#BIPOCtober

[hinaypod]

Planning to host a week called #BIPOCtober where we celebrate BIPOC audio dramas!

More info soon, but if you're a BIPOC led or BIPOC majority audio drama that we can spotlight for that week, feel free to drop your titles and @ in the replies or reblogs.

Inspiration taken from @podcastgirlsweek ! The tag will be used for posts, fanart, fanfic, etc, of your favourite BIPOC characters or audio dramas. We'll use it to hype BIPOC audio dramas that don't get as much attention and traction as their White counterparts.

Cheers!

P.S. will likely make a sideblog specifically for this! Will link it when ready.

[bipoctober]

#BIPOCtober Week 2024 - BIPOC AUDIO DRAMA CELEBRATION

Celebrate BIPOC audio drama this October with the hashtag #BIPOCtober!

We'll be spotlighting BIPOC created/led audio dramas and their creators from October 13-20, 2024.

If you'd like to be spotlighted, feel free to send us your show title, a description/summary, some promo materials, and which characters (or creators!) are BIPOC.

BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, People of Color

The Rules:

Use the hashtag #BIPOCtober to share art, fic, features, and other creative posts centred on your favourite BIPOC characters in audio drama, as well as BIPOC voice actors and creators.

Make sure to add a short description of the character or podcast you're spotlighting so that others can learn about them! The aim for this week is to get people interested in the characters and shows they come from.

Try to keep the posts all-ages, but if your work or show has adult elements, ⚠️Place it under the cut (Read More) or add a warning/disclaimer!⚠️ If it's a fic (presumably on AO3), ensure a proper rating and warnings are reflected. We won't exclude adult or mature works (since the founder of this is a horror podcast) but we want to keep things safe for everyone :)

CREATORS ARE ENCOURAGED TO HYPE THEIR OWN SHOWS if they are BIPOC.

But most importantly, have fun! Feel free to ask questions and reach out.

-Motzie (The Hi Nay Podcast)

[clonerightsagenda]

Crossing the streams of Podcast Girls Week and BIPOCtober to shout out some female characters of color from BIPOC-led audio dramas who I particularly enjoy:

Evelyn Wai from Hi Nay: Livestreaming college student turned paranormal researcher. She's great and I wish her well in whatever her career trajectory ends up being. Plus she's canonically aspec which I found out after I already planned to claim her for my aspec quota, which goes to show that when I turn my aspec beam on characters I am never wrong. (Ignore all the times I have been textually wrong.)

Jane Gonzalez from The Pasithea Powder: Presumably Chicana like her VA and podcast co-creator; all the Cassandran and Medean characters seem to live in a heavily Hispanic-influenced culture. (Take that, generically white Western spacefutures.) Support #women of color in STEM committing malpractice. I love her so much.

Nova NoStar from InCo: A crotchety information seller who rescues a prince from a fairy tale planet and ends up overthrowing a kingdom while on leave for personal reasons. Having made extensive study of hygiene in spaceflight, I would like to give a special shoutout to the wash day minisode. She and Lovelace should swap spaceship natural hair care tips.

Marisol Montgomery from Small Victories. Marisol is an excellent chef fighting a back and forth battle with addiction after the loss of her beloved brother. She makes a lot of bad decisions, but the show's excellent writing puts you in her head so you understand why she does everything she does. I'm rooting for her!

[bekaterrier]

A few other wonderful shows I wanted to shoutout for BIPOCtober, with BIPOC creators and/or leads:

A Ninth World Journal: Based on Numenera, a tabletop roleplaying game, and written, produced and performed by David S. Dear (plus guests). Set one billion years in the future… it’s the story of Januae, a man who randomly teleports to strange and dangerous places with no way of controlling it.

@meteorcitypod: In 2008, a freak meteor shower hit Detroit, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. Hundreds of people were quarantined for radiation exposure. 10 years later, Bianca Diaz, a vlogger returns to tell the stories of the dead, the missing, and the remaining citizens of Detroit, now called Meteor City. Shortly after returning, Bianca realizes that Meteor City, New Detroit, and the people left behind are not what they appear to be...

@witcheverpath: An interactive horror anthology podcast. Their current story is Message in a Bottle. A siren misses what was taken from her, but as she swims out to sea, she discovers a bottle that may change the course of her life.

@radio-outcast: A fantasy-western audio drama. When Helix, the Messenger God of Sound, gets yanked from the 1980s and sent to the 1880s by her abusive ex-lover, the God of Time, she must forge unlikely alliances with two humans: Jesse, a cowboy out for revenge, and Charles, a conman running from his past. The three of them embark on a journey across the American West, each with their own goals and secrets waiting to be revealed

@vegapodcast: A Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast!: In a fantasy futuristic world, Vega Rex is employed by her government to kill off the world's worst criminals. She's never met a criminal she couldn't catch...until now. Join Vega as she journeys through a world of bumbling apprentices, powerful technogods, and her biggest challenge yet

@noadventurespod: A fantasy (un)adventure story that follows Sig, the owner of Signature Eats bakery, as he aggressively avoids becoming embroiled in any daring quests or chosen one shenanigans even though the universe really seems to want him to do just that. This is a story about cutting the Hero’s Journey off at the knees to chill with friends. And also baking. This is also a story about baking.

Harlem Queen: A Black historical fiction audio drama based on the life and times of Black, woman, gangster "Numbers Queen" Madame Stephanie St. Clair during the Harlem Renaissance (the story takes place around 1926-32). She fought the "big boys" (Lucky Luciano and Dutch Schultz) and won.

@herebedragonspod: When the body of a previously unknown aquatic creature washes up on shore, four women are called together for the expedition of a lifetime. Tasked by the U.S. Government to find and record evidence of this new breed of sea monster, Harper Bennett, Pippa Cambell, Lt. Commander Adrienne Scarlett and Dr. Natalya Atlas set off into the untamed wilds of The Bermuda Triangle.

@unwellpodcast: A Midwestern Gothic Mystery. Lillian Harper moves to the small town of Mt. Absalom, Ohio, to care for her estranged mother Dorothy after an injury. Living in the town's boarding house which has been run by her family for generations, she discovers conspiracies, ghosts, and a new family in the house's strange assortment of residents.

Fan Wars: The Empire Claps Back: A not-so-romantic comedy about two star wars fans on opposite sides of the Last Jedi debate.

[projectgnosis]

Will be doing more Shoutouts to other BIPOC-led Audio dramas this month.

Stay tuned for one shot shoutouts for certain audio dramas that are BIPOC represented.

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 13th October ✨

I'm so sad to report that, for the first time in so long (maybe over a year??), I have not listened to a single audio drama episode this week! 😭 HOWEVER, once my exam is done next week it is ON.

I'm looking forward to checking out the #BIPOCtober shows and really getting into the spooky mood!!

[projectgnosis]

I feel that especially as a fellow audio drama creator who isn't well known or has a following. We definitely want to show the audio drama community that there's plenty of BIPOC voices with their own BIPOC stories out there and we will need the support of the fans to let people know such shows exist.

Salamaat for spreading awareness about this.

The wonderfully engaged and active fandom for Hi Nay has given people the idea that it is a popular show.

It's not 🥲 at least not the way people think. A majority of our episodes have not cleared 1000 downloads.

If you like us and our work please do spread the word! The enthusiasm of our wonderful audience is not matched by the general numbers, though whether that's because of some weird region locking feature is unknown.

Please rate us on podcast sites or on Spotify/Apple Podcasts. Please talk about us on social media, especially places like TikTok or Instagram.

We're blessed and lucky to have so many people who believe in us, so we're grateful either way, and I wouldn't have to worry about numbers if we weren't hoping to keep Hi Nay financially sustainable as well.

We're trying new things, making shorter episodes released more frequently, and we're entering a hiatus where we'll get things together so we can make our Patreon so much better as well.

Follow us on the socials if you can, share the posts if you can, rate and review us on podcast sites if you can, support us on Patreon if you can!

But most of all: we're grateful either way. We love the audience that we have. It's a delight to chat with people about upcoming episodes or certain characters. I would never trade this wonderful community for numbers, ever, and I'm glad that's not the Faustian bargain I'm forced to take.

Cheers,

Motzie

[cannibalmukbang]

I wanted to draw something for @bipoctober but I got really busy and the time is rapidly getting away from me....so here's some old art of loml Annabelle Cane that I never posted here. she's creeping and crawling around.

[itmeblog]

uhhhh... I think technically I'm pulling out of BIPOCtober as I've just blocked Motzie Dapul for sending me pictures of dead children so...

Full disclosure: this was an argument about Palestine I said I'd vote in kamala (have voted for Kamala) because she's the only viable alternative to Trump.

Im assuming Motzie thinks this means I don't care for the Palestinians so they sent me videos/pictures and shouted at me about how my tax dollars are being spent uh...

...yeah.

So, I don't really have a defense here. I just don't like pictures of dead children. I know they're there, I read the news reports, I do not wish to see them. I fully understand this is a privilege. I can't say Kamala's perfect but I do genuinely believe she's our best shot at having the energy to even try to help them.

I'm not sure it'll work but given that there is literally no other option I'm going to try my best. Throwing away my vote this year would have just been helping Trump in my eyes.

[imaginativebasicintrovert]

I recently watched Empire Records and it gave me such a good book idea 💜 (if you hadn’t seen my story) where I included a few of my own records and a few books which have mentioned either books or a coming of age style writing! 😍 ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ Book Challenges: • Short but sweet by @lex_withthe_text #bipoctober • Dangerous and deadly reads by @inkand.imagination #bookwitchoct21 • Non-Western by @bookishconlife #bookishconlifeoct21 • Thrilling Reads by @littlemissstar55 #lmsoctober2021 • Light or cozy read by @crossroadreview #wishywashywishful • Character with a sweet tooth by @sistershelves #backtofall2021 • Cozy by @rambling_daydreamer #averyperrychallenge ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ ≠ #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #empirerecordsfilm #empirerecordsmovie #bookrecs #bookstack #booksandrecords #booksandvinyls #bookishmusic #ninetiesmovie #shortsweetreads #spicyreads #youngadultfiction #yareads #comingofagenovels #paperbacklove #lightreading #cozycorner #booktech #characterlove https://www.instagram.com/p/CU7l3qOvsF8/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bipoctober]

ACE PODCAST WEEK LET'S GOOOO! We'll be doing a post to roll into this event tomorrow, stay tuned!

Ace Podcast Week 2024 (October 20th-26th)

The second-ever Ace Podcast Week 2024 (APW) launches tomorrow! This is a casual event to appreciate the acespec representation and community in the fiction podcast community.

By popular demand, we have a brand-new list of prompts to get you started:

Sunday, October 20th

Apprehension/Arrival

Monday, October 21st

Community/Close

Tuesday, October 22nd

Empty/Exile

Wednesday, October 23rd

Wonder/Waystation

Thursday, October 24th

Embark/Enchant

Friday, October 25th

Echo/Equilibrium

Saturday, October 26th

Knowledge/Kaleidoscope

If you'd prefer to do without prompts, go for it. You can also use any of last year's prompts, as listed here.

How Do I Join In?

Between one and seven days during APW, make something related to fiction podcasts and acespec identity. It's that easy. It doesn't need to be polished, just creating something is more than enough.

If you're comfortable sharing them, you can, and can tag them with #ace podcast week, or even @ me here at @acepodcastweek. I'll be checking tags daily up until November 1st.

Some things you might consider include:

Visual art

Baking

Zines

Cosplay

Music

Fanfic

Poetry

Media analysis

Recommendation lists

Polls

Highlighting creators

Sharing headcanons

And whatever else might strike your fancy.

You can also look through all the brilliant entries we had last year in the #ace podcast week tag, or on this blog.

Creator Featurettes

Podcast creators and contributors who are acespec or have acespec characters are very welcome to put together little features of their characters and/or projects, which I'll reblog here.

Resources

There are plenty of acespec characters in audio fiction, and I've attached two lists below to get you started:

Questions & Queries

If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, or anything else in that realm, get in touch with me here. You can drop them in the comments, my DMs, or send me an ask. Be aware that I don't always see comments in my notes (wizard curse) though, so the latter two options are probably more reliable. Is there something I could be doing better? Let me know.

A list of asked and anticipated questions from our first APW can be found here, and will be updated as additional questions are asked.

[hinaypod]

So here's the thing about #BIPOCtober... I don't know if we can name ALL the BIPOC characters in Hi Nay because there's TOO MANY

but we can try

(also I'm joking, there's never too many, learn that now)

Mari Datuin - protagonist, 5 foot tall pansexual Filipina immigrant with babaylan heritage and inexplicably powerful magic that may be a problem down the line. She's the only one who seems capable of facing down the magic of the Elders - rich immortal occultists from the 1920s - and their Foci - cursed objects that cause supernatural death.

Detective [redacted] Donner - deuteragonist, a grim-faced, sharp-eyed, Jamaican-Canadian Detective with a horrific supernatural experience in childhood that put him on the path to investigating supernatural deaths with his partner,

Detective Richard "Rick" Murphy - a charming, handsome, hyper-competent, smart aleck of a detective who has Donner's back, and has an unfortunate bit of baggage we learn about later. He's gay, and of mixed Chinese heritage, and seems suspiciously unbothered by all the horrors, known to crack jokes in tense situations. Early in season 1, he forms a romantic relationship with

Ashvin Beeharee - a bisexual conman fake guru of Indian descent, from the island of Mauritius. He uses his fake guru persona to scam people and sell products, and is eventually horrified to learn he has real magic power??? And wants to help people??? And ends up joining the "Scooby Gang" after a horrific run-in with a vengeful ghost of an Elder.

Evelyn Wai - a conscientious young Chinese-Canadian University of Toronto student who's very good at research, and would make a great archivist. She encounters some supernatural threats early in the season and helps out where she can, becoming an honorary member of the group that the others feel the need to protect.

DJ In the Dark - a nonbinary DJ of Filipino heritage, DJ in the Dark runs an in-universe podcast show where they talk about or air stories from listeners. They're at first a "skeptic believer" of the supernatural, until they're targeted by a certain Elder after learning too much about the very real supernatural occurrences taking place in Toronto.

Mary-Anne Weekes - the only Black member of the Elders in the 1920s, and one of the few who apparently formed a conscience when they began siphoning power off of the random, violent deaths of innocent people. She was the daughter of a hotel tycoon, and a genius who created many spells, nearly peerless if not for the show's main villain - the mysterious Benefactor, who matched her spell for spell. Her romantic partner was a fellow Elder named Claudette-Jean, or CJ, who survives her into modern day.

"J", The Journalist - Bearing the pen name "James Callahan" and hiding his real name, J was a pansexual, Black Canadian journalist who dealt with the supernatural and was active from the 1960s to the late 1980s, before his sudden disappearance. He was clever, charming, and had a strong sense of justice, and had run-ins with the immortal Elders, where he was able to triumph due to quick thinking and access to his own magical item - a mysteriously powerful pocketwatch. With his knowledge of the Elders, he was able to write a "Book of Elders" which gives the main cast an edge against their enemies. He was unable to form a relationship with his partner, Detective Dooley, before his disappearance - though he sorely wanted to.

Jack Robin, or John Isaac Weekes - Mary-Anne's brother, who "died too young", not much is known about Jack Robin apart from his connection to J's strange magical pocketwatch (and accompanying magical black cat). He was effervescent, friendly, and his death affected Mary-Anne deeply. More is to be learned about his connection not only to his sister, or the strange pocketwatch, but to the son of the Elders' original leader, Sauvard, and the Benefactor himself. He did, after all, give him the name "Benefactor".

NOT PICTURED ABOVE:

Abe - An urbex ghost hunter who investigates the supernatural in Toronto, Abe has a few run-ins with the protagonists during his investigations after Mari rescues him from a hellmouth that almost kills him. Of Filipino descent, Abe's a bit of an eager beaver, and that gets him into one too many situations, but he means well, and shows his strength at the most surprising of times.

[bipoctober]

LIARS & LEECHES - #BIPOCtober Day 2

Your fear. It’s so delicious!

Grief. Anxiety. Terror. Tonya Wright felt it all after the tragic murders of her sister and brother-in-law in a random act of gun violence. Struggling to travel outside of her home, she now lives constantly on edge about perceived threats that seem to surround her. Retreating to the house her sister and brother-in-law once shared to process her grief, Tonya soon discovers that someone — or something — has followed her there. With the help of her best friend Natalie, and others she meets along the way, can Tonya overcome her fears before they completely consume her? The first original audio drama from Hemlock Creek Productions, “Liars & Leeches” delves deep into the complicated horrors of grief, trauma, resilience, and steadfast human determination to uncover the truth.

From @liarsandleechespod

I think the summary on the website does a decent job of describing what the main character Tonya goes through, but she is a black woman who loses her sister and brother in law unexpectedly in a mass shooting. As she struggles to overcome her grief, she discovers someone-or something- is following her.

She really goes through it over the course of the story, but through it all she is incredibly brave, insightful, and curious, and although she knows the importance of relying on her friends (both new and old) through the season, she is also incredibly tough, resilient and can stand up for herself.

The actor playing her (Kendell Byrd) won best leading performance in an audio drama at the New Jersey Web Fest in 2023 for her role as Tonya.

-

Grief, trauma, horror, and a protagonist going through it, I know how much many of you love that sort of a story~

Follow Liars and Leeches here on Tumblr and check them out wherever you listen to podcasts! Linking their site in the replies.

Hope you've been enjoying #BIPOCtober so far, show some love to your faves in the tags! We'll be slowly reblogging some posts over the week, but will reblog most of them at the end to give these features more attention.

Cheers!

[clonerightsagenda]

Honorable mentions for BIPOCtober: Canon characters of color from shows that either aren't BIPOC-led or I don't know the showrunners' identities, and/or characters who are not explicitly BIPOC but their VA is and there's strong textual evidence:

Isabel Lovelace from Wolf 359!!! While the creators are deliberately non-committal about character appearances, she is voiced by a Black VA and references Kwanzaa. Given her backstory details of hailing from Brooklyn and the spelling of her first and middle name (Isabel Sofia) I hc her as Afro-Latina, specifically Puerto Rican on her mom's side. What can I say about Isabel Lovelace that I have not already said on this blog. I love her.

Isabelle Powell (Isabelle...2!) from Greater Boston. Canonically Black, which is core to her character and storyline. While I recently discussed Greater Boston and The Silt Verses as two very intentional anti-capitalist shows, Greater Boston is way more purposeful about looking at the ways race is entangled with other societal systems of oppression and control. Isabelle has some of the most breath-taking monologues in the show. Please listen to her monologue on the Boston busing crisis starting at 26:30

Also this has all been girls so far because that's my brand but shoutout to Malik from World Gone Wrong! Poet, podcaster, and long-distance roommate extraordinaire.

[bekaterrier]

For day two of BIPOCtober, I'm shouting out @desperado-podcast!

Three misfits from Mexico, Haiti and Japan with connections to death gods from from their respective cultures try to survive and protect their heritage from modern-day crusaders (featuring magic, gods, witches, angels, and more). The world that Samy Souissi created is so rich and detailed!

When I made bracelets inspired by Desperado, it was one of the first times I experimented with coloured wire. I made three different versions, each with the same bead pattern but different wire colours.

Red wire for Elio/La Catrina and their blood powers.

Gold wire for Talia/Baron Samedi, God of the Party.

Black wire for Shinji and his spirit of Death.

[projectgnosis]

Season 2 covers for episodes currently out. Please check us out. We are always enthusiastic for more people to listen to our show.

Also shout out to @hinaypod for their podcast and their push for more BIPOC audio drama awareness this month.

Also shout to @themooncrownpod and @proserpinapark for Asian-led audio dramas currently out now and active. Will see if any more BIPOC-audio dramas are around for more shoutouts