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As I turn 41, I feel lucky to have a family that I love very much and a job that I like very much. But sometimes the world can feel small when one has young kids, and one of my birthday wishes this year is to feel meaningfully connected to a community that goes beyond just family and work. So this is my virtual birthday card, and I am hoping that maybe some people would like to take a moment to write some nice things in it! If my presence in the world has improved your life in some way, it would make me feel very good to hear about it!
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Happy Birthday!!
You also run Pod Together which connects podficcers with wider fandom, AND cements personal bonds between writers and podficcers (and podficcers and podficcers with their writing hats on), AND makes plenty of authors consider how transformative (and COOL) podfics are as a medium, AND ALSO drags plenty of authors to the dark side... I mean encouraging authors to try podficcing.
And Voiceteam is such an important part of community connection within podfic fandom! Not only the joy of getting to collaborate within our teams and make friends that way, but I can't tell you how many times I've ended up being brave enough to collab with another podficcer months or years later because I've already got a discord DM chat with them from Voiceteam. "Heeey Voiceteam Buddy" has been the start of so many interactions that were 100% less intimidating than they would have been otherwise.
And if that weren't enough Awesome Ladies does the fabulous and important work of helping make podfic fandom prioritise women more in their works, which is always a lovely thing to see. And since we're on the topic of how you meaningfully contribute to podfic fandom making more diverse art, you can't underestimate the Character of Colour bonus for Voiceteam! So much of each year's annual podfic is made during Voiceteam (and MysteryBox) that it gives me the warm and fuzzies that Voiceteam is explicitly a space that wants and encourages podfic that doesn't only centre white characters <3
And I know these aren't things you do all by yourself, but that makes them EVEN BETTER! You're so good at collaborating with other mods, other participants, and other people that you help make these beautiful things that make podfic fandom an awesome space to be in! And inspires other people to mod their own events, perpetuating the cycle of community.
Also, I have listened to Ten Changes in Podfic History Since 2009 that you recorded with Reena Jenkin's for PodAware more than 5 times, I love listening to it because it's such a cool insight into the history of podfic and how we developed some of the community norms we have now.
I didn't get to participate in Guess That Voice this year but I gave it a try before reading the answers and I guessed you immediately. I was so proud of myself for being able to go "well of course that's klb" (probably because of how many times I've listened to your various meta on podfic community, Podfic Community and Beyond with finnigain is also super interesting)
Thankyou for helping build such a wonderful community to exist in, Happy Birthday klb <3
MelancholyMorningstar
Re: Happy Birthday!!
I think it's kind of awesome that you have listened to my 10-year-old meta and liked it enough to listen to it more than once! I probably have forgotten by now half the things I said in those, and have new narratives in my head about the course of podfic history, but if you ever want to have a chat and make a meta podcast of our own on any podfic-related topic, hit me up because I bet it would be a lot of fun!
Thank you for knowing my voice. It feels nice to know that all this talking I have put out into the ether for so many years is being heard enough to make my voice known to some people <3 And thank you so so so so so so much for this message, which I will definitely come back to and reread and internalize, because there is so much good and thoughtful stuff here that I want to hold onto.