The Science of Phonaesthetics

revolutionaryjo:

revolutionaryjo:

cellardoorpodfic:

fuckyeahjohnlockpodfics:

Heads up that Jinjurly has been hacked I think D: D: D: D:

I hope they fix it soon ;(

Balls. It says it’s down for maintenance rn, so can’t confirm if it’s actually been hacked. Will post updates if I get ‘em! 

And we’re back!

FYI.

setralynn:

to Katie Forsythe.  For the moment, I won’t go into the face that her other peudonym is also fully worthy of my eternal adoration just for the stories she’s done for BBC Sherlock.  No.  Right now, I need to explain how much I adore her ACD Cannon-based Sherlock Holmes fiction.

I’ve been thinking about this for some weeks now, partially because of listening to the BakerStreetBabes Podcast.  When they have a guest (when when they inroduced themselves) on the podcast, they always ask them a set of questions the first of which is “How did you get into Sherlock Holmes?”  The real babes have a variety of answers, from BBC Sherlock to Jeremy Brett to The Great Mouse Detective.  Being me, I thought of my own answers and I realized slowly that the answer for me was “Because of Katie Forsythe.”

Here’s my story:  about two years ago, I found out about podfic.  Podfic was a dream come true.  I’ve always been a very slow reader, and a compulsive multi-tasker.  Because of that, I’ve historically loved audiobooks and books-on-tape so that I could craft or study or fall asleep while listening to stories.  Fanfiction couldn’t be checked out on tape from the library though, so for many years a big chunk of my internet time was taken up hunting and reading fic.  I listened to music while doing that, but still, printing, reading, carrying with me, all very time consuming if pleasurable.  So then years and years later I find Podfic and the Audiofic Archive, and my mind is blown.

The only little problem is that a lot of stories, authors, and fandoms I’ve previously reveled in are un- or under-represented in podfic. So I have to branch out, that’s fine.  I get into a lot of new fandoms this way, and rediscover some old ones.  And then one day I’m digging around and I think “Hey, everyone knows the basic Holmes and Watson idea.  I’ve listened to a couple BBC Sherlock fics but I haven’t seen that show yet, so they don’t make much sense… there are canon Holmes fics on here, I’ll try those!”

I don’t know why it was “The Presbury Letters” that I listened to first, maybe because it was long, maybe because starting out I didn’t think I slashed Holmes/Watson and it was rated for no pron.  In any case, the days I spent listening to The Presbury Letters and Some Further Thoughts on the Roylott Matter while playing Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood were amazingly good ones in a really terrible year for me.  From that, I found more of her stories had been podficced and then because of them, and the many canon references and the tie-ins to cases I went and found audiobooks of the original stories.

That’s how I found Sherlock Holmes.  How I came to actually appreciate the characters and the stories and the mysteries.  From there I found BBC Sherlock of course, and learned to love the RDJ/Ritchie movies more, and everything else.  But at the heart of it, this thing that now rules my life started because of one person (well, more if I add the readers, and I really should thank Jinjur, Mific, Aethel, Luzula, and lianabob too, for brilliant performances of these stories)… the simple fact is that Sherlock Holmes stories and fandom very nearly saved my life in the hardest year I’ve ever had… and Katie Forsythe’s stories were the ones that brought me into it.

It’s been a while since I listened to a lot of these stories.  There’s not alot new being ready recently, and I’ve been more in the BBC Sherlock zone and in other fandoms of late but today, my iPod brought up, Minor Interludes and Hallowed Be Thy Name while I was at work.  I had forgotten how masterful her command of the characters is, how well she expresses the relationship between them…. there were times tonight when a certain scene or conversation just made me smile, or laugh, and it filled me up with genuine joy.  When she writes the hard times, and Holmes’s admitted problems and flaws, you feel for him.  And when she writes the good times, they bring you right along on the emotional high.

I am still nervous to actually post something of this sort to her LJ directly, of course, because I am a terrible lurker and she is on hiatus (and hopefully fine for all of that)… but I can put it out here into the internet and tag it and maybe one day she’ll see it and know that her stories brought me to Sherlock Holmes, and immensely improved my life.

I’m re-listening to Jinjur’s podfic of Four Solo Interludes right now and stumbling across the above made me really, really happy :)