to me I might still have skipped it, because I know I can go down a rabbit hole of editing and sound effects if I'm not careful (I had editor's block for literally months on one project because I couldn't decide what song to use for section breaks), and because I thought context would be enough. But it's a really cool idea and I will keep it in mind for the future.

For typos, the easy one was "Lt. Rhodes," instead of "Lt. Col. Rhodes."

I can only remember two others. The first was probably the biggest judgment call, "He and I first knocked into one another on the alt.comics.captainamerica in the wild, wild west days of Usenet." The usage I'm familiar with is either "the (name) group" or just "(name)." I actually recorded it as written and then changed it as one of my last edits because it kept bothering me, and I thought there was a reasonable chance it would bother someone else. The other seemed like a cut-and-paste error that would, again, be distracting ("So were some other Avengers, including that guy with the fucking arrows that MSNBC is fucking obsessed with was there, and Natasha Romanov."). But I realize these are judgment calls.

[endeni]

OMG, that was wonderful! *sniffs* Thanks so much for sharing!

[susan_voight]

I'm glad it worked for you! Thank you for letting me know.

[idella]

Looking forward to listening to this!

[susan_voight]

Thanks for letting me know! If you have any comments after, I'd love to hear them.

[idella]

I just wanted to say I enjoyed listening to this. My favourite part was the way you performed the report of the service, with all the different emotional reactions: surprise, grief, etc. Well done.

[susan_voight]

Thanks so much! The variety was the challenge I was after and I'm glad to hear it worked for you.

[sisi_rambles]

Hi!

Your archive entry is here :)

[susan_voight]

Thanks!