inkjunket

We're back again! Looking for some low commitment podfic fun this summer? Sign up for Summer Podfic Swap, a multi-fandom, no-minimum podfic exchange! Runs June through August 2026.

Create a podfic of any length and receive a podfic in return! Signup via the ao3 exchange by June 15th. Assignments go out near the end of June. Gifts are due by August 17th. Reveals will take place near the end of August. If you’re interested, but not sure about signing up, you are always welcome to make treats for the exchange! The deadline for submitting treats is August 31st.

Schedule Signups Open: June 1st 12:01 am EDT, right after midnight Signups Close: June 15th 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight Assignments Out: End of June — Collection Opens: Mid-July — Gift Deadline: August 17th 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight Gift Reveals: Late August — Treat Deadline: August 31st 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight

How to signup Please sign up through our AO3 exchange here. [The form will open June 1st!] Instructions are included at the top of the form. You will fill out both Request and Offer sections. When signing up, please list a minimum of three fandoms, maximum of twenty; fandoms listed for giving and receiving can be different. If you would like to list more fandoms, you can do so in your Dear Podficcer Letter, but this will not be factored into matching. Dear Podficcer Letters are required. Your completed signup form will be visible to others to facilitate treats.

How will matching be done Matching will be done through the ao3 algorithm, with the mods spot checking the results. Matches will be made on matching request/offer fandoms, and potentially shared additional tags. If you have any concerns about matching that you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, please email the mods before the close of signups. After matches are made, assignments will be emailed out by the end of June.

For more FAQ please visit the Summer Podfic Swap ao3 collection page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at summerpodficswap at gmail dot com or shoot us a message or an ask here on tumblr. We hope you'll join us for some summer fun!

Spoons can be used pretty much anywhere.

Carnival tickets are only good for the carnival, and it’s only in town for a limited amount of time.

#spike after learning Oz plays guitar: why İsn't he in the band? #buffy: he's already in his own band. which is actually a real band unlike our fake band that you keep forgetting is just a cover story #spike: we're never going to make it in the music industry if you don't stop calling our band fake

Spike (with reluctant but knowledgeable backup from Giles) finally convinces her that "Slayer" risks bringing copyright lawyers down upon their heads, a fate worse than vampires

Don’t forget to wear glitter, take your meds, and practice self-care in honor of our dear departed Space Mom.

In System Collapse, Tarik says “motherless” (as opposed to something like motherfucking) and the BE corporates say things like “lame-skulled” and while you could think those are just futuristic insults as a result of linguistic drift (which they could also be), I think they’re just literal translations. It becomes more noticeable when you see how religious terms are rendered: “oh high one! Oh deity!” Which is like…sure. They could literally be saying that. But imo it makes more sense if MB is translating something they’re saying in another language.*

I think the most notable case of this is when Thiago calls Amena “my daughter.” On first read I literally thought it was just a Preservation thing but then I realized it made a lot more sense to me (a 21st century American) if he was saying something like mija but MB was just literally translating it into its archive bc that’s how it processes language.

This is also the reason for Amena’s use of Second Mom and Third Mom. It sounds kind of clunky in English but Chinese does a similar thing which sounds perfectly natural in that language (e.g. da-ge, er-ge, san-ge for first/oldest brother, second (oldest) brother, and third (oldest) brother).

Anyway! It’s a fun little detail I really enjoy about MB. There are definitely way more examples but I didn’t have time to track them all down.

Honestly, Murderbot doesn't just "translate" language, I would say it tends to genericize terms, and this is part of a broader motif around Murderbot's relationship with language. Aside from in translation, Murderbot also just uses generic terms to control its story and express its viewpoint better- there's "oh deity" and "Starchy Foods!!!!" as obvious places where this had to be translated in some way from something, but notice how it doesn't get translated into anything in particular in Murderbot's presumed Standard Whatever Dialect lexicon. Why? Because while details about food and religion are of critical importance to human culture, they're not important to our rogue machine intelligence protag. (Amena's "fried vegetable crunchy things" are another classic example.) You see this in action throughout the series: it never describes an animal by specific name ("avians," "fauna"), it barely describes the weapons it gets into fights with ("energy weapon," "armor piercing projectile weapon"- notice it never calls anything a shotgun or grenade let alone specific gun nerd terms), and it especially never uses a brand name or even a genericized brand name to describe an item or product if the most generic term will do ("feed interface," "transient rest tube" but not any term resembling iPhone or capsule hotel). And of course, it never names the company that owned it, explicitly replacing the name even in Bharadwaj's dialogue when she asks about it. Obviously, choosing to avoid the use of corporate names allows it to take back a little control over its own language from the likes of its former owners. Meanwhile, it'll name the systems it interfaces with to a high degree of specificity or panache: "HubSystem," "AdaColSys, "Asshole Research Transport," "hotelEnvironmentAccessAndMobilitySystem (MobSys for short)", etc.

I really think that murderbot's first and most comfortable language is a machine language, and that a lot of its idiolectical language choices stem from that. Which means that to be understandable in English, it's translating its own thought processes and internal dialogue to English as well as the human languages that are actually being spoken around it.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who's just as surprised as you are.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who's mad about being left out.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who tells a different story about how it happened each time they're asked.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who, in their unguarded moments, admits it's probably for the best.

Last survivor of an extinct alien civilisation who claims the others are "just resting".