#I've already written this basic premise so many times AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN

[hardly-an-escape]

Stormy Weather, or: Outside, the Wind (Inside, the Light) | Dream/Hob | 1600 words | Rated T

tags: I recently spent an evening without power therefore I must put the blorbos in a Situation, love confessions, first kiss, getting together, power outages, Hob Gadling throughout history, gratuitious use of mildly accurate Middle English

The wind tears around London like a living thing, a wild animal, a predator, intent on the hunt. It chases birds into their nests and people into their homes, moans around corners and rattles shutters, sending piles of leaves whirling into miniature hurricanes and whipping branches into a frenzy, sharpening its claws on roof tiles and telephone poles.

Except in Hob Gadling’s flat.

The New Inn, and the cozy home above it, is in one of those old buildings that’s actually been loved and maintained – thanks in no small part to Hob’s own care and attention. The walls are thick and strong, the roof is solid. The shutters may rattle, but the windows are double-pane; the curtains and carpets are warm and soft, and no drafts encroach on the sanctity of his living room, where Hob and Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams, are having a movie night.

It’s part of Hob’s concerted effort to introduce the Prince of Stories to the stories he’d missed during his imprisonment. Tonight it’s Blade Runner – the final cut, of course – which isn’t necessarily one of Hob’s personal favorites, but seemed to fit the stormy, rainy vibes of the weather. They’re installed on the couch, with hot chocolate and wine and snacks, which Dream has deigned to pick at. Harrison Ford is eating noodles and wandering through wet, moodily-lit streets. The wind is howling outside, but they’re safe and warm and surrounded by soft things and life is about as good, Hob thinks, as it ever gets these days.

And then his lights flicker. Once, twice; there is the impression of a sort of electrical last gasp, and the room is plunged into darkness.

The wind whips and the shutters rattle. A volley of rain spits itself against the windows.

“Bugger,” says Hob.

Dream says nothing, merely brings his wineglass – which had already been cradled in one elegant hand – to his lips.

“Hang on,” says Hob. “I’ve got some candles around here somewhere.”

He gropes his way to the kitchen. In one drawer he unearths some beeswax tapers and several tea lights, which he arranges on a plate. He rummages in one of the deeper cabinets and makes a triumphant noise as he discovers his prize behind disused mugs and a fondue set from the 1980s: a pair of old-fashioned brass candlesticks equipped with round reflectors, highly polished to catch the light and bounce it back out into the darkness.

“You are remarkably well-prepared for an event such as this,” says Dream, as Hob lights his various prizes and returns to the living room with his hands full of flickering flames.

“Well, you know,” Hob demurs. “When it comes down to it, I’ve lived a lot more of my life without electricity than with it.” He arranges the tea lights on the coffee table and sets the brass candlesticks on a nearby bookshelf. “You never really get out of the habit of preparing for the worst. Although I will say, these beeswax ones beat the hell out of the old tallow jobbies we had when I was young. Got ‘em from a local bloke who keeps bees not half a mile away, isn’t that cool? A beekeeper in the middle of London. There, now,” he says, and having arranged the lights to his satisfaction he plops himself back down on the sofa.

Outside, the wind wails. The lack of lamps on the empty street below and the gentle candlelight within make the night seem even darker, and turn Hob’s living room into something even softer and cozier than it already is.

Dream’s face, in the flickering candles, seems even more otherworldly than usual; and Hob, for his part, truly looks as though he belongs in another century. The very shape of his face has changed, somehow, into something older; taking on a new appearance in the candlelight the way a man’s tongue might curl differently around the syllables of another language.

“I miss it, sometimes,” he says lowly. “This kind of world. Before the wires and the phones and the cars. It was… quieter.”

“You speak often of your delight in change and progress. Do you truly long for your past lives?” asks Dream.

“Yes and no,” answers Hob. “Some things are better now, no question. Antibiotics, wouldn’t want to live without those again. Vaccines and X-rays and chemotherapy and antidepressants – almost all the medical stuff. Mass transportation. Cars and planes have never been safer. Honestly, I’ve never understood the people who moan about the olden days and oh, life was simpler back then. Don’t they know how many people died? How many kids? Because they caught a cold or fell out of a tree or had a case of the runs that lasted a little too long?”

He leans forward to adjust one of the candles, which is dripping unevenly, and when he sags back into the couch there is just the hint of a frown between his strong brows.

“And yet…” he says, staring into the flames, voice quiet. “Nights like this. I do sometimes think…”

Hob trails off for a long moment.

“There was a rhythm to life, back then,” he says finally. “You counted hours by the church bells and days by the tasks that needed done. And there was so much that needed to be done… cows milked and fields planted and clothes knitted or mended. And it was all so important, so… necessary. Regimented. But in the in between time – Christ! your time wast thine.” As he speaks, his voice has slipped into an older register: his Rs grown rounder, his vowels longer, curling from his mouth to mingle with the candlesmoke hovering over his coffee table. “I remember fair hours as a lad, even into my manhood, of which I spent lyende in th’ fields, watching ants in th’ grass. And later, too, we’d hie us to bed with the sonne, the fire banked in the hearth. An’ it happen that if we awakened before dawn, ’twas a simple thing to pass the time in simple ways, be it in prayer or in pleasure…”

The innuendo in his words is clear, but Hob is not looking at Dream; his eyes are unfocused as he stares into the middle distance, revisiting the past via candlelight. Until one of the wicks lets out a small pop, and flares, and he shakes himself, coming back to the present.

“God, sorry,” he says, voice back in the 21st century. “Woolgathering. I’ll go on for an age, me. More wine?”

But Dream’s eyes have also gone unfocused, his lips parted slightly, chest rising and falling with unnecessary breaths as he stares – no, gazes – at Hob. He, too, must shake himself into the present moment at Hob’s offer of more wine. He silently holds out his glass.

“May I ask you a personal question?” Dream says.

“Anything. You know that.”

Dream pauses. Sips. Outside, the sound of the wind has not abated; has grown, if anything, even more dramatic. There is the muffled sound of branches scraping against the side of the building.

“Why,” asks Dream finally, “do you pretend to yourself that you do not want me?”

Hob chokes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Why do you pretend thus to me?” Dream pursues. “Who has known you longer than any being on this planet or any other; who can know your innermost dreams?”

“What do you mean, other planets?” Hob demands. And then: “Have you been peeking at my dreams?”

“I need not peek, as you put it, to see the truth of the matter. It is writ plain on your face and in your every word and deed. I merely wonder why this truth has hovered before us for over six hundred years and you have yet to press your suit. Do you doubt, after all this time, my affection for you? Do you find me – unworthy?”

Dream sounds, impossibly, almost uncertain. Even vulnerable. Hob sighs heavily and leans forward, elbows on his knees and face in his hands.

“I – God. Dream,” he stammers. “Yes, Christ, I am full of doubts. You stormed away from me when I implied you might be lonely, I… I have never, once, thought I had a suit to press at all. What on earth has brought this on? Now, of all times?”

“I do not know,” Dream murmurs. “Perhaps… this darkness is working on me, as well. Perhaps I am as susceptible to candlelight and nostalgia as the next anthropomorphic personification.”

He smiles, a little quirk of the mouth that contains worlds, and Hob leans over, listing helplessly into Dream’s space as the tapers flicker.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pressing their foreheads together, turning his head to butt his cheekbone against the sharp line of Dream’s nose. “Art thou rēal? Speak you treue?”

“Aye, my Hob,” answers Dream. “Min herte is treue and bilongeth to you.”

A sob catches in the back of Hob’s throat at the words. “Fuck,” he whispers again, “Dream, I’m yours. I am. I always have been. My Dream, min sweven, my leof. Alwei, allesweis…”

Their mouths find each other, then, finally, lip against lip and breath against breath. They kiss for a long, long moment, desperate and hungry and soft all at once, as outside the wind howls coldly around the corners of the New Inn, and inside the light cast by Hob’s candles bathes their whole little world in a cozy glow.

“Take me to bed,” murmurs Dream against Hob’s mouth. “Make me your lover. Show me how you pass the time by candlelight, and in darkness.”

“Oh, darling. Dearheart,” Hob answers. “Nothing in this world or any world past could make me happier.”

And he suits his actions to his words.

#my writing #the sandman #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #a needlessly complicated title for a truly simple little fic #I've already written this basic premise so many times AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN #the archaic English Hob uses in this fic is based on the most cursory googling #just tell yourself it's all over the place because historically English is.... all over the place #my unpopular opinion is that I think Blade Runner is overrated and yes I will project my opinions onto fictional characters #as usual this started in one place and went in another direction entirely #may post on AO3 tomorrow if the spirit so moves me

[sflow-er]

After reading The Magic Trick You Didn't See, the essay by @ariaste, I've got some thoughts on Maggie and Nina (well, mostly Maggie) that I kind of want to write down to make sense of them. I'm putting them under the cut to spare anyone who isn't interested in GO2 or hasn't seen it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.

[Before I start rambling, I want to stress that I haven't really been active enough in the GO tag to know if a similar theory has already been presented. Also, I realise I could be way off the mark here, this is pure speculation!]

So to recap the basic premise of the essay mentioned above, much of what we see in GO2 could have been altered by the Metatron using the Book of Life, aka. the Chekov's gun that never went off. I'm not sure if I subscribe to every aspect of that theory (for example, I do think that wee Morag really died, and that it's possible Aziraphale only started drinking alcohol in the 1900s, although I'll admit some of the bits where he turns it down are harder to explain than others).

What I do fully agree on is that Maggie often feels more like a character than a real person in this fictional world. Something about her just feels off. The essay cites many great examples, such as her abrupt mood swings and her uncanny valley reactions (especially her line at the ball, about how suddenly knowing the steps is "just what we do", and her zoning out right before the demons attack and then suddenly starting to antagonise them).

Anyway, this got me thinking. If Maggie was a character written by the Metatron, why and when would he have started writing her in the first place?

Well, what if there was cleanup to be done after Adam fixed things at the end of GO1? All the events of that week were altered, but what about everything that happened before? Because that's the thing that jumps out to me about his line to the Devil: "You're not my father, and you never were." Meaning he also altered the past.

Which begs the question, if Adam was never the Antichrist, what became of The Chattering Order of St Beryl? Did it ever exist at all? Did Hastur still destroy the convent and kill most of the nuns? After all, the book says their sole purpose in existing was to deliver the Antichrist - who never was, as of the end of GO1.

Keep in mind that the burning of the convent happened eleven years before the events of GO1. I assume there would be a lot more paperwork involved in bringing to life people who already moved on from the earthly plain over a decade ago. They wouldn't even have a life to come back to, which is where the Book of Life could come in.

Now, I know Neil has said that Maggie and Nina are not the same people as Sister Theresa and (Sister) Mary in GO1...but that would still hold true even if they were just altered versions of themselves.

I'm not sure about Mary/Nina. It's possible that Adam himself changed her, as she was still alive at the time of the shift. Maybe her parents didn't raise her as Satanist after all (as they did in the book), or they didn't give her a biblical name like Mary, or she changed it. Or perhaps Nina was always her real name, but she became Mary when she took her vows and kept it when she became Mary Hodges. Perhaps this is what her life would have looked like if she never joined the Order.

It's also just as possible that she really is a different person who simply looks the same, much like Beelzebub is the same person who simply looks different. Either way, she remains a real human person.

As for Theresa/Maggie... Well, we don't know how she was raised, or if Theresa was her real name, or anything else really. I don't think that matters as much either, because the main point is that she already died 11 years ago.

It's mentioned time and again that people can't just be resurrected willy-nilly, and it's left quite unclear how Adam's powers worked, exactly. Perhaps God told the Metatron to smooth over the ripples (after all, the whole thing was part of Her plan all along, and She usually leaves it to the angels to implement Her plans). The Metatron then decided it was easier to make up new characters based on the people who died years ago than to truly bring them back to life, much like the angels in the Job minisode figured that giving him seven new children was even better than resurrecting the old three.

And since the Metatron was creating Maggie anyway and had the power to write her a completely different life, why not take the chance to also place her close to Aziraphale? The Metatron plays a much more intricate game than most of the angels, and he's extremely committed to seeing the plans through. Surely it would occur to him to keep tabs on the dangerous rebel who consorted with a demon and played a big part in stopping the first part of Armageddon, in case the two of them tried to meddle in the second part as well.

So, by a few strokes of the Metatron's heavenly pen (or keyboard), Aziraphale is suddenly Maggie's landlord in GO2. Of course, it's normal for shows to introduce new characters by making existing ones act like they were there all along...but if we accept the premise that Maggie isn't actually real, Aziraphale never even mentioning his tenant when the bookshop burned down and the world was about to end in GO1 definitely works in our favour.

Anyway. I'm not sure how serious I even am about this theory - it only just came to me this morning, and I wanted to write it down to get it out of my head. So if you disagree or think it's too farfetched, that's totally fair!

#good omens #good omens theory #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #maggie good omens #metatron good omens #nina good omens #not yr

[suddence]

Retrospective!

HI. So. Since Suddence draft 3 is done, I thought I'd do a bit of retrospective on this story :^)

This little project started as an escape from my main wip, APHELION, which is a big sprawling sci-fi thing. I thought Suddence would be a nice little novella, 40k words tops.

Turns out, it's 60k words long. That's right. It's a wholeass novel.

Draft #1

On May 17th, 2021, I started the first draft. While I had a strong idea of the basic premise and a nice solid beginning, I wasn't sure how exactly the rest of the story would go. Most of this draft was just me writing down scenes that seemed interesting. At this point, I hadn't even figured what exactly Dany was gonna do after reaching Suddence. I threw together some semblance of a wham bam action climax. I didn't like it, but I couldn't think of much else.

Also, while I had the alternating timelines idea already, they were both written in regular prose.

After "finishing" this draft, I went back to my main wip for a while and continued struggling with it.

Draft #2

On November 16th, 2022, I started the second draft. In this draft, my goal was to tie the story down. The prose doesn't have to be good; it just has to be finished and whole. The beginning of the story stays mostly the same, except that I decided wait! Wouldn't it be more interesting if we got to read the flashbacks as if they were Dany's diary entries?

I tested this out and decided, yup. It was much cooler.

So, I focused on this for a while. Progress was meandering and I was struggling a bit with how I wanted the story to end. At some point, I peeked at my first draft, hoping to have some inspiration, and noticed I started it on May 17th. And at this point, it was also almost May 17th (2023). And I thought to myself, "Man, wouldn't it be something if I could finish this draft on May 17th? Wouldn't that be nice and symmetrical? Haha. That's not possible though."

But with the power of promising I'll treat myself to a Lego splurge after I finish the draft, it was, indeed, possible.

Now, as you read through the draft (I say "you" as if you will ever read this version of the story), you will notice that the quality significantly gets worse as it goes on. But I was perfectly fine with it! I had confidence and trust that my future editing self will handle it. All that matters right now is that it's done.

I let the story marinate for a few months, leaving notes whenever I thought of something, and went back to focus on APHELION. And I had a HUGE breakthrough there, which only boosted my confidence. I had been struggling with this wip for SO long, and it was amazing to finally have it figured out.

Draft #3

On August 1st, 2023, I began the third draft of Suddence. I switched my goal from "it just has to be finished" to "it has to actually be good." My mindset on this stage was that it had to be in a publishable state, even though I don't plan on publishing it just yet. I took the chapters one by one, reading each of them out loud to catch any strange wording or confusing moments. (There were a LOT of these that would have slipped by if I hadn't been reading out loud.)

One thing that really helped was keeping a notebook on hand, and any time I thought of something (e.g. checking the continuity on a previous scene, or a reminder to add something earlier, etc) I would write it down. This made editing SO much more manageable. I didn't have to rely on my spotty memory, I could cover so many more bases, and it's very satisfying to check each task off my list as I tackle them.

I wasn't really sure how long the edit would take. My general goal was to have something ready to show by April/May of 2024, where I'll hopefully be tabling at VanCAF again.

And now it's only been a bit more than two weeks, and the edit is done. 😳

Next Steps

So! My next steps will be to get critiques. I've set up a critique form, and now I'm preparing to reach out to people for beta reading. It's exciting! But also nerve-wracking. I've never gotten to this stage with ANY of my wips before. (Unless you count, like, my grad film, which I definitely don't.)

After critiques, it'll be one more round of edits!

I'm also going to have a copy printed out just at a local print shop, just so I can have something physical to hold :3

Publishing

I'm sure I've talked about this at some point before, but I'm planning to publish the story serially online first, and then having physical copies and e-books once it's done airing, so to speak. I've been checking out a few websites, like Wattpad and Royal Road and Substack. I'll have to poke around them a bit more before I decide which one to use.

I haven't really decided which printing company to use, either. Last I checked, BookVault doesn't ship to Canada :'( and the only other printer I've used is Lulu. I guess I'll have to look into KDP and all that eventually anyway, so I'll do some research on that front as well.

Thank you to everyone who's been following along on this journey! For now, I'm gonna migrate back to APHELION.

#suddence #writeblr #writing update

[mdhwrites]

Have you watch infinity train?

I have not unfortunately. Admittedly, I'd like to just take this moment as a chance to talk about marketing fandoms do for their show for those outside of it. Mostly that it's bad (and I'd be denying if I didn't struggle with it myself).

See, despite how big Infinity Train was for many, to the point where it got revived by a seperate network, literally all I know about it is:

It got cancelled and then brought back by a different network.

It is really angsty.

Someone dies.

And...

Nope, that's literally it. How good are the characters? Not that either. Jokes indicative of the tone of the piece or the common reason to enjoy it? No idea. The literal premise of the show? NOT AT ALL.

Now to be fair, it's not a fandom's job to do anything like that but it gets weirder with how many times I'll see people screaming about Netflix having cancelled a show. Do I hear about the plotlines they wished they'd gotten to see? Do I hear about them reminiscing about favorite moments? You already know the answer but do I hear about the uniqueness of the premise?

Well weirdly enough actually, kind of for that last one because it's ALL I hear actually. What do I know about Warrior Nun? That it was gay. Anything else about the premise? NOPE! Even with The Owl House, the framing often is about angst and it's representation, even back between S1 and 2 when the shortening was first announced. People would mention good characters and an interesting world but not WHY these characters were good. WHY the world was interesting. WHY these basic narrative elements would appeal to others.

Which to me is weird because fandoms don't have to be beholden to as strict spoiler rules as an author trying to sell you on his series where he shouldn't give spoilers. Even then, I at least still include the description for the book during my main pitches. Crises Girlfriend's blog, pinned as the first one you'll see on my blog, starts with its cover, then its description and then with me branching out to be about the unique element of it being a personal book about depression, trauma, etc. written by someone who has been in therapy for YEARS. That's because that odd, thematic twist should be the LAST thing you use to pitch someone on something after they're worried about it being generic.

Like when Undertale was getting big, do you know how I heard people pitch it despite wanting zero spoilers given? Well, nowadays I feel like the gameplay gimmick of being able to be a pacifist would be given first. At the time though, it was "It is one of the most charming games I've ever played but I recommend you go in as blind as possible." That is an EXCITING pitch. It tells me a core element of appeal to the story that is indeed indicative of the whole while also letting me know the person enjoyed it so much that to tell me ANYTHING more would potentially weaken some of the surprises.

To bring up a situation where a fandom has been talking about the unique thematics of a piece versus others in its genre and that working though: The new Scott Pilgrim series. I still have gone unspoiled on it but I know one thing: It's not an adaptation of the movie and it's not an adaptation of the comic. It is a new beast but it stands just as tall as the other two. That is a HELL of a pitch if you know anything about Scott Pilgrim and the fandom is partially signaling to others, like me, that there are surprises to be had with this adaptation still, something many worried about. As a pitch outside the fandom, it works less well admittedly but adaptations are wonky like that.

Again though: It is admittedly not a fandom's job to market a product BUT if you want to get people into the thing you like, trying to give them a main thrust pitch isn't a terrible idea. Like for Amphibia I'd probably say something like "If you like Edgar Wright's shotgun approach to jokes where you're at least smirking like once every two minutes tops, BOY do I have a show for you!" or "If you want one of the most charming, compelling and genuinely sweet families in media I've seen, who still feel like a family, the main characters of Amphibia will give you diabetes."

Hell, The Owl House even shows this difference as people nowadays mostly scream about the gay elements but do you know what first put it on my radar? "This show has the best animation on television. Period. With a charming cast to make sure it isn't being wasted." And yeah, in S1 both of these elements are true and my own pitch back then would have been "If you want a beautifully animated cartoon with fun but shockingly deep characters, TOH is a great adventure show for you." I wouldn't pitch them on Lumity despite that being what got me into the fandom because they are not the core appeal of the show. The core appeal is that you had these really charming characters who could show some real complexity to themselves while also still being fun and enjoyable.

So yeah, I haven't watched Infinity Train but besides its revival, no one has ever given me a reason to.

======+++++======

I somehow forgot to mention my all time example of this btw: I was turned away from Gravity Falls almost until its ENDING because literally all the fandom talked about was its mystery, which they portrayed as easter eggs above anything else, while I was still wondering what the show was about or if they even liked the characters because neither were EVER brought up.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#Cartoons #Marketing

[legolasghosty]

F, K, M, T, U, and V!

Hello!!!!! Thanks for the ask!!!

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Answered here and I'm not going through that hunt again.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

I feel like you've already heard most of my angsty ideas.... And I will not be writing most of them.

I suppose I have a fairly angsty X+1 idea lurking around at the moment of X times Alex's parents made choices for him and 1 time he didn't wait for them to decide. Probably not the angstiest thing I've ever come up with, but that's all I got at the moment.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

Geez, take your pick, there's a lot of em. Oh, there's this JatP teacher/school staff AU that I have a bunch of notes for that I've never actually started. Basically, all the characters work at a high school and Julie and the guys form a band as part of some fundraiser thing... and then they're actually really good so it becomes a thing they do sometimes.

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

Cheating. Just... no. I don't really care that much who is involved, if one of the main characters is cheating on their SO, I'm out.

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Oh gosh.... do I have to just pick 3? (I'll leave you out of this one because you're an amazing writer but I'm answering your ask so it feels weird to recommend your own writing while talking to you.)

@michelangelinden my beloved, they have the best soft Willex and I love all the character depth stuff that he weaves into her stories!

@thedeathdeelers cause.... how does one top the little fluffy Juke drabbles? They're so lovely and it makes me happy every time one comes across my dash!

@caswellseyes cause I just love the storytelling in her fics! (I promise I'm going to get to the Adventures in the Evergreens fics soon, brain has just been overloaded!)

And so many more!!! Gosh there's so many talented people in this fandom!

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Oh gosh, I feel like I'd ruin any of my favorites by adding to their world. Yeah I'd be way too scared to touch any of them. Which isn't an answer, but that's all I got, sorry!

Thanks for the ask, love you!

(Asks from this list!)

#legolas ask #legolas answers asks #I feel really bad for all the people I didn't tag now #I'm tagging all of you amazing writers in my heart!!! #sorry!!!!

[flamingwell]

3, 12, 20 for the podfic meme!

Thank you so much for asking!! I'm always super excited to gush about podfic, and love it when people enable me 🤗. (Hopefully you won't mind that this ended up more skewing towards Untamed than Guardian 😂)

For the Podfic Wrapped meme, asks are enthusiastically welcomed!

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

That's definitely gotta be the Drowning in the Sun (MDZS/Untamed) written by the amazing @overzelos (who I swear has a tumblr, but for some reason I can't tag? I love you Tumblr). The premise is "what if Jiang Cheng was aware but paralyzed during the Golden Core transfer" and the heart of the story imo is basically wallowing in Jiang Cheng's Very Complicated feelings about his brother. I desperately wanted to have a dizi cover of Jiang Cheng's theme song because it would just be SO FUCKING PERFECT for this story, but do you know how hard that is to find??? Especially without vocals??? And then even when I did, there were background instrumentals that were too cheerful for the mood I was going for and the tempo was too fast and... and... and... Long story short I spent *hours* futzing with the music to get it to sound the way I wanted and I'm Very Proud of it! And it wasn't just the music that was a particular challenge either. Getting the right emotional tone was very difficult—Jiang Cheng is having a Very Rough Time and his emotional state is Complicated and I really wanted to nail his emotional journey. Combine that with the part where everyone's favorite angry grape gets very shouty when he's emotional and blows out my mic and there were many more retakes than I usually end up with! But the end result was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for and I'm very proud.

12. What podfic plans do you have for next year?

Well I'm currently working on my longest-ever podfic which is definitely going to be something that travels with me into next year (although I do expect I'll be able to start posting this year)! That's another Untamed fic (build be no shrines by occultings). I definitely want to do more Guardian podfic (I've got a few I'm eyeballing). There's some fandom or podfic events I'm excited about (Mystery Box, Voiceteam, Guardian Bingo if it happens again this year, maybe Pod Together). I'm also luring my housemate into the wonderful world of podfic so hopefully some fun collaboration with them! And overall, just whatever strikes my fancy and continuing to learn and grow my skills and have fun!

20. Which work of yours have you listened to the most this year?

I actually don't really listen to my own podfic for the most part. There's one or two that I will listen to occasionally, but like less than once a year. Even for editing I don't always listen to my stuff the full way through, since I'm pretty good at marking my errors for later editing while I'm recording (yes, this definitely bites me in the ass occasionally, if anyone ever notices a repeat line or a section that's hard to hear or something in one of my pod fix, please let me know!). I dunno, I just can't enjoy listening to my own stuff as much as someone else's, partly because I'm listening more with an editors ear than a listeners so it's more stressful, and partly because I already made this, I know what it sounds like the way I read it, I want someone else's interpretation! Even fic I know really well in text form sounds different when someone else reads it to me than it does in my head (or when I read it out loud), and that's part of the joy! Seeing what someone *else* sees in the story, how *they* interpret it. The end result is that I listen to other people's podfic almost exclusively, rather than my own. So the podfic of my own that I've listened to most this year for sure is To Love What Is Mortal (Untamed), which was written by my amazingly talented, beautiful, and wonderful wife @treemaidengeek. She wanted to listen to it with me rather than on her own so I could see her reactions, and we've made the occasional date night out of it, and just cuddling and listening to it together. Which is definitely my preferred way to listen to my own work!!

#asks answered #podfic #my stuff