Sophinisba Solis

klb has a great new post up at podficmeta proposing that instead of asking authors for permission each time we want to do an individual podfic, we could instead ask what their transformative works policy is (whether it's blanket yes, blanket no, or they want to be asked each time, or something else) and link to a post about what transformative works policies are and why they're important to us as podficcers. This seems like a wonderful idea to me and I commented to say that I've done something similar a few times (without the informative link) but I felt sort of pushy when I was doing it. But maybe it doesn't come across as pushy? After all, as klb pointed out, asking every time is, like, assuming that the author's policy is "ask me every time", and why should that be the assumption? And isn't it more respectful, and not less, to ask what the policy is instead?

So yeah, I recommend reading that post!

( Podfic feedback is the best; I am getting a new microphone. )

Today is the last day of pod_aware! Today's topic is Encouraging Podfic:

Podfic as a fan art is still relatively small, even if it's growing quickly. There are positive steps that can be taken to help podfic as a fan art grow. To learn how check out pod_aware on LJ or DW.

I have run out of podfics to post and also, apparently, things to say about podfic. But it has been an awesome fest! Thanks for all your hard work, paraka, and to everybody else who contributed! ETA: Oh here's something: if you run a comm for say fic about a certain pairing or a certain small fandom, ask yourself whether you are against having art, podfics, and other fanworks posted at that comm. If not, edit your posting guidelines and make an announcement to the comm! I would really appreciate it if more comms would do that and I know a lot of visual artists feel the same way. /ETA

In other fest news, I am really looking forward to participating in erasureathon, a fest where you get assigned to an author and erase most of the words in one of their fics to end up with a poem. The explanation of erasure at the comm says,

Erasure poetry is made when the poet selects a written work, removes parts, and what is left is the poem. It’s an excavation, an unfolding, a division, a recreation, a transformation. Your final product can be radically different from your original source – in fact it is bound to.

Earlier this year I went to a reading by several published erasure poets and it was AWESOME! I was especially impressed by Travis MacDonald's book The O Mission Repo (Vol. 1): a Repo of the O Mission Error Attacks on Unit (based on The 9/11 Commission Report). It was very creepy and beautiful! This is the third year of the challenge and I know be_themoon is playing but I hope other friends of mine will join up too. I wish the signups weren't screened but I guess it's exciting to be surprised. Signups are open through December 3rd and erasures are due on January 7th. Yay fanworks of fanworks! OMG POEMS!!!

Oh hey speaking of transformative works, let's hear it for those AO3 Support volunteers, politely and helpfully answering a lot of strongly worded emails over the last few days. Yay for them and also for other folks who have put so much work into improving the AO3 and other OTW projects.

So, OTW Board Elections are coming up later this week! If you have contributed money this year and are able to vote, I'd like to encourage you to vote for Julia Beck, Jenny Scott-Thompson, Nikisha Sanders, and Betsy Rosenblatt. If you would like to spend a few days reading posts about this and getting really depressed, let me know and I can give you some links. But the most clearly stated post I've read is bookshop's OTW Elections! Now with less confusion!, which puts it in terms of, well, why not to vote for Naomi Novik (even though she's awesome in many other ways that are not being on the OTW Board).

Fan artists love feedback and podficcers are no different. Feedback can motivate us, inspire our muse and help us create more of out art. However feedback on podfic can be rather light. To find out how you can help increase feedback for podfic check out pod_aware on LJ or DW.

YOU GUYS, PODFIC FANDOM IS SO AWESOME. I DON'T KNOW, IF YOU FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER YOU KNOW I HAVE BEEN SQUEEING MY HEAD OFF ALL WEEK AND IF YOU DON'T MAYBE YOU JUST THINK I'VE BEEN POSTING A LOT OF SAVED UP STUFF, BUT I HAVE ALSO BEEN WALKING AROUND LISTENING TO PODFICCERS TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY DO AND IT HAS MADE ME SO HAPPY AND SO FULL OF LOVE.

Here are links to a few of the awesome things I've been listening to!

-some people just change your life, you know? - anatsuno reading jinjurly's podfic meta totally made me cry on the bus when I listened on Wednesday. I had read it a couple times before but it just made such an impact to hear it spoken out loud. I love how anat sounds calm and thoughtful but at the same time passionate about it. It made me realize that I quote that essay all the time without realizing I'm doing it, for instance in a post I made at pornspiration the other day about the things people are doing when they listen to podfic. Also this:

i'm tired of the ways that we minimize our own contributions, and the ways that we say we don't deserve our place. i'm tired of being told i'm too involved in 'boosterism' in the podfic community, and i'm tired of seeing people told they are doing it wrong. i'm tired of people saying that some people have accents and some don't. i'm tired of women saying their bodies are ugly, of being ashamed of their voices, and of the things they love, and of hiding their joy for fear of derision.

Sing it!

-Audiometa: Kink_Bingo and Podfic, Perfect Together by Sophinisba
- meri_sefket listened to anat's recording too and was inspired to record the podfic meta that I wrote for kink_bingo in June! That is a less emotional post and half of it is me doing my typical "Look, here is a comm! Here are some things you can do!" spiel, but about halfway through it gets to the park about podfic being inherently kinky I do think it gets really interesting and cool to hear spoken out loud. Meri talks in a really clear and sincere voice and has an American accent that's fairly similar to mine, but she also emphasizes different words than I would have and has a different kind of tone than I probably would have used, and that all makes it so much more interesting to listen to. In that post I quoted both yue_ix and jinjur, so we had Yue record the parts she had written and Meri edited those in, along with clips of anat reading Jinjur! I think the editing is really smooth and I'm just so thrilled that this exists now, wow!

-Podfics and languages (accent extension) a really interesting conversation between yue_ix (who is French Canadian) and emei about podfic from the perspective of non-native English speakers.

-An OK Man Kinda Sorta Tries to Battle - cantarina's podfic of an Inspector Spacetime ficlet by havent_got_a_clue. Ridiculous fake British accents for a ridiculous fic in a ridiculous fake British fandom. IT IS THE BEST.

And so so so much more! Go check out the other posts at pod_aware and pod_aware! There is so much!

I also started a thread for myself at the podfic love meme!


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Here, have some homemade Merlin porn, brought to you by kink_bingo and pod_aware, lolafeist and me.

The relationship between a podficcer and author can be totally hands off, completely collaborative or anything in between. There are a lot of ways podficcers and authors can help each other, check out pod_aware on LJ or DW for more information.

Title: The Fuckmachine
Author: lolafeist
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Contains: really a lot of porn
Author's summary: "Arthur stars in an amateur fuck machine porno. Merlin is a wizard. Except not really."
Length: 22 minutes

Title: The Fuckmachine 2: Handheld
Author: lolafeist
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Contains: also a lot of porn
Author's summary: "Merlin takes Arthur to his flat to see his fuckmachine collection, and asks Arthur for some help testing out a new handheld model."
Length: 15:30 minutes

Reader's notes: These recordings all open with me saying "The Fuckmachine", so if your setup is that it starts playing as soon as you finish downloading, you know, you might want to watch out for that and not do it with your parents in the room or whatever. *waves to claudia603* Also, there is some shouting right at the beginning and the sound quality is pretty bad, but it's better after the first minute or so, so don't give up on me. Recorded for pod_aware and for the "fucking machines" square on my second kink_bingo card.

MediaFire links:
The Fuckmachine mp3, 20.4 MB
The Fuckmachine 2: Handheld mp3, 14.4 MB
The Fuckmachine 1 and 2 mp3, 21.6 MB
The Fuckmachine 1 and 2 m4b, 18.1 MB

Audiofic Archive links (permanent links, zip files):
The Fuckmachine mp3, 20.4 MB
The Fuckmachine 2: Handheld mp3, 14.4 MB
The Fuckmachine 1 and 2 mp3, 21.6 MB
The Fuckmachine 1 and 2 m4b, 18.1 MB