nickelmountain

Title: Winter
Author: astolat
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: Explicit
Length: 00:15:29
Music: Living Life, by Daniel Johnston, performed by the Eels
Summary: The cold open air tasted like snow and freedom, nobody on their backs for the first time in a year and six weeks, or maybe for the first time in twenty-four years.

mp3 || m4b
Streaming available through mp3 link.

Recorded as a birthday present for citrusjava!

Sorry for the spamming. I swear this is it from me today. I've posted four new podfics to amplificathon and AO3 in the last couple of months, but never posted them to my journal. That's a little weird for me, so here they are:





Title: 8 early drafts of Sam Winchester's college admission essay and the one he sent to Stanford (the sweet little blond jam)
Author: nwhepcat
Readers: nwhepcat & nickelmountain
Cover Artist: nickelmountain
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: Teen & Up
Pairings: Gen
Length: 00:29:57
Summary: Sam thinks no one knows what he's scrawling in his wire-bound notebook at odd times during the days and nights. He would be wrong.

Download: mp3 || m4b
Streaming available through mp3 link.

( Reader's Note )


Title: And the Devil Got His Due
Author: liliaeth
Reader & Cover Artist: nickelmountain
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Spoilers: AU from Jus In Bello, spoilers for general situation of S4
Length: 00:33:51
Intro & Outro Music: Jubilee Street, by Nick Cave
Summary: "Ready like a court order to keep you in a maximum security prison in Nevada until trial, ready like isolation in a soundproof, windowless cell so small that between you and me it's probably unconstitutional. How's that for ready? Take a good look at Sam, you two will never see one another again."

Download: mp3 || m4b
Streaming available through mp3 link.

( Reader's Note )



Title: A House in His Head
Author: jmtorres
Reader & Cover Artist: nickelmountain
Fandom: Cyteen (C.J. Cherryh)
Characters: Grant ALX-972, Justin Warrick, Jordan Warrick, Ariane Emory I
Pairing: Grant ALX-972/Justin Warrick
Rating/Warnings: Teen and Up. The fandom is the warning (seriously, it's pretty fucked up). Contains non-explicit references to canonical rape.
Length: 00:30:15
Summary: "He wasn't standing in a house with a wall of safes anymore; he was standing in front of a safe with most of a house in it, like an Escher."
Intro/Outro Music: Distortions, by Clinic

Download: mp3 || m4b
Streaming available through mp3 link.




Title: experimental procedure
Author: lindensphinx
Reader & Cover Artist: nickelmountain
Fandom: Cyteen (C.J. Cherryh)
Characters: Ariane Emory II, Justin Warrick, Grant ALX-972, Florian AF-9979 II, Catlin AC-7892 II (with references to Ari I, Florian I, & Catlin I)
Rating/Warnings: Mature. The fandom is the warning. (I told you, it's messed up.) Contains references to canonical rape.
Length: 00:18:59
Summary: "Ari hasn't thought of the right way to watch that tape. Yet."
Intro/Outro Music: Human Qualities, by Explosions in the Sky

Download: mp3 || m4b
Streaming available through mp3 link.

Note: This is a re-recording. I first podficced this story in 2011, but when I listened to it again recently I decided I wanted to do it over. This is the version I prefer.

***

( Reader's Notes )

Title: Groundhog Day
Author: astolat
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: Explicit
File Size: 23.1MB
Length: 00:25:15
Summary: astolat thinks anything worth doing is worth doing TWICE three times. (especially if the show mostly does it for you.) spoilers for Mystery Spot (3x11)

Reader's Note: Recorded for "New Beginnings" challenge at cakehole_club. I'm a sucker for Mystery Spot fic, and this one does everything right for me. This is also the first explicit podfic I've ever done. Seriously. My mom and I have nearly identical reading voices, and hearing the word "cock" in her voice is a little traumatic. That's how much I wanted to podfic this story. So...yeah.

Download or stream at box

This month has been kicking my ass. A big chunk of that is school/internship related, some of it is more personal/emotional, but what it comes down to here is me not being around much recently. Which, I know - practically every non-podfic post I make has to do with me not being around much. :/

But! I've been carving out some fannish time in bits and pieces (I believe the technical term is "self care"), and I thought I'd share what I've been into lately. (By lately, I mean within the last few months.) 


( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine )



( The Vorkosigan Saga )



( Parks and Recreation )



( Fringe )



( Supernatural )



( The Walking Dead )



( Other stuff )

Man, fuck school. Who needs a career? Why do I want to "help people" anyway? I just want to sit around watching TV and movies, reading books and comic books, and living in a neverending field of fannish squee. WHO'S WITH ME?

I started listening to podfic in autumn/winter 2009. Most of what I listened to then was in SPN fandom, and my listening introduced me to writers and readers whose work I've followed ever since. I started recording my own in 2010, posting the majority of it in 2011. Engaging more fully in podfic fandom opened all kinds of doors for me. It encouraged my multi-fannishness, especially when it comes to small fandoms. I listened to and recorded SPN podfic in 2011, but the vast majority of my listening and recording happened in other (mostly smaller) fandoms. Some of them I knew well, others I had almost no familiarity with. That's one of the things I like best about podfic - when I really trust a reader's skill and taste, I'll follow them anywhere. I've discovered more than one new fandom and/or pairing that way, and it's always such a pleasure.

Listed below are ten of my favorite podfics from 2011. That's podfics I listened to in 2011, not necessarily podfics that were posted in 2011. I really struggled in picking just ten - I picked up a lot of new favorites last year, and this list is by no means comprehensive. Most of these podfics exemplify what I've been talking about - they're mostly in smaller, under-podficced fandoms, and in several of them I only sort-of knew the canon, but didn't care because the reading transported me. I highly recommend all of these, whether or not you're familiar with the canon.

Here goes:

( Recs posted below the cut )

I need to get in the habit of posting podfic recs. Not to mention leaving comments. Why is that so hard, y'all? *shakes head sadly* If you listen to any of these - which you totally should, they're all awesome - be stronger and braver than I am and leave some feedback for the readers. They deserve some serious love.

So, a few weeks ago over on the Twitterbessyboo and cantarina1 started talking about how awesome it would be to have sort of a Secret Santa thing for podficcers. Lots and lots of other podficcers agreed. So bess and ca'rina organized the #InformalTwitterPodficExchange and assigned us all recipients. I got fire_juggler; my gift to her is posted below.

It turns out fire_juggler also got me. The links were delivered on Christmas, but due to travel and inadequate technology, I wasn't able to listen until last night. Oh my god, you guys, I cannot flail hard enough. Her picks for me were PERFECT. She chose two short SPN fics, both of them pre-series and by writers I really enjoy. And her reading? Fantastic. She reads with such a clear, pleasant voice, and her pace is spot on. The longer of the two podfics features Jessica and Dean, and I loved the dialogue between them. Both podfics are incredibly awesome.

Thank you to fire_juggler for the wonderful gifts, and thanks to bessyboo and cantarina1 for putting this whole thing together!

Today I went through Lilac City and broke it up into sections of roughly 5000 words each, give or take a couple hundred to fit with the chapter breaks. Doing that makes the recording project seem more manageable somehow. Instead of facing down almost 140k words and who knows how many hours of recording, I'm looking at 27 recording sessions of approx. 5000 words a pop. Maybe fewer, if I have days where I can do two at a time.

I re-read some as I broke it up, and oh man. It is such an amazing fic. Certain passages always make me a little verklempt. This recording project has been intimidating me for over a year, but I think I'm finally ready for it, and I am excite. Since my first attempt at recording it, I've figured out better recording techniques and gained better control over my voice. (I recently listened to some of my version of The Long Narrow Rope, and yipes, my voice was rough. Okay, I was a couple months out from surgery on my throat and still pretty new to recording when I made it, but still.) I started a re-record a couple of months ago, but I'm scrapping that and starting from scratch for the third time.

Next week is my final week of classes for the summer semester, so I won't be recording much of anything then. I plan to get started the week after that.

And hey! I made this to help keep me on track!



Possibly this is more than you needed or wanted to know. But seriously, all of my current podfics combined only total out to about 7 hours. Lilac City all by itself will be longer than that. I may need to call on y'all for support. 

Unrelated - just caught a weather update for the coming week here in Chicago. 90's and humid all week. Ugh.

Title & Link to Text: The Empty Vessel
Author: ratherastory 
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Claire, Cas, guest appearance by Dean
Rating: R
Spoilers: set in 5x04-verse
Summary: The world changes, and Claire goes searching for her father. Or, barring him, Castiel. What she finds is neither.
File Size/Length: 20MB / 00:21:51
Music: Oh God, Where Are You Now?, by Sufjan Stevens
mp3 link

nickelmountain  (commenting at remopodmo ):...I did read a fic that triggered an oh my god I must pod this reaction, and the author has given blanket permission! But I'm not committing myself to it just yet - I'm way, way behind on my podfic goals for the month, and need to finish at least one project before adding on another.

ratherastory  (completely unaware that this was the story I meant):  w00t! I love it when you stumble across a fic that is just screaming to be recorded. It's so much fun. :)

Yes indeed, it is so much fun.

My school let out for Spring Break, so naturally my immune system went somewhere warm and sunny, leaving me in wet, snowy Chicago with a nasty head cold.

I'm spending today writing a case study for Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy, due via email on Monday afternoon. I got to pick any substantial fictional character from literature, television, or film to be my client for the study. I chose Sarah Connor. I spent Thursday watching the first two movies and a handful of T:SCC eps preparing for this thing, and I'm kind of excited about it. If it turns out well I might post it here, as meta. We'll see.

Other things going on this week: I have three interviews lined up for my internship in the fall. One on Monday, the other two on Tuesday. I'm still waiting to hear from the other three sites I applied to. I ought to at least get a head start on some of the assignments due the week after the break, and I still have to go to work. All that, and I'm seriously jonesing to record some podfic. I have my two epics waiting for me, and I just volunteered to look at some stories in Fringe, T:SCC, and BSG fandoms to possibly record.

( SPN spoilers )

( T:SCC spoilers )

Enough ranting. I need to get back to my paper.

With any luck, I'll have some new podfic posted in the next week or so. Wish me luck.

Title: Endemic (It Takes a Soul To Hold It) )
Author: eighth_horizon 
Read by: nickelmountain 
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Gen
File Size: 34.5MB
Length: 37:43
Summary: Back to Wisconsin, because Wisconsin is apparently ground zero for supernatural activity in the whole US by the sheer number of urban legends, and Red requested it. Dean and Sam check out mysterious underground deaths, and it all becomes too hard to resist in ways Sam wishes they had never discovered.
MP3
Audiobook  

Reader's Note: I don't know why this took me so long. I finished recording this fic in October, right before Wincon. I listened to it on the train on the way there, and realized two things: 1) I hadn't fixed the Garageband settings to reflect the author, so iTunes claimed someone else entirely had written it, and 2) I totally rushed the ending. Which kind of ruined it, because the ending as it's written is so heartbreaking and lovely. But school heated up when I got back from Wincon, and podficcing went on the back burner. I finally went back and re-recorded the last ten minutes or so last week. At long last, here it is.