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Who put Drarry in the Heated Rivalry tunnel I wanna be friends 👉👈

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Additional Tags: Time Travel, Age Difference, Older Shane Hollander/Younger Ilya Rozanov, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Dream Sex, OR IS IT, Shane is in love with his husband in every timeline, Brief reference to Irina’s canonical suicide, Smoking, Grief/Mourning, Episode: s01e01 Rookies (Heated Rivalry), Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), POV Ilya Rozanov, Jealous Ilya Rozanov, Barebacking, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: Download, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours Summary:

Ilya’s on a hotel roof in the middle of the night. The draft is tomorrow, and he can’t sleep.

That’s when Shane Hollander appears, but he’s somehow thirty-five years old, and acting very friendly… and he’s wearing glasses. This must be a dream — mustn’t it?

Podfic of Lovers, I Guess by tackytiger.

GO AND LISTEN TO THIS!!! Your ears and your heart will thank you.

hullosweetpea

Community not Consumerism: Fandom Etiquette for the Heated Rivalry Newbies (who are on my Last Nerve)

First, I need to address that the only social media I use is Tumblr, a private Discord with friends, and AO3. So the fact that I know about this terrible behavior means it is bad.

Second, credentials. I’ve been in fandom spaces for over 15 years, creating for 11 years, and I have a Bachelors and (almost) a Masters in Creative Writing. I also was an editor on a literary magazine during my graduate classes. I normally don’t flaunt the degrees, because Good Writing comes from experience, not just degrees, but The Kids have me steamed.

Now on to the Issue.

Heated Rivalry (the show) is barely four months old, so why am I seeing fanfic authors already deleting fics and jumping ship on the fandom?

Because I have seen thee most entitled comments I’ve ever seen in my fandom experience. People upset that a WIP isn’t uploading fast enough. Upset that a WIP isn’t going the way they want. Witch hunting authors because a fic is too good and too long to not be written AI. Leaving unwanted “feedback” and “critique.” Upset when authors take creative license. Just straight up bullying.

Y’all have got to stop it or you’ll be out of fic by the end of Pride Month.

This kind of behavior isn’t new in fandom (see, flame wars), but the severity and amount is flabbergasting.

To the newbies, I am begging you to stop. Fandom is about community. Fandom community is about uplifting and supporting those around you. It’s about making friendships; creating headcanons, fic, art, and meta; and going “Look at this cool thing!” to your friends. This behavior of trashing fics in the AO3 comments, blasting authors on Twitter, and being a general all-around obnoxious human is relatively new and invasive to fandom.

If you are new to fandom, this behavior can and should get you ostracized.

When you’re new to an alt subculture, your job is to learn the history, respect your elders, and shut up when you’re wrong. Regardless of what you may believe, fandom is an alt subculture. COVID and then Heated Rivalry has shot it into the stratosphere. This kind of behavior is based on overconsumption and an idea that everything has to be built around your comfort level. Get used to being uncomfortable.

If you hate, hate, hate a fic, use the back button and talk with a friend. Do not tell the author in an AO3 comment. Do not subtweet or vague post.

And to authors? Keep blocking the assholes. Lock your fic to AO3, so if someone does comment like this you can block them. Monitor comments if you need to. And honestly, if you’re done with this behavior, delete the fic. I know it absolutely blows, but do not keep it up if it’s harming your mental health. Take care of yourself first.

To the authors still posting: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.

To the authors who’ve deleted/left: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.

To users leaving excellent comments: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.

And if you leave these comments and have never written and posted a fic? I dare you to do it. Once you’ve put yourself out there you might find that your behavior is pretty terrible.

Breaking: My current audiobook narration gig is Glee fanfic with the serial numbers filed off and it’s a beautiful full circle moment for me.

#audiobook narration #day job #glee fandom

I don't know what sort of crack cocaine you have laced your voice with but I genuinely cannot fall asleep anymore if I haven't heard "and read by RattleAndHum" at least once. WHAT HAVE YOU DONEEE /silly I love your stuff! Thank you!

Aaaaw this makes me so happy 🥹🥹🥹

uncertainlys

it will pass but like can i at least get an eta

onesleep-twopie

momofmysquad

IF I HAD A NICKEL

As a Canadian audiobook narrator who has to Americanize all my pronunciations on most projects, hearing Shane say “TOOOR” and “PASS-TA” had me cheering like

#heated rivalry

lettersbyelise

New Heated Rivalry Fic 🏒

Title: Come Give Me Something I Can Feel Relationship: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov Rating: Explicit Word count: 3,990

Summary: Ilya has a special Christmas gift for Shane. Set in December 2015, in Shane's secret Montreal apartment.

Read on AO3!

thirdeye1234

Aaaaw!!!! I miss making regular podfics so much and sometimes I just gotta make a thing for my current hyper fixation. This was so lovely to wake up to! I will definitely read! So glad we’re all enjoying the hockey boys 😄

tahthetrickster

it’s december 1 where’s the christmas tail kitten bring him to me

tahthetrickster

i have to do EVERYTHING around here

digitaldeathx-deactivated202605

not now kitten mommy is having imaginary beef with a person she hasn't spoken to in six years

honestlydarkprincess

my wife (ao3) is dead (temporarily down) and i’ll never love again

flowerparrish

SOAPBOX: On Podfics as Transformative Works

So I decided I wanted to write my SOAPBOX on one thing, after going off on a mini Soapbox the day before challenges dropped for Voiceteam and it gave me an excuse to do it. But then I spent a week thinking about where I wanted this to go, and came up with an adjacent-but-different direction to head it in, whoops?

That said, welcome to my Soapbox on Podfic as a Transformative Work. This will include some of my original ideas such as the inherent podficcer desire to embrace chaos that is evidenced by the way we on the whole flock toward things like texting / social media fics and non-traditional narrative formats, and our desire to embrace the challenge of finding a way to bring those stories to life in audio in a way that fully represents the way they appear on the screen, BUT. More than that, at the core, I really want to talk about WHY podfic is a transformative work, because a lot of people—particularly those who aren't familiar with podfic, and haven't listened to much if any of it—don't seem to understand that it is more than just reading aloud the words of a text.

I get it, I do. At its most basic level, that IS what podfic is, right? That's often how we start to explain podfic; my go-to definition is "you know audiobooks? you know fanfic? cool, imagine audiobooks of fanfic." I stand by that; at its most basic level, that IS what podfic is. And yet one of my favorite things to rant about is that podfic is so much MORE than just an audiobook of a fanfic, or at least DIFFERENT/DISTINCT, in the same way that fanfic as a genre is distinct from traditionally published works. Why? Because podficcers have the same freedom and flexibility, due to the nature of fanworks and the fact that they are created for love and joy, not for profit, to get really weird and experimental with what we're making. You don't have to, obviously; you can make a podfic that is more or less an audiobook of a fanfic and it's perfect valid as a podfic AND as a transformative work—I'll get to that more later. But I think the easiest way to see how transformative something like podfic can be is to listen to something absolutely WILD that a podficcer put their whole soul into, be it through ridiculous voicing or over the top effects, and understand that this is an art not bound by the chains of capitalism in its need to be something that will appeal to the largest possible audience. In fact, podficcers don't get very much interaction on our works, a couple of comments on a single pod is a raging hit as far as we're concerned. People have already done great meta on this point this week, so I won't go too far into it beyond saying—we're not in this for popularity, or even feedback (as nice as it can be to get it); we're doing it for fun and joy and community and, yeah, a little bit of chaos.

Sure, you say, that makes sense. And maybe I can see how a really weird podfic is transformative. But ALL podfic?

Yes. All podfic. Let me put it to you this way: have you ever been in a classroom with a teacher who is just the most boring human you have ever had the misfortune of being forced to learn from? I feel like chances are high most of us have, and if you haven't, you've probably at least witnessed it second-hand from some kind of media. Compare that experience with the joy of learning from someone who is really good at teaching—not just at knowing their subject matter, but at engaging their students in a way that makes learning actually enjoyable, whether or not you're equally invested in the subject.

Podfic is like that. You can have Text-to-Speech read something to you, sure, but comparing it to a real person is like… even if you don't like the real person's style, or the way their audio turned out, it's got LIFE in it. THAT'S what makes podfic transformative. A real person is VOICE-ACTING as they bring a text to life in audio, putting in expression and empathy, and THAT is what makes podfic a transformative form of art.

Do you have to like it? No! Many people don't enjoy listening to audio-based stories, or only enjoy them in certain contexts or formats, and that's fine. But it's not the same thing to say "this isn't for me" and "this isn't actually a work that transforms the original in any way because it's just reading the words aloud". To those people: I challenge you to make a podfic. Any podfic. Learn how to record, and how to narrate, and how to edit, and when you're done, see if you've learned anything from the process about what makes this an art. Because it is enjoyable for those of us who do it, but it is a skill that you learn and practice the same way writing and painting and photo editing and a thousand other skills and art forms are. It is human artistic expression, combined with practical creative skills, and it can be so, so magical. From the most simple narration of a fic to the most complicated multi-voice with sound effects and music, every podfic is a work of art, and in my opinion, if a single person bothers to read this and grapple with that idea, fandom will be better for it.

opalsong

Jumping on this to add two things:

1) another way to illustrate that podfic is transformative (not just reading aloud) is to listen to the same fic podficced by two different people. Even apart from any extras the podficcers add on (music, cover art, effects) - the reading itself can be (and often is) WILDLY DIFFERENT. Different people bring different things to a text work and draw out different things. I had a really distinct experience making a multivoice with another podficcer. I proposed a fic and my friend said "I don't know, that one feels really dubcon, almost noncon to me" and I was shocked! I'd always read that fic in a very "Baby, It's Cold Outside" sort of way (in that "I want to but can't because of reasons so please get me over that and give me an excuse" way). If we'd each made a solo podfic of that fic, they would have been very different experiences. So yeah, to anyone who believes that podficcing (just the average, base level podfic - no experimental stuff) isn't transformative, please go listen to multiple people's podfics of the same fic.

2) my second point is just a small add on to agree that podfic is very different than professional audiobooks. All the transformative stuff, the drawing out different interpretations and even the ability to play with character voices, is somewhere in a range of muted to absent entirely. Or at least it felt that way when I tried my hand at professional audiobooks. I felt stifled and uncreative and couldn't quite get a handle on the flatter style that was the norm. To be clear, professional audiobook narrators can be great! It's just a different style! And one whose point is to convey the author's intention in a different medium. Whereas, as a podficcer, I don't really care what the author's intended interpretation is. That's not why I podfic. I'm there to bring my own meaning to the text.

thirdeye1234

Yesssss!

As someone who has made a lot of podfics and someone who now works in audiobooks full time, I can co-sign everything here.

I would say that the difference between podfic and audiobooks is the very same difference between fic itself and published novels. If you love fic, you get this.

No one who loves fic would ever argue it’s not “real” writing just because it derives characters, plot, setting etc from another work.

And YES, some fic is actually on par (or better tbh) than works in trad publishing. The story arcs, characterization, stakes, dialogue—all masterful. And ALSO some fic is just play. It’s not a literary tome; it’s exploration, silliness, just for fun or to make your friend laugh or to see how horny you can make it or how absurd it can be while still somehow making sense and connecting with your audience. It’s “what if I took this thing and turned it inside out and backwards” but also “what if I just moved it 1.5 inches to the left?”

Same goes for podfic. We do it because we love it. Because we found a text we want to play with. Because it’s our friend’s favourite story (or they wrote the story!). Because we want to live in it for a while and this is the closest we can get. Because as we read it with our eyes we heard it in our heads, maybe even formed the words with our mouths, trying them on. Because we immediately thought of a bunch of other podficcers we’d love to work on it with. Because it has an element we’d never tried before but would really like to. Because we literally cannot stop thinking about it and one way to exorcise that demon is to create for it.

So we do that! We create. We make choices, try things out, go for over-the-top or understated, add effects or take them away, perform them like we’re reading a bedtime story or like we want to make a Hollywood blockbuster. And then we put it out into the world for others to enjoy.

The transformation is real, multi-faceted and beautiful.

#podfic as transformative #podfic #fandom discourse

zimms

the omgcp tv show has to be a period piece because if bitty had had access to tiktok at samwell, he would never have passed that degree

zimms

i need to be clear to you guys that we are not getting a tv show

What’s it like to monetize your fandom hobby and make it a career? A ramble-y take from me I guess.

It’s been 2 years since I decided to pursue audiobook narration full time. It was around this time in the school year of 2023 that I met with my principal and told her I wouldn’t be coming back in September to teach. I was quitting. But in the year leading up to that decision, I was making podfics in my spare time, and loving every second of that escape.

That’s what it was: pure escape. I read whatever I wanted to just because I wanted to. I added music, soundscaping, cover art, because I wanted to. I reveled in the freedom and the community that fandom offers. And the comments! People left (and continue to leave) comments that make me cry. Things about my voice, about the way I read certain characters and how that spoke to them—it was so incredibly validating and beautiful. People joined me on multi chapter WIPS that spanned months. I mean I know I’m preaching to the choir here—there’s nothing like it.

And I thought “I want to do this and only this forever. And I think I can.” So I quit teaching and decided to pursue audiobook narration. I was so happy in that choice. It felt so right. And now I’d probably have even more time to do podfics on the side too! (I know you can sense the “but” coming…)

And, okay. It was the right choice. I don’t miss teaching at all. Like. At all. And I have what it takes to do this work. I like it and I’m good at it. I’ve been getting more work with better pay and more prestige. I narrated my first novel with a big 5 publisher in a proper professional studio with an engineer and a director this past January.

And here’s the “but:” But. The fucking grind of monetizing a hobby into a full time career. I don’t love that. I’m a working actor basically. I’m always chasing the next gig. I’m sometimes doing work that pays but does not exactly fulfill me creatively or I dunno…emotionally. And it all has to be so fucking perfect. Every project has pick-ups: “You said she got up from the chair. It’s supposed to be her chair” etc. Which I know makes sense. This is publishing. And it’s a job! It’s not going to be fun and amazing all the time! I knew that. But like, I didn’t know it, you know? And yeah, I was naive to think I could still do fandom stuff regularly on the side. Deadlines don’t allow for much of that.

And l guess I just want to keep checking in here from time to time because I don’t think I’ll ever love this job the way I loved this hobby. I feel like I’m in a cheesy movie about a rock star waxing nostalgic like “remember when it used to be about the music?” Again, I don’t want to be doing anything else, but I really miss the purity of doing something just because I love it and I want the world to know it’s wonderful.

Every once in a while I’ll drop a 30 min podfic or something and it’s really nice to get back into it, but there’s now that ugly voice in my head saying, “Don’t spend your time/voice on this. You could be auditioning. You could be making better samples. You could be getting ahead on projects. You could be emailing producers.” And that makes me sad, frankly. When you monetize a hobby, it’s hard to let yourself do it for fun. It’s no longer firmly in the “take a break from life” box.

I don’t have any startling revelation here or anything. It’s just something I think about. A lot of people don’t get the beauty and freedom of fandom work. So maybe if you’re a fandom creator and occasionally get down about putting so much effort into something niche that doesn’t make you money or get you recognition, I just wanna say, don’t? Your joy is the point. What you’re doing is amazing and important. I miss it. A lot.

#adventures in podficcing #fandom stuff

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