Schitt's Creek and podfics

[sophinisba]

I was in two long Schitt's Creek podfics for pod_together, which posted, er, almost three months ago.

One I had helped to organize, asking thingswithwings if they would like to write something for me to record in the fest and then bringing in two other podfic friends, olive2read and growlery. It ended up being more than three and a half hours of Alexis/Stevie/Twyla, with each of us three readers doing a few chapters by a different POV character. I loved reading the Alexis ones and Ollie did a wonderful job editing and it is a fabulous project, which you can read or listen to as you prefer: Girl Boss Destiny.

I also pitched in a few lines as Twyla for an Alexis/Ted story/podfic written by DoubleL27 and podficced mainly by Amanita_Fierce, sunlightsymphony and ships_to_sail. This one came out to a little less than three hours and is called Something You Keep.

These both take place after the sixth and final season of SC, and were written and recorded after it had aired in Canada and been available for people who wanted to pay or go to some effort to get it, but before it came to Netflix. And since I had already watched the first five seasons on Netflix with my partner and even gotten into a tradition of watching them long distance with another good friend, I knew we would wait and watch them together, but I went ahead and recorded them and I think I did fine.

A thing about making podfics is that far fewer people listen to and comment on them than read and comment on fics, and a thing about pod_together is that this is often super in-your-face because they are published together and then all the creators get all the comments but most of them are obviously just for the author, from people who read and didn't listen. This was very much the case for the femslash project that I'd had a big part in, whereas the other one has gotten an unusual amount of comments on the podfic itself – the editing, the voices, etc. Since the femslash one was the main thing I'd spent fannish time on in July and August, and since I'd also had almost no comments on the long Sam/Steve podfic I'd finished in June after working on it on-and-off for a year, I then felt sort of grumpy, and then also my job got busy, and I haven't recorded anything since.

I did watch SC season 6 with my partner in October and that was... pretty weird! Like it is a very good show and I continue to love David/Patrick but also feel annoyed by how much more love and attention those two seem to get than some other characters, and there were these things about the plot that really didn't make sense, and then this sad ending for Alexis? And though I hadn't especially known how the plot would go (other than David and Patrick getting married) I was still annoyed but at the same time sort of felt like I had processed it already by contributing to these two big pro-Alexis fanworks. So that was nice I guess? But I think the other two people I was watching with were kind of more into it even though I'm the only fannish one of the three of us? Idk idk.

I did read a fic a week or two ago that I liked and thought I might record as a treat for someone for the Informal Twitter podfic exchange. And I have two less-busy months coming up at work so that's all good. Unfortunately the author of this fic has a blank AO3 profile and their Tumblr doesn't allow direct messages so we'll see if I manage to get up the nerve to ask them for recording permission this weekend, before I close this browser up to go back on work-Zoom on Monday.

IT WOULD BE GREAT IF MORE FANFIC AUTHORS WOULD POST PODFIC PERMISSION ON THEIR AO3 PROFILES. That would be really lovely.

Comments

[thingswithwings]

I'm sorry you're feeling bummed about these things, friend. I always do feel weird with pod_together as an author, noticing the same thing, how many comments don't mention the podfic. I get how much of a let down that must be. You all did such an amazing job with the podfic (I am relistening now to give you all comments, I'm just SUPER slow listening to stuff where I can't fall asleep) and you should be proud of it. I wonder if pod_together mods would be open to changing to an opt-in system where the podfic is available exclusively first, before the text?

If it's helpful, I'll mention that that fic got way fewer comments overall than most of my other SC fics, because femslash. The fandom is VERY David/Patrick, so it's not just the podfic thing. Maybe that makes it more depressing, actually!

Schitt's Creek S6 is just really weird and unbalanced. How funny though to have processed your Alexis feelings in advance!

Do you want me to bully someone into creating a blanket statement? Because I will <3

[sophinisba]

Thanks buddy, you have always been so supportive of my multimedia endeavors! And I'm always embarrassed to make posts of this type, especially since I'm not much of a podfic listener or commenter myself, just. Feelings! They are still there! But with some time having passed (during a very intense semester) I think I should be in good shape to make some new stuff soon and that will be nice.

I feel like the delayed text idea has been discussed in past editions of pod_together and folks have decided against it. I can imagine a situation where text-preferrers complain and it just makes sensitive podficcers feel worse tbh.

[baranduin]

Alexis is going to rule the world. She's my favorite SC character 😀

[sophinisba]

She is glorious.

[themadlurker]

Ahh that's true and sad about fandom response to podfic, I don't think we've ever collectively learned to do that well. Those pod_together projects sound really neat :)