SPN Podfic recs: Somebody Has a Little Too Much Free Time on Their Hands...
Crossposted from spnroundtable:
Actually, anyone who knows me at all well probably knows that I completely loathe the "too much free time" snark. It will make me think less of the person who says it. (Something I actually once told to a person who'd just said it.) As fans, we are likely to have someone say or think it about something we're passionate and creative about, as if it's a bad thing to display passion and creativity about something that doesn't interest them. (And what are they doing with their time, we wonder.)
So today's podfic rec focuses on a couple of fics that have the Winchesters involved in some kind of subculture that is imbued with the sort of passion that calls forth snark from outsiders.
Old Rebel Yeller by big_pink, Gen, PG-13 (I think, but there's a rich assortment of cussing, including a possessed golden retriever), casefic or as Pink herself says, a ripping yarn, set in S1. Read by Issaro. About 6.5 hours. Dean drags Sam along to help out an old aquaintance, who's a dedicated Civil War reenactor. Bad things are happening at some of the reenactment camps, and the Winchesters find themselves facing a Civil War era ghost and a possessed family dog. Big Pink does a wonderful job of bringing this world to life, whose enthusiasts live and breathe their passion for another era. It's all in the details for a reenactor -- they'll wear grow facial hair that hasn't been in vogue for a century, wear woolen underwear in the summer, drink hooch and eat hardtack, bloat up like a dead guy on the battlefield -- and anyone who doesn't have that same passion for exact detail is dismissed as a "farb." And that's for fun on the weekends. (And I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to find a You Tube video demonstration of how to bloat like a corpse. ::is sad::) And it's all in the details for Big Pink, who makes this so very American subculture so vivid. As a writer, she is no farb. True to her word, it's a ripping yarn, and it's tense and involving. Issaro does a great job with tension, and there's something about her Buttercup POV (that's the crazy possessed dog) that is funny and awesome and creepy as hell.
Hamartia by rei_c, Gen, PG-13, pre-series. Read by Leviticus Lied. 1 hr. 20 min. This fic opens a window on Sam's foray into "normal" life as a freshman at Stanford. While the story begins with his arrival and immersion into college life, the heart of the story centers around The Game. Each Halloween this elaborate treasure hunt takes place at Stanford, in which several teams of players compete during an intense 36-hour period. The Game can have a profound effect on the players' prospects throughout their undergrad career, if not longer. A little bit scavenger hunt, a little bit The Amazing Race, sends each team out on a sleep-deprived mission to solve elaborate clues and reach the finish line first. Whip-smart Sam is tapped to join a team in his first semester, and we see that he's found a world he fits into -- and that his background has made him more suited to The Game than he'd have suspected. Sam finds himself pulled into another hunt, one that will bring his old life crashing in on the new. It's a wonderful look at Sam, and heartbreaking too, not only because the tension between the life he wants and the life he's had (and is destined to have), but because we know how his thoroughly his new life will fall to ashes in four years' time.
Actually, anyone who knows me at all well probably knows that I completely loathe the "too much free time" snark. It will make me think less of the person who says it. (Something I actually once told to a person who'd just said it.) As fans, we are likely to have someone say or think it about something we're passionate and creative about, as if it's a bad thing to display passion and creativity about something that doesn't interest them. (And what are they doing with their time, we wonder.)
So today's podfic rec focuses on a couple of fics that have the Winchesters involved in some kind of subculture that is imbued with the sort of passion that calls forth snark from outsiders.
Old Rebel Yeller by big_pink, Gen, PG-13 (I think, but there's a rich assortment of cussing, including a possessed golden retriever), casefic or as Pink herself says, a ripping yarn, set in S1. Read by Issaro. About 6.5 hours. Dean drags Sam along to help out an old aquaintance, who's a dedicated Civil War reenactor. Bad things are happening at some of the reenactment camps, and the Winchesters find themselves facing a Civil War era ghost and a possessed family dog. Big Pink does a wonderful job of bringing this world to life, whose enthusiasts live and breathe their passion for another era. It's all in the details for a reenactor -- they'll wear grow facial hair that hasn't been in vogue for a century, wear woolen underwear in the summer, drink hooch and eat hardtack, bloat up like a dead guy on the battlefield -- and anyone who doesn't have that same passion for exact detail is dismissed as a "farb." And that's for fun on the weekends. (And I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to find a You Tube video demonstration of how to bloat like a corpse. ::is sad::) And it's all in the details for Big Pink, who makes this so very American subculture so vivid. As a writer, she is no farb. True to her word, it's a ripping yarn, and it's tense and involving. Issaro does a great job with tension, and there's something about her Buttercup POV (that's the crazy possessed dog) that is funny and awesome and creepy as hell.
Hamartia by rei_c, Gen, PG-13, pre-series. Read by Leviticus Lied. 1 hr. 20 min. This fic opens a window on Sam's foray into "normal" life as a freshman at Stanford. While the story begins with his arrival and immersion into college life, the heart of the story centers around The Game. Each Halloween this elaborate treasure hunt takes place at Stanford, in which several teams of players compete during an intense 36-hour period. The Game can have a profound effect on the players' prospects throughout their undergrad career, if not longer. A little bit scavenger hunt, a little bit The Amazing Race, sends each team out on a sleep-deprived mission to solve elaborate clues and reach the finish line first. Whip-smart Sam is tapped to join a team in his first semester, and we see that he's found a world he fits into -- and that his background has made him more suited to The Game than he'd have suspected. Sam finds himself pulled into another hunt, one that will bring his old life crashing in on the new. It's a wonderful look at Sam, and heartbreaking too, not only because the tension between the life he wants and the life he's had (and is destined to have), but because we know how his thoroughly his new life will fall to ashes in four years' time.