so one of the aims of the amplificathon was to introduce diversity into the podfic available in fandom. we mostly did that by pushing for more fandoms - the happy accident was diversity in story types. most ficathons have a 1,000 word minimum - which means that a lot of the rare pairings are mostly short stories, ficlets, and drabbles, topping off at around 1,000 to 2,000 words. most of the podfics recorded prior to this challenge were much, much longer than that. i mean honestly, you can't swing a cat without hitting an epic in spn and sga. that makes it a little tough to let readers or listeners dip into the format, and the amount of time commitment for anything over 4,000 words gets crazy fast, and approaches exponential at some point (yes, i once recorded a nineteen hour long podfic. i had to do a lot of wacky and improbable things to make that possible, and i try not to think about how much working time it actually took. if we want more podfic in the world, that isn't a sustainable model). short fics are manageable and actually help reflect the reality of the extant written fics! okay, i'm not sure i'm making sense, but: <3.

one of the beauties of a drabble or ficlet is the economy of words, and the demonstration of the skill it takes to convey a story in a tiny space. pulling the reader into your universe for half a breath at a time. reading those stories is a challenge, and i think it's pretty awesome that people were willing to give it a shot.

leviticus_lied managed the very shortest of these palm-of-the-hand stories, at 47 seconds (she had a close competitor at 50 seconds!)




leviticus_lied's prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by trialia, the lovely graphic seen below, donated by raz0rgirl,and a read-to-order podfic donated by dodificus.




title: coffeemaker fettucine and a silver ring
author: thehighwaywoman
fandom: spn rps, jared/jensen
click to download (32.6 MB)
running time - 30:08


\o/ YAY leviticus_lied! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

just kidding. sort of.

the last of the prizes will be posted next week. we're waiting on a couple of things (to be clear - NO ONE has let us down on anything they've volunteered to do, which is amazing and awesome - but there have been unforseen snags with a few donated prize items) still, and expect them then. :)

in the meantime, your podmods feel bad that leviticus_lied has to wait for her silver! so here is a prize to tide her over, donated by anatsuno!

title: icarus of plastic
author: penelope-z
fandom: smallville
pairing: clark/lex
click to download (8.8 MB)
running time - 12:58


\o/ YAY leviticus_lied! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

hah! it's tomorrow. :)

the main aim of the amplificathon was to introduce diversity into the podfic available in fandom. this was the whole point of the points system - to make the rare valuable. the lack of fandom/pairing diversity seemed easily correctable - after all, the dominance of sg:a & spn are something that was inherent to podfic, not to the extant body of available fic. it would have been pretty easy, given that point system, to just pick an unrepresented, crossover-friendly fandom and churn through the work of a couple of prolific authors.

the emissary award is for adhering to the spirit of the challenge, not just the letter.

leviticus_lied introduced the largest number of new fandoms to the challenge. (this is where you can imagine your podmod face-palming a LOT. as i went through and tallied how many she did. on a piece of scrap paper. which i can't find now. it was lots, though. )




leviticus_lied's prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by liviapenn, and a read-to-order podfic donated by podfic_lover.

title: A Darker Shade Of Black
author: sardonicsmiley
click to download (43 MB)
running time - 46:58


\o/ YAY leviticus_lied! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

you know what we love, hereabouts? new readers. a high percentage of participants were new readers from the start, and we expected and encouraged that. seeing all of the late entrants was a fantastic thing as well, but i have to admit that we didn't really promote the challenge much after it started, and we didn't manage to figure out a way to reward participants for seducing new readers in to podficcing. as a consequence, the late entrants came in to an ongoing challenge as outsiders. that takes extra fortitude, and it's awesome.

but anyhow. you know what we especially love? people who finally talk themselves into trying podfic two weeks before the end of the challenge with no expectation of winning anything, who then manage to place fourth. :D

malnpudl's first post was made on may 25, in the last two weeks of the challenge. she managed to earn two hundred and fifty-two points, and the fashionably late award!




malnpudl's prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by liviapenn, and a read-to-order podfic donated by kinseyx. (this podfic will be privately delivered.)



\o/ YAY malnpudl! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

there were a couple of readers during the amplificathon who posted a lot. and there were a couple of readers who recorded some long fics. and there were quite a few who racked up a lot of recording time in the course of those two activities.

twasadark, though, kind of left everyone else in the dust. i mean, she recorded three and three-quarters hours more than the next most prolific reader! crazy! i know we're all damned grateful that she was so generous competitive generous with her podfic creating skills. :D

twasadark recorded a grand total of twelve hours, forty-four minutes, and twenty-two seconds of podfic for this challenge, easily winning the whisky & lemon award!




twasadark's prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by cybel, and a read-to-order podfic donated by juice817.

title: carry me over the sky
author: killabeez
fandom: supernatural
pairing: sam/dean
click to download (49.8 MB)
running time - 54:27


\o/ YAY twasadark! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

you know the cool thing about the race for points? that the top three points earners were in the lead together through most of the challenge - but between those three? it was up in the air until the last possible second. all three readers were prolific and made diverse, dynamic choices that made the whole shebang one hell of a race. i'm pretty glad that we always planned to give prizes for all three of the top finishers, because all three of them really earned it.


with a total of FIVE HUNDRED NINETY-EIGHT points, jadesfire2808 is our third place amplificathon winner!




jadesfire2808's prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by raz0rgirl, and an anthology of her amplificathon recordings, selected by the podmod team and cybel, encoded by cybel and with a cover created and donated by raz0rgirl!



download -
regular version - click to download (142.4 MB)
smaller file size version - click to download (73 MB)
running time - 5:06:24

(these two files are the same except for the bitrate - you may or may not be able to hear a difference in quality.)

( track listing )

\o/ YAY jadesfire2808! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

one of the fun parts of a challenge is the rush to get things in by the deadline, and the amplificathon was no exception. we did a little sleight of hand in the interest of deadline fairness - after all, "midnight on june 2" really doesn't mean the same thing to everyone - and we'd hoped that people would make the most of it. and they did! there's something fantastic about that final push, the rush to get in just under the wire. that's the part where the challenge turns into a race against time.

greyonblue won that race! she, along with the other posters up past their local midnights, pushed through to the last moment and gave us all more podfic! greyonblue wins the gmt-11 award, for posting closest to midnight in american samoa!




greyonblue's prize is the lovely graphic seen above, donated by raz0rgirl. she very sweetly declined the offer of a podfic read to order. :) (she can change her mind later, btw.)

\o/ YAY greyonblue! \o/

thank you and congratulations!

okay, it's time to get this train moving again!

it became very obvious to the podmod team, very quickly, that we didn't just need to have winners based on points earned - because people were doing remarkable things left and right, and they deserve recognition. and also, a little bit, because one third of the podmod team went a little nutty thinking about the possibilities, and, well, the other two thirds seem to have given up on reining her in. there's a whole give-her-enough-rope lesson here, but i say we ignore that in favor of announcing our first award winner!


shadowkittykat_ wins the lindworm award!



the lindworm award is for the reader submitting the largest single podfic recording during the course of the amplificathon. shadowkittykat_'s dresden files recording, strange devices, clocked in at over five hours, a heroic length! (a lindworm is a big scandinavian dragon seaserpenty thing. and this award was named by...someone. who remarked that some participants were recording real lindworms! and i kind of thought that was awesome and stole it. was it you? please pipe up, for award-naming credit. eta: it was podfic_lover! she said: In scandinavian and european tales a lindworm is a gigantic draconic, often limbless serpent that needs to be defeated by a hero. And when you see what long stories some readers finished, it's in my opinion an act of bravery and a proof of determination and dedication.. and she was right!)

shadowkittykat_'s prizes include the lovely graphic seen above, donated by liviapenn, and a recorded-to-order podfic, donated by laurie_ky! the podfic will be posted here later this evening.

\o/ YAY shadowkittykat_! \o/

thank you and congratulations!