• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

TQftL audiobook

Hiikaru said:
Why should it match their gender? It's really common for real voice actors to have a different gender than their character! You know, like, Ash was voiced for years by Victoria Taylor.

Also, there are lots of trans* people on the forums! Including people who are non-binary genders (who might want to try for binary characters!). So that's kind of a sketchy territory. And what if there are way more $gender characters in a chapter than people of that gender who want to participate that round? Or what if it's a Mew chapter, but no agender people are voice-acting? It would have to be put in hold indefinitely. ("all legendaries who are genderless in the games [...] don't have a gender as we know it.")

Giving people an incentive to try for lots of roles is good, but deciding it by gender is silly. I think everyone can talk about things like "hm, I was hoping we could get a deeper-sounding voice for Mark. Anyone up for it?" without making it about gender! Then if someone happens to be able to do a good deep voice even though they don't have the same gender as Mark, they can go for it (I don't think Mark has a deep voice, but). There's no need for people to be made to feel voice-shy because of gender! It would be a lot nicer if it were comfortable for anyone.
Click to expand...

Amend the statement however it is seen fit, that's fine, in any case the idea was for each potential voice actor to audition for as many roles as possible, to avoid neglect of minor(YMMV) characters and/or missed potential on unexpected roles. In any case auditions seem the way to go.

I feel like the idea of people getting bored with the roles and dropping them would mostly be not a problem except for the main cast, namely Mark and May; Mark especially could be quite jarring if suddenly his voice is noticeably different.

There's also the issue of a narrator, who would be even more jarring to change midway, but would also be potentially the least interesting part to play, considering it's mostly a straight read.
 
Hiikaru said:
Why should it match their gender? It's really common for real voice actors to have a different gender than their character! You know, like, Ash was voiced for years by Victoria Taylor.

Also, there are lots of trans* people on the forums! Including people who are non-binary genders (who might want to try for binary characters!). So that's kind of a sketchy territory. And what if there are way more $gender characters in a chapter than people of that gender who want to participate that round? Or what if it's a Mew chapter, but no agender people are voice-acting? It would have to be put in hold indefinitely. ("all legendaries who are genderless in the games [...] don't have a gender as we know it.")

Giving people an incentive to try for lots of roles is good, but deciding it by gender is silly. I think everyone can talk about things like "hm, I was hoping we could get a deeper-sounding voice for Mark. Anyone up for it?" without making it about gender! Then if someone happens to be able to do a good deep voice even though they don't have the same gender as Mark, they can go for it (I don't think Mark has a deep voice, but). There's no need for people to be made to feel voice-shy because of gender! It would be a lot nicer if it were comfortable for anyone.
Click to expand...

I think they were talking about voice type, not biological sex. Obviously a soprano can't voice a bass. However, there ARE subtle differences in timbre between male and female voices, regardless of the voice type, or what the individual identifies as, so a biological female's voice can't really provide a deep, masculine sound as well as a biological male. Besides, most of the males that are voiced by females are young and mostly prepubescent, and I don't know of any females that are voiced by males. Also, some genderless Pokemon have obviously male or female voices. Take a look at Mewtwo in the anime. A genderless Pokemon, but it has an obviously male voice. Same with Celebi. It has a voice that is obviously female, but it is genderless.
 
Last edited:
I might be jumping the shark a little, but I have started to compile a list of lines for auditions. So far, with the way that it's working out, we might have to do two rounds: The first round could be used to check pronunciation and microphone quality, and be submitted to a judging panel (people who will not be auditioning) anonymously through vocaroo or something. Those who pass (i.e. have good enough pronunciation and a good enough mic) advance to the second round, where there will be actual acting involved, reading lines for their desired character. I've nearly completed the first round stuff, so I could put it up if anyone's interested.
 
Last edited:
Hnnh I thought I might have a little more time to find a reasonably-priced microphone. I won't have anything quality until Monday at best
 
Last edited:
I think you're maybe a little gung-ho with this whole audition thing? Not only do I doubt you're going to have enough interest for there to be more than like three or four people interested in any one particular part, as far as I can tell this is a fun community project, not like a srs production--all this fuss about putting together some sort of judging panel and having multiple weed-out rounds sounds a bit over the top to me. One way or another, you're probably going to have some people who kind of suck participating. I think that's just fine, as long as people are having fun with it.

At the very least, if you want to have people go for individual parts (I personally think that at least mixing in some single-person chapters makes the most sense, so that people who would rather do those can do so, and also because wrangling a multipart reading has organizational nightmare written all over it), start by coming up with a list and see who's actually interested in what, and if there are any serious conflicts, then we can start worrying about if we need to have some kind of audition to resolve them.
 
Yeah, I have to agree with Negrek - I admire your ambition and ideas, but this really doesn't need to be quite so Serious Business. After all, let's face it: even if we put together the most professional, amazing voice cast in the known universe, they are going to be reading lines that I wrote when I was fourteen. I mean, there's a line about a bearded man with his bearded face hidden in shadow. I still thought "ironic" meant "like iron". This fic is ridiculous and any audiobook of it will inevitably also be pretty ridiculous, no matter how elaborate the casting process. At least since we're making this a community project at all, let's give fun a higher priority than trying to produce something massively professional.
 
Butterfree said:
Yeah, I have to agree with Negrek - I admire your ambition and ideas, but this really doesn't need to be quite so Serious Business. After all, let's face it: even if we put together the most professional, amazing voice cast in the known universe, they are going to be reading lines that I wrote when I was fourteen. I mean, there's a line about a bearded man with his bearded face hidden in shadow. I still thought "ironic" meant "like iron". This fic is ridiculous and any audiobook of it will inevitably also be pretty ridiculous, no matter how elaborate the casting process. At least since we're making this a community project at all, let's give fun a higher priority than trying to produce something massively professional.
Click to expand...

Ah. I guess I forgot to take that into consideration. My bad. I tend to take some things way too seriously sometimes.
 
This...looks really cool. I would definitely be in for it. Definitely. Though I may not have much time this summer.
 
Butterfree said:
I am now imagining May speaking in opal's voice. And having opal's beard.
Click to expand...

oh dear

but I like people playing characters more! I mean, a whole chapter is kind of much... (yes this is an old thing, yeah.)

I'd do it if. if I had talking powers.
 
I dunno, you guys... Let's not get too casual here. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right, I always say! So let's be as professional as possible.

Now, on to business.

As many of you already know, I am actually a trained voice actor. While it's true that I have a terrible voice, I make up for it by being really enthusiastic about things like food, music and Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty good at baking. I got the impression you guys were having a hard time getting started, so I thought I might as well get the ball rolling!

Click here to hear my reading of the ILCOE prologue!

By the way, I also noticed you haven't yet decided on a language for this reading. The only language we all have in common is English, but Butterfree is from Iceland, so I figured the only thing that really makes sense for everyone is a Swedish-accent reading.

Click here to hear a Swedish reading of IALCOTN chapter 1!

This last one is just for you, Butterfree. You've shaped much of my childhood and I think you deserve so much more than this, but all I can give you is my gratitude and these immortal words: And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
 
Music Dragon said:
I dunno, you guys... Let's not get too casual here. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right, I always say! So let's be as professional as possible.

Now, on to business.

As many of you already know, I am actually a trained voice actor. While it's true that I have a terrible voice, I make up for it by being really enthusiastic about things like food, music and Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty good at baking. I got the impression you guys were having a hard time getting started, so I thought I might as well get the ball rolling!

Click here to hear my reading of the ILCOE prologue!

By the way, I also noticed you haven't yet decided on a language for this reading. The only language we all have in common is English, but Butterfree is from Iceland, so I figured the only thing that really makes sense for everyone is a Swedish-accent reading.

Click here to hear a Swedish reading of IALCOTN chapter 1!

This last one is just for you, Butterfree. You've shaped much of my childhood and I think you deserve so much more than this, but all I can give you is my gratitude and these immortal words: And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
Click to expand...

OH MY GOD YOUR SWEDISH ACCENT <3333333333
 
Music Dragon said:
I dunno, you guys... Let's not get too casual here. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right, I always say! So let's be as professional as possible.

Now, on to business.

As many of you already know, I am actually a trained voice actor. While it's true that I have a terrible voice, I make up for it by being really enthusiastic about things like food, music and Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty good at baking. I got the impression you guys were having a hard time getting started, so I thought I might as well get the ball rolling!

Click here to hear my reading of the ILCOE prologue!

By the way, I also noticed you haven't yet decided on a language for this reading. The only language we all have in common is English, but Butterfree is from Iceland, so I figured the only thing that really makes sense for everyone is a Swedish-accent reading.

Click here to hear a Swedish reading of IALCOTN chapter 1!

This last one is just for you, Butterfree. You've shaped much of my childhood and I think you deserve so much more than this, but all I can give you is my gratitude and these immortal words: And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
Click to expand...

Well, I for one suggest a Kickstarter in order to raise money for Music Dragon to quit his job and read all TQftL in his sexually delicious Swedish accent.
 
Scyther said:
Well, I for one suggest a Kickstarter in order to raise money for Music Dragon to quit his job and read all TQftL in his sexually delicious Swedish accent.
Click to expand...
I second this notion. :3
 
Music Dragon said:
By the way, I also noticed you haven't yet decided on a language for this reading. The only language we all have in common is English, but Butterfree is from Iceland, so I figured the only thing that really makes sense for everyone is a Swedish-accent reading.
Click to expand...

Well, actually, I personally think an Icelandic accent would work better, since Icelandic is kind of like English's weird twin phonetically, plus it has some really cool- sounding sounds, and I think it'd be kind of fun since we would have a native speaker to pitch in on how good we sound. Swedish is like Icelandic's drunk uncle with shit- tons of vowels everywhere, not to mention the tones. Basically the Icelandic accent is like a British accent with the short "a" sound as in "bad" (æ) either exaggerated or merged with short "e" in American English (ɑ) as in "bod" in English and "gap" (opening) in Icelandic (pronounced like "gahp")- "bad" and "bod" are sometimes homophones, and the "oo" in "book" (ʊ) pronounced as short "i" (ɪ) "bit" in English and "iða" (vortex) in Icelandic (pronounced like it's written, the weird "d" (eth) in the middle is pronounced like the "th" in "the" or "this") with the lips rounded (ʏ) maðkur (worm) in Icelandic- pronounced mahthkʏr- rolled r. Look up Björk, she speaks kind of like this.
Or we could just forgo the accents and just pronounce everything how we normally would. Either way works.
 
Last edited:
No Icelandic accent. No. Bad. It's not even funny, just awful. It's bad enough coming from actual Icelanders whose English naturally comes out that way; my ears bleed at the very thought of someone non-Icelandic attempting to imitate it.

Also, I can't make heads or tails of your description of what an Icelandic accent sounds like even with prior knowledge of what it sounds like. o_O

(EDIT: ...Okay, that video is pretty funny. But no.)
 
Last edited:
Butterfree said:
No Icelandic accent. No. Bad. It's not even funny, just awful. It's bad enough coming from actual Icelanders whose English naturally comes out that way; my ears bleed at the very thought of someone non-Icelandic attempting to imitate it.

Also, I can't make heads or tails of your description of what an Icelandic accent sounds like even with prior knowledge of what it sounds like. o_O

(EDIT: ...Okay, that video is pretty funny. But no.)
Click to expand...

Okay, well, that was a thick and awkward accent. Like molasses thick. I also tend to grasp linguistic concepts quickly, (I'm studying it in college) so I actually could probably imitate it pretty well, not perfectly but maybe enough to make it at least semi- natural sounding. Sure, don't have any sort of nuance down when I'd speak Icelandic only based on the IPA I've seen, but I'd be able to be understood, most likely. My voice might fall on the wrong side of the of the uncanny valley, but that's just the IPA talking, not me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom