borrowed shall ye never be

(Adapted from this writer meme by @ahdriking)

Do you consider podficcing to be your primary fandom activity?

Briefly describe your podficcing process

What got you started podficcing?

What's your recording setup?

Do you prefer making one-shots or multi-chaptered podfics?

Do you prefer podficcing fic you already know, or cold-reading?

Do you do any prep before you start recording?

Has another podfic ever inspired you to try something new?

Do you like constructive criticism?

Do you have your work beta'd? How important is this to your process?

How do you decide on what voices to give the character(s)?

Do you prefer recording the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

Rec three of your current favorite podfics

What's your relationship with podfic feedback?

What’s a podficcing tip you got that you almost always follow?

How do you approach recording emotional scenes?

How do you approach recording smut scenes?

How many podfic WIPs do you have right now? Talk about one of them

Have you ever hit a podfic roadblock or dry spell? How did you deal with it?

How do you start/end your podfics? (Do you include the full header? Do you do notes? Bloopers?)

Have you done/Do you like doing free talk at the end of a podfic?

Except for "podfic" and format tags, what is the most-used podfic tag on your ao3?

Have you noticed any patterns in your podfics?

Have you been part of multivoice podfics?

Are there certain types of stories you like reading but avoid podficcing? (Fandoms, style, pov, genre, tropes, etc.)

Do you have any advice for other podficcers?

Have you come across podficcing tips and tricks that don't work for you/your process?

What podfic do you wish you got more of a response on?

Which of your podfics would you call your wildest ride?

What is your most and least favorite part of podficcing?

On average, how much podfic do you make in a week/month/year?

How much time do you spend on editing? Have you/would you ever post something unedited?

How do you pick a story to podfic?

Rec some of your favourite podficcers

Have you ever drawn inspiration from another podficcer?

Did you ever think of turning your podficcing skills into a job?

Do you use music in your podfics?

Do you use sound sound effects? What's your favourite?

Do you take podfic commissions?

Have your podfics ever been remixed or further transformed?

Do you listen to your own podfics?

What’s the last podfic you listened to?

Do you enjoy performing angsty scenes, or do you avoid them?

Are there any words you keep mispronouncing no matter how many times you've looked them up?

What is your goal when making a podfic?

How would you describe your podficcing style?

Do you listen to your finished podfics before posting them?

If you've used a podfic beta, what did you look for in them?

How long is your longest podfic?

Which podfic took you the longest/hardest to make, and why?

Which podfic was the fastest/easiest to make, and why?

What’s your total podficcing wordcount?

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

How is your fandom time allocated? Do you spend more time reading, podficcing, something else?

What’s your favorite part of the podficcing process?

Which has been your favourite character to voice?

What’s something about your podficcing that you pride yourself on?

Does anyone in your personal life know you podfic? Have they heard your podfics? What did they think?

Do you seek out, or avoid, explicit fic?

Tell us about a podfic-related thing you look forward to

How do you deal with podficcing under pressure (deadlines, participating in events, WIPs...)?

Have you taken part in a podficcing event/challenge? Did you like it?

Are there any of your previous podfics you wish you could remake?

When it comes to long projects or stories with large casts, how do you keep track of character voices?

Do you always record in chronological order? Have you ever recorded scenes out of order?

What's something you're particularly good at in podficcing?

Apart from your voice, do you have a "signature move" or is there tell-tale sign that a podfic is your work?

Do you remember making [Podfic title]? Can you share something from that process? (Favourite or most challenging scene, etc.)

Do you have projects you've had to abandon? Why? Would you like to take them up again?

Pingxie Exchange 2026: Schedule and Guidelines Post

Hi and welcome to the Pingxie Exchange: a fic, art, and fanvid exchange about the Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling pairing.

In this exchange, participants will be anonymously matched to create gifts for one another during a five week creation period. The gifts will be revealed on August 10th, and authors will be revealed on August 17th: the day Wu Xie welcomed Xiaoge back after his 10-year-long absence behind the Bronze Gate. (Please note that this is a change from previous years!)

(I meant to make this post and announce sign-ups long before now, but I completely spaced. I realize that because of that and moving up the deadline, that has tightened up the creation period. My apologies for that. Hopefully this will still work for the majority of people, because, let's face it... most of us start working a week before the deadline, no matter when it is. ;D).

This exchange is open to all the DMBJ canons (adaptations featuring Wu Xie or Xiaoge and the original novels). It will take place on AO3, so you need an AO3 account to participate--if you don’t have one, you can request it here; if there isn’t enough time, no worries - contact the mods at [email protected], on DreamWidth, or on tumblr, and we can send you an invitation!

Schedule

Sign-ups open: June 14th Sign-ups end: June 21st 11:59 PM Anywhere On Earth (what time is it for me?) Matching: June 22nd Assignments out: no later than June 24th Assignments due: August 3th 11:59 PM Anywhere On Earth (what time is it for me?) Gift reveals: August 10th Creator reveals and treats deadline: August 17th

Further information behind the cut...

by Leonard Cohen

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will.

When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep.

Bai Lu plays a schemer FL who doesn't make grand speeches for #girlboss purposes, instead she seems so peaceful and is so good at hiding her emotions and true intent. She has a set of dolls that I think are her hit list, her killing methods are cruel but so satisfying, she talks to the ghost of her maid which is probably due to some trauma and I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it when she talks to her ghost maid in front of other people, it's literally a scene like this:

Cheng Lei is delivering as always. Handsome, strong (his legs are injured so he hasn't fully unlocked this feature yet), yet miserable. And he is so good at being miserable. His kicked puppy lashing out vibes tug at my heart.

And as for the romance between the two, so far I am very satisfied with the way the love plot is going. Schemer x schemer is great especially when both of them are working against the same people but they have no idea about it.

1) Figured this out.

Due to his abilities and his position, most people probably expect him to get along just fine regardless of circumstances, especially since he very much wants to appear to be all fine even when he isn't (probably a defense mechanism considering the life he's led). He never expects any help from others either, he's got the sort of mindset that he can carry his own problems, his friends' problems and probably a bunch of strangers' as well.

Most people probably take his assurances at face value, but HLL and BYT just won't have it, HLL being all offended she isn't allowed to share in this dangerous mission even though they've only just met, and BYT immediately making sure ZZ is safe and as healthy as can be, not to mention not giving him up even to save his sworn brothers (despite at the same time still saying they'll have to have a duel). And as time passes and the three of them get closer, this tendency to make sure ZZ will be fine just grows in HLL and BYT.

and like i feel like people generally understand that shipping a gay man with a woman is like. homophobic. like we do generally understand thats homophobic nowadays!! but ive straight up been called pro censorship for saying that fandom's fixation on giving aspec sex/romance averse characters Default Romantic Relationships that look pretty much the same to common allo relationships is aphobic.

like. I do think aspec relationships and sexual encounters can be fascinating to explore when done well.

but we have GOT to get separate tags and you have GOT to start thinking about why you feel the need to put all of your favorite characters in a relationship at all no matter how little it fits them or how vocally disgusted they are by the idea

1) I feel like most aspecs in media right now are side characters, so we are seeing their asexuality and aromanticism from the outside in where they just get mixed up with the robot stuff and justified by it. The asexuality and aromanticism is depicted as a result of their being a robot and part of why they are narratively shown as less of a person.

Whereas Murderbot is not only the main character, but also our only narrator pretty much thorough eight books. We see the world almost exclusively through its eyes, and while its not a human, its very much obviously and completely a Person even before it admits its one.

Murderbot attributes its sex/romance repulsion to being the kind of construct it is (a SecUnit), but it also attributes a LOT of other things to being a construct that are systematically debunked over the series— Murderbot is first and foremost a person who happens to be sex and romance repulsed, and who happens to be certain ways because its an individual, and who attributes both of those to being a construct mainly because it takes it a long time to accept its a person.

2) Sex and romance averse aspecs in media are often portrayed as cold and unemotional overall, and the sex and romance repulsion are shown as a part of it.

That is why the robot stereotype in media is so harmful. Its bad because it equates wanting sex and romance = being emotional and capable of having deep relationships. It posits that the robot is cold and incomplete for being aspec, or rather that its aspec due to being cold and incomplete.

Murderbot is not at all cold and unemotional. Its full of emotions, even when it would rather not have them, or have them about its media. Murderbot pretends it doesnt care but then it does care, deeply, in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with romance. It has very deep relationships that are not at all romantic or sexual in nature and that it struggles to describe both because of its trauma and because it lacks the language for it.

It is also in no way at all incomplete. Murderbot might emphasize that its not human, but its a deeply humanized character.

The whole theme of the series is that constructs and bots are not human, but that they are just as much complete people with a rich internal life that deserve to live their lives with autonomy and to have support from the people around them.

Murderbot not wanting sex or romance is never ever posited as an issue or as something that its lacking. Its perfectly satisfied with a life doing security work and hanging out with its great support network at the tail end of the series. It has good friendships and arguably two relationships that can be described as QPRs.

Murderbots main problem isnt that its aspec, but that a) its humans keep nearly getting themselves killed by capitalism gone rampant and b) that constructs in this universe are either demonized or infantilized or both. Both sides are shown as wrong and harmful.

I would never say that its perfect representation and I think its totally fair and valid if youre still uncomfortable with it. Like I said, I think it would be best if we saw an openly aspec human or if another SecUnit were shown to enjoy romance/sex.