( continues...)

...Having said that, I realise that I have actually included a fragment of music as a lead-in to a new POV which then carries on softly behind narrative for a minute or so in one recording - a snippet of an urgent, spiky and ethereal piece by Dead Can Dance behind the following River POV on Castiel in nwhepcat's SPN/Firefly story Prism:

River can hear him all over the ship. Music runs through his body -- blood, bone, muscles, skin. It pours forth from him, but no one else seems to hear. It's like nothing she's heard before.

She dances with it, in the empty spaces of the cargo bay, then races up the fore companionway when she feels it surging up from the aft. It's soaring and elaborately mathematical. And at the same time, there's a discordant tone, almost buried beneath the complex harmonies.

"Can't you hear it?" she asks the shepherd as she whirls past him. Some preacherman, deaf to the song of angels. River follows the melody, anchored by the hollow rhythm of footsteps on metal mesh steps. She meets the angel halfway down the steps.

"Would you sing your name to me?" she asks.

The song falls out of its mathematical beauty. "I am Dean Winchester," the traveler says.

(At which point the faint thread of incidental music behind the narration is severed.)

Heck, maybe that's precisely what prompted your rant, for all I know. And I'm sorry if that's the case, and that it didn't work for you. I rather liked the effect, and I've had positive feedback on it, but I can perfectly see that if one has hearing problems it would be annoying. And I can certainly buy the argument that the text ought to be able to speak for itself, and just because one has the capacity to add another dimension at that point does not mean that one SHOULD. If I'd read your rant before recording that story, I'd likely not have included it after all.

I don't know that there are many other circumstances which would prompt me to include music behind narration (this having been a very particular combination of character, situation and music), but certainly if it does cross my mind again I'll be reminding myself that some listeners have hearing problems, and do not appreciate having the text fucked with in a ham-handed fashion - I think that's pretty damn compelling, as arguments go.

...oh, Jesus. I had no idea my post was SO long. Wow. Brevity Fail.

flees

Your description of what you did with the music in Prism sounds lovely and appropriate (to me, anyway). And musical interludes, while they may not be everyone's cup of tea, generally don't overlap with the text. Personally, I think they're a great way of marking a scene break when a long pause just isn't sufficient to the task.

What I can't imagine is listening to a story being read while there is music with lyrics being played in the background. There are times when I have trouble reading a book while the radio's going.

Fay, love, what Anne said. You're a dear to think hard about it, both for the good and the bad, but 'Suela's rant, to quote her post directly, was:

But now I'm going to ask you, as politely as I can: do not read over music.

Not intros, outros, section breaks, lead-ins, but actually reading the fic while music is going on -- and, yeah. Either I can't make sense of the story in the first place, can't remember a damned bit of it five minutes later, or my brain tries to follow the music and I can't make sense of that either because there's talking in the way.

(I'm not hearing-impaired, but I'm cognitively utterly fucked when it comes to making any sense at all of recorded speech when there are other soundtracks competing.)

I don't think that what you're describing of your podfics would be the same kind of issue at all for me (and I only speak for me); but at the same time, I think it's a damned fine thing when people stop to think about access issues wrt speech -- too often, they just don't.

And 'Suela, I want to thank you for raising the issue for just that reason. And I'm really sorry it turned into an entitlement-fest on you. Wish I were surprised.

I was kind of taken by surprise because usually stories that use ridiculous plot contrivances and characterization that in no way resembles the characters I'm familiar with reveal themselves fairly early on. With this one, I was really enjoying the set-up, nodding along with the dialogue as sounding right to me and feeling that people's reactions to each other were spot on. Then the massive load of WTF? got air-dropped into the middle of the story, characters started behaving in ways that completely contradicted not only canon but how they behaved earlier in the story, and cardboard original characters started coming out of the woodwork to railroad the plot to its predetermined end.

I wish there were a polite way to ask the author if she could go back to just before it went off the rails and rewrite the second half with the same style and sensibility as the first.

That's too bad, Matt, because that really can ruin an otherwise decent story. I've gotten 20 chapters into a 30 chapter serial and given up in a WTF that way, too. It reaaly sucks. Almost more than an unfinished story. Unfinished stories you can at least imagine how it might end without being radically disabused. Something already finished just pokes at you and keeps tearing the scab off every time you go back to see if it really is that bad.

Fortunately for my fic, I think I've got a pretty decent beta reader, who would never dare let me get away with that.

And I want to thank 'Suela for sticking up for those of us who can't focus on two things at the same time while listening. Either music or talking, but not both at the same time, thank you very much. Intro music, OTOH, is tres cool. It can really set the mood of story and I'm willing to bet Fay chooses really cool music.

Yeah, the podfic of Fay's that I've listened to has tended to have short clips of music (not whole songs) that do a very good job of setting a tone or a mood. I think it's a great add. Music, especially with lyrics, in the background of the reading would be a totally different story.

Fay, as amych said. While I think it's a subjectivity issue with regards to the use of music for interludes and lead-ins (i.e., some people like it, some don't, for some it depends on the music choices, just like vids), my primary issue was with people reading over music. I am an absolutist on that: it's a failure of accessibility, and a disservice to both the story and many of the potential audience members.

On a personal note, I don't like entire songs used as interludes. I want to get to the next part of the story, already, not wait through Johnny Cash singing about Folsom Prison or whatever. But that's not an accessibility issue, it's a personal preference and a formatting aspect. (I do wish people would label the stories when they use entire songs, though.)

In either event, it's my understanding it's not that hard to not use music when putting together podfic, and those of us with hearing problems would like to have the option of listening to a music-free story.

Stolen from Consuela on LJ:

Horrible Fanon Childhood Showdown.

There's only one woman on the list!

I have to admit, I'm not up on fic in many of these fandoms, so I'm guessing about a lot of them. Knowing Bodie has a lot of fanon misery does make me want to seek fic out, though.

I'm very disappointed in Torchwood fic that Ianto couldn't give Daniel Jackson a run for his money--or perhaps I just underestimate the woobiness of Daniel.

What happened to DiNozzo (I don't really follow NCIS) that made his childhood suck worse than Logan Echolls?