Sophinisba Solis

I've been having such a great time participating in voiceteam, which started on May 1st (well April 30th really). This is a little bit similar to summerpornathon, the Merlin writing challenge I used to do, in that players are sorted into a bunch of different teams that compete for points each week. I guess more people are familiar with these kinds of challenge as "land comms". Then I was going to have a sentence about the ways voiceteam is different from pthon but ... there are too many differences.

Anyway, this is a podfic-centered comm and every week has a theme but there are always lots of different ways of participating, so it's possible to get the maximum number of points for the week just by, say, commenting on others' podfics, or doing other kinds of creative work. There are also a lot of rewards for collaboration so it's been a great chance to interact with people. We are in Discord all the time. There are not a lot of rewards for making longer works and they take a lot more time, so most of us haven't been doing that. OTOH some people, including some members of my team, have been super ambitious and organized incredible projects even when they've already maxed out on points for the week.

Oh I should say another reason I'm enjoying it is that my team, the Red team, has been winning. I don't think my team ever won at summerpornathon! Team Gluttony used to win but then once I got on it we didn't. :D

As happens every time I make podfic, I marvel at how much easier and less stressful that is when authors have posted blanket permission to podfic on their AO3 profiles. There are a lot of tight deadlines in this challenge and we're often looking for very specific things. We find lots of things that would make great podfics but we don't know if we'll have time to hear back from the author and get the thing done. Thank you so much, friends and strangers who have posted BP!!!

Some of the stuff I've made is only posted at the Voiceteam Discord server (idk if that's what you call it lol) but here are the things that have been posted to the AO3 so far! I'm ... just going to refer to everyone as my teammates because this is already a lot of coding and I can't handle cross-platform usernames this morning. But you can see their names at the AO3!

Podfics I Have Made in the Last Two-and-a-Half Weeks
- Hearth and Home, a 9-minute Leverage podfic of a story written by my old Team Gluttony teammate lady_ragnell. Three of us from Team Red podficced the same story in week one! That's called repodding or in this case simulpodding and not something I'm usually into but it was for points this time so yay!

- Friendship Bracelet, a 5-minute Babysitters Club podfic. Two of us recorded this!

- a single heartbeat between your two, an 18-minute Rogue One, Jyn/Cassian podfic for our team's week-one anthology around the theme of secrets.

- so shake apart, a 13 minute explicit MCU (Steve/Bucky/Natasha) multivoice podfic also featuring two of my teammates.

- A Very Large Location of Something, an 8-minute gen podfic centered on Maria from The Sound of Music (in week 2 you could get more points for podfic about musicals).

- Valencia Shouldn't Get in a Car with Rebecca!, a 14-minute Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Valencia/Heather podfic.

- Pretty in Mink, a five-minute explicit Princess and the Frog podfic of a story by our own Rubynye.

- gettin' bi (reprise), a five-minute Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Heather/Rebecca multivoice podfic in which I play Heather. My teammates have more lines than I do in this but I'm calling it mine because I organized and edited it. Editing multivoice podfics is harder than you might think, considering how often people do it! They are super fun to listen to though.

- If It's Sewing, She Sews, a 22-minute gen podfic centered on Maria from West Side Story. (This might be my fave of the solo podfics I've made so far this month.)

- Life Doesn't Discriminate, a 21-minute Star Wars gen podfic about Leia after the end of The Last Jedi.

- Reaping the Whirlwind, a seven-minute Joel/Marilyn Northern Exposure podfic and my first experience recording and editing on my phone.

- under your boot-soles, a seven-minute gen podfic about young Adelaide from the movie Us.

Multivoice Podfics in Which I Have Small Parts
- 5 Times Parker Slept in Matt's Bed, +1 Time Matt Slept in Hers, a 23-minute Leverage/Daredevil crossover multivoice podfic. I play Foggy!

- let us sport us while we may, a 15-minute multivoice podfic of the first chapter of a Brooklyn Nine-Nine high school AU. I play Charles!

Also We Made Filks OMG
- My teammates wrote and performed a filk about podficcing based on a song from the musical Bonnie and Clyde, and I did the editing! How 'Bout a Pod?

- My teammate took an old Tumblr post that talks about reading fic with lyrics inspired by "Let It Be" and made it into an awesome filk with lots of people singing: AO3.

- The same teammate organized and edited a Harry Potter filk based on the song "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago, with nine different voices: Spell Block Tango.

- AND she organized and edited a Mandalorian filk based on the song "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast with an incredible 23 different voices, many of them from different voiceteam teams: The Mando and the Kid.

- I sang a filk about shipping written by one of my teammates, based on the song "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid: Kiss the Girl.

FRIENDS, the Us podfic I posted last night is my 500th work on the AO3!!!!! Also last month was my 10-year anniversary of starting to post podfic, and my 15-year anniversary of starting to write fic and interact with people on LJ. I've known some of you for 15 years and I'm so grateful for you!!

Whelp, time to do another recs post but I haven't read anything but that one Merlin fic in weeks! However also I was realizing that when I recced the fic Exiles a few posts ago I forgot to mention the great Art for Exiles by DYlogger/dylogger. This art has the same things I loved about the fic -- the complicated mix of relationships among the OT4 and the feeling that it's its own fantasy world and slightly less connected to Merlin the TV show than most fanfic and fanart I consume. My favorite of the pieces is the one of ARTHUR AND GWEN DANCING because the COLORS and the sweep of her skirt. <3 <3 <3 Also if you scroll down through this art you will get an idea of what the character death warning on the fic is about.

So since I wanted to mention that I figure I should also tell you about some other fanart I have recently <3ed. This is pretty much all stuff I've seen on Tumblr (which I've been using semi-regularly for the past couple months even though I still don't get Tumblr at all) so if you're following me there you've probably seen these already and if you're not into Tumblr you might not know what to do with these links. Also one of the things I don't get about Tumblr is whether any of these arts have titles and it's possible that I'm not understanding who actually drew some of them so if you notice that please correct me. /o\ Anyway:

SOME OTHER MERLIN ARTS:
-My new friend pktsknd made ot3 on a lazy afternoon for my birthday last month!
-She also made ot3 for Mirror, Mirror, one of my favorite art pieces from this year's summerpornathon
-knight Morgana and queen Gwen by kosmonauttihai
-GWEN/MORGANA MERMAIDS which as far as I can tell is by niunae but like I said Tumblr confuses me.

HARRY POTTER:
MANY YEARS AGO like maybe in 2007 or something there were a lot of discussions about racism in fandom that I lurked in kind of obsessively and I think that was where I came across the idea that from the descriptions that JK Rowling gives of Hermione it's totally plausible that she's black. It hadn't occurred to me at all before (I saw the first movies before I started reading the books and anyway I'm like most white people in that I tend to assume book characters are while, though I'm working on that.) So I've sort of had that in my head ever since and I think I wrote one or two fics where she was a minor character and in my head she was black but I didn't actually write that out or talk about it, and I only ever saw one or two pieces of fanart following that idea UNTIL RECENTLY and now they're all over and it's awesome! You can see a bunch of fanarts as well as some meta and cosplay and other great stuff by searching for the tag black-hermione. For example:
-"smol-squad" by dellbelle39
-Ron meets Hermione by refrigerator-art
-Hermione spelling her hair by drea-arts2

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE
-Amy Santiago and Rosa Diaz star in their own 60s teen detective series by celestedoodles

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

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.

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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.

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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!

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

( Remix is revealed and I've still only read a few fics )

But anyway! I got remixed twice! My theory is that my assigned remixer ran out of time and ended up turning theirs in a few days late, so a pinch hitter got assigned and then there was more fic! That is, EVERYBODY WINS! Thank you, Remixers!

I actually think it's really cool how the two of these shook out, because I'm sure the two different authors weren't aware of what the other was doing, but they made really similar choices about what to Remix and then went in completely different directions with them. The originals were both written last year within about two months of each other, 200-300 words, using from writing_game prompts, PG-rated slash starring enemy pairings! (And you guys, I write a lot of PG-rated slash but I almost never write enemy pairings so that is pretty crazy.)

So from there o0o_faor_o0o made Impossible Equilibriums, (Harry Potter, Dumbledore/Grindelwald, 1173w, teen), which is poetic and psychological and very much inside the moment and the characters' heads.

And meanwhile netgirl_y2k wrote In My Place (the synchronised unicorns remix) (Merlin, Gwen/Morgana and Gwen/Nimueh, 1265w, marked as general audiences although, hmm), which took a drabble that was about a moment and built a whole story (with a plot omg) around it, lovely and funny and sad, and including a character who hadn't even appeared in canon at the time I wrote the original.

I was reading this and thinking the style seemed familiar and when I got to the line in the fic about synchronized unicorns I thought, "Oh, of course, it's Netgirl." And a few hours later I was chatting with themadlurker and told her I thought the author was and when she got to the same line she said, "Yeah, I think that's a pretty good guess." :D

I also very much enjoyed reading

-All Across the Sands (Bones of an Impressive Romance Mix) (Doctor Who, Rose/Martha) by vnilla;

-A Mirror of Moths (LotR, Frodo/Aragorn) by vulgarweed (omg yays for oldschool interspecies hotness, I loved this);

-Snow on a Hot Barn (The Backdrifts in B Major Remix) (Merlin, Arthur/Merlin) by kumquatix.

kumquatix was also my remixee! I was very happy to get the chance to remix her clever Gwen-centric fic The not so excellent past life regression adventure into Talking Books and Burning Sticks (The Excellent Adventure Remix). I don't think it's especially clever or great as a remix but it is a fun fic and I'm glad to have added to the small number of stories featuring two of my favorite ships (implied in the original), Gwen/Merlin and Arthur/Gwen/Merlin. (At this point if you search for A/G/M in the AO3 you get five fics, three of which are by me lol).

I hope you guys had good Remix experiences this year and that I'll get to see a bunch more recs and reposts and meta in the next few weeks!

I feel bad that so many of my journal entries lately have been these boring RL things. :/ It makes me embarrassed to friend new people, even, because I'm afraid they'll think I'm self-centered and whiny all the time.

When I complain about rl stress, I feel bad admitting how much TV I'm still watching. But I'm enjoying watching the first season of Legend of the Seeker and rewatching (sort of - I never did watch all the episodes in order so I might run into some I've never seen before) the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I didn't look very closely at swatkat24's Legend of the Seeker pimp post or the Illustrated F/F Edition because I'm a bit spoilerphobic, but I was pretty well convinced by the list of reasons at the top of the first post. Actually I'd been pretty well convinced already by other friends saying the show was like Merlin only more so. It is. I'm liking it a lot, especially the Kahlan parts.

I have these two movies out from Netflix right now, I feel bad for not watching them. I'm sure they're both great and uplifting and all, but they're both long and foreign and just seem too heavy every time I sit down to watch TV lately, so I've been watching these TV shows instead.

I feel bad that I didn't write anything for picfor1000. The deadline's tonight and seeing all the new entries going up gives me this little feeling like, "Aw, it's just 1000 words. What if I just rushed and wrote the whole thing tonight? It could be a great adventure!" but that thought usually dies within a few seconds. I suppose I could try to write something and turn it in late, but I never did get inspired by that pic and my creative energy is just really low right now.

I feel only a little bit bad that I haven't written anything for the prompt fest at camelot_fleet, since that fest was supposed to be low-stress and I feel like I did my part by compiling and coding the prompts list. I do wish I'd managed to record a podfic though.

I feel okay about not having signed up for purimgifts this year. I can still do some reading without dealing with the stress of the deadline or trying to write in a fandom I'm not into (or dropping out).

I really enjoyed this Purimgifts ficlet that went up today: so many colours it nearly broke my heart, by anon, 750 words about the Patil twins.

Here are three fanvids about women that have made me cry in the last month (the first one also made me cry in January but then I watched it again in February and cried some more, so it counts):

-Lullabye for a Stormy Night by barkley, the Vienna Teng song and Maria from The Sound of Music. Oh my God.

-Harbor by kaydeefalls, more Vienna Teng, about Gwen and the people who love her.

-Wild Child by calapine, "a multi-fandom vid for halfamoon's celebration of female characters." I went to this on zahrawithaz's rec (actually a bunch of lady-centric vid recs in that post - check them out) and I wanted to echo her comment, which is that there are a lot of great "women are awesome" vids out there (as there should be), but it's really great to see the diversity in this one, both in terms of including women of color and in highlighting lots of different ways of being awesome, so there's wielding a gun but there's also being a capable doctor, or supporting your friends, or being curious about the world. I really loved this.

I want to rec two remixes that I loved for pretty much opposite reasons, to the extent that I feel weird mentioning them both in the same post, but still:

Grounded (This Is Not My Beautiful Life Mix) (Harry Potter: Ginny/Luna with Ginny/Harry) because it was so real and sad and made me think about canon and the world and broke my heart; and

Free Range Subjects (The Scientific Method Remix) (Merlin: Merlin/Arthur with OCs) because Aliens Made Them Do It from the POV of the well-intentioned but hapless alien scientist is such good wacky fun. (OMG browngirl, I know this is not your fave fandom but I think you would like this alien!)

Chasing Boys (The Grown Up Extended Mix) (The Faculty: Casey/alien!Delilah and ensemble) could still totally use some love!

And speaking of Faculty fic, hyel wrote Stokely/Marybeth with Stokely/Delilah for femslash09: More Than Nostalgia.

People are starting to post at hbpchallenge as well. So much to read and enjoy these days.

Today I'm happy that I got to see the new Harry Potter movie completely unspoiled (you know, apart from having read the book a few years ago). I had thought it was coming out on the weekend and I'm happy that it was easy for me to head out to the mall when I found out this afternoon that it was playing already, and not a big deal for me to stick around there for an extra hour and a half when it turned out the first show was sold out.

( kinda spoilery for movie 6 and book 7 )

I went by myself and was surrounded by teenagers, including this couple, a guy and a girl, sitting just to my left who clearly would rather have been having sex than watching a movie. During the previews he was massaging her bare feet in his lap and leaning over and kissing her and then they were murmuring little things to each other and kissing all the way through. Whatever! They were kind of obnoxious but in an amusing way and it seemed fitting for some of the themes of the movie.

Oh and also! I saw a preview for the movie of Where the Wild Things Are and it looked really neat! Does anyone know what that music is?

If you feel like responding creatively to HBP, check out hbpchallenge on LJ, now accepting prompts for fic, art, and meta. It will have the fun of an anonymous challenge without the stress of a gift exchange, competition, or minimum word limit (in fact there's a maximum word limit of 1000). You can leave prompts without committing yourself to anything. Fanworks need to be posted by July 29 and then we'll all have a chance to read and admire and guess at the authors before the reveal on August 1st.

Did the last fic update until Sunday's author reveal at remixthedrabble today and it seems I didn't forget anything this time because nobody has e-mailed to ask why their drabble didn't get posted. Hooray! Also, another remix of my fic went up! I was so thrilled that a certain Mystery Author (whose name I know but won't say just yet) decided to remix "Just to Keep It", a short fic I wrote for Yuletide 2008 for the book and movie The Hours! Go read Just to Keep It (The Hindsight Remix)! It's a remix of a fic about a minor character who appears in only one scene of a book that no one else has ficced! It is full of regret and beauty! ETA: It is by theswearingkind!

Here are some of my other favorites from what I've read so far, in no particular order. I know who some of the authors are but have forgotten others. I am editing it after the reveal to add the authors' names.

• The Chronicles of Narnia: Velocity Girl (The Wild Things Remix) by paperflowered - Susan gen, as much of a runaway hit as the fest has managed. It's very powerful and well done.


• Harry Potter: Picture Perfect (The Forgiveness Remix) by velvetmouse- slightly creepy Snape/Lily. I especially recommend reading this alongside the original, Photo Failure, by verus_janus.


• Doctor Who: Millipede (The Bones of the Hand Remix) by aralias - Ten/Martha, awesome character voices and character insight in 100 words.


• Merlin: Sweets for the sweet (The Ophelia Remix) by xsmoonshine - "Sweets for the sweet" would be a fine alternate title for the original, flowers and other small tokens by bewarethesmirk, a lovely Gwen/Morgana from Gwen's POV. The remix is Morgana's side and it is different and it is awesome.


• X-Files: This is Not Written (The Work In Progress Remix) by iamsab - G-rated Mulder/Scully. WIPs are not supposed to be eligible for remixing but we made an exception for this one because it's just that clever.


• ETA OMG: SGA: Practice Theory (The Agency Remix) by sabinelagrande - John/Rodney and more cleverness but also sex - yay!/ETA

I am also really pleased that I've heard from all three of the people for whom I wrote remixes and I think they were all pleased, or at least they had the decency to pretend to be. :) And the most enthusiastic comment was on the drabble I was most excited about myself, so that made me feel really good. ( More on remixthedrabble and remixredux09 )

Maelstrom is Harry/Teddy Lupin, 34,000 words, posted anonymously as part of hp_rarities. I'd never given any thought to this pairing before but the author makes it work. The slash is great but it was the family dynamics that really blew me away. The fic really takes seriously what it means for Harry as a husband and father to realize he's in love with someone else. None of the characters are perfect and that's what makes them feel so real and makes you care for them, Harry and Teddy (argh irresponsible 25-year-old!) in particular but Ginny and Ron and Hermione and their kids as well. As I was reading I really didn't know how it would turn out or even how I wanted it to turn out, and like many other readers I was sobbing by the end. It's a really wonderful read.

ETA: It is by hollycomb!