Episode 63 - Interlude, Familiarity

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  Welcome back to the podcast. A very unorthodox, untraditional podcasts. One that answers no questions and leaves you with more. One that keeps putting pieces on the board but never tells you which ones, if any of the old, are coming off. 

Or maybe none of them are. Maybe I’m just repainting what is there, what has always been there. Maybe I’m simply repainting the same pieces I’ve been moving around the whole time. That’s always a possibility, right? 

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After all, there’s only seven types of stories. Or so I heard. There’s a finite number of conflict and character types. There’s a finite number of tools in the writer’s toolkit, and so, there’s a finite number of ways that everything can be arranged. The difference between one story and another is in the details, you might want to point out. You eagerly point that out, perhaps, because there’s a looming existential dread that comes from something so critical to humanity and all that’s good in it being reduced in this way. It makes you uncomfortable. And it likely should. 

Or it did for me. I don’t know. That was one of the few lessons in school that I remember actually hating. Which… Okay, there’s no way for me to explain this without it sounding like I think I’ms better than everybody because when I was younger I actually liked school or whatever that line that other people say. I don’t think that, by the way. I don’t think a preference, even one for school, is a sign of superiority, but I guess that’s a terrible inevitability of valuing an education. At least one person was always going to take it too far. But I don’t think that’s me. 

For context, school was my escape from everything. That was why I loved it so much. And because that love was born entirely out of desperation, it was fairly unconditional. There could have been no school day I didn’t love. I would have thought that any lesson was a good one because I wasn’t at home when I received it.

But this one lesson was the exception. Because it hurt, this idea that all stories are copies of each other, that no story was really a brand new story.

Which isn’t what that lesson was, I know now. I understand the nuance. Maybe I just panicked a bit. Even then I was dependent on storytelling. Overly so. And there are consequences to being that way. Like how it sets you up to be a hypocrite later in life.

Because what’s stopping a podcast from doing that? From telling the same story season to season but with slightly different coatings of paint. Of course, a podcast might be able to jump to different parts of the narrative, which would make the connection less obvious. But the creative team or creator would know. They would have this perspective needed to see the connections. But how useful is that knowledge, you think?

I’m just spitballing here, though. It’s just a question I’ve wondered about for a while. And that’s really what this podcast has become, right? Questions I’ve been wondering about for a while.

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Come to think of it. That woman, the one that just seemed to know Jade despite how incompatible that was with the show’s design, might have actually known her. Or rather, I think she might have been a recurring character. Somehow. 

Earth shattering, I know. Or it was if you cared about this sort of thing. If you care about the substance of the show and are not just consumed with the thought of whether or not you could find it again. Is this a study or a challenge? If it’s the latter, I don’t think this clue will help you. 

Or… I mean, in theory, it means that it might be worthwhile for me to go into more depth about the style or sound of voice the woman had. It’s more data, and if you wanted to conduct some sort of voice actor search, then this added memory might help. And from the voice actor, you might find the project list they worked on, and then the show. That’s the logic, right? It’s probably one that people have used before in these ongoing searches for lost media. Having a name for the voice actor would be great, but as I’ve said, I don’t have that. I have still shots, clips, glimpses of the show in my mind that I’m trying to convey to you through the only medium I was ever able to effectively use. Not that I’m great at it. Only good enough to make something somewhat passable. 

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Maybe I was so angry with that lesson because that idea–that simple observation that there are story types or categories, that all conflict fall into familiar lines–stoked my own fears of inadequacy or that I wasn’t creative enough. Because there was always something in particular on my mind. There was always one concern that stood out amidst all the others, and I could feel it seeping into everything I did. Even here, in this podcast, I haven’t escaped it. I haven’t escaped the trunk my parents kept out in the garage, the one that they made me swear not to touch. Not that I was going to. 

It lurks in everything I do. Even here. In this podcast. When I imagine the scenes I write about, it lurks there. It’s always in the background.  I just don’t mention it.

Because, at some point, I realized I had control. Not a lot, but I had some degree of control in all of this. And it might be a little, but it’s mine. And you can’t blame me for wanting to hold onto it. Even if it means holding certain details back.

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“Passable” in this context is far from ideal. In fact, maybe you want to argue that I shouldn’t be using that word unless my description is exactly what is needed to get the name of the voice actor, which will then lead us where we need to go. Or maybe it could get us to a project that will then lead to a name, but without the years the show was running, it’s harder to narrow in on who was active at the right time. And then again, maybe this was a one off voice actor, someone who never got an IMDB because the only project they had ever attached themselves to was swallowed up by the void. So, is it even worth it to try?

Actually, look, that’s defeatist and useless, frankly. I guess any lead could be a dead end. You shouldn’t spend too much time trying to guess which is which. You won’t get it right 100% of the time. And the times you get it wrong come with a cost. 

What’s the cost here? I’m just wasting time, I guess. No one really has the time to spare, though. Certainly not me.

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I’ve put a lot of self-worth into being a good writer. Okay, so I don’t have a lot of self-worth to offer on the whole, but what I do have, I put into this particular basket. There are drawbacks and consequences to that, undoubtedly. It is likely not the smartest thing I could have done, but it is what it is. Namely, the situation I find myself in. 

So yeah, I’m going to be concerned that my mind has locked onto one thing, that it fixates on something to an almost distressing degree, and keeps inserting that into everything I write. 

Because, I get it, my writing style is… Well, it’s not for everyone. I don’t even know if I can call it an acquired taste. It’s just different. It’s what I want it to be. And there’s something freeing about that sentiment, that I can be so untethered by norms and conventions. It’s like I can be whatever I want to be now that I’m more fully on my own. And I cherish that.

So of course I don’t want to be held down by a habit I can’t seem to break, by a period of my life I can’t seem to pull myself out of, a door I can’t properly close. It’s one last shackle holding me back, and I really don’t know what to do about that. Not that I’ve really tried.

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I know I said the woman’s voice was unnerving to me, in a very specific way. And I still hold that to be true. But at the same time, there was almost something almost… regal about her voice. It was stately and had weight to it. If you were to just look at a member of one of the many European royals and guess how they might talk minus an accent, that would be the sort of voice this woman had. As for an accent, it was a show made in America for an American audience, so you could expect an American voice. And I get that there are a lot of American accents, but you know the one I mean, the sort of “default voice” you see on a show that doesn’t want to give away its location.

Yes, there was the faintest hint of a southern drawl, but it only came out with certain vowels. Ah’s, eh’s. Its subtlety is not one I can properly replicate.

There was also a specific way she struck her syllables. Sometimes she would hit them overly hard. Pop her p’s with a bit too much force. Or there might be a faint whistle on an “s” or two. It’s the sort of thing a sound engineer should have taken out. I am not a sound engineer, and I try to take them out of this podcast. But for some reason they were in this professional made show.

Oh and her voice was on the lower end of the sound spectrum. She likely would have been an alto, had she ever sung, but who knows if she did? Well, it makes sense for a voice actor to have a plethora of marketable skills, so assume she does, I guess. Assume she sings, even if she would never sing to the girl. The cold chill she carried doesn’t allow for the vocal cords to move properly for that.

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I guess… I don’t know. But now that I’m talking about all of this, I’m starting to wonder if this show wasn’t… foundational in some way? Like how much of this show–which also transcended boundaries for better or worse or worse yet even still–influenced my desire to operate outside of those boundaries. What if this show made me what I am?

I don’t like the idea of that. I really don’t.

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There was a science fiction episode where that woman appeared. She was a leader of some kind. Or she could have been. I don’t remember fully but something happened, and she didn’t take the captain’s chair. She told Jade that she wasn’t the captain; her brother was. She said it bitterly. And somehow that tone of voice suited her better than any of the others she used. 

There was also an episode on a farm of some kind. This woman didn’t live on the farm but on the next property over. Jade saw her in the distance. So did the audience. She just stared at Jade for a moment too long before the small girl went to go ride horses.

There was yet another where she was just a voice on the computer, someone telling Jade where to go in the laboratory she found herself in.

Actually, maybe it wasn’t the same character, but an actor overly cast on one show. I’ve heard of that happening. It’s not a great practice, and it doesn’t help us, but, you know, nothing has, really. 

But does that mean this woman knew Jade, you might want to ask. This might be a sign that she did and that stray observation I made earlier really doesn’t have merit. Except I think those episodes came after this one. This was the beginning. This was when they first met. And yet, it was like they already knew each other. Somehow.

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Where do I end and this show or any of the many influences in my life begin? How much of me is me? How much of me is the work of others? I’m sure I’m not the only person who has ever asked at, but I’d really love an answer. I think I might need it. 

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Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or post about it on some mysterious online forum. You do you.