There’s a regular at the fabric superstore. She’s at least 80 years old, and she just got back into sewing after giving it up for 40 years. We’ll call her Irma.
I love Irma.
Irma is constantly surprised by the newfangled sewing gadgets our store sells. Today she bought some extra-fine glass-head pins and a magnetic pincushion. As I’m ringing her purchases up, she tells me very seriously, “did you know, if you’re careful, you can sew RIGHT OVER those pins? You don’t need to take them out!”
I told her that I liked that you can’t accidentally melt the head of the glass pins with your iron, and she nodded. “They used to all be like that, but times changed.”
I love old sewing machines and asked what kind of machine she has, and she goes, “Oh, it’s an old Singer Featherweight that my husband bought me when we were first married. It’s probably not worth anything anymore, but the thing sews fine. Have you seen the ones those girls over there–” indicating the sewing machine sub-store in my location “–have? Those things go in every direction and the needle always comes to the top when you stop sewing! Imagine how handy that is!”
I mention that I used to sew on my grandmother’s Featherweight but now there’s a intra-family war about who owns Grandma’s Featherweight and so no one gets to use it. It’s genuinely the best portable straight-stitch machine I’ve ever used.
I warn her to never let anyone tell her that Featherweight isn’t worth something. “I know, I miss my husband and it’s always going to have a place in my heart, just like your grandma’s.”
“I mean, Irma, there’s that, but they’re also worth a really notable amount of money. The Singer Featherweight is really financially valuable. I almost never see them for sale around here for less than about $400, and that’s in bad condition.”
“It’s a good thing my husband’s dead, honey, because if you told him that he managed to buy a sewing machine that’s worth more in 2021 than he bought it for in 1950, well, he’d be so smug that I just wouldn’t be able to tolerate driving home with him.”
Both Selfish; you each lose 2 points
You Selfish, prev Cooperative; You gain 2 points
You Cooperative, prev Selfish; You lose 1 point, prev gains 1 point
Both Cooperative; You Each gain 1 points
(ps make sure to say what you voted)
Making this post long so you have to scroll to see prev's tags.
Okay but it’s fucking brilliant that one of the themes of the book was about the distortion of history.
Usually prequels are a dangerous thing to write because unless they’re planned out well in advance, they risk contradicting lore in the main series. Even still, we knew barely anything about Haymitch’s games. They were the perfect stomping ground for new information, with a rough series of events but without a close temporal connection to the main books.
But though she had this freedom and safety net, while she could have just written a story that aligned with what we knew, Collins leaned into the idea of contradicting past lore head on and made it the damn thesis of the book; that yeah, actually, it did play out entirely differently from how the characters saw it, and yes that contradicts what you were told, that’s the point.
We didn’t really know what happened in the 50th games until we read it from Haymitch’s perspective, because what little information we did have was spliced up and edited. The video evidence was processed through the Capital, and twisted to serve their purposes.
Tackling that idea of history being written by those in power with a notoriously inconsistent medium? Goddamn, writer that you are, Suzanne Collins.
hi here’s a cool bird I betcha didn’t know existed, ✨the wallcreeper✨
it literally looks like a monarch butterfly it’s so cute
Hi April!
I have some of questions about the public-facing transcripts of Magnus Protocol.
They have a very “shooting script” vibe. Are these the same as what’s given to the cast, a very close derivative, or something else?
If they aren’t what’s given to the cast, when in the process do they get made?
A weird copyediting question: What drove the change from the monospaced font (I think Courier New) to the bolder sans serif font? And is there a reason the headers and footers are the old style?
An esoteric “my masters is in rhetoric” question: The scripts contain quite a bit of content that isn’t in the audio. In the other hand, I hear that The Magnus Protocol is a podcast. Are you able to talk about your personal opinion on their relationship to the text? I’m not asking for an answer on authorial intent or the “on high” answer, but I’m curious how various people involved in making Protocol think of them. (As an example, I’ve been thinking of them, to go back to the as “apocrypha”; I think of them as true, but also not as part of the text, if that makes sense. More like annotations or marginalia.)
Anyway, welcome to the public Tumblr stuff! It’s cool to have you here.
Oooooh very happy to answer this, mostly because I think it’s a neat example of how we work as a team.
The short answer is yes the transcripts are derivative of the shooting scripts but they aren’t the same.
Alex and Cathy are both very sensitive audiophiles who have worked together to make those layers and layers of interesting audio bits some people catch but others don’t (the lie glitches are an example as well as the whispers in episode 10) Conversely, I have mild progressive hearing loss and handle the transcription.
As I am also the producer, I know all of the plot points, beats, and important bits that need to be communicated for the story to work. I use the shooting script as a guide and listen to the final release audio along with the shooting script and make edits as I go. Sometimes different takes are used, sometimes audio cues change etc. I also try to obfuscate information that’s not yet revealed in the timeline.
I will admit I don’t catch everything, and definitely make mistakes, but ideally the transcripts are designed in such a way as to make sure people who may not be as keyed in to the highly detailed audio execution can get a similar experience by reading the transcript. I have such respect for Cathy for the work she puts in artistically, we want to make sure people know what they’re hearing.
Our audio team are exceptional in such a way that they are constantly trying to balance creative narrative with accessibility. You can get all of the information in the audio, but we recognize that’s difficult and we are often people’s first experience in audio drama, so we balance it with the extra information in the transcripts.
The layout and design of the transcript was influenced by external guidance for the visually impaired who recommend 14 point bold Ariel as the most readable. We also release Word versions so people can use dark mode or adjust font size and style if needed. Accessibility is different for everyone, we do our best to make sure we have options available.
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For amusing behind the scenes mistakes I know I have made:
People may have remembered the old pilot had ‘Norris’ labeled as ‘Martin’ this was because we changed Norris’s name so many times I didn’t know what to call him and accidentally forgot to change the Martin placeholder. 😬
So yea. I’m not perfect and nor are the transcripts but we try our best.
Astraeus sweater!! Pattern by Bad Wolf Girl Studios. Knitted up with Malabrigo Arroyo, my absolute favorite yarn.
brb, running off to sea to seek my fortune! My crafts/art/miscellaneous hobbies are on my side blog, chlodobird-creations
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