Sophinisba Solis

Fannish gifts and recs

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:36:06 GMT

For the Informal Twitter Podfic Exchange, quintenttsy aka leish recorded one of my favorite fics published this year, Tangled by thingswithwings. This is a long Community fic (the podfic is more than three hours) with Annie and Troy and Abed learning how to have relationships while living together and learning how to knit. It is just the kind of story I love, about young people growing up and figuring out their own sexual identity and how to help each other and make each other happy. quintenttsy is also dear to me as a podfic reader and as a person, and it's been delightful for me to be walking around with her voice in my ears this holiday, including a half hour when I had to get away from my family on Tuesday. Thank you so much, Leisha, I love it. Here is the podfic of Tangled and here are the zillion other #itpe podfics!

I am also thrilled and amazed by the fic an anonymous author wrote for me as part of merlin_holidays. I requested several rare ships, of which perhaps the rarest was Freya/Gwen, and my author wrote more than 23,000 words of a historical AU set in Glastonbury in 1905, starring Freya as the head of an orphanage for magical children and Gwen as the genderqueer shoemaker she falls in love with. YOU GUYS. There is fascinating stuff about the secret magical community and there is porn with magic and homemade sex toys and there are interesting parts for Merlin and Morgana and Mary the barmaid and it is basically everything I love and what I wish fandom would be like all the time. It is called The Shoemaker and you should go read it!

Here are two other Merlin fics I've enjoyed recently:

-With Half-Shut Eyes by anonymous at merlin_holidays, Arthur/Merlin, 32K, explicit. This is a great Merlin-POV coffeeshop AU and I wish it were easier to make that sound exciting. :P The Arthur/Merlin is hot and interesting and I also really loved Merlin's group of friends, including Gwen, Elyan, Hunith, and Lancelot. <3 <3 Mind the content notes and be aware that the conflict involves MISUNDERSTANDING but anyway I recommend this fic like whoa.

-My Density Has Brought Me To You by ingberry, Arthur/Merlin, 18K, explicit. This was part of the uni_merlin fest, which I somehow wasn't aware of at all even though a bunch of my friends participated in it? I'm sorry you guys! Anyway Mordred as the roommate from hell who freaks Merlin out by screaming at his videogames in the middle of the night is so inspired I can't even deal. This is another Merlin-POV fic full of warmth and humor as well as Arthur/Merlin hotness. I might make a podfic!

I haven't had much alone time or reading time this holiday and I'd appreciate any recs you have to give me, especially for merlin_holidays. A lot of the fics are super long and it all feels rather overwhelming to me, but Merlin fic is really what I want to be reading right now, especially with all the feels this finale has given me.

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kink-bingo help

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:57:48 GMT

Hello friends,

I could use some help finding stories to podfic for kink_bingo. In particular, I'm looking for something for my pervertibles square (using things for sex and kink that weren't designed for that) that feature a moresome or poly relationship. I feel like there ought to be some Avengers something! With Thor's hammer or some scientific instruments or whatever? Or Inception or Sherlock or maybe even Teen Wolf... You know, those live-action English language fandoms, I'm familiar with a lot of them, but Avengers is supposed to be all about the poly, right? ETA: I have looked through poly and threesome and other tags on the AO3 and will surely do so again as I work through this bingo, but what I'd especially appreciate from you is links to any individual stories you know of! /ETA ETA2: Found one, yay! /ETA2

I would also appreciate poly/moresome recs for historical roleplay and objectification kink!

And! A story featuring a trans or genderqueer character and either temperature play or sleepiness!

And many other things ha ha. I no longer have much hope of getting a blackout done during the main round. :( My new goal is to finish one bingo (the bottom row) during the round and still go for the blackout during amnesty. Maybe not all the achievements will work out so if you know of good stories for these kinks that don't feature moresomes or trans/genderqueer characters please let me know about those too.

Thanks!

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Fic rec: The Apple Grove by Piscaria (and some rambling about fandoms)

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:35:21 GMT

It rained off and on all day yesterday and was pleasantly cool, a perfect day for sitting inside reading fic, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading piscaria's 50K Arthur/Merlin fic The Apple Grove.

( canon-era action/adventure/romance from from post-season 2, hurrah )

In other news, I am clinging stubbornly to this fandom. ( Avengers non-squee )

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Remix!!

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:27:04 GMT

You know how the other day I was saying there wasn't a lot of overlap between my popular fics and my favorite fics? One that comes pretty close to having that overlap is We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things, in which our characters love each other very much but being in a relationship is hard, and some people are queer and some people are straight and then really strange porn happens. It's at number 14 if you sort my fics by hitcount and I went ahead and tagged it as One of My Favorites last week.

Well THAT, my friends, is the fic that some fabulous person decided to remix for this year's Remix Redux! It is from Merlin's POV and instead of focusing only his feelings about Arthur and Gwen it goes and does the sex scene my fic only mentioned in a throwaway line: LANCELOT/MERLIN with Merlin temporarily having girl parts!!! Oh my god their relationship is imperfect and Lancelot is chivalrously concerned for Merlin's virtue and comfort but so so so hot for him and it's glorious.

We'll Sink to the Surface and Hold On. by anonymous, Lancelot/Merlin with Arthur/Gwen (+ unrequited Arthur/Merlin and Gwen/Lancelot), 2320 words, Explicit.

I always angst so much about Remix but it is still the best! I love remixing and being remixed so much. Like all of the fics at Remix2012 and Remix Madness 2012 (including the two I wrote, heh), this one could use a lot more love! There are 16 Merlin fics including several about our awesome ladies of Camelot (not only Gwen and Morgana but also Freya and Hunith) and hundreds of stories in other fandoms. Go read and be generous with your kudos and comments!

Oh, and I think I'm pretty guessable but if you guess what I wrote I will podfic a fic of your choosing ~~if I ever finish Arcane Asylum~~, or if that's not what you're into I will just tell you you're great.

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Rec me some fics!

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:34:41 GMT

Okay so it's April! Among other things this means:
-A new round of remopodmo to help us all record more podfic for amplificathon, podficbigbang, or whatever. I always get a ton done during remopodmo months. Thank you, cantarina!
-The official start of welovepodfic, the Podfic Feedback Challenge, including the week 1 mini-challenge, comment on an old favorite to tell the reader how much it's meant to you.
-Also there will probably be a new challenge at kink_bingo! (The mini-challenge post hasn't gone up yet but I'll probably edit this post to link to it when it does.)

Another thing that's happening that started in late March is the People with Disabilities (PWD) Being Awesome Commentwork Fest!, hosted by terajk. You can leave prompts or post fic or drawings or podfic or whatever there.

Hey, speaking of fanworks about people with disabilities, I want to make some! Maybe you can help me. Although I'm paying attention to the kink_bingo mini-challenges and doing my best to participate in those, the two big personal goals I've set for myself during this amnesty period are
-finish a blackout of my second bingo card (some images NSFW), and
-make a Characters With Disabilities bingo for the top row of that card.

I only have four squares left to fill for the blackout! One of them is a fic that I'm writing and am pretty sure I can finish. The other three are part of that top row and I don't know how I will fill them yet. Can you help me find stories that I could podfic, featuring characters with disabilities and the kinks vehicular, guns, and body alteration/injury?

( more about what I'm looking for )

If podficcing doesn't work out for all the squares maybe I will write something, so I would take fic prompts as well! Especially interesting to me would be prompts involving the ladies of Merlin.

For those of you who don't know me, my main fandom is Merlin and I'm also into Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Community, and a bunch of other fandoms that are listed in my tags.

Thanks so much!

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A few recs and things!

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:57:33 GMT

First of all let's talk about some podfic things!

( podfic links, mostly Merlin podfic recs )

Here are a few fics I've enjoyed reading recently!

( Arthur/Merlin, Gwaine/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen )

And here are links to some other things!

-month_of_meta is a new comm encouraging people to post meta during March. I really enjoyed lunabee34's post Fannish Trajectories: Isolation, a Sense of Disconnection from Fandom, and How We Deal and saw a lot of parallels with my own experience, though she and I are in pretty different places now.

-eruthros made an epic picspam of famous people and animals (mostly dogs and cats) that is sure to brighten your day, evening, etc. There are more pictures of cute animals and other happy-making things in the comments to thingswithwings's post sick: send help.

-The March mini-challenge at kink_bingo is to try new things, ideally "A character/pairing I've never worked on before, from a fandom I've never worked on before, doing a kink I've never done in my fanworks before, in a medium (painting/fic/vidding/podfic/etc) I've never tried to do before." This idea makes me happy! I realized there are not a lot of fandoms that I like but have never podficced in, but my current plan is to write a song for a pairing I've never worked on in a fandom I've only made a couple podfics for (never written in), and a kink where I've so far only written a drabble. I think that should be a good challenge!

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Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:46:31 GMT

Okay, so I participated in the Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II and it was (and continues to be) awesome!

Cover art by bessyboo

Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II

Those links go to the post on halfamoon, where you can see the list of readers and download a podbook or a zip file or browse by fandom and download individual MP3s. The total running time is over 7 and a half hours and there are 47 readers and 86 authors in 64 fandoms. Some of these readers are brand new to podfic and I believe this is the first podfic that's been made in some of the fandoms. I have been listening on my way to and from and around work and it's really a wonderful experience, to hear so many different voices and ways of reading. A lot of the fandoms are unfamiliar to me and some of the readers are people that I know on Twitter or whose names I've seen around, but I've never listened to them read before because I'm not into their regular fandoms. I love that there are pieces about motherhood and fighting and having sex and saving the world and all kinds of other things women do. It is making me very happy. fire_juggler has a really nice post about it and how listening to an anthology is different from listening to a long podfic.

I contributed seven pieces in seven different fandoms, several of which were new to me! They are each between 1 and 10 minutes long.

( seven short podfics: Avatar, Doctor Who, Merlin, Northern Exposure, Pan's Labyrinth, Torchwood, X-Men )

Another awesome thing that happened was that fitz_y made a podfic of I Ache Myself for More a piece of Gwen/Morgana noncon that I wrote last year. I believe it's the only noncon piece among the 104 podlets in the anthology and both fitz_y and I feel a bit self-conscious about that, but, well, Guinevere is still awesome even when bad things are happening to her. I loved hearing Fitzy read this as well as a very porny Gwen/Morgana fic of her own, and there are several other Merlin podfics in the collection. In conclusion, yay ladies!!!

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links and things

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:31:44 GMT

Hey, so, I unsubscribed from some people on Dreamwidth last night because there have been too many posts for me to keep track of lately. It wasn't because anyone did anything to upset me or anything! I'm sure I will see you guys around.

Okay, that is still awkward even if you stop using the word "friend".

Oh my gosh I need to make a real post about the Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology because it is huge and full of variety and women's voices and seriously awesome! But that post will take formatting and coding and probably thinking, so I'm putting it off. But just trust me that it is awesome, and go and download and listen to it! (Or do that with some of the pieces if you don't want/don't have room on your computer or mp3 player for all seven and a half hours.) I have listened to about a third of it so far and it is bringing me a lot of joy.

I have also been listening to Sinéad O'Connor's new album streaming on the NPR website a lot over the last few days, and I like it very much. My favorite tracks are "Queen of Denmark" and "V.I.P.".

The next camelot_fleet Fanlore project is to build up the page for Gwaine. There is a very short page there now but he has become such an important character in fandom, there's all kinds of material we can add. If you can't make it for the editing party tomorrow maybe you can drop a comment at the Fleet post or a link in the Google doc that's linked there. We did a lot of good work on the Merlin pages at Fanlore in March of 2010 but obviously the show and the fandom have changed a lot since then, so it's good to document that.

Hey and speaking of Gwaine, leish aka quintenttsy aka...omg I cannot even say my newest comrade from Team Merlin Femslash Podfic because there are so many fabulous new people now with the anthology and all... Anyway, Leishy left a ton of Gwaine recs and some Elyan recs in comments to one of my posts from last weekend, so check those out if you are a fan of Gwaine and/or Elyan!

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Also mens!

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:53:12 GMT

I talk a lot about fanworks about ladies on my journal because it makes me sad when they don't get as much attention. However, there are a lot of male characters I love too! Especially on Merlin!

( Merlin, Arthur, and Arthur/Merlin )

( Gwaine and Gwaine/Merlin! )

( Elyan )

( Percival and Leon )

( Lancelot )

In conclusion,
( knights. (large image) )

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Ladies!

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:43:45 GMT

Podficcing!
The Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology is coming along very well! So far people have listed 65 different podfics in...MANY different fandoms they're working on or have finished in our spreadsheet. This is not quite as many as klb managed to gather on her own last year, so if this year's team of four mods doesn't match that we will feel pretty bad about ourselves. However, there seem to be quite a few people who are planning or hoping to make something this weekend but haven't put their information in the spreadsheet yet, so I am almost certain we will beat last year's anthology.

I've made four pieces in four different fandoms so far and will probably do one or two more this weekend. Short podfics are so much fun, such a nice accomplishment from starting and finishing something within an hour or so.

I've talked to a few people who are making their first podfic for this project! Are you interested in doing that? Remember, you could read one of your own drabbles or something by someone who's given blanket permission. This is a nice project to be part of because a lot of people are likely to download it, whereas if you put out a two-minute podfic on your own you don't normally get as many listeners.

So if you are interested in joining us drop a comment at the amplificathon post and get your podfics uploaded by Sunday night. I should be around a fair amount this weekend if anybody needs help figuring out the basics on GarageBand, and other people are around for handholding on Audacity.

Fanlore!
Meanwhile, some of us will be making a Nimueh page at Fanlore this weekend to document how fandom has dealt with her character. I used to edit at Fanlore and I stopped because the lack of interaction made me lonely and anxious. HOWEVER, a small group of folks getting together for a concentrated effort can make a lot of improvements there and also be a lot fun. If you aren't into Fanlore or wiki editing but you have a link to (or even a vague recollection of) a good post about Nimueh or a vid you saw once, stop by the chatroom and say hello, drop a comment on the camelot_fleet post or add some a line to the google doc, and we will do the formatting and stuff for you.

Last weekend a few people put together a Percival page and this will probably be going on for a few more weeks. You can follow the project at the Fanlore challenge tag on camelot_fleet.

Recs!
I am in the middle of reading The Adventure of the Hopping Vampire by hradzka, a long, plotty fic starring Jenny and Vastra from Doctor Who (my icon on this Dreamwidth post). It has a nice light tough and a lovely Jenny POV, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

ETA: I re-listened to intransitive's reading of Give Me My Sin Again by viklikesfic the other day. Cate Blanchett/Miranda Otto D/s and leather fetish, an hour and 9 minutes, OMFG SO HOT. I was riding the bus and I was so turned on I thought I was going to combust. It was awesome

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fandom-ish things: podficcing and reading

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:13:06 GMT

This has never come up so far, but just in case: if you ever happen to see people talking smack about me at an anon meme or under f-lock or whatever, please don't tell me about it. If you don't see people talking about me at the memes please don't tell me about that either. I really prefer not to know. Thanks!

*

Signups are open for round two of chromatic_podfic! Let's participate the hell out of this fest, you guys! I feel like characters of color get even less attention in podfic than in fic, and that's really not very much.

( podficcing! )

*

I can has a Kindle! For a little over two weeks now, though gosh it feels like longer - I am really reluctant to go back to paper books or reading long fics on my computer screen now (thank you so much to authors who post their fic, especially their long fic, at the AO3!!!!). ( a couple book and fic recs (Merlin and Merlin rpf) )

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podficbigbang angst and indecision

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:23:14 GMT

I've been trying to figure out what to record for podficbigbang and remembering that I just don't read all that much long fic. Do you have any recs for me?

Merlin fans, what are you favorite fics of, say, between 30,000 and 70,000 words? Anything you've read that especially made you think it would be great to have a podfic of it?

Readers, what are you favorite fics of over 10,000 words with women in the lead (any fandom)?

Some things I especially like:
-queer people (in the story, not necessarily/only in the main pairing)
-kink in relationships
-hurt/comfort
-captivity, exile
-world-building
-well developed secondary characters
-fics that have not been podficced before
-authors who give blanket permission

Some things I would like to avoid
-typos, spelling and grammar mistakes
-sentences with way more words and clauses than they need
-sexism, racism, etc.
-words and names I don't know how to pronounce :D

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Baranduin is awesome and I wrote a ficlet and a bunch of other things are awesome

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:11:31 GMT

Happy birthday, baranduin! You are a good friend and a talented, thoughtful person. I feel lucky to know you and I'm so glad we'll get to hang out again in a few weeks, even if it's just a brief visit this time.

I wrote another Lancelot ficlet!

Title: Perfect
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Ships: Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen (IT CAN BE ARTHUR/GWEN/LANCELOT IF YOU WANT)
Rating: G + 1 swear word
Contains: n/a
Wordcount: 500 (five drabbles)
Notes: Part of my series of five 500-word Lancelot AUs (three finished so far) inspired by 5x09. This one less spoilery than the others, written for the "humiliation (in public)" square on my second kink_bingo card. My first G-rated kink-bingo fill! Thanks to claudia603 and bessyboo for their help. Dedicated to meri and also written out of great affection for baranduin though I know it's not your fandom so don't feel obligated to read it or anything.
Summary: Figure skater AU!

I had kind of a rough day offline today, but I've been having a great time in fandom lately. Look at these awesome things my friend have made!

-So this weekend I asked yue_ix to look over the Arthur/Merlin ficlet I had written with five squares from my kink_bingo card, If I Cannot Be Your Queen. While we were chatting about it she started drawing a picture of Gwen, inspired by my story but using five kinks from her card and with ending up with a more kink-positive message than I had been using (I was expressing some of my angst about 4x09 and Yue was using kink to turn it into something less angsty). So yeah she came up with this beautiful picture where Gwen has sparkles in her hair!!! If I Can't Go To Your Dungeons by yue_ix, probably not safe for work Gwen art yay!

-Another thing that happened recently was that anatsuno and I were chatting and she said she wished there were more fic with top!Merlin and I said indeed it is a rare and beautiful thing, but that I also thought she would like some of lolafeist's fics where Merlin is such a strong sub that Arthur's kind of in awe of him. And sure enough anat went and podficced The One at a Sex Club where Merlin anon!fails because she liked it so much, and it was very sexy in anat's voice and I loved listening to it, as well as the Community/Doctor Who crossover podfic that is also at that link.

-Then another thing that happened was that I read this beautiful intense Gwaine/Merlin bdsm fic by leashy_bebes and I tweeted that it was great and might be of interest to other fans of top!Merlin, and that I'd love to listen to a podfic of it. So then meri decided to record both that and a lovely safeword fic set in the same universe for me!!! So the other day I got to listen to the very warm and lovely (Safe) Words and then this morning I got to listen to the sexy sexy A Force When We're Together. I feel so lucky!

-Okay and I didn't have anything to do with this thing getting made but it needs to be talked about because GUYS DID YOU SEE THAT dodificus MADE A PODFIC OF VOID AND THAT IT IS 9 HOURS OF SQUIRMERRIFIC TEENAGE DUBCON? If you were in Faculty fandom I'm sure you remember this. But even if you've never seen the movie or read another Faculty fic you can still understand and admire this one. Here is the podfic and here is the podbook and here is the text. ;skljd;flkjs ls

-Oh and hey, there is an informal podfic gift exchange going on right now and I hope the person assigned to me does not feel pressured to record kinky fic or porn if that's not what they're into. I really love all kinds of things including hurt/comfort and gen. This person is probably more organized than me and has already picked out and recorded something, but if they're feeling lost they might find the posts on my dear creator letter tag helpful. <3

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more good things

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:58:14 GMT

Thank you for your card, rubynye, and thank you for your present, baranduin! I have hung them both up to decorate the new place. ♥ ♥

Thanks to folks who commented on my previous post to let me know that Parks and Rec gets better. I just have one more episode to go in the first season and am looking forward to more positivity and teaminess. Since I haven't wanted to pay too much attention to the season 1 episodes I've also gotten some weightlifting done while it was on. Yay multitasking and tingly muscles! *flexes*

While looking around on Netflix the other night I discovered that Sports Night is also available on instant streaming. I've never seen that show and I've heard lots of good things, so maybe I'll try it after I finish Parks and Rec.

I really enjoyed reading wanderhomeagain's big bang fic What You Mean to Me (Right Now), a lovely 38K Arthur/Merlin romance. The characters in this were a couple years older than the students I'm more used to seeing in modern AUs and they felt very real and familiar to me. And the way they dealt with their problems, including Arthur having an amputated leg, also seemed very believable and not over-the-top as sometimes happens. It's also nice, after reading so many short PWPs over the summer, to read a few of these long fics where the relationships really have time to develop and the porn feels very...well earned, I guess, by the time you get there. :)

Really I am barely dipping my toes in the paperlegends fics. There's just so much and I'm not especially in a reading phase right now. :/ But I am really impressed with how much the authors have accomplished, and I am grateful to the folks who are posting recs.

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Hello fandom

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:43:19 GMT

I have had a week. FRIDAY has not meant this much to me in a long time. Yes I am tipsy in the late afternoon okay.

Anyway here are some things:

-I have only finished one paperlegends fic, but it was awesome. Destiny That Darkly Hides Us by nympha_alba is a wonderful long Arthur/Merlin fic takes place before and during WWI but in an AU where magic exists and is illegal. The language in this is fancier than what I usually like to read but it won me over pretty quickly with the LONGING and the ACHING. It is great.

-I am in the middle of reading The Ivy Crown by briar_pipe and it is also great. It is the AU-from-the-end-of-season-one fic you've been waiting for, full of plot and characters from Arthurian legend and Morgana being the strong, intelligent, and flawed center of her own story.

-Speaking of ladies and fic, my fellow Merlin femslasher has convinced me to join pornspiration, a comm for getting better at writing porn that will be kicking off tomorrow. Membership is moderated but they welcome people from any fandom and level of experience, and the mods would especially like to invite femslash fans to join in. There will be lots of different kinds of posts but if you're like me and you don't want people to critique your writing then it's okay to sit out those rounds and just play along in other stuff. It looks like it will be a fun and upbeat place and I hope I can find time to participate ~~and I wish it were on Dreamwidth but hey~~.

( AO3 Feelings and Opinions )

-Last week I finally made a good start on my podfic project for ladiesbigbang! I made some big mistakes but I still got a significant chunk done and it felt good.

-I have filled twenty out of twenty-five squares on my first kink_bingo card!!! I have until the end of September to cross off "silk, velvet, feathers, furs", "prostitution/sex work", "whipping/flogging", "obedience", and "consent play". I think it's kind of funny that I haven't come up with anything for consent play yet, considering how excited I was to get that square and the fact that half of my fills have been dubcon or noncon. I just haven't found anything that quite fits it in the way I want. (I thought about trying to do Gwen/Vivian with enthusiastic consent for the Happy Endings challenge at summerpornathon but it didn't work out.) I had pornathon fics picked out that I wanted to podfic for both that and obedience, but the authors either never de-anoned or didn't answer my podfic permission requests, so I'm still looking. There's another piece I started writing for pornathon that involves prostitution, so I should try to sit down and make that work. Silk/velvet/feathers/furs is another one that seems like it should be easy but hasn't happened yet. And whipping/flogging is not really my kink and I don't have any ideas. So yeah, I would take suggestions for any of those five, particularly if you know of good, relatively short fics that ought to be podficced.

-I watched the first two episodes of Parks and Recreation last night and another this afternoon. I like the main character a lot and it often makes me laugh but more often just makes me very uncomfortable. If you would like to try to convince me to keep watching I will listen. I would also take recs for other shows that are streaming on Netflix or other places on the Internet, especially the half-hour funny kind that I can watch right before bed. What I would really like to watch is more Community. That's coming back soon, right?

I finished the first season of Mad Men a couple days ago and was going to try to hold off on diving in to the second, but I think I will probably cave tonight.

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uthercentric, fic recs, making fannish stuff yay

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:44:15 GMT

yue_ix and I are starting up an uthercentric comm here on Dreamwidth! Post your Uther fanworks in any genre or medium! And please feel free to post or link to older stuff - that's what Yue and I will be doing! De-anon on those kink meme fills and pornathon entries, guys! You are among friends!

The mod of utherxtheboys (Merlin/Uther, Arthur/Uther, and Arthur/Merlin/Uther comm) deleted their journal a while back, and we thought it would be nice to have one place that would also welcome fans of Morgana/Uther, Uther/Ygraine, and other ships, as well as Uther gen, solo Uther, etc. Anthony Stewart Head stuff is good too as long as it's with other Merlin actors or related to this part of his life/career.

Oh, and if you're not a regular Dreamwidth reader you can still keep up with the postings by adding the uthercentric feed!

Related to my previous post, this was a great week for tentacles in Merlin fandom!
-marguerite_26 posted an adorable Gwaine/Merlin-with-surprise-tentacle ficlet, also for the summerpornathon/kinkme_merlin collaboration
-lolafeist posted Some Kind of Strength, a great dark tentacle rape fic with lovely angst and Arthur&Merlin h/c, written for the help_japan auction.

And, on the off-chance that you're looking for more Gwen/Morgana period!sex, fitz_y's modern vampire AU (also pornathon/kmm) is delightfully porny and much more upbeat than my dubcon.

In general, if you've been interested in pornathon fills but scared to take on the great wall of porn where everything is mixed together, last week's round is a convenient one because all the entries were posted to their respective prompt threads at kinkme_merlin, where the code mice have archived all 71 of them on the ...summer.pornathon.2011 tag, complete with pairing, kink, and warning labels, and prompts that work as summaries.

I am feeling good about being creative and participating in fandom lately! I've written for all 6 of the pornathon challenges and after the confusing first couple weeks I've kept up with the other participation stuffs. I had a really hard time getting an idea for the most recent pornathon challenge ("Happy Endings", no angst allowed) but I wrote something at the last minute yesterday afternoon and at the moment am really happy with it. I've started in on reading this week's entries and am enjoying them way more than I expected to. I've also written a few other short things and made a lot of podfics.

I've filled 17 of my 25 bingo squares and have a something almost ready for #18. Last night I updated my kink_bingo cards and banners (nsfw) post with links to the things I've made and banners for my Achievements so far this round! Looking at them all make me really happy! I am not feeling CONSUMED with a great story I want to tell or anything like that, but I am accomplishing all these little things, getting my participation points, crossing off my bingo squares, and interacting with people regularly. Things are going to get a lot busier in my offline life soon but right now I'm having a really good time here.

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Cool fannish links

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:49:51 GMT

Here are some neat things on the Internet!

Doctor Who podfic - lunchy_munchy, fishpatrol, paraka, and cantarina1 collaborated on a podfic of In an Interstellar Burst, an AU of Journey's End in which Rose, Martha, and Donna sort out the Doctor's problems and their own and then go have trope-y adventures and sexytimes in space. !!!!!

Vidding meta - thingswithwings has an interesting discussion about the genre of multifandom Women Are Awesome vids.

XMFC recs - rubynye posted Fanfic & Social Justice: An X-men: First Class Recs Post, a great resource for interesting stories that ends with a great mini-essay contesting the idea that social justice discussions inhibit creativity in fandom or produce boring fics that nobody wants to read:

all of these stories are on my list because I enjoy them, and that enjoyment is enhanced by the truths their authors chose to include rather than elide when they wrote them. In these stories I see a broadened range of our shared humanity, and I think that is an absolutely excellent development.

Fuck yeah rubynye!

Merlin fic - themadlurker posted How to Survive Promotion in the Middle Ages, over 80,000 of fun, tightly plotted fic involving Arthur and Gwen as adorable young marrieds plus Merlin, Gwaine, Lancelot, OCs, sword fighting, secret identities, medieval literary references, and other fine things.

The AO3 - The Archive of Our Own is still awesome and getting awesomer all the time! Kudos! Tags! Sorting! Easily downloadable files! And now prompt memes hurrah!! I have invite some codes so let me know if you would like one. Accounts are useful even if you're not interested in posting fic there.

Merlin fest - kinkme_merlin is running the Never Have I Ever challenge, where you earn points by filling prompts with ships, kinks, and fanwork types that you haven't done before. I would probably sign up for this if I weren't already working on exactly the same goals at kink_bingo and summerpornathon this summer (and if I could ever get used to posting anon comments without freaking the hell out). This seems to me like a neat way of encouraging variety at the meme without seeming to be against the most popular pairings, the thing that seemed to upset so many people about Project Diversity last year. Anyway I hope other fans have as much fun as I have been having trying out new things. (Unless they prefer to keep developing their strengths/do more of what they've been doing, which is also cool!)

( Not a link )

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Two podfics by me and one podfic of me!!

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:12:32 GMT

You guys look, cantarina recorded my Gwen/Morgana sonnet Where History Ends as part of the Peck on the Lips femslash podlet fest for International Day of Femslash yesterday!!!! Go listen and tell her how awesome she is! (She has a Box link there so you can listen online without having to bother with downloading and syncing, although I obviously chose to download for keeps.) Yay!!!

Also I made these two podfics!

Title: Late Night Games
Author: dagas_isa
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Characters/Pairing: Azula/Ty Lee
Rating: mature
Contains: D/s, verbal humiliation, electricity play
Author's summary: Azula sends a flash of light through the sky to indicate that she wants to play.
Reader's notes: Made for the Kisses fest at podfic_project and International Day of Femslash, and for the "humiliation (verbal)" square on my kink_bingo card!
File info: mp3, 7 minutes, 3.3 MB
Download link: Late Night Games at Mediafire
[Link updated July 17, 2012 to include cover by manifesty]

Title: Open (Filthy Reverence)
Author: kick_flaw
Fandom: Merlin RPF
Characters/Pairing: Bradley James/Colin Morgan
Rating: EXPLICIT LIKE WHOA (This one rivals Experienced for porniness you guys.)
Contains: mild powerplay, barebacking, butt-plugging, roleplay
Author's summary: "I'm going to put it in now," Bradley says.
Reader's notes: Made for the "sex toys (worn under clothing)" square on my kink_bingo card!
File info: mp3, 23 minutes, 10.6 MB
Download link: Open (Filthy Reverence) at Mediafire

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X-Men ahhhh

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:17:48 GMT

I wasn't going to get into this fandom you guys I don't even know. I was just going to read some critiques but then last night I started reading fics, and tonight I read some more fics and then I went out and watched the movie again.

The best Charles/Erik fic I have read is You Told Me Again You Preferred Handsome Men, But For Me You Would Make an Exception by feverbeats, especially recommended if you were bothered by Charles' arrogance in the movie (which I wasn't especially but still, good fic).

Here are two lovely ensemble pieces also with Charles/Erik, more appealing if like me you were crushing on Charles:

Five Minds Charles Never Read (And One He Did) by Leyenn

Five Lessons Charles Taught (and One He Learned) by kaydeefalls

I may be running out of things I want to read on the AO3 and will have to start venturing into the kink memes soon. /o\ What I really want to read is all the hurt/comfort in the world, so if you have those recs I will take them.

I do not have any ideas for fics I want to write. That's pretty normal for me - I need to spend a lot of time reading in a fandom before I start writing, and in this case I probably won't, and that's okay. I was thinking I could do some podfic but pretty much every fic does this telepathy business where Charles hears Erik's thoughts and speaks in Erik's mind and, although several friends on Twitter suggested I could handle that in a podfic with filters (reverb etc.), I fear that would end up sounding really cheesy and I just don't want to do it. So for now I'm just reading okay!

( And I watched the movie again! )

In other news, I watched the movie Hanna and thought parts of it were really neat, and liked that there was no rape or threatened rape and that she got to keep her clothes on, but was not really satisfied by the story.

Today I bought Photoshop Elements and then realized that I should get the trial version before I opened the box and since then have spent many, many hours waiting for the trial version to finish downloading. At the moment it says it'll take another thirteen hours. :(

For the past month or so the trackpad on my Macbook hasn't been working properly. Sometimes it lets me select text (for copying and pasting, for instance) but often it doesn't. Same thing with trying to drag and drop anything, for instance regions when editing podfic. Argh.

Last week I friended summerpornathon and teamgreed but forgot to add them to the not-Dreamwidth filter, so I totally missed the challenge announcement on Sunday and get-to-know-you stuff for my team. :( However once I finally noticed on Tuesday I managed to write a ficlet without too much trouble. If I think about it in terms of competition or strategy I start to freak out, but if I think in terms of "First porn I have written since February!" I feel pretty good!

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Podfics: Community, Huge, NewsRadio

Mon, 23 May 2011 01:43:26 GMT

For amplificathon, I've recorded five fics that are at least a little bit meta. ( Fandoms are Community, Huge, and NewsRadio; authors are blackwayfarers, loveyouallwrong, imperfectcircle, kanata, and me. )

Bonus podfic recs!
More meta: The Discovery by ingridmatthews, read by dodificus, Sherlock Holmes: Holmes/Watson
More Community: Everyone Is a Robot by neigedens, read by thingswithwings, Community: Troy/Abed

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Links and happy things

Tue, 03 May 2011 05:32:47 GMT

My Canadian friends, I am sorry! *hugs*

I was meaning anyway to make a post about things that have been making me happy lately, so maybe you will also find some of them distracting.

*roga talked about the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour and it has become my new favorite podcast. It makes me think of how such_heights sometimes shows us clips of the Doctor Who cast hanging out and asks, Why are these people not my best friends? I want the PCHH team to be my friends, except in some ways listening to the podcast is even better because there's no pressure on me to think of what to say. I just get to listen to these four friends enjoying each other's company and talking about things like movies and music and TV. Yay! It's a very upbeat show and all the people laugh a lot.

*omg Abed!!! Troy and Shirley and everybody too but I mean omg Abed!

*AHHHHH THE VIDEO WITH COLIN MORGAN READING FROM HENRY IV I CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT YOU GUYS ALL I CAN DO IS WATCH IT OVER AND OVER OH GOD I WANT HIM AND SHAKESPEARE FOREVER (even though I feel kind of bad because it looks like it wasn't really supposed to be public on the Internet).

*( podficcing )

*Here's a fic and podfic rec! The Space Race, written by nostalgia and read by juniperphoenix, about 20 minutes. Doctor Who, Eleven and River, stranded in the '50s! It is light and clever and features the Doctor being discombobulated by River, which is always awesome.

*Here is another! Ach, des Knaben Augen, written by toomuchploor, read by pennyplainknits and with art, audio editing, and accompanying podmix by xenakis, about two and a half hours. Inception, Arthur/Eames, but look even if you're not into that pairing this is a really fantastic podfic, I mean it will expand your conception of how great podfic can be. The recording integrates pieces of the Schubert and Beethoven the characters are practicing and performing and it adds so much to the story. <3 <3

*Doctor Who is back! Treme is back! And there will be new episodes of The Good Wife starting tomorrow and I'm all caught up! WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALICIA AND KALINDA???

*Lots of activity on Dreamwidth for three_weeks_for_dw. I was hoping to participate and I haven't really felt up to it, but there are a bunch of mini fanwork fests and friending memes and random extra posts and I am in favor. I've also been enjoying reading a lot of people's responses to the 21 days of Dreamwidth meme, including several people in the last couple days answering the question about the community you wish were more active by saying, eh, Dreamwidth has more activity on personal journals and less on communities, and that's okay.

Here are two recent posts about Community:
-Blast from the past post: Community by livrelibre
-Community: a tv show by thingswithwings. I haven't read this post yet but I'm excited to because it's a post I asked T'wings to make, which again makes me feel powerful and important, and also I'm interested in what she has to say. Yay!

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PODFIC

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:04:00 GMT

I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT amplificathon!! Like, way more excited than I have any right to be considering other things happening in my life idek. I want to record all the fics! I want to get all the points! Ahhhhh!

I love the way this challenge is set up to encourage variety and diversity, so you get more points if you're new to podficcing or if you're doing a fandom or a ship or a LANGUAGE that isn't represented in the Audiofic archive yet. But I also love that even if you are posting your one hundredth John/Rodney fic, YOU STILL GET POINTS! <3 <3 ETA: You get points for doing a podfic at all and you get points for yourself and you get points for SGA and you get points for John and Rodney's love. Yay! /ETA

So like to get into the spirit of things I feel like I should be doing some super rare thing (and hey I am a fan of rare fandoms, I have podficced some rare fandoms before) but instead I recorded a new Merlin fic yesterday and I have plans to do others, even though Merlin is one of the three most popular fandoms in the archive and therefore gets the least points. I am doing Gwen/Merlin though so I think it is in the spirit of things and I will get extra pairing points and also oh man I <3 those kids so much. Damn.

Actually it was weird for me to see that Merlin was one of the three biggest fandoms in the archive, along with SGA and SPN. I was surprised, though I shouldn't be, and then yesterday I mentioned it to a friend and she was surprised but then sort of said well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean we do have a comm that's just for merlinpodfic and that gets pretty regular traffic, and we have some really prolific podficcers putting in a ton of effort to do the big Arthur/Merlin epics. That is pretty awesome!

I mean, as excited as I am about amplificathon and all the rare pairing and ship stuff it's going to generate, damn, those of us who are fans of podfic and of Arthur/Merlin are really lucky that we have so much good stuff to listen to. Sometimes it's exciting because it's a refreshing new take on the pairing and sometimes it's exciting because it's just so damn OLD SCHOOL and perfect.

For example:

This weekend I listened to such_heights's recording of The History of Two Conversations (On Paper). Now this is a classic, as Merlin fics go. It is from January of 2009. (2009!) But I had never read it and didn't realize it was from back then. I was just listening and feeling, "This is just right! I will never get sick of the Magical Reveal omg!" The fic is clever and funny and angsty and hot but what I liked best about it was how familiar it was. Also such_heights's accent is easy for me to understand and her voice is familiar to me because I've listened to other podfics of hers and watched video of her talking and read lots of her posts and think of her as a friend. All this added to my enjoyment of the podfic.

But then also! Right now I'm in the middle of listening to nu_breed's recording of What Looks Like Crazy (actually I am listening to the podbook) and it's totally different and also great. It's an Arthur/Merlin modern AU where Merlin is HIV-positive. It's another one I haven't read and it's a reader I've never listened to before. It took me a little while to get used to their voice and way of reading but by a few minutes in I was really loving it. I love the way they laugh while reading dialogue. When I'm reading I only ever do that when the narrative says to and I always struggle to get it right and I have to record a whole bunch of takes, but nu_breed does it a lot and it just sounds very natural and intimate somehow, and reminds me a little bit of baranduin's way of talking, even though their accents are very different. So it is like being with a friend even though it's somebody I don't know at all, and that is pretty awesome too. (Plus also the story is great - recommended especially if you like LONGING, and stories about people who haven't been in a relationship in a long time and are scared to open themselves up to getting hurt ahhhhhh.)

In conclusion, yay podfic!

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movies and tv and things on the Internet

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:00:37 GMT

I watched Whip It last week and it was great. Even the things that bugged me about it in the middle worked out in ways that I liked. ( briefly, with spoilers ) I would ship Bliss/Maggie but I haven't found any, but I did enjoy this Maggie/Pash fic, Searching for Something That Makes Hearts Move by mazily.

Then last night I rewatched Bend It Like Beckham, which I had just seen once a long time ago. It's similar movie in a lot of ways - the girl's joy in finding out she can do something she loves with other girls, the lying to her parents so she keep doing it, the inevitability of the MOST IMPORTANT THING in her sport happening on THE VERY SAME DAY as the MOST IMPORTANT THING in her family life, and other stuff. ( Like femslash ) Anyway, that was fun. It was neat to see the girls so young and cute and, well, kind of awkward and amateurish, after years of watching Parminder Nagra on ER and so many other movies with Keira Knightley. Oh, and what a trip to realized that Jess's older sister Pinky (the sort of ditzy one who doesn't care about anything but her wedding) was played by Archie Panjabi, whom I've been fangirling as Kalinda on The Good Wife. The characters couldn't be more different and I seriously wouldn't have recognized her if I hadn't gone to look up something else on IMDB.

Hey, I think a lot of you saw Philipa_Moss's Yuletide fic Looking Behind Now, in which Tony from BILB meets Johnny and Omar from My Beautiful Laundrette, but did you see that they posted a sequel last month? Bring Your Mother to Work Day is similarly clever and adorable.

So yeah, Kalinda's pretty awesome, isn't she?! And how about that Diane Lockhart?! Actually I love pretty much everyone on The Good Wife except for Peter, and he's okay too. So much chemistry between everybody too. I'm about two thirds of the way through the first season now. The show took a little while to hook me, idk, at first I thought the way they'd do the exposition was awkward and kind of boring. But the characters have really won me over and I've also really gotten to like the balance between the case of the week plot and larger arcs. It's become my go-to show when I'm ready to be entertained (and not challenged too much) for an hour before I go to bed, the way I sometimes watch Law & Order and used to watch House.

(Is it me or has House been really bad lately? Like, a lot worse than it used to be?)

I'm also watching the first season of Community! I don't usually watch a lot of sitcoms but I decided to check this out after all the campaigning for Troy in Fandom March Madness. All those gifs etc. had led me to believe that Troy and Abed were the main characters so it was sort of disappointing to watch the first few episodes, which were so much about Jeff trying to get in Britta's pants. Still, the ensemble stuff is wonderful and Abed is the wonderfullest (I hope he wins March Madness next year!). Besides the main characters, Señor Chang and Professor Whitman make me laugh a lot.

Speaking of people who want to be the guy from Dead Poets Society, cereta had a really great post a few weeks ago on Why I hate "one teacher who made a difference". I also really liked reading the discussions over the last few days in her Grading Hell Theater: Misconceptions post, especially the stuff about what English teachers and professors do in real life and what people think they can/should do.

[A smooth transition,] I am so excited about remix_goes_wild, an open-ended challenge for writing lots of different kinds of remixes, for points! I think it'll be really good both for those of us who are remix addicts and also for folks who like the idea but have not wanted to deal with the deadlines, restrictions, and other pressures of the big exchanges. (Actually, I guess I'm a bit of both - I have done a lot of remixes but I decided I couldn't handle the pressure of Remix Redux this year.) Anyway, signups will open on April 1st and posting will be open through the end of the year. You can sign up to write and/or to make your some or all of your fic available to be remixed.

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Purimgifts yay!

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:59:27 GMT

You guys, I am so happy with what I've gotten for Purimgifts! Three Avatar ficlets and three graphics with so many of my favorite things, including both thoughtful character-focused genfic and an explicit kinky threesome!
-The Moon and the Ocean, Katara and Yue gen
-An Ounce of Blood, gen about wee!Mai and her uncle the Warden
-'Bending, Katara/Mai/Zuko!!!

There is also moar Avatar fic!

Here are a few other fics I've enjoyed:

-The Jewish!Lestrade series - Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock/Lestrade with Jewish!Lestrade! Smart and funny and nicely achy in parts.

-Ten to One, part 1, part 2, and part 3 - Doctor Who: the Doctor/Queen Elizabeth I with Liz Ten! So clever and fun but also with some angst! I love the character voices in this.

-Tickle Me Ink - Harry Potter: Hermione/Luna with writing on the body.

There are also about a hundred other fandoms, with a few more fics going up soon! Please post recs if you got 'em. I've had some trouble navigating the collection on the AO3 so I'd really appreciate extra pointers.

Speaking of cool collections on the AO3, a friend recently pointed out hetnotstraight and I was happy because I was able to add several stories that fit, that is, het fics where at least one of the characters is not straight. I have also bookmarked a few to read.

havocthecat is thinking about running a multifandom femslash challenge, either mini-big bang or a remix! What would I like more than a femslash remix? Not very many things! I told her that I have already twice remixed non-femslash fics into femslash remixes, I've needed this so much in my life. Go vote ~~for the remix~~ in the poll at girlgay and give her your thoughts!

ETA: Look at frigg's new Gwen/Merlin art, Rosebud with a flush! Winged messengers omg! His suit!

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Inception recs?

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:19:55 GMT

1. Whee, Purimgifts day 1! You can filter from the day 1 tag, browse by fandom, or just go straight to the lovely Katara & Yue fic written for me, The Moon and the Ocean!

Also chag sameach to those who are celebrating!

2. Hello, Inception fans! You seem to be having a really nice time. I would like to read some Inception fic too but I don't really care for Eames, so that limits things. Feel like giving me some recs? Here are some things I would be interested in:
-Arthur/Ariadne
-fun team genfic, or friendship fic, or a pairing is okay too as long as there is also fun ensembleness (for example I have enjoyed The Adventures of Yusuf, Best Superhero Ever and A Run of Crazy Dreams)
-hurt/comfort with sick or injured Arthur (any pairing or gen)

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