What is this madness? Audio recordings / "Pod fic?"
Maybe those of you who like this kind of thing can enlighten me, but, really? Or better yet, maybe I should actually listen to one of these before considering my opinion on the subject cemented...
I, academically, can understand why people might enjoy listening to pod fic. Number one, I'm sure, is being able to load it onto your ipod/whatever and listen to it at your leisure, everyone else unaware, and not have to be like me and print out eighteen front-to-back tiny-font pages, only to remember just how air sick you get once you're ten minutes and three paragraphs into your flight.
Some people also really enjoy being read to. Xpyne does, and while I don't, I generally enjoy reading, so it works out like that. But I know from the few times I've been reading something and come across the, ah, naughtier bits, it just becomes so awkward and embarrassing! lol And I start spazzing in my head like, "Should I keep reading normally?" (Even though, against my will, my voice becomes a bit thicker when I find myself trying to read smut aloud, lolfail.) "Should I continue doing the 'voices'? Or, dear lord, the sound effects?? Should I bother trying to give the words the sexy inflection the writer intended, that I hear in my head, or just shoulder through it?" Perhaps my problem is just that my reading audience is my sister... <-- YOU THINK, SOLI?
And I can't imagine that it would be any less embarrassing/awkward listening to someone else do it! /)A(\ But maybe that's just me? A big part of reading for me is being able to totally hear, and by association see, the characters in my head. Wouldn't listening to some other woman, reading something with predominantly/exclusively male characters ruin that?
Pod fic wasn't even anything I'd heard of until about a year or two ago, and I'll admit my initial (and lingering) thought was, "Wow...really??"
So...your guys's thoughts?
I, academically, can understand why people might enjoy listening to pod fic. Number one, I'm sure, is being able to load it onto your ipod/whatever and listen to it at your leisure, everyone else unaware, and not have to be like me and print out eighteen front-to-back tiny-font pages, only to remember just how air sick you get once you're ten minutes and three paragraphs into your flight.
Some people also really enjoy being read to. Xpyne does, and while I don't, I generally enjoy reading, so it works out like that. But I know from the few times I've been reading something and come across the, ah, naughtier bits, it just becomes so awkward and embarrassing! lol And I start spazzing in my head like, "Should I keep reading normally?" (Even though, against my will, my voice becomes a bit thicker when I find myself trying to read smut aloud, lolfail.) "Should I continue doing the 'voices'? Or, dear lord, the sound effects?? Should I bother trying to give the words the sexy inflection the writer intended, that I hear in my head, or just shoulder through it?" Perhaps my problem is just that my reading audience is my sister... <-- YOU THINK, SOLI?
And I can't imagine that it would be any less embarrassing/awkward listening to someone else do it! /)A(\ But maybe that's just me? A big part of reading for me is being able to totally hear, and by association see, the characters in my head. Wouldn't listening to some other woman, reading something with predominantly/exclusively male characters ruin that?
Pod fic wasn't even anything I'd heard of until about a year or two ago, and I'll admit my initial (and lingering) thought was, "Wow...really??"
So...your guys's thoughts?