Static Whisper

Behind The Pod - Series (or Season) 1, Episode 5: Kess. Dated: December 2019.

Their experience with CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] and being able to listen to fic that they could no longer read through the exhaustion and pain. They made a lot of beginner ‘Eh’ podfic and found community. The performance art bit came after talking about listening to Text-to-Speech versions of fic with no emotion. Overall, not what I was expecting from the basic description.

Clarification: There’s nothing wrong with a personal perspective. Based on the description and starting with series or season 2 episodes with multiple people taking part in each episode, I just wasn’t expecting one person’s perspective. While I’ve seen podfic presented as a beneficial accessibility feature for visual text based fic, some podficcers who view podficcing as performance art seem to make stylistic choices that don’t necessarily align with accessibility being the main feature of this type of fanwork.

In a prior Auralphonic episode that touched on the history of a “No Music Included” attitude, there seemed to be a quick jump to people being okay with additional sound tracks and effects once editing skills improved, but that comes across like hearing listeners made that switch. I mean, listeners with auditory processing issues and hard of hearing listeners didn’t just fade away, and to me, the original accessibility question is still there.

Some reading advice has come across like it’s assumed that listeners who want the full text can just go read the fanfic, so info like indicating to and from fields in emails is optional. From the perspective of someone who has done volunteer image descriptions here on tumblr, that seems presumptive about what the audience will find important. I’m not saying it’s wrong to make that choice as a podficcer, but I wouldn’t say that’s keeping accessibility and potential listeners who are blind or visually impaired in mind.

I’ve run into quite a bit of encouragement for nervous beginners about not letting an accent or reading in a non-native/fluent language get in the way of trying to make podfic, so I also thought there might be a mention of podficcers who don’t have a normate voice.

Behind The Pod - Series (or Season) 2, Episode 3: Am I Speaking Your Language? Dated: August 2020.

The one mod felt more comfortable with pronouncing languages they have encountered offline, even if they’re not fluent. Some of what affects podfic is what writers choose, and it also factors in issues with writing non-monolingual characters (when it’s weird or expected to switch to another language). It might depend on the fandom, but it’s not uncommon for fanfic writers to include terms of endearment in a non-English language. [Most fic is in English, so most podficcers read English, even if it’s as a second language, so it’s more noticeable to talk about the non-English examples.]

Making a good attempt at looking up the pronunciation and some confidence when recording can carry some podficcers through additional languages in a fic. Getting the emotion right can also cover not getting the pronunciation completely correct. The responder also felt a little less pressure with fictional languages, even though a lack of audio examples can make it harder to practice, because she didn’t feel like she was messing up someone’s language. It’s a little more common for the one mod to run into names that need pronunciation double checked than long phrases. (You can tell when certain podficcers get to the end of watching The Untamed because they start asking about Mandarin pronunciation. Fandom has crowdsourced pronunciation guides on Twitter.)

Behind The Pod - Series (or Season) 1, Party Favour: Podficcers of Color Roundtable. Dated: December 2019.

While different responders have done popular white M/M fic, several make a point of prioritizing CoC fic in their To Podfic list. The lack of a ‘visible’ race on the internet can be erasing (queer fic tends to be white, which can create distance for queer FoC), but it can also provide a more level playing field in some situations (compared to conventions and in-person fannish spaces with more white fans than FoC attending). Podfic Fandom can trend more international, which makes sharing being a podficcer of color feel different to sharing being a FoC in a particular fandom space. (Not really better or worse; different.)

Podfic Fandom has recently seemed a little more aware of needing to focus on CoC in challenges (drew comparison to femslash challenges needing to focus on women, in reaction to M/M popularity). Jazz also writes fanfic, so she makes a point of trying to pick up prompts for CoC [so there’s more CoC focused fic that can be podficced]. For some responders, it also depends on the fandom and writing tropes that pop-up in fic with CoC versus what podficcers focus on. Examples: Sam Wilson hasn’t been written well in MCU stuff (started with Stucky focus way back), but there was a challenge about Marvel CoC. Star Wars writers focus on Reylo, but there are podficcers who have made a point to focus on Finn and other CoC.

[One responder brought up in relation to wanting a WoC challenge that Black History Month is in October in the UK, so international challenges don’t have to feel restricted to what American observances do. It was in relation to a certain femslash challenge being in February already, which is when Americans observe Black History Month.]