2020 Podfic Year In Review
Dec. 27th, 2020 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ofjustimagineInstead of doing my normal old year end podfic review questionnaire, I'm stealing all these questions from a meme that the lovely ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Annapods put together! These questions made me legitimately break down and remake my podfic masterlist spreadsheet, which was a really great way to waste an afternoon. (Caveat that all of these are answered with the addition of my so far unposted ITPE gift.)
LOOKING BACK:
A 2020 podfic stat: I made a grand total of 17:27:18 hrs of published podfic this year. Which according to my new handy spreadsheet is roughly the average of all my years of podficcing put together.
An unexpected ship/genre/fandom: The thing that I recorded for ITPE is a fandom I never thought I’d record in! I know about it tangentially and had read a few fics, and one came to mind when I read my giftee’s wish list. In a not so vague answer: my descent into solely recording fics in fandoms of actual play DND campaigns shouldn’t be a surprise but it totally is.
A podfic risk you took this year: I recorded charity auction pods this year! 3, actually. Having a deadline and no control over my fic choice isn't my favorite, but I do feel good about trying something new for worthwhile causes.
A way you grew as a performer: IDK. I bounced around fandoms quite a bit this year, and so I had to run headfirst into performing as new characters in a way that I'm not really comfortable with but am working on.
A way you grew as an editor: Holy shit, the amount of work I had to do for the kids are gonna be was just STUPID. It was a lot of tedious work in general, and then there were multiple times where I fucked up copy/pasting the send/receiving noises for minutes on end that needed redoing. I think the texting effect works overall, but I'm never doing that again with a fic with a lot of epistolary texting elements.
A way you grew as a cover artist: I made a conscious effort to try mixing fonts on covers, especially at the end of the year and during Cover Art Bingo. It’s still not my automatic instinct, but I do like getting more use out of my gigantic font library.
A big learning experience: Said previous the kids are gonna be efforts.
A personal favorite of your 2020 works: all straight lines circle sometimes. Proud of my performance, proud of the cover art, a relatively smooth recording process, all around a good experience.
A personal least favorite audio work: From the Winter, Spring, if solely for the fact that I really should have dug deeper to record an Alice/Robin fic, because I love those sweet baby queers way more than Aurora/Mulan. (God, I finished watching OUAT right before quarantine, all 8000 years ago.)
A “haha can’t believe I’m doing this” moment: See previous comments about my unposted ITPE gift. Also kinda An Ever Fixed Mark, because that premise is still wild.
A fun moment or project: The Christian Foundations of Healthy Spirituality is probably my favorite fic of the year, and just as delightful and hilarious to read aloud as it is to just read in general.
A not so fun moment or project: I decided to rewatch The Unsleeping City after S2 was announced, and got to the end fight where the crew fight the literal embodiment of The American Dream (who is a shitty cishet white man greedy for money and power at all costs) the day after the election. So working on Pipe Dream while waiting for the results was an emotional roller coaster.
A surprising moment or project: I think Unearthed is the quickest I went from reading a fic -> publishing a podfic this year. It was recced on my Twitter tl and like 3 days later I had published it.
A disappointment: Not anyone's fault at all, but I was proud of The Christian Foundations and by sheer chance, Anna posted their recording of it a few hours before I did. I would have held off on posting to make sure we both got a bit of a spotlight for our work, but I only realized theirs was already up after I had submitted mine and it felt sort of pointless at that point. There are certainly worse things! But I'm still a little upset at myself for a) not finishing editing earlier or b) not double checking before hitting post.
A goal you reached: I've tried for the last couple of years to pod more female-centric works. (Which is especially hard in uber dude slash fandoms like hockey.) But this year was the first time M/M works have not been the largest category I've posted. It was tied with gen works, but I'll take what I can get!
A challenge you overcame: When I moved I had to rediscover how to podfic in a different space all over again. Still getting the hang of it, and next year I'd like to see if I can make a portable soundproof box and see if I can record anywhere in my apartment, as opposed to just the bathroom, because it's the only place you don't hear the train.
A challenge you didn’t overcome: My productivity really ebbed and flowed this year and I found it really difficult to stick to deadlines. I used to make goals about editing x number of minutes in a week but completely stopped them around the time I moved.
A challenge you participated in: This was my first year doing![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
pod_together! The lovely celli and I put together We Belong, and I loved dipping my toes into the RNM fandom.
A particularly popular work: Unearthed, which is completely unsurprising given how that fandom blew up.
A blooper or flub: Not in a fun way! I completely fucked up a cover art earlier this year and whitewashed Beau from Critical Role (who is canonically drawn as roughly the same skin tone as Katara, if not darker), and had to be reminded by the author about it. My shitty excuse is that I was too focused on the other main character (who canonically drawn as black). They were kind enough about it, but I still feel awful!!!!
LOOKING FORWARD:
A productivity/stats goal for next year: At least 1 posted podfic/month, and I'd really like to make M/M definitively not my biggest category.
A ship/genre/fandom you think you’ll get into: God only knows. Probably down other TTRPG podcast fandoms, and then whatever old finished TV shows I decide to start.
A podfic risk you want to take next: Maybe trying to podfic in fandoms that I don't know anything about? Alternatively once again trying my hand at the Discord and connecting with more people?
A future goal as a performer: Starting to learn little bits and pieces of other languages so that it doesn't sound as bad when I suddenly have to bust out 3 words in like, French or Italian.
A future goal as an editor: Be better at incorporating text sound effects or music! I so often take the lazy way out, but it's something that just becomes easier the more you do it.
A future goal as a cover artist: Offer up cover art without any incentives (ie Cover Art Bingo) to whomever. And to be more forward with letting friends know that I'll help them with it if they want!
A future project you’re excited about: I've been putting it off for ages now, but next year is the year that I finally record my favorite White Collar OT3 fic.
A current project you’re excited about: My Garageband is so full because I batch recorded a bunch of things before coming to Seattle for the holidays, but in particular there's a Men's Hockey Butterfly Effect fic that I'm really eager to start editing.
A project you wish you could take on: I recorded a Wincest series awhile ago and completely dropped off of finishing it, but the Supernatural finale reminded me of it existing. Maybe?? There's still so much editing to do and I'm not sure how invested I am. My level of Wincest victory spite only can go so far.
A challenge you want to participate in next year:podficbigbang really flew by me this year, and I'd like to start making longer podfics again now that I've gotten used to recording in a new space. Everyone who tried voiceteam this year seemed to really enjoy it, but committing to that hard of a sprint is something I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with. Maybe this will be the year that I actually finish something for Awesome Ladies??? Who knows.
LOOKING BACK:
A 2020 podfic stat: I made a grand total of 17:27:18 hrs of published podfic this year. Which according to my new handy spreadsheet is roughly the average of all my years of podficcing put together.
An unexpected ship/genre/fandom: The thing that I recorded for ITPE is a fandom I never thought I’d record in! I know about it tangentially and had read a few fics, and one came to mind when I read my giftee’s wish list. In a not so vague answer: my descent into solely recording fics in fandoms of actual play DND campaigns shouldn’t be a surprise but it totally is.
A podfic risk you took this year: I recorded charity auction pods this year! 3, actually. Having a deadline and no control over my fic choice isn't my favorite, but I do feel good about trying something new for worthwhile causes.
A way you grew as a performer: IDK. I bounced around fandoms quite a bit this year, and so I had to run headfirst into performing as new characters in a way that I'm not really comfortable with but am working on.
A way you grew as an editor: Holy shit, the amount of work I had to do for the kids are gonna be was just STUPID. It was a lot of tedious work in general, and then there were multiple times where I fucked up copy/pasting the send/receiving noises for minutes on end that needed redoing. I think the texting effect works overall, but I'm never doing that again with a fic with a lot of epistolary texting elements.
A way you grew as a cover artist: I made a conscious effort to try mixing fonts on covers, especially at the end of the year and during Cover Art Bingo. It’s still not my automatic instinct, but I do like getting more use out of my gigantic font library.
A big learning experience: Said previous the kids are gonna be efforts.
A personal favorite of your 2020 works: all straight lines circle sometimes. Proud of my performance, proud of the cover art, a relatively smooth recording process, all around a good experience.
A personal least favorite audio work: From the Winter, Spring, if solely for the fact that I really should have dug deeper to record an Alice/Robin fic, because I love those sweet baby queers way more than Aurora/Mulan. (God, I finished watching OUAT right before quarantine, all 8000 years ago.)
A “haha can’t believe I’m doing this” moment: See previous comments about my unposted ITPE gift. Also kinda An Ever Fixed Mark, because that premise is still wild.
A fun moment or project: The Christian Foundations of Healthy Spirituality is probably my favorite fic of the year, and just as delightful and hilarious to read aloud as it is to just read in general.
A not so fun moment or project: I decided to rewatch The Unsleeping City after S2 was announced, and got to the end fight where the crew fight the literal embodiment of The American Dream (who is a shitty cishet white man greedy for money and power at all costs) the day after the election. So working on Pipe Dream while waiting for the results was an emotional roller coaster.
A surprising moment or project: I think Unearthed is the quickest I went from reading a fic -> publishing a podfic this year. It was recced on my Twitter tl and like 3 days later I had published it.
A disappointment: Not anyone's fault at all, but I was proud of The Christian Foundations and by sheer chance, Anna posted their recording of it a few hours before I did. I would have held off on posting to make sure we both got a bit of a spotlight for our work, but I only realized theirs was already up after I had submitted mine and it felt sort of pointless at that point. There are certainly worse things! But I'm still a little upset at myself for a) not finishing editing earlier or b) not double checking before hitting post.
A goal you reached: I've tried for the last couple of years to pod more female-centric works. (Which is especially hard in uber dude slash fandoms like hockey.) But this year was the first time M/M works have not been the largest category I've posted. It was tied with gen works, but I'll take what I can get!
A challenge you overcame: When I moved I had to rediscover how to podfic in a different space all over again. Still getting the hang of it, and next year I'd like to see if I can make a portable soundproof box and see if I can record anywhere in my apartment, as opposed to just the bathroom, because it's the only place you don't hear the train.
A challenge you didn’t overcome: My productivity really ebbed and flowed this year and I found it really difficult to stick to deadlines. I used to make goals about editing x number of minutes in a week but completely stopped them around the time I moved.
A challenge you participated in: This was my first year doing
pod_together! The lovely celli and I put together We Belong, and I loved dipping my toes into the RNM fandom. A particularly popular work: Unearthed, which is completely unsurprising given how that fandom blew up.
A blooper or flub: Not in a fun way! I completely fucked up a cover art earlier this year and whitewashed Beau from Critical Role (who is canonically drawn as roughly the same skin tone as Katara, if not darker), and had to be reminded by the author about it. My shitty excuse is that I was too focused on the other main character (who canonically drawn as black). They were kind enough about it, but I still feel awful!!!!
LOOKING FORWARD:
A productivity/stats goal for next year: At least 1 posted podfic/month, and I'd really like to make M/M definitively not my biggest category.
A ship/genre/fandom you think you’ll get into: God only knows. Probably down other TTRPG podcast fandoms, and then whatever old finished TV shows I decide to start.
A podfic risk you want to take next: Maybe trying to podfic in fandoms that I don't know anything about? Alternatively once again trying my hand at the Discord and connecting with more people?
A future goal as a performer: Starting to learn little bits and pieces of other languages so that it doesn't sound as bad when I suddenly have to bust out 3 words in like, French or Italian.
A future goal as an editor: Be better at incorporating text sound effects or music! I so often take the lazy way out, but it's something that just becomes easier the more you do it.
A future goal as a cover artist: Offer up cover art without any incentives (ie Cover Art Bingo) to whomever. And to be more forward with letting friends know that I'll help them with it if they want!
A future project you’re excited about: I've been putting it off for ages now, but next year is the year that I finally record my favorite White Collar OT3 fic.
A current project you’re excited about: My Garageband is so full because I batch recorded a bunch of things before coming to Seattle for the holidays, but in particular there's a Men's Hockey Butterfly Effect fic that I'm really eager to start editing.
A project you wish you could take on: I recorded a Wincest series awhile ago and completely dropped off of finishing it, but the Supernatural finale reminded me of it existing. Maybe?? There's still so much editing to do and I'm not sure how invested I am. My level of Wincest victory spite only can go so far.
A challenge you want to participate in next year:
podficbigbang really flew by me this year, and I'd like to start making longer podfics again now that I've gotten used to recording in a new space. Everyone who tried voiceteam this year seemed to really enjoy it, but committing to that hard of a sprint is something I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with. Maybe this will be the year that I actually finish something for Awesome Ladies??? Who knows.
