The Doodles of Bessyboo

So, queelez, who is the Eleven to my River, the Tony to my Pepper, the Kurt to my Rachel, and (most applicably here) the Parker to my Hardison, recently had a shitastic week, and so of course my response was, "I'm so sorry bb :( WHY ARE YOU IN WISCONSIN, YOU OBVS NEED A HUG! :((( ...do you want podfic instead?"

And he requested this fic. So I recorded it for him.

I've loved this fic ever since he linked me to it, so it really wasn't a hardship. It's so easy to imagine Hardison being a part of fandom, and the way that wishfulaces uses the fandom connection to have Hardison make sense of his sexual identity is fascinating and poignant. She effortlessly drops in dozens of geeky references from hugely varying sources, but none of them feel shoehorned in, and it all just feels very natural and in-character.

Also? Bonus!OT3 towards the end does not hurt at all. ;)

And so I give you...


Life in the Twenty-First Century
Leverage (Hardison/Parker/Elliot)
by wishfulaces
read by bessyboo
runs 26:15

MP3 [12.46MB]: MediaFire | Audiofic Archive Page
Audiobook (M4B) [11.62MB]: MediaFire | Audiofic Archive Page


Recording notes! So, this was actually recorded at my mom's house, because I was house-sitting for her. I was originally going to record a bunch of podfic while I was over there (no roommate to interrupt!), BUT then I recorded this, and listened back to it, and realized that the sound quality over there was waaaaaaaaaaay worse than in my apartment. So, this recording has a lot more background noise/low-grade "buzzing" than you normally see in my podfic. Sorry about that! Oh well. Should still be listenable, it's just not up to my high audiophile standards :\

Re: the music, pretty much the second I opened my iTunes to choose music after I finished editing the actual pod, I went, "OMG JoCo. HAS to be JoCo!" And then I was going through all my JoCo music and went, "OH MY GOD, THE FUTURE SOON! YISSSSSSSSSSSS!" Because dude. PERFECT MUSIC IS PERFECT! Additionally, opening music is from "Skullcrusher Mountain", also, of course, by Jonathan Coulton. (Ya'll KNOW that Hardison owns every one of his albums, and totally DL'd Thing A Week as it came out.) On a more technical note, I actually edited "The Future Soon" slightly for my use here--I spliced the instrumental intro with the first chorus, because the chorus was the part I really wanted to play, and I needed instrumentals-only to fade in with. Hopefully this is not too jarring for those of you (myself included) who are v. familiar with the song!

For my podfic_bingo card, I'm using this for "Use a Speed Effect" and "Lower Pitch Effect", since I used both of these for the "strikethrough" voice effect. I originally had no idea what to do with the several struckthrough lines that are peppered throughout the fic, and eventually decided to just read them really really fast to distinguish them. However, I couldn't read them fast enough and still have it be discernible, at least not to my liking, so I ended up reading them at a normal speed, and then speeding them up significantly during editing, then using a pitch adjustment to counteract the squeaky-chipmunk effect. I hope it works for you guys--tell me what you think!

So...I think that's about it! queelez, I hope this made your week better. <3 you, bb (and happy belated birthday!)

Bessyboo's Podfic Bingo!
Read with a Smile	Disability	Femslash	Read Angrily	Read a Fic Cold
Read Quietly	Read Sexy	Incorporate Sound Effects	Rare Pairing	Collaborate
Use a Speed Effect	Incorporate Verbal Effects	Wild Card!	Lower Pitch Effect	Read A Friends Fic
Abridge	Yuletide	No Editing	Incorporate Music	Record in a New Location
Higher Pitch Effect	Non-English Language	Out of Order	2nd POV	Read Sadly