Hi! :) I posted a comment below explaining why I brought up sex scenes, so I won't repeat it here, but. Your words are wise, and I agree that for anything other than minimal typos, one should get author permission, just to be on the safe side. As long as the author is credited with writing the fic, it should be their words that are being read.

I don't think adaptation for reading is a bad thing; I think it can create opportunities for more fics of different kinds to be podficced, and yes, it requires more effort, but it might yield great results. And maybe if there were a culture of making these small kinds of adaptations, it would just feel more acceptable to ask an author for permission to do that.