The Cabin of +10 Podfic Discussion (Or, Podfic That Was So Good, We Had To Talk About It Offline)

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

NOTE: gah, this is what I get for going, "eh, I'll just add the links when I code the post" XD Links will be added as soon as the Archive goes back up. ETA: Links added! YAAAAY FOR general_jinjur! \o/

So, this past August, me, moonlingmaid, and several of our friends went up to moonlingmaid's family cabin. Podfic was definitely on the Hot List of Topics that weekend.

On the ride there, we got into a discussion about Merlin, and actually ended up putting Red Window Frames (read by lunchy_munchy) on the car stereo. This prompted a discussion on 1) how cool Lunchee's accent is (answer: really cool) 2) how adorable that fic is (answer: really adorable), and 3) use of sound effects in podfics. moonlingmaid, who listens to a LOT of radio plays, but not a lot of podfic, mentioned that she hadn't thought of putting sound effects in podfics, but thought it was a cool idea, and we all agreed that Lunchee had used them quite effectively.

I also love this one, because she does such a brilliant job of capturing kid!Merlin & Arthur's voices. The whole podfic is light, and fluffy, and happy-making, just like the fic itself, and it really just makes me smile. (And in fact, made moonlingmaid and smashfantastic smile, too! ...and also put aviria to sleep XD)

The next day after lunch, moonlingmaid, smashfantastic and I got into a discussion about our favorite podfic readers.

Now, I immediately brought up revolutionaryjo. When I first started downloading podfic, I only looked for super-special favorite stories I had already read over and over, and wanted to be able to listen to again away from the computer. After cross-referencing several of my delicious tags with the Audiofic Archive, this amounted to about five fics. Purely by coincidence, three of those were by Jo. (In July, when I met her at a con and fangirled all over her IRL, she found this amusing, since at the time, she had only released five podfics total. Later, I figured out that this is just because we have really really similar taste in fic XD)

You'll Get There In The End (It Just Takes A While) will always have a special place in my heart, because it is the first podfic I ever listened to. I love that one dearly. Her Spock voice is so great. Seriously. The distinction between "Kirk-voice" and "Spock-voice" is always so clear. There's also these bits towards the end, where there's telepathic communication going on, and she uses this really effective echo effect, which makes it quite clear when the dialog is happening in the characters' heads, but still is totally clear and easy to understand what's being said.

Drastically Redefining Protocol had, at the time, recently gotten me through a hellish seasonal transition shift at work, and is one of my favorite fics of all time to begin with, so Jo's reading of it just makes it that much better for me. Her Arthur and Merlin are so quietly adorable, and I love the way she reads all the tabloid and gossip site articles--one of my favorite parts of the fic, so I'm particular about it, too! We all agreed that the only bad thing about this podfic was that she didn't do Connor's whole article at the end, so there wasn't even MORE of it for us to listen to! (She has since recorded the sequels, which makes me a very happy puppy. ^^)

Jo has such a great voice for narration, I could seriously listen to her all day (and, indeed, have, on occasion). It's very soothing, and has just enough emotion and inflection to keep you from drifting away while listening. Basically? Cannot rec her enough. :D

After I had finished raving about revolutionaryjo, smashfantastic brought up pandarus. After some name confusion ("FayJay? You don't know her?" "That sounds really familiar...has she done stuff with Pandarus before?" "Wait wait, isn't that the same person?" "Is it?" "I think so?" "Yes, yes, it's definitely the same person." etc. etc. XD), our conversation went pretty much like this:

moonlingmaid: Is she the one who did Reconcilable Differences?
bessyboo: Yes! Her Lex voice is AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING, omg.
moonlingmaid: YES, that's just what I was going to say!
smashfantastic: Yes! Best Lex voice ever!
moonlingmaid: It is like, so perfect.
bessyboo: Yessss. HER LEX VOICE! *flappy hands*

And then we continued to flail and squee about her Lex voice for the next five minutes. No lie.

YOU GUYS, I DO NOT THINK I CAN OVERSTATE THIS: me and my friends spent LITERALLY five minutes of our vacation doing NOTHING but gushing at each other over how much we love pandarus's Lex voice. If that STILL doesn't convince all three of you who haven't already listened to it to download that shit RIGHT FUCKING NOW, then hey! I can go on! Her other character voices are also brilliant, and she handles both the hilarious scenes (the Titans' party ruins Lex's expensive rug! THEY ARE ALL GROUNDED) and the emotional ones (Clark busts in on Lex's medical experiment) so expertly. I know many, many people have extolled the virtues of FayJay, but...well, there's a reason, and that reason is that she is amazingly talented.

(Also, I feel I should mention here: even if you're not familiar with Smallville? I still recommend you download this podfic. This was one of the first SV fics I read, and I only originally did because it's a DCU fusion, and I've seen all of maybe two full SV eps so I'm much more comfortable with general DCU. As long as you know the characterization basics from basically existing in slash fandom? You're pretty much good to go here.)

ANYway, all this Lex-voice-lovin' led to a discussion of character voices in podfic, which led moonlingmaid to bring up what, after some digging, was later found to be ponceflower's Them Other Boys Don't Know How to Act, but at the time was referred to as "That SGA One With The Voices" XD

At the time, I wasn't even IN SGA fandom, but moonlingmaid kept trying to explain, "okay, in SGA, John--yeah, he's the one with the *handwave* hair--no, he's not the sciencey one, he's the other one, ANYWAY! He has this weird, super distinctive voice, I can't even describe it, and she does it, like, perfectly, it's kind of amazing. Plus, she also does a very good Scottish accent, and a Czech accent...yeah. It's really awesome. I know you're not in SGA, but you should really check it out."

I nodded, went, "that's cool", and the discussion moved on. Fast forward three months, and moonlingmaid finally succeeds in getting me into SGA fandom (confession: it wasn't that hard, I'm kind of an easy sell on the slash XD). I remembered what she said about this podfic, but lacking in any description beyond "That SGA One With The Voices", I was unable to find it. However, I ended up stumbling across it by chance when downloading tons of stuff from the SGA section of the archive. I start listening to it, hear The John Voice, and promptly whip out my phone to text moonlingmaid: "Remember the SGA podfic with the voices you were talking about? I FOUND IT, and omg it is all that and a bag of chips! THE JOHN VOICE, IT IS CRAZY PERFECT!"

I feel I should mention that while, yes, her voices are amazing, ponceflower's reading of the fic is really great for other reasons, too. She hits just the right tone of Rodney's descent from awkward embarrassment into "I HATE YOU ALL, DIAF!!!!", and strikes the delicate balance (that it seems many sitcoms fail at) between "my cheeky delivery belies the mortification factor of my actions" and "I, too, realize the ridiculousness of what's going on--those crazy characters". Overall, really well done.

There are a couple other podfics that I've talked about with moonlingmaid at various times IRL, but I'm saving those for my next post ;)


For those of you who are really just here for the links, and have no desire to read my tl;dr context for the recs, here is a handy list just for you:

1. Red Window Frames (by magog_83, read by lunchy_munchy) [Merlin]
   
2. Everything by revolutionaryjo. Especially:
   
   • You'll Get There In The End (It Just Takes A While) (by seperis) [Star Trek Reboot], and
     
   • Drastically Redefining Protocol (by rageprufrock) [Merlin] {and sequels}
   
   
3. Reconcilable Differences (by astolat, read by pandarus) [Smallville (DCU fusion)]
   
4. Them Other Boys Don't Know How to Act (by eleveninches, read by ponceflower) [Stargate Atlantis]

Thank you for your time. Now what are you still doing here reading this? GO LISTEN TO AWESOME PODFIC! :D

Comments

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Dude! DUDE! That's one of the nicest compliments I've been paid! Bless you!

And yay for the recs - these sound like excellent podfics to look out for! Thank you!

&hearts _ &hearts

[gigglinggigi.livejournal.com]

It's So true! You did a wonderful job.

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

I am honored to give it to you, then, because holy cow do you deserve it! :D

[revolutionaryjo.livejournal.com]

D'awwww, I am totally blushing over here. What a lovely start to my morning. I'm drawing pink sparkly hearts all over this post. Thank you so much!

For the record I went back and forth forever about recording the articles at the end of DRP in their entirety, including the Vanity Fair piece, haha. Ultimately, I thought the tone was better by overlapping the beginnings of those three to create the cacophony of media coverage. But who knows! One day I may do it yet for completion's sake. :)

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

Oooh, pink sparkly hearts! Yaaaaay!

And for the record, I actually really like what you did stylistically, but then I was like, "wait, no, it's over?! NOOOOO! THERE'S MORE! I WANT TO LISTEN TO MOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!" I just never wanted it to eeeennnnnnnnnddddd ;)

(And if you ever *do* record the articles? I MIGHT BE SO HAPPY I COULD BURST. JUST SAYIN')

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

Awesome gushing! This was so happymaking to read. :D

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

Glad I could bring some happy to your day :)

[gigglinggigi.livejournal.com]

I am going to go check out the stories/readers you have posted. Because the ones I know on that list are really good.

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

Yaay! Then my job here is done ^^

[fishpatrol]

I'm glad to hear that Reconcilable Differences can be enjoyed without much knowledge of the canon (I've seen bits and pieces of maybe a handful of episodes?) -- I adore FayJay's recordings, so I'm looking forward to listening to this one! :):)

Also, Ponceflower's recording of Them Other Boys is so amazing -- I've lost track of how many times I've listened to it. I do so wish that she'd recorded more!

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

I really believe it can. Now, do remember that I may be slightly skewed on this one, because I have a fairly extensive DCU knowledge (I already knew Kon, Tim, et all going in), so let me know if it works for you too, not knowing them :)

Seriously, I'm not gonna lie, I regularly refreshed her reader tag at the archive for a while after listening to that one XD

[crinklysolution.livejournal.com]

These recs rock so hard. Seriously, I love the informal way you put them together, and your picks are pure gold. The only regret I have is that I've already heard them all, but I completely second your opinions, for what it is worth!

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad the format worked for you! I was a bit worried people would be put off by not seeing the list rec style most of us are accustomed to. (Thus the list at the end.)

[lunate8.livejournal.com]

Your podfic-filled weekend sounds awesome! I understand your love for "You'll Get There In The End", that podfic was a great listen during a recent road trip and it's everything you say it is.

[bessyboo.livejournal.com]

It was indeed quite awesome! And seriously, that pod is just...♥