take this sinking boat & point it home

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

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

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

Podfic of Lovers, I Guess by tackytiger.

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

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

Now on to the Issue. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read on AO3!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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