Dreamories

I watched 911 Lone Star about a year and a half ago, I think? Rewatched some episodes around new year and it didn't hold as well as i hoped but whatever Came for the gays (who had a really nice storyline!), stayed for the cases and, surprisingly, the straight christian couple.

No, seriously, Grace and Judd turned out to be two boxes of very nice surprises, and Grace became my favorite character on the show. Partly because I've been working on the phone in a clinic for a few years back in 2019 and part of my job, although for a comparatively short time, was taking calls for the clinic's ambulance. It's a lot of pressure to get all the details right and act fast and connect all the necessary services correctly and make sure they respond. 911 dispatcher's job is way more stressful and takes more, so I've had an immense respect right off the bat.

Buuut I also dislike christianity very much in general. I'm sure I don't need to state the reasons, we all know them. I know there are christians who are normal reasonable people, but let's just say they aren't the loud majority, especially when you're queer in a homophobic country. So like, no hate, but I won't love that trait either.

So yeah, I was surprised to like the Ryders so much, but they feel like the heart of the show. Their accents turned out to be quite memorable, too. (I'm not from an English-speaking country.) And the way Grace is a really strong woman who follows her path and stays firm in her principles, but is also very much human and has her weak moments when she needs support, and the way her (very stereotypically manly) husband loves her to bits, almost worshipping her but not in a putting on a pedestal way, and listens to her, and respects first and foremost -

So you get the gist. So when I heard the Mucklewains, two other couples sprung up in my mind. The first were the Addams, and the other one the Ryders. And now Effie looks in my mind like Grace, with all her wisdom and fierce personality, and Zebulon like Gomez but with a slightly darker complexion I think. Which poses some difficulties with imagining them in their time period and respective roles, especially when there was a whole story with marrying interracial couples back in the day, but eh. I've been in Malevolent fandom, not my first rodeo. There's a side to it when you can try to imagine all the details that had to line up for things to work out the way they did in canon with characters looking like in your imagination (a very good and educating part, I think), and then there's the side when you just think "it's fictional, it's a different universe by default, and stranger things have happened" and are just done with it. I don't have much thinking capacity right now, so this time I went the second route.

By "nonbinary" I mean ones that sound neither completely feminine nor completely masculine. They CAN lean one way or another but overall it's just a feeling of "cis people don't sound like that". AND a necessary disclaimer: we don't have to look or sound a certain way to "be" nonbinary, but some people have this specific easily readable "not cis" quality to their presentation (it doesn't equal androgynous either!) and I absolutely adore when it's the voice.

I remember when I first started to accept trans people (living in a homophobic country means you need some unlearning and learning to do), it started with a voice. Okay, the very beginning was just compassion and a desire to understand, then a personal contact with a very cool fic writer, and THEN a voice, but the latter was very important in a way that wasn't just "I don't have to understand this to respect this", but more... personal?

I remember listening to Superstition Podcast and hearing Isabella. That was the very first time I heard a trans person's voice, and a trans woman, so my initial reaction was confusion. But THEN when I got used to it (didn't take long), I realized that I liked her voice more than anyone else's from the cast? I thought it was a one-off thing, just a person with an extremely pleasant voice.

Then I've got into the audio dramas properly, started hearing more and more nonbinary actors and voices, and, to my utter surprise, realized that there was a pattern. Voices like Isabella's were the most beautiful of all.

I realize it may be offensive to trans people who do voice training to "pass", probably? To which I'm sorry, this isn't my intention. I know it's possible for you to sound "cis" and not being there yet has to feel sad and painful. To those folks - best of luck on your journey and I hope you get where you want to be!

But I also know not everyone wants that, and plenty of folks enjoy sounding nb, so my post is more about them (y'all?), I guess.

These voices always bring me the most joy every time I hear them. There's just something my brain really-really likes in not being able to categorize them as "male" or "female" (it still tries automatically), something that scratches the itch I didn't realize I had for the longest time.

I also thank audio dramas, their actors and characters for helping me feel at home after I realized I was agender myself. It's euphoric and frankly the only way for me to feel among my own people.