Chapter Text
You can listen to/download the entirety of this call from gdrive or stream it below:
Timestamps:
(in progress!!! transcription by xk_s_reads!)
0:00 - Introduction to the call from farken
2:19 - Mentioning past trans podficcer discussions: Gender and Voice and Podficcers Talk T
3:30 - Podficcing shows that voices can do so many things
6:20 - Trying to find a talking voice that isn’t customer service voice or modulating to please people
9:20 - Seeing a voice coach and vocal fry
11:05 - Choosing characters knowing you get to do your lowest voice (then T changes what your lowest voice is)
12:55 - Professional detachment from our voices (but not always listening to our podfics again)
14:15 - Using podfic to get used to voice changes from T
15:50 - A brief technical intermission as we try to figure out how to use Craig to record the call on Discord
17:30 - We finally remember to start introductions (this lasts for like an hour)
18:10 - farken intro
18:50 - xk_s_reads intro
19:15 - Ink intro
19:50 - Some tangents about disability
21:10 - Ink intro continues
22:00 - Talking about whether we're on T/considering it/not, and how our voices impact that decision
24:30 - Kiro intro
25:35 - We all talk over each other but are agreeing that transition going from ‘okay that’s all i need’ to ‘wait actually... 🤔’ is deeply relatable
26:10 - Not feeling 'trans enough' and finally feeling allowed to like masculinity
28:05 - Enjoying confusing strangers trying to gender you
28:18 - Approaching femininity through masculinity
29:25 - Accepting that you’ll be seen as a woman even though you aren’t
30:20 - zhady intro
31:05 - Finn intro
32:00 - Waiting a long time for appointments to start T
34:45 - shash intro
35:20 - sunlight intro (with mic issues)
37:00 - Getting invites to Voiceteam as a new podder
38:30 - What made you interested in podficcing?
38:35 - xk_s_reads offers to answer this question by summarizing thoughts shared on a recent post and speaks about appreciating cold reads
40:50 - A brief tangent on computers, editing programs, and recording setups
41:15 - xk_s_reads continues faer answer (note from xk_s_reads: 😅😅😅)
42:40 - Discussing cold reads and commentary
44:25 - A brief interlude about recording in libraries
45:15 - Ink's answer
46:45 - Falling asleep to podfics
47:35 - Kiro's answer
49:40 - A tangent about Yuuri!!! on ICE
50:35 - zhady's answer
52:50 - Starting without community and figuring it out on the way
54:30 - Tangent about The Exact Right Number of Cooks and other Voiceteam challenges
55:45 - farken's answer
58:00 - Realizing you do have voice dysphoria through podficcing
58:50 - Experiencing professional detachment from our voices (sometimes)
59:25 - Enjoying listening to your own podfic
1:01:35 - Enjoying listening to your own filk
1:02:20 - A tangent about using a bluetooth mouse on your phone (note from xk_s_reads: realizing that most of the tangents were bc of me 😅😅😅😉😉😉✨✨✨)
1:02:55 - Podficcing in native language feeling more uncomfy than English
1:07:15 - Not expecting having to listen to your voice all the time (especially concerning pitch)
1:07:55 - Feeling good or bad about your voice on different days (sometimes perception, sometimes voice is just different)
1:10:25 - Podficcing helps you notice what makes a voice sound a certain way beyond the pitch: timbre, pace, tone, etc.
1:11:40 - Recognizing something as a good performance even if your voice makes you uncomfortable
1:12:05 - Playing characters helps because people aren’t using your performance to make inferences about you as a person like when they’re gendering your speaking voice
1:13:35 - farken's personal discomfort voicing women as a fear of that gendering perception, when everyone else has an easier time with it
1:15:30 - It’s nice to remember that other people will hear your voice and think it’s a good performance/podfic, even if you can’t hear it like that
1:16:30 sunlight second intro (and now we're done with introductions!)
1:17:15 - Listening to other trans people’s podfics is validating and helps decouple voice from gender
1:20:30 - Hearing people’s post-T voices is reassuring because there's so much fearmongering that T will ruin your voice
1:24:20 - Acknowledging that this is a transmasc/nonbinary/androgynous group with no one moving towards femininity
1:24:55 - Speculating on why podfic spaces in general have lots of nonbinary and transmasc people
1:27:30 - Talking about the perception of transformative fandom as feminine
1:29:15 - A brief tangent about fujoshis
1:30:55 - Appreciating how fandom has a lot of transmasc smut
1:31:35 - Speculating on whether the overabundance of men in media and fic makes it more comfortable for transmascs to podfic than transfems, since you're so much more likely to voice men (does vary by fandom)
1:33:05 - Discussing dysphoria from reading fics and appreciating smut centering people with different body parts than you
1:35:10 - Realizing that many of us are ace and/or aro
1:36:25 - Talking about genderswap fics being uncomfy
1:36:45 - The POV being important when it comes to dysphoria and reading smut
1:39:35 - Enjoying reading about romance/sex but not wanting it irl
1:40:10 - Gender roles can make het fic uncomfy to read
1:41:00 - A tangent about Ken Doll anatomy envy
1:41:30 - Identifying more as a man as transition goes on
1:43:00 - Our transness being an important part of how some of us experience gender
1:44:45 - Going 'towards man' vs 'away from woman'
1:50:00 - Feeling gender/sexual attraction in a different way vs Not Feeling gender/sexual attraction
1:51:35 - Trying to make yourself be Girl or be Attracted
1:53:55 - Shifting the 'trying to be Girl' into something that makes us feel better (goth/punk/etc) - embracing being Bad At Girl before we know we're trans
1:54:35 - Many of us are neurodivergent, which can make it easier to realize you're queer, as you're already questioning why you have to do things in a certain way
1:56:25 - Gender is different with friends than with strangers
1:57:40 - Being weirdly uncomfortable being seen as a cis man (but also more comfortable with that than being seen as a woman)
1:59:10 - Queerness and transness are important to us
2:00:20 - Feeling gender Strongly, but it’s not a pre-existing gender
2:02:20 - A brief interlude abut dressing up our mobility aids
2:02:55 - Starting to wrap up: Are there any final thoughts?
2:03:35 - Listening to singers on T is inspiring and makes you want to have a voice like that too
2:04:20 - Mimicking movies for character voice things
2:05:10 - Accents in podfic
2:07:05 - Listening to your own voice desensitizes you to it
2:08:40 - Nudes and top dysphoria work in the same way to discouple it from the dysphoria
2:09:10 - Nipple piercings alleviating top dysphoria
2:10:10 - Sounding like a family member of your agab and freaking out about it
2:11:05 - Podficcing as a way to track your transition if you’re on HRT
2:12:45 - Acknowledging that this call was not at all organized and saying goodbye