Jan + Feb Event Roundups

[peasina]

Unfortunately, flu and forgetfulness means I'm late with what I'd hoped would be monthly event roundup posts, but that's okay - I can combine January and February in one post, then I'm all caught up! Maybe, by December, I'll be better at keeping a regular schedule for these XD

Also unfortunately, DW is absolute ass at formatting anything with multiple cuts, font styles, or images, so to avoid pulling my hair our for hours, I'm not going to style this like my last roundup post as I hoped (where you can open the cuts of events you might be interested in) and instead put everything under one cut. If DW continues to fight me, please forgive any spacing issues you may encounter.

Events covered are: Voice Team Mystery Box, Fandom Trees, Seasons of Drabbles, Candy Hearts Exchange, Three is Not a Crowd, Fresh Femslash Salad Bar, Femslash February Podfic Edition, and Perfect World Shipping Week. I also ramble about upcoming events at the end.

Voice Team Mystery Box

Late December to early January feels like it was years ago at this point somehow, so it was nice to refresh my memory of what my team and I achieved together.

In December, I posted a list of personal goals for VTMB. Here are the ones I smashed!:

• Record at least five femslash pods – I completed six ^^
• Record at least three Pokémon podfics – One was a standout favourite of the whole event!

From the 27th to the 31st of December, two challenges were dropped in the event's server each day which needed to be completed by a day in early January that escapes me right now! Completing the challenges grabs you varying numbers of points for your team. Below, I summarise the challenge and what I made or contributed to as part of it.

Comments First

"Gather three or more comments for a podfic that doesn't exist yet, then create a podfic that fits those comments."

It was so fun leaving comments for others to interpret, and I enjoyed the challenge of finding a story based on the comments I received in one case, whereas in others I shared the story I was hoping to pod first. I list the comments in my notes on the works, if you're interested in how they influenced me!

[Podfic] Spin Cycle - Pokemon, Gen, 2 mins, Poliwag
[Podfic] Disappearing Act - Pokemon, Gen, 3 mins, Stunfisk

[Podfic] Full of Life - Death Note, Gen, 11 mins, Rem/Misa*

*I didn't include the comments in the notes for this one as I don't normally disclose if I read something cold (e.g., podficced a fic I hadn't read before sitting down to record.) My comments were: "Wow! This is a cold read? You sounded perfect!", "They are so sexy. I love the hand touching!", and "I love how awesome their dynamic was together. I love listening to fics with badass ladies being sweet to each other"

Live Dangerously

"Create an audio fanwork that could be described as NSFW."

I don’t normally read E-rated stuff, but I found three stories that were perfectly within my comfort level to read aloud on the internet and had an absolute blast doing so.

[Podfic] you're learning how to taste what you kill, now - Death Note, Explicit, 22 mins, Rem/Misa

[Podfic] everybody's got their limits (nobody's found mine) - OFMD, Explicit, 2 hours, Edward/Izzy*

[Podfic] Breathe Into Your Well - OFMD, Explicit, 19 mins, Lucius/Izzy

*This podfic actually forms part of one of my personal goals for VTMB, "Record gift pods for three specific people who aren’t playing VTMB". I had three people in mind I wanted to gift, but was only able to manage this one. I'm still hoping to gift the other people something this year though!

Break Through

"Get past a personal block on making progress with a podfic, either on your own or with help."

This one shames me to admit, but I had owed some podfics for… a very long time. One was my final fill of three for Fandom Trumps Hate 2024, the other was a raffle prize for Triple Crown. I still owe one more podfic as part of another fanwork auction from early 2025, and I’m really hoping I can finish it soon. I've refrained from signing up to other fan auctions in the meantime so my backlog doesn't get held up like this again.

Anyway, here are the two I filled for two very patient fellow fans:

[Podfic] Chemistry - Sherlock (BBC), Teen, 46 mins, Sherlock/John

[Podfic] A Tailor-made Change, ST: DS9, Teen, 44 mins, Garak-focused

Both of these covers were made by buries!

Start Fresh

"Clean a room (or part of a room). Record an audio fanwork in your newly cleaned location."

I don’t have very many options for places to record, but I gave my desk a tidy for one of these pods and for the other I cleared out my very full podfic/Audacity folder on my computer which was well overdue!

[Podfic] I could eat that girl for lunch (yeah, she dances on my tongue) - Jennifer's Body, Teen, 15 mins, Jennifer/Needy

[Podfic] this is what I thought / I thought you'd need me - Death Note, Teen, 29 mins, Rem/Misa

I'm insanely proud of that second one as I added some music and scene-break ambience that really pushed my editing skills ^^

Bingo

"The mods pair up teams to create a 5 x 5 bingo card for each other. Players earn points for fanworks that contribute to a bingo. If a team achieves a blackout, everyone who contributed gets additional bonus points."

We went for a blackout from the start and achieved it! These are the pods I made or contributed to in order to get there.

[Podfic] Forte - OFMD, Mature, 14 mins, Izzy/Lucius

Bingo square: Pod a fic that's been incorrectly tagged "read by the author" or a fic that is tagged "podfic welcome" but hasn't been podded yet. This was the latter. And yes, people confuse “Read by the author” (aka, podficced by the author) with a fic the author has read through again before posting XD

[Podfic] Expecting - SWOT, Gen, 3 mins, C3PO & R2D2

Bingo square: Oldie but a goodie: record the oldest fic saved/marked for later/on your to-pod list. This was the oldest fic on my Marked for Later, which is also my equivalent "to-pod" list! I’d been wanting to podfic it for over a year, so was glad to finally do so thanks to this challenge.

[Podfic] Earthquakes (multivoice) - Pokemon, Gen, 9 mins, Multiple

Bingo square: Record a fic with song lyrics as the title & include a clip of the audio. This multivoice podfic is my standout favourite from the whole event! The original story didn’t have a title, as it was comment fic written for me as part of last year’s ficortreat for my prompt “earthquakes”, so I was taking a liberty a little by naming it that. However, when looking for a song that had that word in it, I was so excited by how well the one I found matches the robotic/digital call of Regigigas! I just love how this one turned out. If you listen to any of the works I made for VTMB, I'd love it to be this one! (Another buries cover art!)

Tea for Two

"Team up with another player to create a collaborative audio fanwork. Bonus points if this isn't a person you have significantly collaborated with before."

[Podfic] Oh freddled gruntbuggly - SWOT, Gen, 1 min, Leia & Vader

I hadn’t collaborated with MelancholyMorningstar before, so it was a delight to do so for this cracky Star Wars podfic in which Vader tortures Leia with Vogon poetry ^^

And that's a wrap for VTMB. I was involved in several other projects, either contributing a voice for a multivoice or participating in challenges other ways, but these are the projects I organised. I always love Voice Team and recommend it to everyone who makes podfic (or is pod-curious)!

Fandom Trees

This is one of my favourite events of the year.

✨ First, my gifts ✨

As is tradition for this event, my gifts were all podfic :D

• A re-pod of a story I wrote for the first round of pokepodproject for Jigglypuff!
• A podfic of a story I wrote for the Isaac Asimov novelette “Nightfall”. I’d completely forgotten what I’d written about, so it was really fun to listen to soricel’s reading of it and not know where things were going.
• My third gift wasn’t left under my tree, so it was a great surprise at reveals to see that I had three podfics to listen to! This was a re-pod of a Star Wars story I wrote for battleshipex 2024 about Leia and Vader!

💗 What I made 💗

Fic [1]

‘Maybe it's my fault, I put you up so high’, Pokémon Legends Z-A, Corbeau/L, Mature, 5.4k

Written for javert/Samifer! My knees were knocking as he’s THE Lysandre guy, so I wanted to do his favourite character justice. I also hadn’t written in what felt like forever, so I’m proud of myself for being brave and posting this one.

Fanmix [1]

‘it breaks my heart (he had) to go’, Lawrence of Arabia, Ali/Lawrence, 35 mins

I was stoked to see a request for an Ali/Lawrence fanmix and knew I had to do something with the songs I’d been collecting for them. I went down the angst route and really happy with how it turned out ^^

Icons [4 sets of 9]

• Pokémon - Ponyta
• Pokémon - Water Types
• Stock - Cats
• Stock - Food/Cooking

Podfic [12]

[Podfic] ‘Convalescence,’ Kingsman, Roxy & Eggsy, Mature, 14 mins

I’m so delighted with sobriquett’s reaction to this pod and can’t wait to make more podfic for them in future!

[Podfic] ‘Vial Revelations,’ OFMD, Ed/Stede/Izzy, Teen, 33 mins

It’s always a delight to record one of kingstoken’s OFMD stories ^^

[Podfic] ‘With The Support of Others' Wings’, ST:TOS, Kirk/Spock/Bones, Teen, 29 mins

I finally got to do the thing podficcers love in finding a story in my recip’s bookmarks that matched their request that also had blanket permission from the author! A great feeling.

[Podfic] ‘tattoo of your name across my soul’, Thorki, Mature, 5 mins

fairyjar left me such an amazing comment on this, I’m still rolling around in it :D

[Podfic] ‘I Don't Believe You’, DWP, Mirandy, 30 mins

I'm still amazed by how generous with kudos the Devil Wear's Prada fandom is towards podfic!

[Podfic] ‘Rescue Romance’, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Nny/Mmy, 15 mins

[Podfic] ‘how they long for dawn’, The Owl House, Amity/Luz, 10 mins

[Podfic] ‘don’t wait up for me’, Clone Wars, Cody/Obi-Wan, 10 mins

[Podfic] ‘if I could be as bold to say that (it's true, I like you)’, FNAF, Mike/Vanessa, 8 mins

[Podfic] 'West-Running Brook', Little Women, Laurie/Jo, 7 mins

I’m delighted to have the honour of being the first person to podfic one of soricel’s fics ^^

[Podfic] 'Turning Swords to Ploughshares', Sha Po Lang, Chang Geng/Gu Yun, Teen 9 mins

My Chinese friend coached me over WhatsApp over how to pronounce names and words in this story and I tried my very best!

[Podfic] ‘< relinquish / delegate / empower >’, Control, Jesse & Simon & Emily, Gen,19 mins

estelraca was very encouraging in their request for people to get experimental, so it was fun to record a story where there was reversed dialogue throughout and reverse it in post! This one was a lot of fun to make ^^

Overall, I had an amazing time with this event. It always pushes me to explore new fandoms and revisit mediums I haven't in a while and I always enjoy the bounty of new podfic to listen to. For an event with mandatory commenting on gifts, I've always found it surprising how common it is for Fandom Trees participants to not acknowledge their gifts in any way (also unfortunately common for podfics given as gifts in events in general, in my experience) but this is a good opportunity for me to remember to focus on the majority of good rather than the minority of not-so-good.

Seasons of Drabbles

It had been ages, AGES, since I'd taken part in seasonsofdrabbles. Surprising even for me, as drabbles are my favourite types of fic. I was excited to have matched to Samifer, then find out afterwards that he had matched to (and treated!) me also :D

Here's what we wrote for each other:

By me: Legacy, Pokemon, Corbeau/L, Teen
By Sam: Courtship Display & Catalyst, Pokemon, Corbeau/Philippe, Gen

I also got super lucky to receive TWO treats that I adore! My treats were:

Undefeated, Death Note, Rem/Misa, Teen
Devoted, Death Note, Rem/Misa, Teen

I immediately podficced Devoted after reveals, so if you'd prefer to have it read to you, here's my pod of it ^^

Candy Hearts Exchange

My Gifts

I was spoiled rotten with Inside No. 9 treats in candyheartsex. I've been requesting this pairing since Battleship 2023 and even made ship promos for it, so getting THREE fics for them by two authors was just incredible. I doubt anyone who follows me here will know this show and doubt even more that you'd been interested in this pairing from it as they are extremely fucked up in many horrible ways, but here are my wonderful gifts just in case!

On a Bedroom Wall, Inside No. 9, Chas/Joe, Mature
Laid Out to Rot, Inside No. 9, Chas/Joe, Mature
it will look like suicide, Inside No. 9, Chas/Joe, Mature

There seems to be a revival of Reece/Steve (League of Gentlemen, "LOG") fic going on at the moment, as their characters from Inside No. 9 and other adjacent RPF showed up massively in this year's Candy Hearts. It was one of my earliest fandoms, so the nostalgia has been nostalging. I'd cringe too hard to dig up my ancient LOG tumblr accounts (and even older League of Gentlemen RPF from LJ, omg) but it makes my heart so happy whenever an old fandom of mine blows up again.

What I Made

I was so excited to match to dreamofhope, who requested unrequited Ed/Izzy (OFMD) which is my favourite flavour for them! I made them two podfics of two wonderfully dark and sad stories. Candy Hearts was a darkfic-themed event for me in general this year for sure!



[Podfic] Hold Fast to the Hours, OFMD, Ed/Izzy, Mature, 55 mins
[Podfic] when we were still alive, OFMD, Ed/Izzy, Mature, 26 mins

I also wrote another fic for Samifer! Yet again, it's a messed up L/Corbeau fic, which honestly has made up the majority of the fic I've written so far this year XD

i'm just not someone i can trust, Pokemon, L/Corbeau, Mature

Three is Not a Crowd

I must thank wilfriede0815 for bringing threeisnotacrowd to my attention, as I would've missed it otherwise! Despite deciding to sign up very last minute for this semi-flash event, I not only surprised myself with how many poly ships I have but also had a lot of fun being picky about mediums (the event accepted fic, art, and podfic) fully expecting to remain giftless after being an initial pinch hit...

My Gifts

...But I got so lucky! I was gifted podfic and art for two poly ships that have been on my mind constantly lately and I love them both so much.

[Podfic] For Science (obviously), Kpop Demon Hunters, Polytrix, Gen, 6 mins - Zoey is an instigator in doing things "for science" :D
[Fanart] Cuillère, Pokemon, L/Philippe/Corbeau, Teen - Spooning in Rust Syndicate sheets

Please go look and/or listen if these sound up your street!

What I Made



[Podfic] I think this is forever for me, Teen Wolf, Derek Hale/Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Gen, 19 mins
[Podfic] No Love For You (Like Mine), Star Trek, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, Teen, 16 mins

Fresh Femslah Salad Bar

I previously made a journal post for this event where I shared my tables. It's since been updated with what I made and my badges! You can find it here. TL;DR, I made six podfics in these fandoms: Death Note, Jennifer's Body, Kpop Demon Hunters, and ST:TNG.

There was also a lot of crossover with what I made for this event and Femslash February Podfic Edition, which I'd definitely recommend checking out. It was the event's biggest year!

Perfect World Shipping Week

This is an event for Lysandre/Sycamore (Pokemon) and I was so proud of myself for managing to make a podfic for every one of the week's challenge prompts. Here's the event's main AO3 collection, and here's what I made.



[Podfic] A Thousand Little Eyes - for the prompt "Childhood"
[Podfic] letting go of lonely - for the prompt "Mementos"
[Podfic] as you treated him, so shall i treat you - for the prompt "Give & Take"*

* This one was actually the last podfic I recorded the night before I lost my voice and 2.5 weeks of my life to flu. I actually think the slight rasp in my throat helped with the delivery XD



[Podfic] Piece by Piece - for the prompt "Music" (because I added intro/outro music that I think fits!)
[Podfic] the voice i adore - for the prompt "First Meeting"
[Podfic] (Waiting for) Another Chance To Be There - for the prompt "Letters"

orbble, if you're reading this, thank you for making the event for me with your comment on '(Waiting for) Another Chance To Be There'! 💖



[Podfic] How Blue, How Beautiful - for the prompt "Free Day"

Events I’m looking forward to

I'd like to keep the tradition of including events I'm looking forward at the end of these roundups. For March, I'll be deep in modding the Unown-focused round of the pokepodproject, so I don't actually have anything else lined up (unless I've forgotten about something, which could very well be the case!)

I wasn't originally going to sign up as a writer for PokePod but I lasted about 12 hours before I couldn't resist the temptation XD I'm looking forward to whichever random Unown I'll assign myself giving me a reason to write this month. I'm excited by the amount of signups we've had so far and can't wait to see the creative ways people find to write about this unusual Pokemon.

A Rustshipping (Corbeau/Philippe, Pokemon) Week was recently announced on Tumblr, and an author reached out to be giving me permission to pod their works for it (so, so exciting) so I'm looking forward to that in April. I might try to write something too, but my writing mojo has been playing hard to get with me recently, so we'll see.

Thank you for reading this if you did! I'm sending good vibes to everyone with open fanwork assignments right now :D

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

I really admire how prolific you are, it's awesome! :D Good luck for all upcoming events!

[peasina]

Aww, thank you, friend :D Events are so good for my motivation. I do wonder sometimes about what I'd be making if they didn't exist!

[soricel]

whoaaa, you are truly an inspiration. O.O
and thank you again so much for that little women podfic!!

[orbble]

Awww, I'm so glad my comment made you happy! I remain delighted that you podficced that piece, it came out so good!

Also just, gosh, I agree with what others said - it's inspiring to see all that you created in the past months! Way to go!

[kingstoken]

Wow! Peasina you were so productive! Also, fantastic cover arts.