Sophinisba Solis

I made a ton of podfic this year!

( a list! )

( a meme! )

Tomorrow or sometime soon I'll post the fic meme! Less material to talk about but more graphs with pretty colors, yay!

Hey guys, podficbigbang is starting up another round and this year they're mirroring it as podficbigbang here on Dreamwidth! I made three podfics for that fest last year, including probably the most popular one I've made, and I got to work with both Yues as cover artists and it was generally great!

Signups are open now and final drafts aren't due until May 25th. They are also looking for cheerleader/betas, visual artists, and people who can do other types of complements and collaborations like adding music or sound effects or making vid-type trailers. The minimum podfic length is still 1 hour (about 10K words of text) but I'm hoping to do something bigger this year - we'll see! Who else is gonnna play?

-aralias has started up podtor_who, a new comm for Doctor Who podfic! Sign up for a day between Nov. 20 and Dec. 19 to post a newly recorded Doctor Who podfic! Wouldn't it be great if we had one for every day?

-The Kaleidoscope fanworks exchange is probably going to go live this weekend! In the meantime, they are looking for pinch hits in the following fandoms:
十二国記 | Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
青い花 | Aoi Hana | Sweet Blue Flowers
NO.6（ナンバー・シックス） | No. 6 (anime)
Epic of Gilgamesh
Dragon of the Lost Sea - Laurence Yep
Static Shock
サイレン- | Psyren
東海道HISAME | Toukaidou Hisame
姑獲鳥の夏 | Ubume no Natsu | Summer of the Ubume - Kyōgoku Natsuhiko
The mods would appreciate it if you'd pass on this info to people who might be able to help. You can also browse all the requests and make extra treats if you want. ETA: I am so amused by the two Y tu mamá también requests, right there one after the other. That is fandom, right there. God bless. /eta Some of the requests are open for art and fanmixes and vids as well as fic. All the links you need are at dark_agenda.

-Speaking of rare fandoms, Yuletide is open for signups! I'm not especially in a writing place these days and the nominations process looked scary, so I've decided to sit out official participation again this year, but I do hope to write a treat or three! You can get the links you need for that at yuletide_admin. The years I participated in Yuletide I had a really awesome time!

-OMG OTW elections! If you're a member, you should have instructions and useful links in your email.

Repodding is when a podfic is made of a fic that has already been podficced. Podfic is awesome, therefore two podfics is even more awesome, right? Every podficcer brings something different to the table and it's fun to see how different podficcers approach the same thing. To find out more about repodding, check out pod_aware on LJ or DW.

( repodding? )

Title: Down in the Valley (where nobody knows)
Author: anonymous
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Elena/Morgana (background Arthur/Elena)
Rating: NC-17
Contains: no standard notes apply
Author's summary: "No matter how many times Morgana got Elena in trouble, Elena always came back for more."
Length: 9 minutes
Reader's notes: Recorded for Repodding day at pod_aware and for the "object penetration" square on my second kink_bingo card. Another reading of this story forthcoming!
Link: Download from Mediafire



Thanks a lot for your comments on my last post and oh my gosh over on the podfic love meme. I'm really so touched by every one of them. <3 <3

I made a podfic and a podcast for pod_aware Day 4: Accents!

Every podficcer has an accent; sometimes that accent matches that of the canon character, sometimes it doesn't. Every accent is special and brings something to the podfic, it represents the podficcer and reminds us just how diverse fandom can be. Come celebrate accents and learn more about them in podfic at pod_aware on LJ or DW.

Title: Being Liquid
Author: rotaryphones
Fandom: Harry/Potter
Characters/Pairings: Teddy/Victoire
Rating: R
Contains: experimentation with gender and sexuality among 17-year-olds
Author's summary: "When Teddy discovers a new way to be liquid, Victoire helps him to find stability."
Length: 44 minutes
Reader's notes: Recorded for pod_aware and for the "gender play" square (or you know maybe the wildcard) on my second kink_bingo card.
Links:
Being Liquid mp3 on Mediafire, 40.7 MB
Being Liquid podbook on Mediafire, 21.2 MB

Then also I talked for 23 minutes, mostly about I how feel about making podfic in British fandoms (including this Harry Potter one) with my American accent.

Pod-aware day 4 accents by sophinisba
Then also here's the podcast mp3 on Mediafire, 21.1 MB

I have never posted anything like this before and it's kind of scary! If it seems like I'm laughing a lot for no reason that's because of the nerves.

Toward the beginning I say that when I started listening to podfic I decided that I liked British accents best, and over time I came to feel differently. What I forgot to add was that the first British podficcers I listened to were FayJay and Penny. So, you know, eventually I figured out that I loved those podfics because the readers were really really talented, not just because they were British. :D

It's day two of pod_aware, which is turning out to be a really amazing fest of many feelings! Today's theme is blanket permission.

Blanket permission is a way for fan artists to let other fans know their comfort with others playing with their works. It's particularly helpful to podficcers when authors give blanket permission for anyone to podfic their works without having to ask first. To find out more on blanket permission with regards to podfic check out pod_aware on LJ or DW.

In the podcast at that post they emphasize a lot of the advantages of giving blanket permission rather than permission with a lot of restrictions or caveats. But I would like to say that if you are an author and you want to set up restrictions, or even if you are against podfic and don't want anybody to record your fic, it's still helpful if you put up your feelings about that up in a prominent place like your journal profile and/or your fic index. It will save people who are interested in your work a lot of time and anxiety!

Another thing I see people say fairly often is that they're uncomfortable putting up a podfic or transformative works policy because it seems presumptuous. "That's for BNFs - who would ever want to podfic something of mine?" Well, you never know! Most of the people I approach about this are excited in part because no one's ever podficced them before! And by giving blanket permission you make it more likely that podficcers (especially the new and shy kind) will take a look at your fic.

Okay so, here is a podfic of a Merlin fic I wrote in January of last year, just after season 2 aired. In going back to read it I was surprised and pleased at how little it's been jossed! For the sake of podfic awareness I feel I should post this to some non-podfic comms, but I've never been too sure of where this story fits. I'm afraid it's too threesome-ish for an Arthur/Gwen comm and not threesome-ish enough for a threesome or poly comm. Any suggestions?

Besides pod_aware I am posting this for a bingo I'm working on at kink_bingo. Later this week I'll be posting another longer podfic with an analogous setup, so they're both sort of for the gender play square on my card and sort of for the free space.

Title: We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things
Author and reader: sophinisba
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, sort of Arthur/Gwen/Merlin, other pairings mentioned.
Rating: NC-17
Contains: magical sex change
Summary courtesy of fitz_y: "The one where Arthur turns himself temporarily into a lesbian for Gwen."
Length: 34 minutes
Links:
Download mp3 from MediaFire, 31.5 MB
Download zipped mp3 from Audiofic

Download m4b from MediaFire, 16.5 MB
Download zipped m4b from Audiofic

DW || LJ

This November, I resolve to complete a Size Matters Bingo for the middle row of my second kink_bingo card, using four podfics and one new Merlin fic. What are your goals for next month?

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.

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!

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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.

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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.

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!