What You Feel is What You Are

ITPE 2021

paraka — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 19:52:55 GMT

It's ITPE time again! Every year as I make less and less podfic I ask myself if I'm going to sign up again but #ITPE is still so fun so here I am again!

I'm parakapodfic on twitter, and paraka just to keep things clear.

Now, onto my updated letter:

Harry Potter Draco/Hermione, Harry/Draco
Hermione/Draco remains my main fandom of 2021.

I've got a few fics bookmarked as recs with this pairing, though I doubt any of them will be good for this challenge since their word counts skew high. senlinyu is a BP author (and one of my fave authors in the fandom) who has a wide variety of stories, many of which skew shorter if you're interested in a more practical starting place. :P

Because podfic fandom leans more towards slash, I do also do Harry/Draco. Certainly a lot of the tropes in H/D fic feels more familiar to me as someone who's spent most of their fannish life in the slash corner and there are some really great stories available. It's not the pairing I seek out on my own that often, but I'm almost always pleased after listening to H/D podfic. I do have a few H/D stories bookmarked, the word counts are still high, though not as high as my Draco/Hermione recs.

OK, I'm not officially listing this pairing, but my first pairing in Harry Potter fandom was Harry/Snape. At the time I was of an age where I IDed most with Harry but as I've gotten older and am now at a point where I ID more with Snape, let's just say this pairing has lost a lot of its shine. That said I'd probably still enjoy a story with this pairing if you have a fave you want to record.

I'm very much an Epilogue, What Epilogue? person, and that also means I have no interest in Cursed Child canon. I'm also not very interested in the Marauders and haven't watched any of the Fantastic Beasts movies.

Stargate SG-1 Jack/Sam
IDK what to say, I've been reading more het lately? And as part of that, I'm revisiting the het pairings of older fandoms I was in? Which is how I got into Draco/Hermione, and is how Sam/Jack came back on my radar. I haven't read as extensively in this pairing and do not have many helpful links but I've always loved the Stargate universe and feel like fandom does this pairing better than canon's poor attempt at it.

Nalini Singh Psy-Changeling or Guild Hunter Series Canon pairings, Aodhan/Illium
I love the world building, the story arcs that span multiple books, and the politics that Singh puts into her series. I haven't read much fic for these fandoms but I do revisit the source material a lot and would enjoy an expanded world.

With the Psy-Changeling series, I tend to prefer pairings where it isn't changeling/changeling and I honestly just love how ridiculous the psy can be as they learn to navigate having feels.

With the Guild Hunter series, you can't really help but ship Aodhan/Illium (and, tbh, I'm going to be upset if (when?) canon pairs them up with others) but I enjoy all the canon pairings as well.

With both these series I'd be along for the ride if the story featured OCs, but I don't think I'm comfortable with anything that /Reader.

Sense8 Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan, Kala/Wolfgang
Oh man, I'm sad that canon had to rush this to give us the ending they intended, honestly I just have so many feels about them. <333 I read some of the fic when the last ep first came out but haven't kept up with the tag since then. I'd also be down for Kala/Wolfgang, since I know there was more fic out there from S1 then from S2 last time I looked.

Terminator John/Cameron, John/Kate
I fell in love with the franchise through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I adore Cameron. I also have a thing for people growing into heroes so love John Connor's characterization from SCC and T3. My ships are John/Cameron and John/Kate, though this fandom is the one I read the most gen in. I also adore crossovers with Terminator. If you can find good crossovers with this and any of the other fandoms I've listed, that would totally make my day. My Terminator recs are on my pinboard.

Merlin Merlin/Arthur
Merlin/Arthur is my main pairing, but I'm also 100% there for canon-era slice-of-life gen, or stories of how awesome a queen Gwen was, post-show. Canon-era stories tend to be my fav, however I also enjoy AUs that take place in a different time/place so long as there's still magic. I kind of feel like what's the point without magic? There are non-magical AUs that I like, but they can be more hit and miss for me. I'm drawn more to the potential of season 1 than the reality of the later seasons so I'm totally there for redeemable Morgana. I also love the Once and Future trope. I have a bunch of (mostly old) recs on my pinboard.

Star Trek AOS (TOS) Kirk/Spock
I mostly read/listen in AOS, but I've watched some of TOS and so long as the story isn't, like, an episode tag I'm generally good following TOS stories too. Certainly I enjoy AOS stories that mix in TOS canon. I'm a Kirk girl, who loves to see him hurt (I frequent the Tarsus tag way too much), though I'm also 100000% here for competence porn from this crew. I have a few recs on AO3 and a few more on Pinboard.

I have also watched Star Trek Discovery and Picard as well as a smattering of Next Gen though I haven't gone looking for fic for them. That said, if you found a fic that was a crossover, I probably have enough canon knowledge to enjoy!

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Time travel, competence porn, trans characters, soulmates, world exploration, found family, pretend dating, arranged marriage (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, characters coming into their powers/destinies, and way more than I can list here.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a sexualized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.

I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by blatant homophobia, though stories about coming out during times where it was less safe to do so are ok. I generally don't enjoy stories where cheating on a voluntary relationship is a large part of the story (if it's, like, a forced/arranged relationship and there's cheating I'm more ok with it). Though, it's not cheating if it's consensual (an open relationship, for example).

Note: Since these are things other people usually list as no-gos; while I wouldn't necessarily say these are things I love, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

ITPE 2020

paraka — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 15:48:30 GMT

It's ITPE time again, so here's my updated letter:

Sorted Food Anyone/Everyone
Apparently my pandemic coping strategy is watching British Youtubers talk about food a lot. This fandom is tiny guys, so, so tiny. This is kind of a long shot, but I would love anything in it. Gen, slash, het (if it exists in the fandom?). Really I ship anyone with anyone and everyone. :) I have particular soft spots for the Chefs. Ben is just text book My Fandom Type with his geeky competence. He's long suffering with his friends and makes all his Benuendos. James is sarcastic, grumpy, but also full of little bursts of joy when he finds something he likes. James also mothers the Normals a lot and it's adorable watching him sympathy stress with them, or quietly show up in the background to help them save their dish.

Harry Potter Draco/Hermione, Harry/Draco
So the parts of the pandemic that weren't spent on Youtube were primarily spent listening to Draco/Hermione fics passed through a text-to-speech reader. I read a fic back in like, 2007 that had Draco/Hermione as a background pairing and was like "huh, that's unexpected, I kind of like it" then promptly forgot about it until this year where I started mainlining the hell out of it. Is there much in canon for this pairing? Not really, but they're both fun characters to bounce off each other and see where they go. I've got a few fics bookmarked as recs with this pairing, though I doubt any of them will be good for this challenge since their word counts skew high.

Because podfic fandom leans more towards slash, I do also do Harry/Draco. Certainly a lot of the tropes in H/D fic feels more familiar to me as someone who's spent most of their fannish life in the slash corner and there are some really great stories available. It's not the pairing I seek out on my own that often, but I'm almost always pleased after listening to H/D podfic. I do have a few H/D stories bookmarked, the word counts are still high, though not as high as my Draco/Hermione recs. :P

OK, I'm not officially listing this pairing, but my first pairing in Harry Potter fandom was Harry/Snape. At the time I was of an age where I IDed most with Harry, as I've gotten older and am now at a point where I ID more with Snape, let's just say this pairing has lost a lot of its shine. That said I'd probably still enjoy a story with this pairing if you have a fave you want to record.

I'm very much an Epilogue, What Epilogue? person, and that also means I have no interest in Cursed Child canon. I'm also not very interested in the Marauders and haven't watched any of the Fantastic Beasts movies.

Star Trek AOS (TOS) Kirk/Spock
I mostly read/listen in AOS, but I've watched some of TOS and so long as the story isn't, like, an episode tag I'm generally good following TOS stories too. Certainly I enjoy AOS stories that mix in TOS canon. I'm a Kirk girl, who loves to see him hurt (I frequent the Tarsus tag way too much), though I'm also 100000% here for competence porn from this crew. I have a few recs on AO3 and a few more on Pinboard.

I have also watched Star Trek Discovery and Picard as well as a smattering of Next Gen though I haven't gone looking for fic for them. That said, if you found a fic that was a crossover, I probably have enough canon knowledge to enjoy!

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, time travel, competence porn, trans characters, soulmates, world exploration, found family, pretend dating, arranged marriage (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, characters coming into their powers/destinies, and way more than I can list here.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a sexualized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.

I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by blatant homophobia, though stories about coming out during times where it was less safe to do so are ok. I generally don't enjoy stories where cheating on a voluntary relationship is a large part of the story (if it's, like, a forced/arranged relationship and there's cheating I'm more ok with it). Though, it's not cheating if it's consensual (an open relationship, for example).

Note: Since these are things other people usually list as no-gos; while I wouldn't necessarily say these are things I love, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

Terminator: A Dark Fate

paraka — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 21:55:41 GMT

I am back on my bullshit: Terminator Edition

I will forever lovingly curse paradisecity for making me care about this canon when there's not a very big fandom to support it, and here I am more than 10 years later, still caring too much about this franchise.

All this is to say that I have seen the new movie and I loved it. I loved it so much guys, I can't even.

Sooooo many spoilers coming
This movie had everything I could have asked for. Kick ass women! Carl the Terminator sharing his strong feelings on drapes! Action! It dealt with the fact that the level of tech has changed a hell of a lot since the 80s! It had a young hero growing into a leadership role! It brought forward interesting questions on the personhood of robots! They didn’t try to CGI actors to look like their younger selves for the whole film! I'm in love.

Let's start with Dani, we begin by seeing her as the caregiver and "mom" of the house, even though she appears to be the youngest. She's got a lot of caring in her and leads her family with love but even from the beginning we can see some of the steel under that. When her brother is about to be fired, she puts on a serious face and goes in to fight for his job and we see that she's willing to fight for others.

Once the bullets start flying we get a lot of helpless and confused Dani as she is thrown in the deep end and told her family is dead all at once. But once that first extended fight scene is over, she slowly starts to take charge again. Grace and Sarah know what needs to be done but Dani is the one who arranges how it'll get done by relying on family and contacts to get them over the border. Then later once they're with Carl she is done with being told what she's going to do and starts asserting herself, making her choices heard. We get to see that leader peeking out before getting the flash forward where we see her totally in charge, and in charge in her way.

John was presented in T1 as someone cold and calculating in the future. He knew what was coming and made the hard decisions to ensure they won, with some implication that he was aloof and perhaps cut off from those around him. Dani, on the other hand, leads with her heart. She will go and fight for a child singlehandedly, even though she commands troops who could force the issue. She makes a personal connection with those around her. I am so prepared to read a million words about Dani and her leadership against Legion in the future.

Which brings me to Grace. It was pretty great to see the parallels between Grace and Kyle. They were both members of the future resistance sent back in time to protect a young woman that they had mixed up feelings of hero worship for and saw them as a mother figure. In Kyle’s case it was seeing Sarah as the mother of a leader, with Grace it was a woman who swept in and saved her at a vulnerable time as a child. The parallels were so great but also were so different. So much of the Terminator series has been about parents protecting children, so having Grace flip that and be a child protecting a parental figure was wonderful.

Which brings me to Sarah, OMG Sarah!
The scene on top of the train where Sarah tells Dani that the future doesn’t care about her just her womb; there was so much trauma in those few sentences. Unlike Sarah, I had correctly pegged Dani as the new leader but I think the fact that it went down that way says a lot.

Like, 1984 probably wouldn't as easily bought a kickass woman being the leader and best hope for all of mankind, whereas today it's what I defaulted to when I knew John was out of the picture. But Sarah’s trauma stood in the way of that realization for her and she is identifying hard core with Dani. I doubt that it's that she thinks Dani couldn't be the leader of the future, but she so stuck on Dani being the new her.

The fact that Sarah transformed herself, gave up who she was to be who she needed to be for both her son and all of humanity only for it to be for nothing? For all the things she did and was capable of, she was never the leader of the resistance, even though she's obviously qualified. But no, instead all her hard work and sacrifice is distilled down to her son who didn't even make it, so she did all of this for nothing.

She brought so much of value to the table but in the end she feels she was only ever a womb for the resistance. Their Mother Mary. I hope that Sarah, as she trains Dani for the future to come, realizes that she can still be the Mother of the Revolution without being reduced to just a womb to carry the saviour.

Ok, now let’s talk about Carl: OMG, I love him so much! He has strong opinions about drapes! He is long suffering about being shot bc how will he explain that to his wife!? He got himself a wife bc he was efficient at changing diapers! *swoon*

I think they maintained that balance that Arnold has been great at in these movies of, keeping the Terminator serious and straight faced while also keeping him humourus. I would absolutely read fic that was just Carl not realizing that he's terrorizing his customers with his strong drape opinions.

But on a more serious front, one of the things that has always drawn me to Terminator is the line between what is pure machine, and what is more. T2 dealt with that, seeing John growing close to "Uncle Bob" and mourning his loss. In T3, the terminator actually overcomes his programming to save John! And it's probably the biggest theme of the TV show. So seeing what happened to Carl once he was outside of Skynet's influence and without a mission was wonderful!

It's suuuuuper interesting to me that when left to his own devices, without a mission to fulfill, the connection Carl made was to help a woman in an abusive situation and help raise a child. Skynet's primary objective has always been to take out humanity (with an implication of “before it gets taken out”, since Skynet's origin story as a military based AI meant to control weapons and war then created a war based on its programming). It would have been very in line with Skynet's principles if Carl had gone on more killing sprees, tried to bring about the creation of Skynet more quickly, or taken up a violent position such as muscle for a warlord, gang, or mob. Instead, he saw a human in need and helped her. Then he learned about humans and humanity and became more human through that process, experiencing empathy for Sarah. That's beautiful.

What could Skynet and/or Legion become had it not had violence programmed into it from the beginning? What would individual Terminators do if parted from the hivemind?

OK, there are some other meta things I’d like to discuss, but first I want to share my feels on John Connor. Since I got into Terminator mostly through The Sarah Connor Chronicles a lot of my feels are tied up in John Connor. I have a thing for the reluctant hero trope and John really goes through that arc in the show. He goes from a kid who always does what his mom says and will run and hide leaving others to deal with the danger, to the realization that, shit, he's going to have to be calling the shots someday and trying to take on that mantle. He has a similar realization at the end of T3 when listening to the panic over the radio and knowing someone has to take charge and that someone is him.

With all my John Connor feels I was pretty shocked at his immediate murder in the movie. But I made myself forget about it at the time, and now that I've seen the whole movie, I'm actually ok with it. Dani was a great replacement and I still got to see that reluctant hero arc but in complete contrast to what we’ve been told about John.

Because we’re getting Dani as an adult she doesn’t have to grow up with her future looming over her like John did and we see that she priorities people and connecting to people through their shared humanity, this is what makes her a great leader. She doesn’t have the aloofness that Kyle implied in T1, she certainly doesn’t have the, hmm, arrogance? self-importance? that John had in T4.

John and Kate Connor are the only humans we, canonically, know can reprogram terminators. Between T2-T4, and the TV show I’ve always had the head canon that part of the reason why John is the saviour is because, through his foreknowledge and past interactions, he’s able to understand terminators more than anyone else. He’s able to look beyond their kill programming and see at least their usefulness underneath. He’s able to understand machines on their level, understands their logic and that makes fighting them easier.

This movie throws the whole “chosen one” theory completely for a loop.

Not only is John not the only one able to lead the resistance but, with so few conversations about what the future is like from Grace, it’s pretty open ended how much future knowledge gets passed on to Dani. Sure she’ll have all of Sarah’s knowledge and experience but Grace made the point more than once that Legion isn’t Skynet and their futures are different.

I heard that the plan was to make a trilogy of films with these characters and with this one being the first. If that does happen (which is debatable considering the not-so-stellar opening weekend), I bet they’ll retcon in more knowledge of the future otherwise it kind of makes the premise of the movies… redundant? If when one saviour falls another can step in to take their place, sending assassins back in time to take them out only changes who the saviour is. But if part of what makes a saviour a saviour is their advanced knowledge of what’s to come, then the time travel is necessary.

Dani’s future also has a different reaction to technology. If T4 showed us anything it’s that John’s future would have been pretty uncomfortable with augments. Dani’s future not only has augments but augments trusted soldiers and gives them important tasks to undertake.

Actually, let me talk about the progression of terminators and tech in the Terminator ‘verse. I appreciate the evolutions of Terminators we’ve seen. T1 had the standard metal framed machine with a skin covering. T2 brought us liquid terminators. T3 gave us a terminator with a metal frame but liquid exterior. This one had a terminator with a metal frame and liquid exterior like T3, but the two parts could work independently. We ended up with a 2 for 1 deal where a single terminator can have 2 bodies

The terminator innovation in T4 was mostly Marcus who was a human heart and brain in a metal body who didn’t know he was a terminator; which completely backfired on Skynet, who didn’t understand why Marcus would reject it while Marcus clung to his humanity. In a lot of ways, T4 was a precursor to Grace as both showed that who you are matters more than what you are.

I honestly don’t remember much of T5? The terminator innovation was that Doctor Who was Skynet and he managed to turn John Connor into Skynet too? IDK guys, I liked the movie, it was fun to watch and had lots of call backs and homages to make fans happy but I don’t really feel like it added much to the overall mythos of the series, at least not the parts that I like best.

OK, I’m winding down, so two more quick points:

1) From a purely meta point of view, it was somewhat nice to see that, if fridging is going to happen, it was a guys dying to give the woman pain. And that, while her papi’s death was straight off-screen fridging, when it was Diego’s turn it was actually a ~moment~. Like it’s implied he spent a lot of his life leaning on Dani but in the end he was the one to take a hit for her.

2) The petty thing in this movie that disappointed me was that they changed the name of Skynet to Legion. *hands* Legion is so... forgettable. Bleh.

But if I only have one petty complaint about the whole movie, I think that’s a pretty good sign.

In conclusion, you should go see this movie and then share your feelings with me.

ITPE 2019

paraka — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 21:44:19 GMT

It's ITPE time again, so here's my updated letter:

Bandom
Fall Out Boy Pete/Patrick is my Bandom OTP. God I just love them. <333 I'm also ok with Patrick/other ppl as a main pairing (Travie or Gabe are the ones I've come across the most), but I'm less interested in Pete/others (as a main pairing at least, if it's temp relationship, or if Patrick is involved I'm ok with it). Mostly what I like about Pete/Patrick is dorks in love and how Pete can feel so much about Patrick.

Panic! at the Disco I'm down for any combo of Brendon/Spencer/Ryan. I live in a world of denial that is stuck in Panic!2.0 :P But Brendon/Spencer stuff post divorce are fine too. When I join a fandom there's normally one character that grabs my attention and whom I care most about in a relationship and originally, Ryan was that character for Panic, but then somewhere along the way Spencer moved into that category and most of what I read slashes one of them with Brendon, but man, let me tell you how much I'd love some Ryan/Spencer that builds on their years long friendship and how they can still be friends (or together) post-divorce. I can take or leave Jon, so it's fine if he's there, or part of a pairing, or it's fine if he's not there.

Cobra Starship/The Academy Is... Gabe/William. So, after years of Gabe/William being a sometimes minor background pairing in a bunch of bandom fics, I somehow fell into a Gabe/William spiral and came out shipping them a lot?

My Chemical Romance
Generally speaking there tends to be far more MCR stuff available than I have interest in, but I've found myself looking for Bob or Ray centric stories a bit lately. I enjoy Bob/Ray, though either of them with anyone else is probably fine too.

You can find my general Bandom recs here (sorry, I don't tag by band)

Those are the bands/characters I'm interested in being the centre of the story, and I'm fine if other bands make an appearance, or are background characters, or whatever, but getting something that focuses elsewhere would probably be pretty meh for me.

X-Men (First Class movie 'verse): My main pairing is Charles/Erik, though X-Men Apocalypse made me yearn for Charles/Erik/Raven. I specified First Class, not because it has to be based off that single movie, but because I don't actually enjoy rivals pairings normally, so the Charles/Erik of the early 2000s movies is less interesting to me than the closer relationship we've seen in First Class/Days of Future Past/Apocalypse/Dark Phoenix. I'm not opposed to stories that are set in the earlier (later, in canon) movies, just it's a bit more hit or miss how their relationship is portrayed. My favourite tag in the fandom is Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers because I love stories that explore how the world would react to mutants and the powers that they have but the actual canon is so intense, goes to such an extreme and these AUs generally have more of a middle ground.

Star Trek AOS (TOS) Kirk/Spock I mostly read/listen in AOS, but I've watched some of TOS and so long as the story isn't, like, an episode tag I'm generally good following TOS stories too. Cetainly I enjoy AOS stories that mix in TOS canon. I'm a Kirk girl, who loves to see him hurt (I frequent the Tarsus tag way too much), though I'm also 100000% here for competence porn from this crew. I have a few recs on AO3 and a few more on Pinboard.

I also watch Star Trek Discovery, but I haven't gone looking for fic for it though. That said, if you found a fic that was a crossover, I have the canon knowledge to enjoy!

Merlin
Merlin/Arthur is my main pairing, but I'm also 100% there for canon-era slice-of-life gen, or stories of how awesome a queen Gwen was, post-show. Canon-era stories tend to be my fav, however I'm fine with AUs that take place in a different time so long as there's still magic. I kind of feel like what's the point without magic? There are non-magical AUs that I like, but they can be more hit and miss for me. I'm drawn more to the potential of season 1 than the reality of the later seasons so I'm totally there for redeemable Morgana. I also love the Once and Future trope. I have a bunch of (mostly old) recs on my pinboard.

Harry Potter Harry/Snape, Harry/Draco So, I got into Harry Potter fandom before the series was finished being written and jumped on the Harry/Snape train before canon went... there. I also was closer in age to Harry than Snape at the time and the age gap thing didn't seem like a big deal, where as now I'm closer to Snape and it's way more :S :S :S So, what I mean to say is I have complicated feels about my main pairing in this fandom. These days I tend to read a lot of time travel shenanigans in this pairing, or stuff set in a Snape!Lives future, though I can do canon era.

I'm very much an Epilogue, What Epilogue? person, and that also means I have no interest in Cursed Child canon. I'm also not very interested in the Marauders.

OK, partially because of my complicated feelings about my first HP pairing, and partially just because this is where a lot of the podfic is, I gave into Harry/Draco. If there's something you really want to record that's H/D, so long as it doesn't go against my squicks I say go for it?

I have some Harry Potter recs on Pinboard.

Sense8 Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan Oh man, I'm sad that canon had to rush this to give us the ending they intended, honestly I just have so many feels about them. <333 I read some of the fic when the last ep first came out but haven't kept up with the tag since then. I'd also be down for Kala/Wolfgang, since I know there's more fic out there from S1 that from S2.

Terminator
I fell in love with the franchise through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I adore Cameron. I also have a thing for people growing into heroes so love John Connor's characterization from SCC and T3 and am looking forward to the newest movie. My ships are John/Cameron and John/Kate, though this fandom is the one I read the most gen in. I also adore crossovers with Terminator. If you can find good crossovers with this and any of the other fandoms I've listed, that would totally make my day. My Terminator recs are on my pinboard.

The Martian
Oh Mark Watney you poor goober, look what Mars has done to you. I primarily read gen in this fandom and enjoy Mark trying to cope while everything goes wrong. I'm also ok in reading pairing fic in this fandom but don't have any particular ships, the fandom skews to Mark/Beck, which I'm fine with but don't feel any great love for either. If you go the way of shipping I'd probably prefer something where it's either background or actually puts some work into making me get behind the pairing. I've read the book and seen the movie so am good with details from both.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, time travel, competence porn, trans characters, soulmates, world exploration, found family, pretend dating, arranged marriage (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, characters coming into their powers/destinies, and way more than I can list here.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a sexualized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.

I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by blatant homophobia, though stories about coming out during times where it was less safe to do so are ok.

Note: Since these are things other people usually list as no-gos; while I wouldn't necessarily say these are things I love, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

Pod_Exchange 2019

paraka — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 00:25:56 GMT

Dear Podfficcer,

Note: This is the dear podficcer letter for the Group Slashpad sign up, for the paraka, solo sign up, see my last 2 ITPE letters.

OK, so there are two different people in this group (possibly a 3rd) and you don't have to worry about making a podfic for both of us, though we do have some shared interests. Here are our requested fandoms:

Critical Role
Plotty gen is awesome, shipping is great too (all the ships)! Anything involving Caleb is golden.

Merlin
Preference is for canon era, though really, so long as there's still magic it's good. Merlin/Arthur is preferred but not required.

Star Trek AoS
Honestly competence porn is our favourite part of this fandom. Throw in some teamy goodness, found family, general badassery, and it's perfect. Pairing preferences are for Kirk/Spock or Spock/Uhura.

MCU
Starting off, Civil War is pretty much a no-go zone, so is Bucky/Steve, though we both find Bucky-centric things interesting. Tony-centric is generally a safer bet though.

X-Men 1st Class
The Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers is my happy place in this fandom. I do love the exploration of their powers so am not as interested in non-powers AU. Erik/Charles is my pairing.

Full Metal Alchemist
Greedling/Edward or Ling/Edward is the rarepair of my heart, but short of that almost anything else is good; I'm more interested in the people characters than the homunculi.

If you'd like to try something beyond our official sign up fandoms:
Expanse: So much hard sci fi!
Girl Genius: ANYTHING
Sense8: Slight preference for Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan
The Martian: Competency porn!

Endgame Thoughts on that storyline.

paraka — Mon, 06 May 2019 21:55:32 GMT

***Spoilers ahead***

I went into Endgame with pretty mixed expectations and overall I enjoyed it, enough that I feel I'm back in the fandom (which hasn't really been the case since Civil War). There's a lot to say about the various parts of the movie and all the parts I liked but I find my mind stuck on the story line that disappointed me the most. So, in the hopes of exorcising these thoughts and moving on to what I love instead, here are my feels about Thor.

I'm actually going to start before Endgame and go back to Thor's solo movies. I enjoyed them all in various ways, but Thor's movies have always been towards the bottom of my favourite solo films from the original Avengers. The thing is, the first two Thor movies had that high fantasy element to it that I just wasn't feeling very much? I remember leaving Thor 1 and telling my friend "for the first time, probably ever, I feel that movie should have had *less* aliens." The parts on earth with Jane and Darcy were great and funny and fun, and I enjoyed the idea of this spoiled, loud, jock learning to become a noble, loud, jock. I may not have loved the contents of the first two Thor movies as much as other MCU movies, but I did love Thor: the noble warrior.

Then Thor Ragnarok happened and while I probably enjoyed my time in the theatre more than I did with the first two Thor movies, I didn't really leave it happy. I know a lot of people love Ragnarok and think it's the best. If all the Thor movies had been like that it'd be fine, buut they weren't. The previous Thor movies, and Thor himself, had been funny, but it was always more of a fish-out-water kind of humour. Where because Thor was this noble warrior showing up in places where that's not expected it was situationally funny. But then Ragnarok happened and it opens on him giving a more traditionally funny monologue and suddenly he's more jokey jock who can kick ass than the noble warrior I was used to. It felt like Thor got a personality implant and he didn't really feel like my noble warrior anymore.

I actually felt that Infinity War did a good job of letting Thor be the newer Ragnarok!Thor and funny, while still respecting who he was in all the other movies Thor was in. Thor and the Guardians carried the majority of the humour in that movie but Thor was also being a noble warrior fighting for his people. I left that movie really looking forward to his story line in Endgame because with Stormbreaker and the dedication he took to get it, I felt Thor was really at the next level at the end of that movie. I wanted to see how that would continue on in Endgame.

Which... it obviously didn't (past the time jump forward). Thisissirius has a thread on twitter about how Mjolnir was originally written as a nod to Excalibur and that is something I deeply feel too. I wanted Thor to be Arthur, to have continued in his character growth and become the king Asguard needed. And I don't think that idea had to be put aside for Thor to have the breakdown that they shorthanded in the movie via booze and a fat suit. Like, I don't think anyone mistook Steve or Natasha for being well adjusted, even without taking on such extreme characteristics. They could have had New Asguard be a ridiculous fortress that Thor kept building stronger and stronger because he wasn't going to let anything else hurt his people on his watch or something. Really anything that amplified the issues Thor was dealing with, without stripping him of his nobility, which I feel Endgame did (and they could have had different excuses why Thor couldn't wield the gauntlet, like knowing he'd try to undo too much to save more of Asguard, or building on the way he killed Thanos in the beginning, he might have been too ruthless/far reaching to their enemies).

A fat suit? Really? That's the level of humour they stooped to? I really don't want to go to the movies to have my body turned into the main punchline of a story arc, I get enough of that in the real world, thanks. I know some people felt a bit better about the story line because Thor didn't ~magically~ get thin once he got his act together but I feel like not giving into one tired stereotype, when they leaned so heavily on others, is setting the bar too low. I can't enjoy it and I couldn't even ignore it when they kept focusing on it. At the end when Thor is handing over the monarchy of Asguard to Valkyrie and they're shaking hands, instead of centering their handshake on screen, they centred Thor's belly. What even.

And we got alcoholic Thor before, like, Tony (I know they've implied it) or Carol? Not that I really trust them to handle a proper alcoholic story line in a movie.

I guess I'm just really sad that they spent a lot of time setting us up for a noble Thor, we got so close to it, and we ended up with... this instead (I have 0 faith in *Guardians* resolving Thor's issues well). *sigh*

Personal Update: Health Edition

paraka — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 22:31:41 GMT

So, I'm one of those people who doesn't really have a TMI gauge and overshares as a result. The state of my health has also become such a long running ~thing~ that I casually talk about all the time that I'm sure there are a lot of people who know something's wrong with me but are too polite to ask for the details. So, if you've ever wondered what the heck is going on with me or this is the first you're hearing about it and are interested, here are the details.

Warnings for: medical issues, some carelessness on the part of medical practitioners, weight loss, eating disorders

It all started Feb 1, 2016. It was a Monday and before going to work that day, I went to the optometrist to get my eyes/prescription checked. I have no idea what set it off, at first I blamed the eye exam, or the fact that I went outside/drove too soon after getting dilating eye drops, while everything was too bright. It could have been triggered by those things but honestly I have no fucking clue why my head chose then. All I know is I got a headache that day, one that didn't go away.

By Wednesday/Thursday the headache was really taking a toll on me and I had started commenting on it to coworkers and friends. On Friday, with my headache still pounding away, I sort of lost my vision for about 30 minutes? And because I think I'm a hypochondriac but am actually the opposite of one, rather than say anything about it (I was at work), I made my way to the server room and changed the backup drives because that was something I could do by touch while my eyes were putting on a flashy light show that was preventing me from being able to see anything properly.

My roommate, diurnal_lee, often gets optical migraines and, even though I'd never had a migraine before, I figured that must be what was going on. Over the weekend I tried to baby my head in the hopes it would go away, noticed I was light sensitive like a lot of people with migraines are, and figured that proved it was a migraine. I took Monday off work but it still didn't make the headache go away so on Tuesday I finally gave in and made a doctor's appointment for that Thursday.

Now my normal doctor was taking an extended vacation and had brought another doctor in to cover for her while she was gone. The other doctor was very nice but was kind of young and inexperienced, I think? Anyway, when I told her what was going on and how I thought I had a migraine she was very concerned and I had to do a whole battery of neurology tests. Even though I wasn't showing any sign of a stroke she was still very concerned that I was possibly bleeding in my brain (which where her exact words, but where delivered in a way so that I didn't immediately freak out?) since I shouldn't have had a headache this long, especially if I don't have a history of it.

She wasn't entirely sure what to do next but she sent me off and said she'd get back to me (though, in retrospect, sending me off driving while possibly bleeding in the brain doesn't sound like the best idea?). I originally planned on grabbing a quick lunch then going back to work but while I was standing in line at Timmies, it suddenly hit me that she said I might be bleeding in my brain and I started crying. I ended up emailing my boss saying I wasn't going to make it back in that afternoon then calling my (retired) dad to find out if he was home. Which caused him to immediately freak since I didn't want to explain what was wrong over the phone but I was still audibly crying so he knew something was wrong.

He and my mom met me when I got there and we all got really upset over the possibilities. Then I made my mom go back to work - she was the local librarian and she wouldn't be able to get someone to cover for her on such short notice and I didn't want to close the library for the day just so we could cry about possibilities. The doctor ended up calling me soon after my mom left, actually, and said she had arranged for me to get an emergency CAT scan and to get to the ER.

The CAT scan was showed I wasn't bleeding in the brain but also didn’t show anything to suggest what was wrong. The ER staff assumed I was having a migraine, gave me some meds for it and sent me home, starting my 9 months of pain and confusion. Everyone tried moving forward assuming I had a migraine, which it certainly felt like but in specific ways it wasn't acting like a migraine. Like, the fact that I was having migraines all day, ever yday and had weird responses to migraine meds.

For those that don't know, most people who suffer from migraines can stop them pretty effectively by taking a drug from the triptan family if they find one that works for them. An individual might respond better or worse to specific triptans (which is why there are so many) but generally if a triptan stops your pain, it stops your migraine until the next one starts up. This is ideal if you rarely get migraines but it gets more complicated if you get them more often since taking too many triptans in a period of time can fry your brain one extreme or give you rebound headaches on the lesser extreme. For example, the person I know who has the worst migraines and gets a couple a week can take a triptan and her migraine will go away for a day or two before the next one hits. With me I got hours.

The longest ~relief~ I got from a triptan was perhaps 12 hours, 10 of which was spent sleeping. If I was awake the whole time I'd get 3.5 hours. To be fair when the pain came back it was generally a lower level, but because of the limited doses available and possible brain frying if I took too many I generally held off on taking a dose until I was at a 9-10 on the pain scale, taking one would put me back to a 5-6.

There was a lot of frustration during this time period. What I had was clearly beyond what the fill-in GP could diagnose but she kept hesitating to send me to a specialist and even when she did there was a 6 month wait for an appointment. We were trying different meds but in such small doses they were useless. At one point before my GP came back from vacation but after the temp-GP left I got an appointment with another doctor at the medical clinic, who clearly didn't want to get involved with my problem. I described how I was barely coping, how I'd be in so much pain at work that I barely got things done and when I got home I'd spend the night sitting in the dark doing nothing and sleeping 10+ hours a night. She patted my hand and proclaimed that I seemed to be in a "reasonable" amount of pain, then gave me a fuck off prescription that left the pharmacist taking me aside to say "what is this? this is useless! a normal dose is 10X this amount! they should be sending you to a pain clinic."

When my GP did finally come back from vacation I kind of dumped it all on her and she was like "OK, give me a minute to read the notes." Then she took off her glasses and said "I don't know what to say to you but your case was seriously mismanaged, I don't know what they were thinking giving you pediatric doses, but we're going to figure this out and I am going to get you better." Which honestly left me sobbing in the parking lot after the appointment because I had been losing hope at that point (it had been at least 2, maybe 3? months). When my mom had an appointment with her the next week she cried all over the doctor.

I'd like to say things got better quickly from there but they did not. We set up weekly visits with my GP while waiting for the appointment with the neurologist and were still running into the problems that I just wasn't responding to typical migraine treatment. I eventually got to the neurologist and was sent for MRIs and the like, but it took a full 9 months of daily migraines (during which I kept working full time) before we finally got a breakthrough: the MRI showed that the sinuses that help hold my brain up where misshapen. I was sent for an eye exam (which didn't show anything) and a lumbar puncture to measure the pressure in my head, and yep, it was out of whack too at 28.5.

A normal pressure for your cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is between 10-18 (according to wikipedia when I checked just now, though I believe I was told 7-15 is the normal range?), I've been told anything over 20 generally requires medical intervention, and to give you an idea of extremes: someone who was in a car accident and has brain swelling and other pressure issues that leave doctors afraid of brain damage is probably ~50).

Having high CFS pressure (>25) without any cause (ie. head trauma) generally indicates idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). It's pretty rare and is often known by its historic name (which I personally hate for some reason I can't explain): pseudotumor cerebri. There's no known cure for it, though people have been known to go into remission and I'm currently probably as close to remission as I'll ever get. The fact that it only took 9 months to get a diagnosis is pretty amazing. When I was researching it there were so many stories of people going years, decades even, before they got a diagnosis, most people assuming it's migraines or that women (because it primarily effects young overweight women) are just whining, until they go blind. In fact, I get the impression that until maybe 10 years ago the most common way people got a diagnosis is that they'd show up to an ER blind? But that's just based on anecdotal evidence and the few of the more readable medical texts being aimed at ER doctors.

You know how I said I was sent for the lumbar puncture and an eye test to check to see if I have IIH? And that the eye exam showed nothing? That means I have an even rarer form: idiopathic intracranial hypertension without papilledema (IIHWOP) and is actually good news as it means I haven't shown any signs of going blind yet. With the increased cranial pressure the brain and optic nerves tend to get squished. My brain has been squished a lot, which was what was causing the headaches but luckily my optic nerves look fine? Which I've been reassured of by multiple doctors even though I find it hard to believe. One of the more visible changes wrought by this is that, due to my light sensitivity, I tend to wear sunglasses all the time, especially inside if there are fluorescent lights. I also get weird optical things fairly often like a semi-permanent fiery ring in my vision, as though I had looked at a bright light and the after image won't fade. Also sometimes colours change, deepening or lightening along with my pulse, but actually that's happened pretty much my whole life and I only recently found out that's not normal?

Anyway, getting back to 2016, I got a diagnosis in October and was immediately put on Topamax to combat it. Topamax is an anti-seizure med, though one of the things you quickly learn with a neurology problem is that any med for the head can be used for a huge array of head problems. Topamax is supposedly the best med to take if you have IIH and I'll admit when I first went on it, I thought it was a miracle drug. It worked in the way all the migraine meds didn't. It was like moving a mile when I was used to struggling for inches and it was amazing. At first.

I was given a schedule that would allow me to slowly and safely increase the dose, though my neurologist gave me flexibility to move more slowly if I wanted/needed. At the beginning I followed it fairly closely until I hit a point where I could slow down. I didn't feel like I needed to increase the dose because I'd be pretty pain-free for a while. That would last a few weeks before the pain would creep back up up and I'd need to increase the dose again. This lasted a month or two before the opposite started to happen; suddenly I couldn't safely increase the dose fast enough.

To make matters worse, the drug wasn't without side effects: it left me confused and unable to think as well as I had been able to before all this; it was honestly making me stupid. It also started to steal words from me. I wasn't able to speak very smoothly and kept reaching for words only to be unable to find them, I could compensate (if not with complete dignity) if I was talking to someone, but if I was writing? All bets were off. My writing became atrocious. Sentences didn't always make sense and my grasp of phonics went... weird.

In English there are a lot of homonyms and it gets even worse when you do it on a phonetic level, ie. there are multiple letter combinations that produce the same sound and I kept mixing them up, no matter how common or uncommon they were. The most blatant example I can think of is that occasionally qu makes to same sound as ck. Ex. cheque and check are homonyms. This led to me swapping out the ck for qu in at least half the words that feature ck. Fuque has a very different panache than fuck, ya know? My writing was so bad it was illegible, not even spell check knew what I was attempting. The drugs were making me illiterate (not all of it has come back, either, I suck at homonyms when before they were the one thing I was good at).

If you doubt how much pain I was in and what a big deal it was to no longer be in it, even with these horrible side effects I was reluctant to ask to switch meds and promised myself I'd go back on it if what we tried next didn't work as well. Honestly, the realization that I was soon going to hit the maximum dose and then what? featured heavily into my final decision to ask to try something else. Fun fact: I know a couple people who have gone on Topamax and I seemed to have the best experience with it, so I'm pretty confused over how it's the ~better~ drug. Also, its biggest off-label use is as a weight loss drug, and I can't imagine hating your fat so much that you'd be willing to go on this drug. O_O

Luckily my neurologist agreed that those side effects were too much and switched me to Diamox. I had one person with IIH describe Diamox as a "dirty drug" with the implication that it's better than nothing but not anyone's dream drug but luckily they were wrong in my case because it has turned out to be my dream drug.

I still have issues, the worst of which is that I'm now forever cold. I wear multiple layers all year round and winter has gone from being my 2nd favourite season to the enemy. I have the approximate blood pressure of an empty fire hose and have occasionally wondered how I was managing to stand when my diastolic slipped off the charts (a healthy diastolic is 80, anything under 60 is considered "low", my normal is ~55 but I've dipped into the 30s). I'm actually a little above the maximum recommended dose of Diamox but it's incredibly hard to overdose on it so my doctor and I agreed it was safe to go up. The average adult on Diamox takes anywhere from .25-1g/day depending on what they take it for. 3g is the max recommended dose and my doctor gave me a prescription to go up as far as 4g/day but I stalled out at 3.5g before I found myself so cold it was its own kind of debilitating (I tend to want to curl up and hibernate when I get too cold).

We're kind of at the limit of what can be done with meds now, I think. I'm on 4 different ones, 3 to help with my head and one to help with the side effects (the newest one), though the Diamox is definitely doing most of the heavy lifting. There are a couple surgeries that are a possibility in my future: either getting a stent to help with CFS flow, or a shunt to help drain the fluid out of my head, but while those surgeries have been shown to help with blindness and other vision problems, they don't help with pain very much. When I was researching my condition I'd see so many people on forums saying "I thought I was cured with the surgery but now a few months/6 months/a year later I'm back to being in pain all the time!" Overall I'm ok with not shoving things in my brain if they're not going to help, it's not worth the risk.

The other thing that can help is weight loss, though it took me a while to realize that. My neurologist told me, but he didn't push that hard for it at first and as an overweight woman, I'm used to doctors telling me everything wrong with me is weight related (seriously you can get a papercut it seems and they'll tell you to lose weight). It turns out one of my friends has a sister-in-law who has IIH though and after talking with her I was convinced to give it a try. At first I couldn't tell if the weight loss was doing anything because I was losing weight at the same time I was increasing my meds but eventually I hit the point where I kept losing weight while my meds stayed the same and noticed a difference. I lost 85 lbs at one point (though I've put some of it back on).

I'm not really sure what to do next though. I kind of gave myself an eating disorder getting that much weight off and I'm still fat and my head still bothers me (plus, from what I can read of medical papers - there is not much out there for patients, it's all research papers - people with IIH should aim for 5-10% weight loss and I have more than double that goal). Possibly if I lost more weight my head would hurt less but I don't know how to do that, especially not while also working a job with some longer hours and while on medication that requires me to sleep more.

For a while after I got my diagnosis but before my head was as good as it is now I went down to part time hours at work so I could better take care of myself and I think it really paid off. It helped me figure things out and learn how to cope with my new reality. It let me throw myself into taking care of me. But where I used to work, I was the only IT person so if I wasn't there, nothing got done. I got very good at doing my job in half the usual time which meant when I eventually went back to working full time I was pretty bored.

I got a new job at a bigger company where I could be on a team again and where I got paid better (my previous job was at a non-profit animal shelter so the pay was only so-so). I've been working here since August but the days are longer and the commute is too, I don't really have the time to take care of myself like I had been before and my head's been getting a little worse because of it.

Where I am now is honestly heads and tails better than where I was, even if I'm not back to what I was before all this started. I'm kind of afraid that I'm getting to the point where the doctor is going to tell me this is the best we can do for now. Which, if this is how it'd be for the rest of my life I could even be ok with that. The thing is, whenever I look into it online it seems like people's periods of "remission" are always temporary. Maybe they get a year, maybe they get 10 but it seems like the pain always comes back and there isn't much more medicine can do for them other than help them manage their pain. My friend's sister-in-law got 8 years before she had to go on permanent disability to focus on pain management. I try to tell myself that the people that go into remission and stay there likely aren't going to IIH forums and leaving comments saying "30 years of remission, wahoo!" so maybe there's more hope but mostly I've been trying to resign myself to that future so it's easier to handle if it comes and I can be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't. Also, there's always the hope that there will be a medical breakthrough before I hit that stage.

Anyway, that's what's up with my head, why I wear sunglasses all the time, and why I have headaches in weird places like my cheekbones.

awkardly posts something other than an ITPE letter

paraka — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 01:19:46 GMT

So, it's been a while since I've used my journal to post anything other than ITPE letters or podfic announcement (and I even stopped crossposting those here in 2015). I've seen people talk about using Dreamwidth more since the tumblr ban on NSFW content was announced and while I'm not very convinced people will stay here, I have seen more activity and a few people friending me, so I thought I'd post to at least acknowledge that?

As someone who hasn't really used tumblr in years I'm not personally feeling the pain of the new announcement. In fact, I've kind of eagerly been looking forward to the next fannish platform, hoping I'd like it more than tumblr (and praying to anything that will listen that it will have some form of moderation controls, which tumblr sorely lacks). Unfortunately even with the tumblr news, with nothing standing by ready to take over as the new fandom home, I have a feeling this is going to be an LJ-like end where fandom slowly splinters in a bunch of directions for years before people settle in a couple different places, one of which will be the most successful at gathering new fans.

Anyway like I said: I'm skeptical that fandom will settle back on Dreamwidth, but while things are a little more hopping around here (though I know there have been people faithfully using it this whole time, I have been keeping track somewhat) I might use it as an excuse to write out some posts I've been thinking about that don't really work on twitter, which is where I live most often these days.

I'm making a bit more of an effort to leave comments too, so surprise, I guess, if I'm suddenly talking to your here (again?).

ITPE 2018

paraka — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 01:31:56 GMT

It's ITPE time!

I'm completely between fandoms right now and keep sampling a bunch of different ones depending on how I feel, so let's see, what I'm down with at the moment.

Merlin
This is the fandom I'm reading in as I type this letter. Merlin/Arthur is my main pairing, but I'm also 100% there for canon-era slice-of-life gen, or stories of how awesome a queen Gwen was, post-show. Canon-era stories tend to be my fav, however I'm fine with AUs that take place in a different time so long as there's still magic. I kind of feel like what's the point without magic? There are non-magical AUs that I like, but they can be more hit and miss for me. I'm drawn more to the potential of season 1 than the reality of the later seasons so I'm totally there for redeemable Morgana. I have a bunch of (mostly old) recs on my pinboard.

Bandom
Fall Out Boy Pete/Patrick is my Bandom OTP. God I just love them. <333 I'm also ok with Patrick/other ppl as a main pairing (Travie or Gabe are the ones I've come across the most), but I'm less interested in Pete/others (as a main pairing at least, if it's temp relationship, or if Patrick is involved I'm ok with it). Mostly what I like about Pete/Patrick is dorks in love and how Pete can feel so much about Patrick.

Panic! at the Disco I'm down for any combo of Brendon/Spencer/Ryan. I live in a world of denial that is stuck in Panic!2.0 :P But Brendon/Spencer stuff post divorce are fine too. When I join a fandom there's normally one character that grabs my attention and whom I care most about in a relationship and originally, Ryan was that character for Panic, but then somewhere along the way Spencer moved into that category and most of what I read slashes one of them with Brendon, but man, let me tell you how much I'd love some Ryan/Spencer that builds on their years long friendship and how they can still be friends (or together) post-divorce.

Cobra Starship/The Academy Is... Gabe/William. So, after years of Gabe/William being a sometimes minor background pairing in a bunch of bandom fics, I somehow fell into a Gabe/William spiral not too long ago and came out shipping them a lot?

You can find my general Bandom recs here (sorry, I don't tag by band)

Those are the bands/characters I'm interested in being the centre of the story, I know there are a ton of other bands, and I'm missing MCR from the big 3 (I'm generally unenthused by MCR? It's fine, but I don't feel the need to seek it out), and I'm fine if those other bands make an appearance, or are background characters, or whatever, but getting something that focuses elsewhere would probably be pretty meh for me.

Harry Potter Harry/Snape, Harry/Draco So, I got into Harry Potter fandom before the series was finished being written so jumped on the Harry/Snape train before canon went... there. I also was closer in age to Harry that Snape at the time and the age gap thing didn't seem like a big deal, where as now I'm closer to Snape and it's way more :S :S :S So, what I mean to say is I have complicated feels about my main pairing in this fandom. These days I tend to read a lot of time travel shenanigans in this pairing, or stuff set in a Snape!Lives future, though I can do canon era.

I'm very much an Epilogue, What Epilogue? person, and that also means I have no interest in Cursed Child canon. I'm also not very interested in the Marauders.

OK, partially because of my complicated feelings about my first HP pairing, and partially just because this is where a lot of the podfic is, I've recently started delving into Harry/Draco. Pretty much everything I've consumed so far is post-Voldemort, though I'm possibly down for canon era? I haven't really tried it yet, but if there's something you really want to record that's H/D, so long as it doesn't go against my squicks I say go for it?

I have some Harry Potter recs but the word counts are probably outside what anyone would want to take on here.

Star Trek AOS (TOS) Kirk/Spock I mostly read/listen in AOS, but I've watched some of TOS and so long as the story isn't, like, an episode tag I'm generally good following TOS stories too. Cetainly I enjoy AOS stories that mix in TOS canon. I'm a Kirk girl, who loves to see him hurt (I frequent the Tarsus tag way too much), though I'm also 100000% here for competence porn from this crew. I have a few recs on AO3 and a few more on Pinboard but they're mostly really long stories so probably not useful here.

Sense8 Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan Oh man, I'm sad that canon had to rush this to give us the ending they intended, honestly I just have so many feels about them. <333 I read some of the fic when the last ep first came out but haven't kept up with the tag since then.

X-Men (First Class movie 'verse): My main pairing is Charles/Erik, though X-Men Apocalypse made me yearn for Charles/Erik/Raven. I specified First Class, not because it has to be based off that single movie, but because I don't actually enjoy rivals pairings normally, so the early 2000s Charles/Erik is less interesting to me, than the closer relationship we've seen in First Class/Days of Future Past/Apocalypse. I'm not opposed to stories that are set in the earlier (later, in canon) movies, just it's a bit more hit or miss how their relationship is portrayed. My favourite tag in the fandom is Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers because I love stories that explore how the world would react to mutants and the powers that they have but the actual canon is so intense and goes to such an extreme. These AUs generally have more of a middle ground.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) Belle/Adam God I really wanted to throw myself into this fandom after I saw the movie, unfortunately the fandom is not that large. ;__; I ship Belle/Adam and have no interest in seeing Gaston redeemed, nor am I into Lefou pining after him (it's fine if it's present in the story like it was in canon, but I don't want Lefou pining to be the main point of the story).

Terminator
I fell in love with the franchise through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I adore Cameron. I also have a thing for people growing into heroes so love John Connor's characterization from SCC and T3. My ships are John/Cameron and John/Kate, though this fandom is the one I read the most gen in. I also adore crossovers with Terminator. If you can find good crossovers with this and any of the other fandoms I've listed, that would totally make my day. My Terminator recs are on my pinboard.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, time travel, competence porn, trans characters, world exploration, found family, pretend dating (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, and way more than I can think of at the moment.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a fetishized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.

I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by homophobia.

Note: Since these are things other people usually list as no gos; while I wouldn't necessarily say these as things I love, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

#ITPE 2017

paraka — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 00:51:29 GMT

OMG, I can't believe it's ITPE time again. Anyway, hello lovely podficcer!

I'm listing a lot of fandoms this year bc I've been slowly breaking up with Marvel for, like, 2+ years now and haven't found a replacement fandom, I just keep trying all the fandoms to see if one will stick. Here's what I've been into lately, in no particular order.

X-Men (First Class movie 'verse): My main pairing is Charles/Erik, though X-Men Apocalypse made me yearn for Charles/Erik/Raven. I specified First Class, not because it has to be based off that single movie, but because I don't actually enjoy rivals pairings normally, so the early 2000s Charles/Erik is less interesting to me, than the closer relationship we've seen in First Class/Days of Future Past/Apocalypse. I'm not opposed to stories that are set in the earlier (later, in canon) movies, just it's a bit more hit or miss how their relationship is portrayed. My favourite tag in the fandom is Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers because I love stories that explore how the world would react to mutants and the powers that they have but the actual canon is so intense, goes to such an extreme. These AUs generally have more of a middle ground.

Marvel Netflix (without a focus on Frank or Danny): Daredevil is the netflix show I've been the most fannish about in the past. Ugh, my stupid avocados, and the awesome women! I'm not really a Frank Castle fan though and the only spark of interest I felt around him was his relationship to Karen.

Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are also awesome, though I haven't delved into those fandoms as deeply. Iron Fist... well, I mostly don't understand why they felt the need to make that show. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it like the others. I won't object if you do a Defenders podfic that has Danny present, but I'm not going to enjoy a Danny-centric story.

Marvel comics 616: I'm mostly interested in Steve/Tony centric stories from comics, though Jan is my fav Avenger, so anything with her in it is amazing! I also have some recs on AO3.

MCU: My main pairings from MCU are Steve/Tony, Clint/Coulson, Clint/Coulson/Natasha, occasionally Tony/Bucky or Steve/Tony/Buck that isn't centered on Steve.
For Steve/Tony, I prefer the stories that build off the comics canon for their relationship (because I admit they are not the strongest pairing within the movie canon). I cannot deal with Civil War stories (from the movie 'verse, 616 is a different matter). My Steve/Tony MCU recs (these are pretty sparse)

For Clint/Coulson and Clint/Coulson/Natasha it's all about the competency porn for me. I love Strike Team Delta, I love them watching out for each other, I love them supporting each other, and I love them kicking ass together. My Clint/Coulson recs

Iron Man: Armored Adventures and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
I've watched and love both of these cartoons, and would happily receive gifts from either of these shows. EMH has the same pairings as the rest of my Marvel preferences, but also includes Clint/Hulk. AA I ship basically Tony/Anyone. :P

Moving out of Marvel...
Sense8
My main pairing for this fandom is Kala/Wolfgang, though I love all the canon pairings (including Sun/Mun and Capheus/Zakia).

Beauty and the Beast (2017)
God I really wanted to throw myself into this fandom after I saw the movie, unfortunately the fandom is not that large. ;__; I ship Belle/Adam and have no interest in seeing Gaston redeemed, nor am I into Lefou pining after him (it's fine if it's present in the story like it was in canon, but I don't want Lefou pining to be the main point of the story)

Star Trek AOS
I blame Rjcreighton for this one. I've pretty much just done Kirk/Spock in this fandom. I have a few recs on AO3 but they're mostly really long stories so probably not useful here.

Merlin
Merlin/Arthur is my main pairing, but I'm also 100% there for canon-era slice-of-life gen, or stories of how awesome a queen Gwen was, post-show. Canon-era stories tend to be my fav, however I'm fine with AUs that take place in a different time so long as there's still magic (there are non-magical AUs that I like, but they can be more hit and miss for me, if you find a modern day non-magic AU that seems to really align with the likes I have listed below though, go for it). I tended to enjoy the potential of season 1 more than the reality of the later seasons, I'm totally there for redeemable Morgana. I have a bunch of (old) recs on my pinboard.

The Martian
Oh Mark Watney you poor goober, look what Mars has done to you. I primarily read gen in this fandom and enjoy Mark trying to cope while everything goes wrong. I'm also ok in reading pairing fic in this fandom but don't have any particular ships, the fandom skews to Mark/Beck, which I'm fine with but don't feel any great love for either. If you go the way of shipping I'd probably prefer something where it's either background or actually puts some work into making me get behind the pairing.

Terminator
I fell in love with the franchise through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I adore Cameron. I also have a thing for people growing into heroes so love John Connor's characterization from SCC and T3. My ships are John/Cameron and John/Kate, though this fandom is the one I read the most gen in. I also adore crossovers with Terminator. If you can find good crossovers with this and any of the other fandoms I've listed, that would totally make my day. My Terminator recs are on my pinboard.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, identity porn, competence porn, trans characters, world exploration, found family, pretend dating (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, and way more than I can think of at the moment.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a fetishized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.

I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by homophobia.

As mentioned above, I'm mostly pretending that Captain America: Civil War never happened and tend to immediately back button out of anything that deals with it.

Note: Since these are things other people usually list as no gos, while I wouldn't necessarily say these as things I love, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

#ITPE 2016

paraka — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 16:39:16 GMT

Hey lovely person who was assigned me for #ITPE!

The fandoms I signed up for are:

X-Men (First Class movie 'verse): I appear to be doing the time warp or something, as 4-5 years after this fandom peaked, I've fallen into it. My main pairing is Charles/Erik, though X-Men Apocalypse made me yearn for Charles/Erik/Raven. I specified First Class, not because it has to be based off that single movie, but because I don't actually enjoy rivals pairings normally, so the early 2000s Charles/Erik is less interesting to me, than the closer relationship we've seen in First Class/Days of Future Past/Apocalypse. I'm not opposed to stories that are set in the earlier (later, in canon) movies, just it's a bit more hit or miss how their relationship is portrayed. My favourite tag in the fandom is Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers because I love stories that explore how the world would react to mutants and the powers that they have but the actual canon is so intense, goes to such an extreme. These AUs generally have more of a middle ground.

Daredevil (TV): Ugh, my stupid avocados. I've got some of my faves bookmarked on AO3 if you'd like some guidance. My favourite trope in this fandom is Matt and/or Foggy desperately in love with the other and not realizing that their feelings are returned. Matt/Foggy is my primary ship, though after seeing S2, I also believe Matt and Karen deserve each other. Claire is amazing.

Marvel comics 616: I'm mostly interested in Steve/Tony centric stories from comics. Though Jan is my fav Avenger, so anything with her in it is amazing! I also have some recs on AO3.

MCU: My main pairings from MCU are Steve/Tony, Clint/Coulson, Clint/Coulson/Natasha.
For Steve/Tony, I prefer the stories that build off the comics canon for their relationship (because I admit they are not the strongest pairing within the canon). I have spent most of the year in denial about Civil War (some of the actions in that movie feel like a violation of the characters), so you're probably better off avoiding stories related to that movie. I also hate fanon!Bucky, so you're better steering clear of stories where he has a bigger part. My Steve/Tony MCU recs (these are pretty sparse)
For Clint/Coulson and Clint/Coulson/Natasha it's all about the competency porn for me. I love team Delta, I love them watching out for each other, I love them supporting each other, and I love them kicking ass together. My Clint/Coulson recs

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I actually find Coulson kind of boring in AoS, and watch it mostly for Daisy (Skye) and Fitz these days. Anything about Daisy growing into the person she is today, femslash with Daisy/Anyone, are amazing. The only pairing I refuse to touch is Skye/Ward. And pretty much anything with an apologetic Ward is a no-go for me.
For Fitz stories, I love his friendship with Jemma. I prefer them as friends, but his desperation to save Jemma last season did a pretty good job of getting me on board the Fitz/Simmons train. I also like Fitz and Mack (and Fitz/Mack).
And if you wanted to combine my favourites, stories about Daisy and Fitz would be amazing. I especially would love a follow up story to their interaction in 402 where they spew feelings at each other.

Luke Cage: It's probably too soon for there to be much Luke Cage fic, but I would adore stories about Mariah. She was the character that stood out to me most. How she grew up to this life of crime, but what she really wants is to make Harlem a better place, but she keeps falling into the criminal underground. I love how Shades is so into her. My dream fic from this fandom would be a Mariah-centric story where she takes over Harlem and has femdom sex with Shades on the side. :P

Since I'm listing older fandoms, I always want more Terminator stories. I fell in love with the franchise through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I adore Cameron. I also have a thing for people growing into heroes so love John Connor's characterization from SCC and T3. My ships are John/Cameron and John/Kate, though this fandom is the one I read the most gen in. I also adore crossovers with Terminator. If you can find good crossovers with this and any of the other fandoms I've listed, that would totally make my day. My Terminator recs are on my pinboard.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, identity porn, trans characters, world exploration, found family, pretend dating (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, and way more than I can think of at the moment.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a fetishized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror.
I don't enjoy stories whose plots are driven by homophobia, and I've been finding talk of conversion programs kind of triggery lately.
I'm also kind of hesitant about stores with cheating? If the cheating is actually addressed in the story, I'm generally ok with it, but if it's handwaved or something, that tends to make me sad.

Character-wise, I have no interest in Ward-apologists and find that even stories that feature Ward very much, that are set before the reveal, don't do it for me. I'm also really wary of Loki-apologists and, as mentioned above, don't enjoy fanon!Bucky very much.

Note: While I wouldn't necessarily list these as things I love, but since I see a lot of other people listing these as things to avoid, I will say, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

CA: Civil War Thoughts

paraka — Mon, 09 May 2016 18:47:50 GMT

*dusts off journal*

So I saw Civil War last week and have been stewing over it ever since, so some spoilery thoughts.

First off, I couldn't help but compare Civil War to Age of Ultron. AoU was a flawed movie to be sure; the action felt gratuitous at points and a lot of the story telling seemed to be focusing on a different movie's story. The Hulk battle in the middle was a great example of this. There was no reason it had to take place in the city, it could have been just as good a fight scene if Tony spent his time trying to herd Hulk away from the city and I think Bruce would have felt shaken regardless at his loss of control. Instead it took place in the city with casualties so there could be a mid-movie low where they talked about how public approval for the Avengers was tanking as a set up for Civil War. It was unnecessary; what happened in Sokovia was more than enough. But if they had the line about low public confidence at the end of the movie, it couldn't have ended on a high note, so instead they shoved it in the middle. Thor's side adventure was entirely an advertisement for Thor: Ragnorok and felt very out of place. The only introduction that felt natural was the establishing Wakandian vibranium.

By contrast, Civil War was able to do what AoU attempted to do (namely bring lots of action and advertise for other movies in the franchise) in a much smoother and effective way. The fight scenes almost never felt gratuitous, and I'm really looking forward to the next Spider-Man movie when I was ambivalent before. And while I was always excited about the Black Panther movie, god, do I need it now.

But despite the fact that Civil War is a better, less clunky movie, when I left AoU I was excited and full of feels, when I left Civil War I wasn't. I didn't really know how to feel, but it wasn't excitement or enjoyment over the movie. Maybe it's because AoU was able to end on a high note, while this movie certainly did not but I don't think that's it. Mostly I left wishing that they had made a different movie.

As someone who loves comics Steve/Tony, I had a lot of feelings about the Civil War story line which I knew were going to leave me disappointed in this movie. The movie 'verse has developed in a different direction and isn't well established enough to tell the Civil War story of the comics. The MCU is old hand at taking concepts from the comics and presenting them as something entirely different in the movies, so I knew this wasn't going to be the story I’d read. But I still wanted a movie about how politics, politics fueled to extremes by fear, can tear friends apart, how people can agree 90% of the time but that 10% difference can tear them apart. That's not the movie I got.

Instead it became a movie about (not really unreasonable) politics that Tony and his team supported or felt their best interests would be served by supporting, that Steve didn't really support but didn't have time to engage in because he was distracted. It became a story of Steve stubbornly pigheadedly trying to save a man who may or may not still be his friend, dragging some of his friends along for the ride while the rest of his friend tried to work out their future in the world.

And like, I can't even be angry at Steve, because that's who he is. I accept that this kind of behaviour is one of his flaws and love him despite it. But it turned the movie away from the politics, which should be at its core, to Steve's personal goals, and I think the movie suffered for it. Steve is incredibly invested in Bucky, because that's just who he is, but as a member of the audience, I don't have Steve's dedication. We haven't seen very much of Bucky in the movies. He wasn't even in the first Captain America movie that much, heading off to war, then dying rather quickly, we learned more about him through Steve's reaction to him than through Bucky's own actions. Then come Winter Soldier, he's more machine than person. Sebastian Stan had, what, 20 lines in that movie? Don't get me wrong, he did a hell of a job emoting, but the character in that movie is like a confused robot just learning it might be a person and we're left wondering who Winter Soldier will become. He's definitely no longer the Bucky of Cap 1, but will he be able to throw off his programming enough to be the friend Steve wants and hopes for? We don't know, and this movie didn't really answer that question.

I'll admit, I went into this movie prepared to dislike Bucky. As a Tony girl I was annoyed to see so many of my friends defaulting to protecting Bucky and blaming Tony, I was also fell for the misleading cutting of the trailers. I remember telling my friends that I couldn't support Team Cap if it had murder boyfriend on it who we saw shooting Tony in the face, and the implication of Bucky shooting Rhodey from the sky. So it was surprising to me that I left this movie feeling it had done a disservice to Bucky. The only real investment in Bucky I still had been given by the movies was through my investment in Steve and his obsession with Bucky. Bucky didn't get to be a person in his own right, instead he was an ideal Steve held and as such he became a plot point.

This movie did a good job of making me feel invested in almost everyone else:

they relied on previously established investments in the core Avengers, which was fine (with the exception of Clint who never really gave his reasons for being on the side he chose)

they gave Wanda, a new Avenger, a clear emotional arc

we got to see Vision fitting into the team (though he was a character I wanted a little more from)

Sam continued to be the best friend

we got to see Rhodey as part of the team, with confirmation he's still the man we've seen in other movies

T'challa had an absolutely amazing arc and character growth

Sharon got a chance to reconnect with Steve and explain her spying in CA:WS without apologizing for it because she was just doing her job and she continued to buck authority when she felt it was the right thing to do

we learned saw a lot of this newest take on Spider-Man from the 2 scenes with him

it even made me remember that I like Scott Lang, despite my disappointment in the Ant-Man movie (forever bitter over Jan)

But what did we get from Bucky? We know that he remembers some of his life before Hydra, we know that he was trying to live a normal life but that he's still willing to fight his way out of dealing with the authorities, we know he remembers what he did as the Winter Soldier. I don't even think Bucky knows who is right now, so it was impossible for the movie to properly show us who in a way that would let us be invested in him alone, separate from Steve. I'm sure there are a lot of fandom people who won't feel this way since they spent the last 2 years nursing an investment in him via fic, but for those of us that haven't? It's just not there.

Probably the point I connected with Bucky the most was when Bucky questioned Steve after the fight in the airport about whether he was worth all this. That is a question, central to the plot that is never answered.

Mostly what I feel now that the dust has had time to settle is that I wish instead of Captain America: Civil War, we had gotten Captian America: The Search For Bucky. I wish we had been given a chance to see the man Bucky is now, and have a Civil War movie later when it can actually be about Civil War instead. Because the little time Steve spent talking about his reluctance to sign? Those what-if would have made a great movie! What would happen when the Avengers team is barred from helping in a situation and things are worse for it? What would happen if they are sent into a situation and told to do things they don't want to do?

Instead we were left with a movie that basically proved the point of the law they were supposed to be fighting over. The team was out of control, on both sides, and just racked up the damage for no real good. Where as if they were sanctioned and working with other levels of law enforcement on the ground, more could be done to minimize collateral damage. I certainly believe more of that airport would have been left standing had it not been Tony and his team trying to stop Cap. Which admittedly doesn't make for as good of an action movie, but would make me feel better about being a hypothetical person living in that world.

We saw so little of what the Sokovia Accord actually said, so it's hard to argue against it. In fact, I'd say the biggest thing against it was that it was supported by a government that thought Thaddeus Ross would make a good secretary of state! But Ross wasn't even his usual over-the-top blinded-by-his-tunnel-vision self. As far as I could see the only things he said that were out of line was trying to lump the Battle of New York in with the other disasters to prove they're out of control (that one was done with government oversight, unlike the other examples), and blaming them for not knowing where Thor is, when "he went home and is not on Earth" should be a pretty reasonable answer. Even Ross' refusal to immediately believe the evidence Tony brought him about the set up was understandable, Ross needed things under control before delving into further details and I'm sure as local authorities reported the info he would have reached similar conclusions. That still didn't negate the fact that it was reasonable to want to arrest Bucky so he could be put on trial for the crimes committed as the Winter Soldier (whether or not he'd be found guilty is a separate issue) or that Steve was out of line when he attacked police officers and helped a wanted criminal escape.

I find it so frustrating that all of Steve's valid reasons for being nervous about the accord were side stepped in favour of focusing on Bucky. We can guess at them, finding out S.H.I.E.L.D. was really Hydra all this time is a pretty big reason not to trust the motivations of those wanting to control your actions but that was never specifically brought up. We got impassioned pleas from Tony, referencing his guilt and culpability over Sokovia, but only a few short hypotheticals from Steve.

Side note: as a non-American it felt really... something that it took an example of an American dying to bring home the damage for Tony. What, it was sad but ok when it was Sokovians who died, but the young American is too much? I mean, it's a nod to comics to have Miriam in the movie, but the American centralism felt... yeah.

Switching gears a bit, I think I could have lived, and even been happy with this movie up to the scene in Siberia, but what came after just ruined it for me. Look, I know this is a Captain America movie and that he has to "win". I also don't disagree with him about Bucky's culpability while brainwashed and forced into being the Winter Soldier. But that wasn’t meant to be the central argument of the movie, their decisions over the accords were. And by not addressing that question, I feel like they sacrificed Tony's character to get their ending.

I freely admit I'm a Tony fangirl first and foremost. I know he's not a perfect character, but I can accept him and his flaws anyways, just as I can accept Steve and the flaws that motivated him throughout this movie. But that last fight? Left me really disappointed in Tony. The bad guy explained what he had done and how all of this to turn them against each other, to manipulate them. Even knowing that, Tony just fell in line to do exactly what Zemo wanted.

And look, I acknowledge that they spent much of this movie pushing Tony to the edge, his relationship with Pepper was on the rocks, his relationship with Steve was also on the rocks, he's trying to protect this group of people and has some of them fighting against him, Rhodey, his best friend, has been hurt and he doesn't know what's going to happen to him, and he knows that someone has been intentionally setting the team up to look bad. I know that the betrayal of Steve keeping this from him and the pain from the death of his parents is a lot. It's seemingly understandable that Tony would finally break.

But the thing is we have 3 Iron Man movies that tell the exact opposite story. Tony is always shakily walking a tight rope, ready to fall over at any moment. But in all three Iron Man movies he keeps it together enough to make it through. With a lot of help from his friends, for sure, but he makes it through. So it felt like a betrayal when they changed the script on us in this movie. That he not only didn't succeed at muddling through, but that he jumped over the edge at Zemo's request. Tony's better than that. I especially couldn't take his childish taunts at Steve about his shield. I know Tony can be a petty person, but that was a lot.

This is where I'm saddest that they deviated from the comics. That final fight in the comics between Steve and Tony ended with Steve having it viscerally brought home that maybe he wasn't doing the right thing. It took civilians stepping in and telling him to stop for him to realize that he was taking this too far, even if he was doing it for reasons he thought were right.

I really wish that we were given that moment in this movie, that there was a moment when one of them could clear their head enough to look at the damage being done and think "no, this needs to stop." I think that probably would have been a more triumphant end of the movie if Steve were the one to doing it.

But the problem was, Steve was never fighting Tony, he was only ever trying to get away, so they had to cripple Tony and limp away instead. Not much of a triumph, nor much of a learning opportunity. And what was the point of all this (as a Captain America movie) if Steve learns nothing and can’t triumph at the end? Instead it was T'Challa who had the moment of growth, who was able to make the hard but right decision to take back control. I in no way begrudge T'Challa that moment, I just don't understand why he was the only one who got it (Tony definitely needed a healthy dose of this as well).

So yeah, this movie wasn't what I wanted it to be. Don't get me wrong, there were great parts to it (T'Challa! Sam and Bucky's scene in that car! Rhodey being his perfect self in that last scene, despite what happened to him!) but it wasn’t the strong follow up to Winter Soldier we deserved. It wasn’t the movie I wanted to watch.

Marvel Adventures Podfic: Some Assembly Required, written by valtyr, read by paraka

paraka — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 14:37:08 GMT

Fic: Some Assembly Required by valtyr (text link)
Fandom: Marvel Adventures
Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Length: 7:25:48
Links: MP3 (zipped) (427.9 MBs) ||| M4B (217.8 MBs)

Summary: Tony Stark is trying to set up a new superhero team when he's given a sex change, courtesy of Victor von Doom. He copes with that about as well as you'd expect.
Notes: This was recorded both as part of Marvel Big Bang 2015 and for #3DNPodfic. Thank you to RsCreighton who has been a wonderful cheerleader, beta, and partner in crime. You should check out her podfic of this story too!

Thank you also to reena_jenkins for coverart advice, even though I ended up going with something different.

To follow up on the reader's notes at the end of the podfic, surprise, I didn't make my original deadline for Marvel Big Bang, and my cat did destroy my computer's monitor, but luckily I got it replaced under warranty so all is good now. :)

Part 1

Or click to stream

Part 2

Or click to stream

Part 3

Or click to stream

Part 4

Or click to stream

Part 5

Or click to stream

Part 6

Or click to stream

Part 7

Or click to stream

#ITPE Letter

paraka — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:54:55 GMT

Hey lovely person who was assigned me for #ITPE!

The fandoms I signed up for are:

Daredevil (TV): The newest fandom I've fallen into, I've been mostly reading Matt/Foggy. I super enjoy Matt as a failboat, and the UST between those two.

Marvel comics 616: I'm mostly interested in Steve/Tony centric stories from comics. Though Jan is my fav Avenger, so anything with her in it is amazing!

MCU: When it comes to the individual canons within MCU, Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Agent Carter are all awesome. I don't have overly strong feelings one way or the other for Thor or Bruce, so anything focusing on them will be pretty meh for me. I also don't care about Steve/Bucky, sorry. My main pairing from MCU is pretty much Steve/Tony at the moment, though I also enjoy Clint/Coulson, Mack/Fitz, Skye(Daisy)/Tripp and would love any sort of slash/het/gen fics about Peggy or Skye.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Rule 63, identity porn, trans characters, found family, pretend dating (really, most harlequin-type storylines), angst, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, and way more than I can think of at the moment.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a fetishized way are really hard stops for me. Related to the previous point, I mostly can't deal with zombies and am finding vampires harder to deal with too. Detailed gore on a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror. I'm also kind of hesitant about stores with cheating? If the cheating is actually addressed in the story, I'm generally ok with it, but if it's handwaved or something, that tends to make me sad.

Character-wise, I have no interest in Ward-apologists and find that even stories that feature Ward very much, that are set before the reveal, don't do it for me. I'm also really wary of Loki-apologists.

Note: While I wouldn't necessarily list these as things I love, since I see a lot of other people listing these as things to avoid, I will say, I don't mind unhappy endings and/or death fic. Related to my like of emotional punches in a gut, I like when a story can make me cry. I don't mind sad events or endings so long as the emotions ring true. So if you have a story that you think would work that has an unhappy ending or character death, go for it! I am well known as an angst muffin after all.

2 Avenger Copodfics

paraka — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 21:54:12 GMT

Fic: Clint Barton's Home for Wayward Mind Wiped Assassins Series by roguewrld
Readers: dapatty, paraka
Fandom: Avengers (Captain America and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. too)
Pairing: Gen
Length: 0:39:12 (0:44:47 for the complete series)
Links: MP3 (54.2 MBs) ||| M4B (complete series) (61.7 MBs)

Summary: "Where ever you were, whatever you did and whoever you did it for, it's over. You need to pretend to be a person now, okay?"

Unedited
Length: 0:59:17
Download: MP3 (81.8 MBs)

Notes: This was recorded when paraka visited dapatty and we spent the weekend hanging out and having fandom feels. We kept interrupting our recording of this to have feels at each other, or to ramble, so we decided to release the unedited version too in case anyone else wanted to listen in on that.

Fic: Reputation by copperbadge
Readers: miss_marina95, paraka
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Length: 0:13:01 (0:14:39 with bloopers)
Links: MP3 (13.2 MBs) (+Bloopers) ||| M4B (10.5 MBs Bloopers included)

Summary: Steve thinks Iron Man is trading sexual favors to Tony Stark for perks for the Avengers, and he's determined to protect his teammate.

Bloopers

Notes: This podfic was recorded during Avengers Age of Ultron opening weekend in N. America. I (paraka) few down to California for the weekend (from Canada) so that the two of us could see the move together. There was much clutching at each other while we exploded from feels, we recorded this between viewings. :P

Podfic: You Are Home (Steve/Tony)

paraka — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:44:31 GMT

Fic: You Are Home by nightwalker
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Length: 0:09:56
Links: MP3 (13.9 MBs) ||| M4B (11.1 MBs

Summary: It was Steve who’d wanted to go out and choose the house themselves. Tony hadn’t even thought about it - sure, people did that, he watched the home improvement channel sometimes when Peter got to the remote before anyone else so he knew how it worked. But it had never occurred to him that he should do it.

Notes: This was recorded back in January for miss_marina95's birthday, but I was so sick at the time that I barely got through the recording let alone editing, then I started a new job... and now it's almost May and way late for a birthday present, but there you go. :)

Podfic: Loved Long Since, and Lost Awhile (Clint/Coulson) (co-pod)

paraka — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 00:03:28 GMT

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Fic: Loved Long Since, and Lost Awhile by DevilDoll
Readers: miss_marina95, paraka
Fandom: Avengers (MCU)
Pairing: Clint/Coulson, Clint/Natasha
Length: 0:55:47
Links: MP3 (76.8 MBs) ||| M4B (61.4 MBs)

Summary: "It's the small stuff that hurts the most, he finds." Post-movie Clint/Coulson fix-it.

Notes:This was recorded when miss_marina95 (a Cali girl) decided that February would be the perfect time to visit me in Canada. This is also when I dragged miss_marina95 into Avengers fandom and made her record this really sad story. For all that, though, we managed giggle our way through the recording.

Podfic Catch Up

paraka — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 00:11:22 GMT

Apparently I've been horrible at crossposting my podfic here. The last think I crossposted was in September, and I've posted a number of podfics since then.

Fic: i’m not numb, just no one will touch me by oracle_of_absolute_hoopla
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Pairing: Mack/Fitz
Length: 0:20:55
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: Five Times Mack helped Fitz (but Fitz really helped himself)

Content notes: This fic deals with canon brain injury and the coping process that comes afterward.
Notes: Thank you to dapatty for the lovely cover art!

Fic: SHIELD Has Paperwork for Everything by scifigrl47
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Length: 1:42:07
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: Clint Barton knows where his loyalties lie, and they have more to do with his handler than his employer. Phil Coulson takes his responsibilities seriously, and a big part of his job is protecting the agent in his care from any threat to his well-being.
At this rate, neither of them is going to get a date. Natasha Romanov has other ideas, and the only side she’s on is her own.

Notes: Recorded for TheExclamation as part of the Clint/Coulson Holiday Exchange 2014

Series: Don't Look Too Closely (all the angles are oblique)
Fic: In the Springtime of His Voodoo by shaenie
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Steve/tony
Length: 1:09:46
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: "I'm removing Captain Rogers from this base, but not from active duty. I want him as SHIELD's liaison to Stark Industries first and foremost. He'll report directly to me," Fury says. "As it is, your identity as Captain America is not public knowledge and it will remain that way until I say otherwise. That said, if you think you can get Tony Stark to work with you if you disclose that information, you have permission to do so."

Notes: Recorded for vassalady as part of #ITPE 2014
Content Notes: This story has the following content tags: Tony Stark is kind of a dick, possibly dub-con (but not really), Tony Stark has a filthy mouth, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Loss of Virginity, D/s, Negotiations, Multiple Orgasms, Anal Fingering, Dirty Talk, Aftercare, Abuse of Power, Manipulative sex, Barebacking
Spoilery Warning: In this story, Tony manipulates Steve into having sex with him, hence the dubious consent, dubious morality, abuse of power, manipulative sex tags, however, Steve is fully aware of the manipulations and still wants to have sex with Tony, as he explains in the next story in this series, Next I go to Seven Gates (each step less a mystery).

Series: Don't Look Too Closely (all the angles are oblique)
Fic: Next I go to Seven Gates (each step less a mystery) by shaenie
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Length: 2:24:23
Links: MP3 (zip) ||| M4B

Summary: The truth is, he can’t wait to see Tony again. Even more truthful, he’s fiercely hopeful that Tony is still interested in their half-engineered agreement. Tony sounds like it, but he tries to keep his expectations low.
Nobody has to tell him that Tony Stark can be fickle.
It doesn’t change the fact that he craves Tony’s touch, even after having it just that once, and he doesn’t see any reason not to take what Tony is offering as long as Steve doesn’t forget exactly what that is.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Notes: Recorded for vassalady as part of #ITPE 2014
Content Notes: This story has the following content tags: Tony Stark has a filthy mouth, Light BDSM. Dom/sub, Kink Negotiation, Breathplay, Clever Steve, Naked Male Clothed Male, Kneeling, Dacryphilia, Kink Exploration, Frottage, Humiliation, Gags, Subspace, Face-Fucking

Fic: The World We Live In by GoddessofBirth
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles (one sided pining)
Length: 0:04:58
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: Stiles gives himself this one last thing, because he thinks he has a right to be selfish for once.

Notes: So, I actually recorded this podfic years ago, but then got distracted and never edited it. A friend who mods a fandom exchange was worried about a possible drop out so I cleaned this up. Happily it wasn’t needed as a pinch hit, but since it’s done, I figured I may as well share it. :)

Fic: Who’s got their claws in you my friend? by fairygrrl45
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Lydia/Stiles/Jackson
Length: 0:06:14
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: I got a bulletproof heart, you got a hollowpoint smile.

Fic: Three Castles by rageprufrock (text link)
Fandom: Merlin BBC
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Length: 0:38:11
Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: It’s a perfectly wretched day in Camelot when Uther Pendragon announces Arthur’s betrothal.

Notes: Recorded ~~for science!~~ as an editing experiment for episode 3 of auralphonic. dodificus and jenepod also recorded this story, and we compared how long it took us to make. There is also a version of this story podficced by eosrose.

#ITPE Letter

paraka — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 14:39:05 GMT

Hey lovely person who was assigned me for #ITPE!

I signed up asking for something in the Marvel fandom: MCU/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./comics-verse/616. There's a lot within those bounds that I love a lot, but here are a few specifics:
My main dude pairings are Tony/Steve and Clint/Coulson, and most of the things I read are about them.

But I love the ladies, so I ship pretty much ALL the het pairings too. Darcy/everyone/anyone is what I listen to the most, Jane is amazing, Natasha is kick-ass, Jan is my actual fav from comics, Kate Biship is love, Skye has become my favourite part of AoS, Skye/Simmons is great (Skye/Simmons/Tripp is <3 too!), I love Melinda May. I don't know as much about the other comics women, but I'd be 10000% down for learning more.

Things that I love (an incomplete list): Women (both canon and gender swap), trans characters, found family, pretend dating (really, most harlequin-type storylines), canon fic, AUs, origin stories, power dynamics (including D/s and BDSM), emotional punches in the gut, poly relationships, and way more than I can think of at the moment.

I don't have many no go zones but cannibalism and killing people in a fetishized way are really hard stops for me. Detailed gore one a large scale also makes me queasy and I'm not a fan of horror. I'm also kind of hesitant about stores with cheating? If the cheating is actually addressed in the story, I'm generally ok with it, but if it's handwaved or something, that tends to make me sad.

Character-wise, I have no interest in Ward-apologists and find that even stories that feature Ward highly that are set before the reveal don't do it for me. I'm also really wary of Loki-apologists. Like, I can take Thor forgiving him, and there are some stories that completely rewrite his motivations for his actions that I've enjoyed, but for the most part I can't really believe that everyone will forgive or like Loki after he tried to take over the world. So.

Podfic Mail

paraka — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:03:48 GMT

While on a quest for an awesome iPhone case, I ended up deciding to just design my own through one of those made to order sites. And, since I'm the biggest sucker for the whole "might as well make the shipping worth while" mentality, I ended up searching through their other products. They mostly cater to small businesses and make business cards, letterheads, promo swag, etc and I somehow found myself designing a podfic header and getting cards made.

So, if you would like to get a podfic card from me, leave me your address in an (screened) comment, or email it to me at parakaproductions at gmail dot com. I'll mail internationally. :)

Avengers: Track This Thread, written by rageprufrock (Completed!)

paraka — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 00:43:14 GMT

Fic: Track This Thread by rageprufrock (text link)
Fandom: Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Length: 0:53:09 (chapter 6) / 0:08:36 (chapter 7) / 3:47:25 (total)
Chapter MP3 Links: Chapter 6 ||| Chapter 7
Completed Work Links: MP3 ||| M4B

Summary: Even when Phil Coulson was doing something ridiculously, embarrassingly, crushingly human, he was still a flawless, seamless black box of a spook.

Notes: I can't believe this is finally done! It only took me 10 months!

Avengers Podfic: What If We Love Like Fools

paraka — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 15:35:45 GMT

Fic: What If We Love Like Fools by IndigoNight (text link)
Fandom: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers
Pairing: Sam/Bucky, Sam/Steve, Sam/Steve/Bucky, Steve/Bucky
Length: 3:24:40
Links: MP3 (285 MBs) ||| M4B (251 MBs)

Summary: When Sam had said he went where Cap did, he had meant it. Steve, apparently, had not. Steve leaves Sam behind when he goes to look for Bucky, which is just as well, because Bucky comes looking for Sam.

Reader's Notes: This was recorded for the 2014 Pod Together Challenge. Thank you to IndigoNight for your patience and diurnal_lee for the beta

2 Melinda May Podfics

paraka — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 15:09:55 GMT

Fic: Melinda May's Weekend Off by dapatty (text link)
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers
Pairing: Gen
Length: 0:10:03
Links: MP3 (14.4 MBs) ||| M4B (8.1 MBs)

Summary: or alternatively titled, That Time Clint Followed Her Home and Ate Her Food

Reader's Notes: Recorded for the Marvel POC Characters Fanworks Exchange for Dunderklumpen. Thank you to dapatty for being an awesome friend and writing this fic for me when I was having trouble finding one to record. *glomps*

Fic: Spies Like Us by dapatty (text link)
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers
Pairing: Melinda/Natasha
Length: 0:16:38
Links: MP3 (23.2 MBs) ||| M4B (18.4 MBs)

Summary: Two Times Natasha and Melinda Met for Work and One Time They Met Up Just Because

Reader's Notes: This was recorded for the 2014 Pod Together Challenge. dapatty was, as always, completely awesome to work with. She also made the coverart.

Avengers Podfic: like sick flowers need the sun

paraka — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 01:23:14 GMT

Fic: like sick flowers need the sun by hoosierbitch (text link)
Fandom: Avengers
Pairing: Clint/Coulson
Length: 0:53:50
Links: MP3 (74.2 MBs) ||| M4B (59.3 MBs)

Summary: Clint hasn't felt this alone in a long time. Coulson's gone, SHIELD isn't a home anymore, and no one on his new team seems to like him. After a lifetime of being ignored, Clint's gotten good at demanding attention. He'll annoy and frustrate and piss everyone off until they notice him. To him, any attention—even the negative kind—is good attention.

This poses a problem when they all finally learn to just ignore him.

Author's Warnings: Depression, insecurity and references to past abuse and neglect.

@podfic

paraka — Mon, 05 May 2014 18:08:01 GMT

So, as many people know, I run the twitter account podfic and the last week there were some questions and discussions about how I run the account. So, for anyone interested, I thought I'd shed some light on how I find the tweets I RT, and how I decide which ones get to be RTed.

So, first thing I'll say is it's not a strict process, sometimes it depends on my mood that day, or what I know about the tweeter's history, or whether I care to do extra research that day. But here are the basics.

I use web tweetdeck to juggle my various twitter accounts. It also has the nice feature that allows you to customize a search column. My podfic search has the following settings:
Showing: All Tweets
Matching: #podfictweeting OR podfic OR podficcing OR podfics OR podficcer OR podficcers OR podficced OR audiofic OR audiofics OR pod_aware OR repod OR podficediting OR podficcerproblems OR podficproblems OR podblocked OR #podfictits OR #ITPE OR podbang OR remopodmo OR theatripod OR amplificathon OR podfic_bingo OR podficmeta OR multipodicity OR podficbigbang
Excluding: @podblocked
Written In: any language
Retweets: Excluded

All other settings are the default settings.

As you can see, there are a lot of different podfic related terms I'm searching (25 as of May 1, 2014). Twitter can be weird about searches and wants to match words exactly, hence "podfic" as well as "podfics".

When I was first setting up the account, I looked into having a bot doing the RTing, but there was too much garbage being caught. For example, the reason why "@podblocked" is blocked is because it's the name of a podcast, and it never talks about podfic (also, their sense humour I occasionally find offensive). The "repod" term has more false positives than actual talk about podfic (mostly it's a lot of tweets about people's vehicles being repossessed. I get soooo spammed whenever a celebrity has a vehicle repossessed, let me tell you). Inserting an _ works as an "and" feature in the search, so any tweet that contains the word "pod" and "aware" will show up, etc.

There's also the matter that I selectively RT, even when the tweet is actually about podfic.

Most notably, I'll exclude tweets that are anti-podfic; which come up far more often than I want to see, unfortunately.

After the Zombie Podfic Wank of 2013, a lot of people were uncomfortable with tweets talking about wank, or wanky things. So I tiptoe around those kinds convos and even meta conversations. I think it's important for podficcers to realize that others are going through difficult things, but overall I want the account to be a positive place, so.
Whether or not I RT meta depends entirely on the tone of the meta (is there anti-podfic sentiment? etc.), who's saying it (is it just podficcers? Is it anti-podficcers? Is it happening on an anon meme, etc.), and the general atmosphere (has there been a lot of meta talk lately? Are people getting tired of hearing it? etc). I'll take into account how likely the tweet being RTed will lead to wank. I've seen wank develop (or worsen) because of things I've RTed before and that's really not what I want

Other things I don't RT:
-Podfic/Productivity Sprints (beyond the initial announcement if I see it on time, or if the sprinters start talking about podfic other than their progress)
-Questions that appear to be answered may or may not be RTed. If it's a request for beta, and someone's answered, I'll leave it, if it's a request for advice, I'll probably RT the question along with the answers.
-Tweets that break the 4th wall. This is a personal squick of mine and I just don't want to encourage people tweeting Misha Collins or Gerard Way to check out podfics about them/their characters (yes, those are actual examples). Once Orlando Jones joined in a convo about podfic, which I RTed, but that's it.
-Selective users who have asked not to be RTed, or who didn't specifically ask, but were displeased to be RTed a previous time (if I remember, I've RTed a lot of people over the years, it can be hard to keep track).
-Tweets that I don't feel add anything (like the 10th tweet announcing a fest/comm in a row), or sometimes if it's a fragment of a conversation that I've investigated and still can't follow.

I do RT non-English tweets, though, I'm very cautious with those. I put them all through google translate first and if I can't tell if they're positive through the garble I get back, I'll skip it. I'm also likely to skip any French tweets, since repod appears to be a French word. As well, there are a lot of tweets in Thai tagged with #ITPE that have nothing to do with podfic, so I'll skip.

A lot of the time I'll be at least a few hours, if not a few days, behind on my RTs. I don't want to overwhelm people's feeds, so I limit my RTs to ~5 tweets an hour. Because I don't actually live on the internet, the time between tweets can vary greatly and I'll fall behind, especially if it's a holiday or I spend a weekend away.

I used to RT 10 tweets at a time, but I went through a time when I was really on top of them so pulled it back to 5 and have stuck with it ever since. Sometimes I'll go over 5 tweets at once, especially if it's to finish RTing a conversation. If the conversation is really long, and something I think people would be interested in, to save time I'll make up a Storify, like I did today (though, I'm also cautious with this, because doing so with a meta convo started wank once).

Which leads me to:
How to Get Your Tweet ReTweeted
If your twitter account is public, and it's got one of the keywords mentioned above, I'll at least see it. And unless it hits any of my no-zones, I'll probably RT it.

Sometimes when I'm reading my own feed, I'll see tweets that are related to podfic, but may not mention any of those terms and I'll Rt those, but that's fairly rare these days.

If you want to make sure I RT your tweet, @reply podfic. You should do this regardless if the tweet has any sort of time sensitivity to it, like it's announcing that sign ups for a fest/comm are closing soon, or if you have a question you need answered right away. Like I said above, I'm often a few days behind on tweets, so it sucks when I get to a tweet, only to see that it's too late to help.

If you have a locked account pretty much the only way I'll RT what you've posted is if you @reply the account (and have allowed podfic access to see your tweets). There are some locked accounts that have said it's ok to RT their tweets, but the search function in tweetdeck only shows public tweets, so I miss them most of the time. And, tbh, it's a little much to try and keep straight in my head which locked accounts I'm allowed to RT and which ones I need to ask first.

How to PREVENT your Tweets from being RTed
If you have a public twitter and will be talking about podfic (specifically with any of those keywords), the best way to ensure I don't RT you, is to send me a tweet asking that I don't. This has happened a number of times and it makes things nice and easy for me and everyone stays safe.

If you have a locked account, you're probably safe (like 99.9%), but it doesn't hurt to let me know you don't want to be RTed.

If you never want to be RTed, I can can mute you in tweetdeck so I'll never even see your tweets.

And that's it! That's how I run podfic

What You Feel is What You Are

ITPE 2021

ITPE 2020

Terminator: A Dark Fate

ITPE 2019

Pod_Exchange 2019

Endgame Thoughts on *that* storyline.

Personal Update: Health Edition

*awkardly posts something other than an ITPE letter*

ITPE 2018

#ITPE 2017

#ITPE 2016

CA: Civil War Thoughts

Marvel Adventures Podfic: Some Assembly Required, written by valtyr, read by paraka

#ITPE Letter

2 Avenger Copodfics

Podfic: You Are Home (Steve/Tony)

Podfic: Loved Long Since, and Lost Awhile (Clint/Coulson) (co-pod)

Podfic Catch Up

#ITPE Letter

Podfic Mail

Avengers: Track This Thread, written by rageprufrock (Completed!)

Avengers Podfic: What If We Love Like Fools

2 Melinda May Podfics

Avengers Podfic: like sick flowers need the sun

@podfic

Endgame Thoughts on that storyline.

awkardly posts something other than an ITPE letter