#do any of my followers listen to ars paradoxica?

[thelaurenshippen]

I saw things here and there about BW a little while ago but didn’t see myself getting into a new podcast at that time. Well, today I saw your finale notice and thought, “Hey, I’ve got a room to declutter. This sounds like a good thing to listen to.”

Immediately, it’s so comforting, like listening to a hug. I’ve listened to TBS (three times??) and Ars Paradoxica so your voice is one familiar to me. And I just played Firewatch for the first time; listening to Whiskey’s radio calls reminds me of chatting with Delilah. I don’t know if I’ll be deciphering the morse code I’m hearing, but I’m interested in what I’d find if I did. There’s nothing like the zeitgeist of listening to/watching/reading something *as* it’s coming out, where you spend all day looking forward to the next little bit and trying to decipher everything you can. It makes me wish that I *had* been listening to BW for the past year. I think I’ll end up having to either go back on and relisten to these first few dozen to catch up on the puzzles and secrets or I’ll just do a full relisten in the future where I do everything then. It excites me.

One of my favorite stories I’ve read is a webcomic I followed as it was coming out. The story isn’t important to this ask, but it was very similar to BW in that every day, a single page of four panels was published. That was all. Bite-sized, but daily. And that story is still so special to me even as I know it forwards and back. I’m so happy to hear of the good experiences you had while making this. Everything you write is incredible. Thanks for sharing your stories with the world ❤️

ahhh thank you so much for this message!! I'm so glad you've gotten into the show and thank you for listening to TBS multiple times!! it always gives me big, indescribable feelings to hear that from folks.

I love that it's reminding you a bit of Firewatch, because I love that game so much!

there really is something so special in getting to follow a story regularly over a period of time. that webcomic sounds awesome--we don't have enough stuff that comes out regularly anymore! and I know that you may have missed the first year of Breaker Whiskey, but now you'll be aboard for any continuations in the future :)

thank you for your kind words about my writing, it really means so much to me <3

[pagesofkenna]

i started listening to ars paradoxica today and i got five episodes in, and its really interesting i definitely want to keep listening, but... i cant keep any of the characters straight in my head? and all the temporal jumping is throwing me off? not the plot time jumping, the thing where the audio suddenly jumps to a scene earlier or a couple days later or something. its definitely a relevant technique but now im five episodes in and i dont know who’s who or whats going on with the background mystery stuff

anyway so now im debating relistening to the first few episodes, or just powering through and seeing if i can figure it out along the way, and im wondering if im supposed to be lost because that’s a thing some stories do? or maybe it would be easier to follow along if i read transcripts except i dont like the idea of just sitting here reading/listening if i dont have to?

[danboman]

Podcasts

So my friend got into fiction podcasts during the pandemic, and because he and I are physically incapable of not sharing an interest, I am now hooked on them as well.  I’ve got twenty or so in my subscription queue right now.  Some I haven’t listened to yet; others are done and I keep them around in case I want to revisit or the creators use the feed to plug new projects; still others I’m caught up on or desperately hoping for more.  And since I’m feeling loquacious, I thought I’d share some reviews.

It’s worth noting, possibly, that it’s not as though I just discovered podcasts.  Hell, I co-hosted* a podcast in 2007, and when I started a data entry job in 2008 I listened to them for 40 hours a week.  But those were all information or entertainment-based:  comic book review shows like iFanboy, educational shows like Stuff You Missed In History Class, comedy shows like The Bugle.  I did get into Welcome to Night Vale, but when my day job stopped being full of free time, a Culling occurred and, until recently, I was down to only iFanboy as a regular listen.

Which brings me to my friend, and the first podcast he shoved down my throat.  I was bored, I was caught up on iFanboy, and I finally relented and asked him for a recommendation.  His immediate response: ars Paradoxica.

It’s very difficult to describe ars Paradoxica without getting into spoilers, but I’ll do my best.

aP is a hard scifi story about time travel, espionage, and the desperate attempt to do good when all your options are bad.  It’s about history and shifting cultures. It’s about friendship and found family.  It’s an incredibly intimate story and a sprawling epic simultaneously.  As it grows, it also becomes something very representational, which I appreciated.  The characters come from all sorts of backgrounds, tick every box, and do so in a context I’m not used to seeing.  It had my attention from the first episode, and when it ended I was heartbroken that there wouldn’t be any more (while simultaneously being very satisfied with the ending, of course).

Of particular note is the sound design, done to perfection by show runner and co-creator Mischa Stanton.  Everything from the audio quality to the ambient noises puts you in a specific time and place, and it’s no wonder his list of credits is a mile long.  The guy is good.

I also want to point out a couple of performers.  The entire cast is amazing, but Robin Gabrielli and Kristen DiMercurio (the latter being the lead) are particularly outstanding.  They embody their characters so completely that you genuinely forget you’re listening to fiction.  I fell in love with these fictional people I’ve never even seen, and was completely invested in their stories.  DiMercurio, in particular, is someone whose name on a project means I will most definitely be checking it out.

Part of the power of ars Paradoxica is that the next two podcasts on my list were just me following creators/cast members to their next projects, which led directly and indirectly to other shows.  The vast majority of my audio fiction library traces back, in some way, to the fact that I started with ars.  If you haven’t listened to it yet, do yourself a favor.

5 stars, two thumbs, already planning to listen again soon.

*”Winter Is Coming,” the first podcast about A Song of Ice and Fire.  Many followed, but we planted that flag, damnit.

[maandarinee]

what are all the podcasts you listen to?

anon I'm so glad you asked

Since it is a pretty long list including synopses (stolen from the podcast feed or website because I'm Bad at summaries and in some cases it's been a while since I listened) I'm going to put it under a cut.

I've separated the list into "Complete" (either finished or cancelled) and "Ongoing" podcasts. Some have additional comments by me. Current favorites are marked orange. My eternal beloved are Our Fair City and Wolf 359.

Complete

ars PARADOXICA: "When an experiment in a time much like our own goes horribly awry, Dr. Sally Grissom finds herself stranded in the past and entrenched in the activities of a clandestine branch of the US government. Grissom and her team quickly learn that there's no safety net when toying with the fundamental logic of the universe."

Blackwood: "Five years ago, Molly Weaver, Bryan Anderson, and Nathan Howell started a podcast focused on the local legend of a monster called The Blackwood Bugman. Quickly, the investigation grew out of their control, as they discovered that, not only are the legends seemingly true, many people in Blackwood have turned up dead or disappeared without a trace." --> [this feels like the Blair With Project, but as a podcast. Didn't get a second season due to no funding, but it works as a standalone]

Dreamboy: "Dane, a spun-out musician spending the winter in Cleveland, Ohio, has two main goals: keeping his job at the Pepper Heights Zoo and trying not to waste all his time on Grindr. What he doesn’t expect is to get swept into a story about dreams, about forevers, about flickering lights, about unexplained deaths, about relentless change, and about the parts of ourselves that we wish other people knew to look for. Oh, and also a murderous zebra." --> [very NSFW; does cool things with music! Didn't get a second season due to no funding, but it works as a standalone]

King Fall AM: "...centers on a lonely little mountain town's late-night AM talk radio show and its paranormal, peculiar happenings and inhabitants." --> [cancelled after 100 episodes, ends on a huge cliffhanger]

Our Fair City: "A campy, post-apocalyptic audio drama." --> [I know the description sounds like nothing but just trust me, I love it so much]

Steal the Stars: "...is a gripping noir science fiction thriller in 14 episodes: Forbidden love, a crashed UFO, an alien body, and an impossible heist unlike any ever attempted."

Stellar Firma: "...a weekly Science Fiction, Comedy podcast following the misadventures of Stellar Firma Ltd.'s highest born but lowest achieving planetary designer Trexel Geistman and his bewildered clone assistant David 7. Join them each episode as they attempt to take listener submissions and craft them into the galaxy's most luxurious, most expensive and most questionably designed bespoke planets. However, with Trexel's corporate shark of a line manager Hartro Piltz breathing down their necks and I.M.O.G.E.N., the station's omnipresent and omniinvasive stationwide A.I. monitoring those necks to within 3 decimal places, they'll be lucky to make it a week before being slurried and recycled into raw human resources." --> [semi-improvised, I thought I'd have a problem with the improv bit because that's not usually my thing, but no, I absolutely devoured this]

TANIS: "...is a serialized docudrama about a fascinating and surprising mystery: the myth of Tanis. Tanis is an exploration of the nature of truth, conspiracy, and information. Tanis is what happens when the lines of science and fiction start to blur." [+ spinoff The Last Movie] --> [I have no clue what the hell is going on here]

The Black Tapes: "...is a serialized docudrama about one journalist's searc for truth, her enigmatic subject's mysterious past, and the literal and figurative ghosts that haunt them both."

The Magnus Archives: "...is a weekly horror fiction anthology podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join new head archivist Jonathan Sims as he attempts to bring a seemingly neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date, converting them to audio and supplementing them with follow-up work from his small but dedicated team. Individually, they are unsettling. Together they begin to form a picture that is truly horrifying because as they look into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back…"

Time:Bombs: "...a new audio drama podcast about the hilarious world of bomb disposal. Ride along with EOD technician Simon Teller on the busiest night of the year for him and his team - when business is, quite literally, booming."

Wolf 359: "Life's not easy for Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. He's stuck on a scientific survey mission of indeterminate length, 7.8 light years from Earth. His only company on board the station are stern mission chief Minkowski, insane science officer Hilbert, and Hephaestus Station's sentient, often malfunctioning operating system Hera. He doesn't have much to do for his job other than monitoring static and intercepting the occasional decades-old radio broadcast from Earth, so he spends most of his time creating extensive audio logs about the ordinary, day-to-day happenings within the station. But the Hephaestus is an odd place, and life in extremely isolated, zero gravity conditions has a way of doing funny things to people's minds. Even the simplest of tasks can turn into a gargantuan struggle, and the most ordinary-seeming things have a way of turning into anything but that." --> [starts funny, turns very intense]

Ongoing

Alba Salix, Roya Physician (+ The Axe & Crown): "A witch, her apprentice, and her fairy herbalist treat the ills of a fairy-tale kingdom." + "Gubbin the troll tavernkeeper deals with his clueless new landlord, his shady niece, and some new competition."

Archive 81: "A found footage horror podcast about ritual, stories, and sound."

Arden: "A (fictional) true crime podcast about cold cases and the reporter and detective who try to solve them."

Brimstone Valley Mall: "The year is 1999. Lurking somewhere between Hot Topic and the food court, five misfit demons from Hell kill time inciting sin in a suburban shopping mall. When the lead singer of their band goes mysteriously missing, the demons only have two weeks to find him before they play the biggest gig of the millennium - or face the wrath of Satan herself."

CARAVAN: "First rule of Wound Canyon: No one who gets in, ever gets out. So when a brilliant, ghostly specter flies through the sky amid the rain and lightning, Samir stumbles off a steep cliff and into a hidden world, one in which demons, vampires, and all other manner of paranormal creatures take sanctuary." --> [also pretty NSFW and horny in general]

Death by Dying: "The Obituary Writer of Crestfall, Idaho finds himself deeply in over his head as he investigates a series of strange and mysterious deaths… when he is supposed to simply be writing obituaries. Along the way he encounters murderous farmers, man-eating cats, haunted bicycles, and a healthy dose of ominous shadows." --> [I had to stop listening to this in public because it kept making me undignified laugh and snort noises]

Desperado: "Blood magic, Voodoo magic, old gods, new gods: We've got it all! Follow the story of misfits from all over the world, as they try to survive and protect their heritage from modern-day crusaders."

EOS 10: "Doctors in space, a deposed alien prince, a super gay space pirate and a fiery nurse who'll help you win your bar fight."

Girl In Space: "Abandoned on a dying ship in the farthest reaches of known space, a young scientist fights for survival (and patience with the on-board A.I.). Who is she? No one knows. But a lot of dangerous entities really want to find out. Listen as the story unfolds for science, guns, trust, anti-matter, truth, beauty, inner turmoil, and delicious cheeses. It’s all here. In space."

Janus Descending: "...follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place. Told from two alternating perspectives, Janus Descending is an experience of crossing timelines, as one character describes the nightmare from end to beginning, and the other, from beginning to the end." --> [absolutely harrowing horror]

Love and Luck: "...is a fictional radio play podcast, told via voicemails and set in present day Melbourne, Australia. A slice of life queer romance story with a touch of magic, it follows the relationship between two men, Jason and Kane, as their love grows both for each other and their community." --> [soft and gay, feels like a warm hug]

Potterless: "Join Mike Schubert, a grown man reading the Harry Potter series for the first time, as he sits down with HP fanatics to poke fun at plot holes, make painfully incorrect predictions, and bask in the sassiness of the characters." --> [the only non-fiction podcast on the list]

Primordial Deep: "When a long extinct sea creature washes up on the shores of Coney Island, marine biologist Dr. Marella Morgan is contacted by a secret organization to investigate the origins of the creature’s sudden and unnatural resurgence. Soon, she and a team of experts find themselves living on the research station The Tiamat, traveling along the abyssal plains as they search for answers far below the waves. But there are dangers in these ancient waters. Reawakened, prehistoric monsters are rising from the deep -- jaws wide and waiting, and in the darkness, something is stirring."

Red Valley: "No one at Overhead Industries wants to talk about defunct research station Red Valley, and account man Warren Godby is out of his depth. When he meets Gordon Porlock, a disgruntled archivist with a bag of tapes from the station’s last known occupant, they will begin a journey to the limits of experimental science, confront horror and trauma from the past, present and future, and try to remember the cheat codes from Sonic the Hedgehog 2."

Rusty Quill Gaming: "An actual play podcast following a mixed ability group of comedians, improvisers, gamers, and writers as they play through the extended, tabletop roleplaying campaign Erasing the Line, an original game world of the GM’s crafting." --> [took me a while to get into because I have trouble focusing on non-scripted things, but eventually I got really hooked on the plot and attached to the characters. This podcast is really fucked up at times if you think about it]

SAYER: "A narrative fiction podcast set on Earth’s man-made second moon, Typhon. The eponymous SAYER is a highly advanced, self-aware AI created to help acclimate new residents to their new lives, and their new employment with Ærolith Dynamics." --> [feels like Welcome to Night Vale but narrated by GLaDOS from Portal]

StarTripper!!: "Join Feston Pyxis on a road-trip through the cosmos, as he leaves behind his old life in search of the best and wildest experiences the galaxy has to offer!"

The Amelia Project: "...is a secret agency that fakes its clients' deaths, then lets them reappear with a brand new identity! A black comedy full of secrets, twists... and cocoa."

The Big Loop: "...a biweekly anthology series. Each episode is a self-contained narrative exploring the strange, the wonderful, the terrifying, and the heartbreaking. Stories of finite beings in an infinite universe." --> [I don't like anthologies, except this one]

The Bright Sessions: "Dr. Bright provides therapy for the strange and unusual; their sessions have been recorded for research purposes." --> [think X-Men, but with therapy instead of a school]

The Deca Tapes: "Recordings have surfaced of ten people that are locked into the same space together. We don’t know where they are, or if they'll get out. But the answers must be somewhere on these tapes."

The Silt Verses: "Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god, travel up the length of their deity’s great black river, searching for holy revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories."

The White Vault: "Follow the collected records of a repair team sent to Outpost Fristed in the vast white wastes of Svalbard and unravel what lies waiting in the ice below."

Tides: "...is the story of Dr. Winifred Eurus, a xenobiologist trapped on an unfamiliar planet with hostile tidal forces. She must use her wits, sarcasm and intellectual curiosity to survive long enough to be rescued. But there might be more to life on this planet than she expected." --> [think The Martian, but on a water planet]

Unwell, 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."

VAST Horizon: "Nolira is an agronomist tasked with establishing agriculture in a new solar system, but when she wakes up on a now- empty colony ship, the whole of her plan disappears. The ship has been set adrift, with numerous mission-critical problems requiring immediate attendance outside of her area of expertise. Nolira is aided by the ship’s malfunctioning AI, which acts as her confidant and companion during the fight for survival."

Victoriocity: "Even Greater London, 1887. In this vast metropolis, Inspector Archibald Fleet and journalist Clara Entwhistle investigate a murder, only to find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy of impossible proportions."

We Fix Space Junk: "...follows seasoned smuggler Kilner and reluctant fugitive Samantha as they travel the galaxy, dodging bullets and meeting strange and wonderful beings as they carry out odd jobs on the fringes of the law."

Welcome to Night Vale: "Twice-monthly community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, where every conspiracy theory is true. Turn on your radio and hide."

Within the Wires: "Stories told through found audio from an alternate universe."

Wooden Overcoats: "Rudyard Funn and his equally miserable sister Antigone run their family's failing funeral parlour, where they get the body in the coffin in the ground on time. But one day they find everyone enjoying themselves at the funerals of a new competitor - the impossibly perfect Eric Chapman! With their dogsbody Georgie, and a mouse called Madeleine, the Funns are taking drastic steps to stay in the business…" --> [one of THE funniest podcasts I have ever listened to]

[dramatic-audio]

Sorry if this is asking too much but do you have any good audio drama recs for shows staring women, especially queer women

Honestly I don’t have a lot and that’s on me. There are a bunch on my list that I haven’t gotten around to yet because of the quarantine blues, but here’s what I have:

Greater Boston: an ensemble show, but with women (including queer women) in some of the lead roles. This is one of my favorite audio dramas of all time. Semi-realistic absurdist comedy/drama, follows interconnecting stories of individuals living in the Boston area and explores the different ways those stories intersect. Charlotte and Gemma are some of the only married lesbian rep I can think of in audio dramas and I love them dearly.

Girl in Space: sci fi show about a girl who lives alone on a spaceship. I often recommend this one to fans of Wolf 359 or similar shows exploring themes of loneliness and humanity. Only one season is out right now, but I find the lead to be extremely charming and the story is really interesting.

Within the Wires: each season of this show tells a different story, but 3/4 of the seasons have centered around women and 2/4 of them are confirmed wlw. A series of found footage stories told about an alternate history where cultural notions such as national borders and the family unit have been done away with. WTW can be hard to listen to sometimes due to its political themes as well as the lack of hand-holding as far as putting together the story, but it is a masterclass in innovative audio storytelling. I highly recommend it.

Alice isn’t Dead: wlw lead! Americana horror story about a woman who goes in search of her missing wife. It’s a single narrator story.

Directive Season 2 has a female lead. Each season is really short (like 6 20min episodes). S2 serves as sort of a prequel to S1, so explaining what S2 is about would be a bit of a spoiler. It’s sci fi show that feels a bit like a Twilight Zone episode though, and both seasons explore themes of loneliness, isolation, love, and sacrifice. 

Passenger List: a short form drama with a Vietnamese woman lead. Follows a woman trying to uncover the mystery of a disappeared plane and find her missing brother. Strong TWs for in-universe racism (especially Islamophobia as it relates to American ideas of terrorism). 

ars PARADOXICA: ace woman lead! Science fiction story about a woman who accidentally invents time travel. I have a hard time recommending this to people who aren’t really into sci-fi stories because it is pretty confusing to follow (given that it is a time travel story) but ultimately it was fun to listen to even if you don’t really follow every beat.

The Bright Sessions: also an ensemble show, but with many women (including queer women) in some lead roles. Urban fantasy/scifi story about individuals with superpowers who also go to therapy. I also have a hard time recommending this one sometimes because the ending was really weak and the spin-off shows/books have fallen pretty flat, but I think the majority of this show still stands pretty well on its own.

A couple of other shows that I haven’t had a chance to listen to myself:

Harlem Queen [I listened to the first episode and really liked it, I’m excited to get to listen to more]

Hit the Bricks

The Far Meridian [I listened to the first handful of episodes and it wasn’t for me, but you may like it!]

Mabel

Venture Maidens [ttrpg podcast]

Vast Horizon

Unwell Podcast

Sorry I couldn’t be of a ton more help Anon but this post is an open invitation for my followers to recommend both of us some new audio dramas with female leads!

[theradioghost]

I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.

The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:

Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.

I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.

Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.

Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.

Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!

Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.

SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.

Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)

Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.

Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.

The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.

The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.

Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.

Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.

Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!

The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.

What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.

Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.

Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.

or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)

[transarchivist]

do you have any podcasts recs? I want to listen to archive 81 but I need some backup and I've already listened to the more "famous" ones, like all of them I binge podcasts like they pay me for me it ajsjjshfje

!!!! ok i'm sorry it's taken me a hot minute to get to you BUT i think i have a good amount of reccomendations :o

these first few are kinda "famous" but i thought i'd point em out just in case! some of them ended a few years ago and they were more well known back when they were running

wolf 359: gotta point this one out juuuust in case you haven't listened to it! amazing sci fi... would drama be the right word? it's very intense and has some really interesting meditations on morality and the self But it's also so extremely funny. complete, ended in 2017

ars paradoxica: america during the cold war, the red scare, intense government conspiracies.... And Time Travel! complicated but amazing plot and a big cast- i would recommend not pausing and listening to something else, it gets complex! mischa stanton directed it so you Know it has stellar sound design (added bonus: lgbt main characters) complete, ended in 2018

the bright sessions: people with superpowers go to therapy! plus: shadowy capitalistic conspiracies, amazing romances and phenomenal character development! i'm not a fan of romances and i Loved the ones here (it's not heavily romance focused though!) (added bonus: lgbt main characters + main lgbt romance) complete, ended in 2018. i think a spin off series is running rn tho!

the adventure zone: this isn't an audio drama, it's an actual play d&d podcast! the first season (balance) is amazing- hilarious and heart wrenching! (the heart wrenching takes a while to kick in but MAN it's so good) the first season ended in 2017. i haven't finished the second big season (amnesty) but i loved what i did listen to, same with the currently running season (graduation)

sayer: starts off as sinister night vale but with an ai and in space, evolves into a complicated save-the-world plot concerning several ais. it's in second person and it's Amazing! lots of meditations on the self and personhood. currently on hiatus but will be ending when it resumes

alice isn't dead: from the people who did night vale! starts as a trucker trying to find her wife, evolves to include shadowy government conspiracies and the power of regular people banding together. ending made me tear up it's really good! it's Big on the horror (the first ep is the only podcast that's ever truly scared me and it continues to scare the shit out of me to this day) but its Extremely Good Horror. very americana too! complete, ended in 2018.

ok that's the more well known ones out of the way, i think? i'm not too confident about how well known some of them are nowadays ^^' all i can say is that i heard abt them frequently in 2016. now onto the lesser known ones ! the ones that are complete are generally pretty short listens (relatively- they're still a good handful of hours at the least)

zero hours: by the wolf 359 people, it's a short anthology that released all at once last year. to pharaphrase/quote the official blurb: each episode is a take on the end of the world, whether the apocalypse is planetary or personal. each episode is separated by 99 years, starting in the past (1722) reaching the present and then overtaking it. surprisingly hopeful ending, made me <:')

i am in eskew: you've probably heard me holler about this before- it follows the trials and tribulations of david ward, who lives in the nightmarish and otherworldly city of eskew. 30 episodes long and complete, with a phenomenal ending! i can't rave about this enough i could Keep talking but i'll cut myself short. it's horror and it's damn good horror! does deal with extremely heavy topics, please be careful!

janus descending: sci fi horror with what has to be the most interesting formatting i've seen in ages: the two points of view alternate each episode... but one is chronological and one is backwards! amazingly done, keeps you guessing until the end! complete. follows peter and chel as they undertake a survey mission on an alien planet

midnight radio: made by @/theradioghost! big on the idea that "all ghost stories are love stories". a 1950s radio hostess gets letters from a fan. horror, big on the 1950s aesthetics, focus on the relationship between one and one's hometown. lovely ending! it's sapphic too :]

the far meridian: by the same people who did ars paradoxica! follows peri, a bit of a hermit who has extreme social anxiety, who lives in a lighthouse that suddenly begins to teleport. each morning peri wakes up and the lighthouse is in a different place! there are like... some horror elements? kinda? but it's not intense imo. it mainly follows peri learning to cope with her anxiety & helping others, with each episode usually having a one off encounter (usually pretty strange!) often has wholesome vibes. s3 is currently in production and is the final season. plus: lgbt characters, and kinda spoilers but peri uses a cane later on!

old gods of appalachia: honestly it's what it says on the tin! a collection of short stories set in historical appalachia that deal with entities beyond human understanding. they're good about trigger warnings, but it's Horror. produced by actual appalachians! stellar music, a Lot strong female characters, and a good amount of lgbt rep! killer music!! it's currently releasing but the latest short story is finished. (do listen in order though!)

the deep vault: by the archive 81 team! in an "almost-post-apocalyptic" america a group of friends chase a rumor about a secret hidden vault, only to Find it! follows the group as they traverse the deep vault. horror, actively points out capitalism a Lot, definetly has an interesting ending! amazing sound design, which is to be expected from dan powell!

tides: the official blurb is short and sweet: "tides is the story of dr. winnifred eurus, a xenobiologist stuck on an unfamiliar planet with hostile tidal forces". extremely snarky and endearing main character and fascinating worldbuilding! i don't know the status of s2, but s1 was really good!

limetown: follows one lia haddock, a public radio reporter, as she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened at limetown. all she knows is that 10 years prior, over 300 men, women and children vanished. horror, mystery, and some sci fi elements. presented in a found footage kinda way. i really enjoyed it, especially the first season. complete.

mabel: horror (big on the haunted house type specifically), sapphic romance, fun take on the fair folk/fae! follows anna limon, an in home carer who's trying to get in touch with her client's estranged granddaughter. evolves into a big fae-horror-romance-thing! really interesting romance tbh. amazing imagery and prose- lots of prose + almost poetry, but it's really good i promise. currently on a post season hiatus

spines: horror but it evolves past just horror in an interesting way (keeping the horror bits, of course). follows wren, who woke up in an attic surrounded by the remains of a cult ritual without any memories of who she is or what she was doing. she searches for answers, encountering creepy shit along the way. really interesting take on the super-secret-organization-that's-always-been-there trope! really good ending. one of the main characters is nonbinary + there's other lgbt main characters.

mirrors: by the people who did spines. also starts as horror but evolves past just horror (it's also sci fi). follows three women in three different centuries who are all experiencing the same haunting. phenomenal take on ghosts! like i can't articulate how cool this angle on ghosts is! s3 is supposed to start this year :] one of the main characters is sapphic, and her wife is a supporting character.

the six disappearances of ella mccray: also by the people who did spines and mirrors. evolves past just horror but keeps more of the horror elements? follows the 6 povs of the people who witnessed the surreal disappearance of ella mccray. each saw something different and surreal, and as they search for her, surreal things start happening to them. unsure abt the status of s3 but s1 and s2 are really good! lgbt main characters, including a trans lesbian (played by a trans woman!)

the bridge: horror. follows the crew of watchtower 10 on the transcontinental bridge that spans across the atlantic ocean. i listened to it back in like 2016-2017 so my memory is hazy, but i remember really enjoying it! currently on hiatus.

within the wires: sci fi... horror..? i listened to the first season a few years ago and enjoyed it and i've continued to hear really good things. it's by the people who make night vale! my memory isn't great but iirc the first season is a sort of romance that's formatted as a set of relaxation/meditation cassettes. it's a few seasons in and i think each is generally self contained, im unsure if it's currently running or not

the orbiting human circus of the air: also by the night vale people! again i listened to this a few years ago so im hazy. follows julian the janitor who works at a radio station that broadcasts from the top of the eiffel tower! surreal but in a wholesome way, iirc! i remember tearing up with happy tears at the s1 finale ^^' really good music! i think the second(?) season ended recently

stellar firma: i've only listened to a handful of episodes, but i've liked what i've heard. sci fi improv comedy that follows the newly made clone david 7 and the mess that is trexel geistman as they try and design custom planets. i think it's currently running but i dunno

rusty quill gaming: also another one that i've only listened to a few episodes of. actual play pathfinder (basically d&d) podcast set on an alternate earth. alex newall (martin's voice actor) is the dm. i've heard really good things from a lot of people! i think it's currently running but again i don't know for sure

right! that's. that's what i got.

i mentioned @/theradioghost earlier (shes behind midnight radio) but i would absolutely recommend looking at her rec list tag! she has impeccable taste

[peccolias]

Do you have any podcasts youd recommend? I've been listening to TMA and am caught up, otherwise the only other ones i listen to are mcelroy podcasts. Do you happen to have any podcasts you like and would just rec. In general?

(Updated 8/25/20)

HECK YEAH I do! For you and anyone else who’s looking for something new, keeping in mind I lean towards the horror genre, but here’s a mixed bag:

Podcasts I have finished/caught up on/can fully rec:

Welcome to Night Vale (first podcast I ever listened to, and the only one I listened to for a long time. Mixed radio show/narrative fiction style with a real cozy comforting sort of spooky atmosphere and there are so many E M O T I O N S. Probably THE most well-known, if you haven’t listened yet, definitely give it a try)

The Magnus Archives (you already said this one, but it’s very good horror and everyone should give it a chance. It’s pretty much the flipside of WTNV, with plenty of mystery, intrigue and creeping dread. Don’t let the first 20 or so eps fool you; it isn’t an anthology and the plot spirals deeper and deeper and it gets pretty depressing sometimes actually)

Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery (You want an explicitly mixed black female wlw lead who gets a Latina gf?? Explicit they/them NB rep?? Spooky queerness?? A haunted small town boarding house with ghosts and weird doors?? And a celery festival?? This one's for you. Oh there's also a cult. So far it's a great balance of uneasy creepiness and good slice of life with a full cast of colorful characters, and the town's name slaps. Mt. Absalom?? Hello?? Has serious moments that will hurt you, too)

Limetown (COMPLETE. short thriller/mystery type, interesting story about an entire small community that goes missing, has a TV series now I think?)

Wolf 359 (COMPLETE. AMAZING radio drama one of my good friends who always recs good things rec’d to me and now I rec to YOU. you won’t regret listening if you like great stories and upbeat sci fi comedies that go horribly, horribly wrong. IN SPACE.)

I Am In Eskew (COMPLETE. Really good casual yet seriously fucked up foray into Lovecraftian psychological horror centering around a living city called Eskew and its horrible and equally despondent occupants and occurrences. Follows two voiced characters whose paths eventually converge. It's sort of depressing and hurt my heart sometimes for the sheer hopelessness, but it's worth the journey.)

Podcasts I like but have not caught up on:

Old Gods of Appalachia (old country american horror anthology)

King Falls AM (cozy little small town late night radio show with a colorful cast of characters and plenty of spooks)

Wrong Station (vintage radio show style horror anthology based on old TV and radio shows of the same flavor. but modern.)

The Lost Cat Podcast (Lighthearted horror (yeah it exists) and existentialism revolving around the narrator and his lost cat and many glasses of wine. There are many cats. I mean a lot. If you don't want depressing scary horror but still want to step into a world of kooky spooky Eldritch supernatural stuff and relevant musical interludes per episode, this is the way to go. I'm not very far along but it's a fun time.)

The Bridge (interesting setting and story premise. It’s a whole system of bridges across the Atlantic. come on. oh, but make sure you find the right one. it isn’t the talk show about politics and news)

Rusty Quill Gaming (had a hankering for familiar voices during the TMA hiatus and since this has some TMA voice actors in it I gave it a try. First rpg podcast I’ve listened to, but I fell in love with their campaign and characters)

Podcasts I have NOT listened to but they look good/I’ve heard things/they’re by the same creators of series I enjoy:

Dreamboy (Night Vale Presents)

Alice Isn’t Dead (Night Vale Presents)

Within the Wires (Night Vale Presents)

Stellar Firma (Rusty Quill) 

Zero Hours (Wolf 359 creator/cast)

ars Paradoxica (friend who rec’d Wolf 359 to me mentioned this one so I trust it)

Death By Dying

The White Vault 

The Bright Sessions

The Black Tapes

Blackwood

Archive 81

Sayer

Wooden Overcoats

The Penumbra Podcast (I hear EXCELLENT things about this one)

The Adventure Zone and other McElroy podcasts (more of a note to self. I really need to start listening to them boys)

–

That’s about it, that’s my current lineup for listening and as many as I know. Y’all feel free to reblog with more recs or more info on the ones I haven’t listened to. 

Hope you find something you enjoy, anon!

[smallmediumproblems]

Big List of Podcast Recs

I felt a need to share. I’m going to skip over Penumbra and all the Nightvale Presents shows simply because I feel like everyone has either heard of or tried them at this point. I’m also going to assume that if you’re near my blog you listen to the Magnus Archives and at least one other Rusty Quill podcast, so, if you don’t, do that. Do that right now. Tags used as follows: Completed (💯), Is it gay (🌈)

I put the full descriptions under a cut so it doesn’t clog your dash but here’s the short list:

Note: These are mostly in alphabetic order except for Wolf 359, which is at the top because it is one of my all-time favorites. As much as I love all the other podcasts on this list, I would recommend it over any one of them.

Wolf 359 (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, comedy, mystery elements

The Alexandria Archives - Mild horror, comedy, fantasy

Archive 81 (🌈) - Horror, sci-fi/fantasy, adventure and some dark comedy

Ars Paradoxica (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, comedy, political thriller, drama

Arden (💯) - Comedy, “true” crime mystery

Blackwood (💯) - Mystery, mild horror

The Bridge (🌈I think, don’t exactly remember) - Horror, mystery, light comedy

The Bright Sessions (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, drama, occasional suspense

Congeria (💯) - Thriller, mystery

Death by Dying (💯) - Dark comedy, fantasy, mystery

Girl in Space - Sci-fi, comedy, drama

LifeAfter (💯) - Sci-fi, mystery, drama

The Message (💯) - Sci-fi, mystery

Midnight Marinara - Horror

Our Fair City (💯) - Sci-fi, comedy, drama, horror elements

The White Vault (💯) - Horror, found audio

Wooden Overcoats (🌈) - Comedy, drama, more comedy, seriously this show is really funny

Wolf 359 (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, comedy, mystery elements

In the deepest reaches of space, research ship Hephaestus is staffed by a hapless communications officer, his uptight boss, a computer program with a chip on her shoulder, and a doctor with the worst bedside manner possible. Do they get along? Absolutely not. Are they an effective team? Also no. Is it funny to listen to them try? Most definitely.

The Alexandria Archives - Mild horror, comedy, fantasy

A college radio host chronicles the misadventures of her variously occult peers. Features “selections from the archives,” short-format scary stories that, while lightly referencing a consistent lore, mostly stand on their own.

Archive 81 (🌈) - Horror, sci-fi/fantasy, adventure and some dark comedy

A newly-hired archivist at a shady government facility stumbles across an entire parallel dimension’s worth of occult magic, science fiction, and high conspiracy. His bosses suck, but the monsters are surprisingly chill, which is good for our archivist, because he seems to be one of them.

Ars Paradoxica (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, comedy, political thriller, drama

Time travel shenanigans set in America during the Cold War, following the misadventures of the scientist who accidentally invented the technology and brought it back in time from the 21st century. I’d say she struggles to fit in despite her incessant wise-cracking and thirst for pop-culture, but she makes absolutely no attempts to stifle either, ever, under any circumstance.

Arden (💯)  - Comedy, “true” crime mystery

An overzealous journalist and a private investigator with a flair for the dramatic try their hand at a true crime podcast, investigating the closed murder of a teenaged celebrity. Their biggest challenge lies in putting aside their personal differences and putting up with the bizarre whims of their boss, who is both obscenely wealthy and absolutely out of touch with reality.

Blackwood (💯)  - Mystery, mild horror

A crack team of teenaged detectives investigate a cryptid from their hometown, but uncover a much larger mystery that they are all much closer to than they first realized.

The Bridge - Horror, mystery, light comedy

A remote outpost providing traffic reports and sweet, sweet tunes for the trans-Atlantic highway (which is a thing) is staffed exclusively by people with dark and mysterious pasts. Especially the DJ. Features eldritch sea monsters, a scary amusement park, and what I’m pretty sure are ghosts.

The Bright Sessions (💯,🌈) - Sci-fi, drama, occasional suspense

Plenty of people lead healthier lives thanks to their friendly neighborhood therapist. Some of those people have superpowers. Granted, that’s not the only reason they’re there, but it helps to have a specialist.

Congeria (💯) - Thriller, mystery

A private investigator is called on to find a missing girl who isn’t what she seems, facing off against mad scientists, rogue assassins, and a death cult who are after the same target.

Death by Dying (💯) - Dark comedy, fantasy, mystery

The obituary writer of Crestfall, Idaho finds himself doing a good deal of detective work for his job, both to satisfy his own curiosity and to ease the minds of his surviving clients. Fortunately, Death herself is there to help.

Girl in Space - Sci-fi, comedy, drama

After being stranded alone on a research vessel for most of her adult life, the surviving scientist of an apparently doomed mission is accosted by the outside world in just the worst way possible. She’s forced to simultaneously confront a corrupt paramilitary complex, navigate unstructured social interactions, and uncover the mystery of how exactly her former crewmates - who happen to have been her parents - met their demise.

LifeAfter (💯) - Sci-fi, mystery, drama

A young software engineer is coerced into committing corporate espionage by the digitally recreated ghost of his dead girlfriend. Unsurprisingly, greater things are afoot, and he grapples with the decision of whether to dig further or keep his head down.

The Message (💯) - Sci-fi, mystery

A team of scientists try to decipher the meaning of a mysterious signal from outer space. A little later than any of them would have liked, they discover that exposure to the signal can cause devastating brain damage, meaning that they have to work under quarantine and on a bit of a time crunch.

Midnight Marinara - Horror

Dramatic readings of a broad variety of creepypasta and similar internet horror. The twist is, they’re adapted to real-time narratives in the style of your favorite radio shows; no narrators here!

Our Fair City (💯) - Sci-fi, comedy, drama, horror elements

In the distant future, in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, mankind - or, at least, as much of mankind will fit into Hartford, Connecticut - lives in a gothic, campy, 1950′s-style steampunk dystopia that is about to be turned upside down. The city struggles not to collapse under the weight of its several mad scientists, a rebellion led by plumbers, and no fewer than three separate apocalypses.

The White Vault (💯)  - Horror, found audio

A repair team heads to Outpost Fristed, located in the most remote portion of the polar icecap. The darkness that they find there threatens to destroy them in every conceivable way.

Wooden Overcoats (🌈) - Comedy, drama, more comedy

A funeral home director struggles to keep his spot on the island of Piffling Vale against the competition of a second funeral home that has just opened up. His nemesis is handsome, charming, and all-around almost irrationally likable, but our hero is ready to pull out the stops on as many hare-brained schemes as it takes to beat him.

Honorable mentions:

Bubble (Lighthearted sci-fi comedy)

King Falls AM (Drama, comedy, mystery, sci-fi)

Mabel (Fantasy, suspense, romance??)🌈

Spines (Horror/sci-fi, mystery)🌈

Within the Wires (Sci-fi, horror elements, suspense, romance)🌈

[queenoftheantz]

I love wolf359 & TAZ! Do you have any podcast recs? I really rec Turncloaks, it's p much my life rn lol

Oh DO I!?!

yes, I do.

Here are some (in no particular order):

1. Wolf 359 (of course). A small crew is on a far away space station, scanning deep space for alien life. It’s humor, action, conspiracies, drama... so well written, fantastic soundtrack and great sound design. The voices are easy to dsitinguish and the actors really great!

2. It Makes A Sound. A small weird podcast of 9 episodes. It’s about a woman, finding an old cassette tape from her childhood, and her quest to listen to the songs on it. This is a weird one, and many are put off by the start, but guys. Before you judge, get to episode 5. It’s a lovely small story about memory, childhood, nostalgia, and places that hold memories.

3. Welcome to Nightvale. A classic. Listen to a radiohost reporting on his very special little town, and get to know the people and.. other things... that live in it! It’s long, but fun, some episodes almost meditation, and Cecil’s voice is just so pleansant.

4. TAZ (also of course). You have to get past the first chapter where they sort of warm up, but it slowly becomes both a fun improv audio drama, silly and easygoing, and a genuinely sweet story with lots of feelings.

5. Girl in Space. I just listened to this one, and it was a pleasure. It’s not done yet, but it’s fun, curious and easy to listen to! On a withering space station, one girl is surviving together with the AI and the star they circle. Until they get company.

6. King Falls AM. This one is a bit special to recommend, because if I’m being honest, I wasn’t hooked from the start. It was kind of fun, but I felt it wasn’t super good, occasionally a bit cringey, until like episode 35. Then I was a bit invested in the characters. Then around episode 45 I was intrigued by the direction of the story. THEN EPISODE 68. HOOOOO BOY. So yeah listen it’s fun and gets better, it’s like Gravity Falls but... horny.

7. The Bright Sessions. I have recommended this to many friends who LOVED IT. It’s therapy sessions for people with superpowers, and it’s very nice, and well done. It just recently finished too.

8. Alice isn’t dead. A truck driver is looking for her wife, and uncovering the creepy and unsettling things that goes on under the surface. It’s a very good story, and just creepy enough!

9. Ars Paradoxica. I felt like the first season was a bit slow, but it really picked up pace and the last two season were really nice! Scientist accidentally invents time travel as she is flung back to the 1940′s. There, she and her new (old?) team start working on controlling this invention. It’s all about time travel, and focuses on parallell timelines and universes rather than always closing loops.

10. EOS10. It’s sort of hospital comedy in space, with aliens and all that. It’s pretty fun, a bit uneven in sound quality, but with some loveable characters, and will soon be out of hiatus.

11. Penumbra. Penumbra has some fun concepts. Their flagship is Juno Steel, a noir detective on a futuristic Mars, but personally, I’m almost more invested in the Second Citadel now, a story about... unconventional knights. There’s hints of Lizard/Scientist/knight ot3 which is just lovely. I’m not a fan of their sound design, I feel like it often gets a bit messy and hard to follow for me, but they are slowly getting better, so it can be worth a listen! (there’s a remake of the frist juno steel episodes, the murderous mask, and PLEASE listen to those insted of the early versions)

12. Within the wires, season 1. I really enjoyed season 1, but season 2 just didn’t stick with me. Season 1 can be listened to standalone though. It’s a number of relaxation cassettes, with recorded exercises that you are being walked through. But of course, there are other messages underneath.

My tops are Wolf, Taz, WTNV, IMAS, Girl in space and King falls probably!

[allisoinreynolds]

what podcasts do you like?

ok! so! yeah theres these:

the strange case of starship iris: probably my favourite, its about a biologist whose ship has an accident and ends up joining another ship. its just really really good, i dont wanna spoil anything accidentaly but like: i love it.

the penumbra podcast: my other favourite one. anyway. it follows juno steel, a pi in hyperion city, mars. theres also another storlines, like one called the second citadel which is basically fantasy and appears a lot in their second season parallel to the juno steel stories. this one is really popular but honestly its….. good. its really good.

ars paradoxica: currently listening to this, but i like it so far, it follows a woman who accidentally time travels back to the 1940s while the second world war is happening. i cant say a lot because i am still in s1 but its good so far.

the amelia project: tells the story about an agency who can fake their clients deaths. this is nice too! it only has one season right now, but s2 is coming out soon, and i liked it.

alice isn’t dead: follows a trucker as she searches for her missing wife. its by the same people who make welcome to night vale, and its really good. it does have some elements of horror, tho, maybe. i cant really tell because i wasnt scared by it, but yeah i think i remember people mentioning it. (also they dont have tw in their descriptions of the episodes, i just checked, but i dont remember if they give any warnings before the ep starts, so theres that. i think its really good if that doesnt bother you, though)

lesser gods: follows the five youngest people on earth in a future where humans are unable to reproduce and humanity is dying, as someone seems to start targeting them. i think its good? its not my favourite, i always feel like there’s something missing but i cant tell what, but lately it got more interesting, so. yeah, i did like it just fine, i would recc it before some other stuff ive heard.

limetown: follows reporter lia haddock as she tries to find out what happened ten years ago in a town where everyone suddenly disappeared. ive been thinking about this one some more and honestly? season one i still think its really good, but season two… i mean i liked it, but it might not be as good. s1 tho i still think its really good. again, i think some episodes had some ‘scarier’ things like sudden loud noises but i cant remember anything else.

the adventure zone: currently listening to this one. i actually really like it! its just not one i like to binge, so its taking me a while because each ep is one hour and it came out a long time ago, but i like this one, its three brothers and their dad playing dnd, its fun, i wasnt sure i was gonna like it, but its fun.

ive also listened to like, rabbits which i just…. thought wasnt that good, or as good as i thought it was gonna be. other than these i have a lot of stuff im suscribed to because i want to listen to next, but the main ones that are tempting me right now are king falls am, greater boston, eos 10, the last show, the magnus archives, victoriocity and wooden overcoats. also, wolf 359, station to station, marsfall, startripper!!

im stopping now before i write my entire library but yeah! those are the ones ive listened to so far

[representativecharacters]

ace ppl aren't inherently lgbt...

I was going to explain why this is an ugly, untrue ask and how that phrase is exclusionary, but you know what, the posts I linked to did a great job explaining it, and I know there are definitely more out there explaining why this is. And just to nip this in the bud, any discourse asks will immediately be deleted. This blog is meant for celebrating rep, and if needed, pointing out how representation can be better portrayed. It is not, and will never become a discourse blog. 

So, instead, I’d like to take this time to remind my followers that asexuality, aromanticism, and all a-spec identities are not straight and that all people who identify as a-spec are a part of the community!

And, for any followers who are curious, here’s an extra special list of characters who are a-spec, and I hope you all have at least one that you enjoy reading or watching: 

Canon A-spec Characters: 

Todd Chavez - Bojack Horseman: came out as asexual in this season, and the show also explains aromanticism to Todd!) It’s a popular idea that Todd may learn more about aromanticism in the next season and use that label as well, but for now that’s just speculation amongst a few fans. 

Jughead Jones - Archie Comics: explicitly stated as asexual in this comic, but this isn’t new. He has been coded as ace throughout Archie history and is seen by many (including myself) as aro as well! 

Valentina “Voodoo” Dunacci - Sirens USA: romantic asexual, the show was unfortunately canceled but it was a great first start at showing people what asexuality was and providing rep

Raphael Santiago - Shadowhunters: confirmed in-show and by the author that he’s ace! CC also stated that he is aro. He’s also racial rep, which is awesome!

One issue I must note this is an author who changed a character’s identity from bi to pan in a tweet, and has had more problems with rep, making it hard for people to take her word, but in Raphael’s case this simply adds on more rep that’s very much needed. 

Sherlock Holmes: confirmed as ace by Benedict Cumberbatch and I believe Moffat. 

Issue: the show and actor’s comments can be more than a little problematic, there are also the books and various other versions of Sherlock. 

Varys - Game of Thrones: Aroace. Unfortunately he’s never labeled because in the GOT world these terms do not exist, but in the show he explicitly states that he has never been interested in people in any romantic/sexual way.

Gerald Tippett - Shortland Street: Unfortunately I don’t know much about this character beyond him being asexual. 

Daryl Dixon - The Walking Dead: confirmed as asexual by the show’s creator. 

Issue: The creator also described him as “straight”, and “somewhat” asexual, making me worry that he doesn’t (or to be fair, since this is from 2014, that 3 years ago he didn’t) have a good grasp on what asexuality is, but Daryl is still confirmed as ace. 

Sally Grissom - Ars Paradoxica: She’s asexual, and while I don’t listen to the podcast, it’s been described to me in a submission that her fellow LGBTQIA+ friends accept her and her identity. 

Roshanna Chatterji - Secret Six (2008)/The Movement (2013): An asexual and Bengali superhero! 

Poppy - Huge: Not a character I found a lot on, but she came out as asexual on the show. 

7 Books With Asexual Leads 

Coded and/or Seen As A-Spec: 

Charlie Weasley - Harry Potter: while a minor character, JKR stated that he’s not gay, but not interested romantic relationships/”just more interested in dragons”, leading many to headcanon him as aro and/or ace.

Castiel - Supernatural: commonly headcanoned as asexual by members of fandom. 

Most of the Doctors - Doctor Who: most of the threads I’ve seen have described his versions as being coded as asexual. 

Daniela Velazquez - Sense8: admittedly my own personal headcanon, but Dani is shown to not be romantically attracted to any character on the show. She shows sexual attractions, but has no interest in romance and is in a functional dynamic with two gay men in the show, and they describe themselves as a trio and act, in my opinion, as an example of a QPR. 

Sheldon Cooper - The Big Bang Theory: many articles are written about it, here’s one speaking about his identity and another that explains one of the issues with the way the show has gone. 

Issues: The show is incredibly problematic, and there are different posts on why it’s sexist and written poorly. 

Books with asexuality (contains a mix of characters who are explicitly asexual, or could be read as asexual). 

Aspec books 

This awesome list of characters who ace members have identified with/relate to! 

If anyone has any characters you want to add (esp if they have other aspec identities, which I unfortunately couldn’t find!), or corrections to make, please feel free to reblog and add them! 

[ettadunham]

do you listen to a lot of podcasts? which ones do you recommend? i'm just finishing listening to ars paradoxica and i need something to fill the gape it'll leave lmao thanks!

Hey you!!! I probably don’t listen to all that much compared to the more hardcore listeners, but I did manage to find a bunch of cool stories relevant to my interests if I do say so myself :P

I actually made a podcast page listing them all out, and I also put links in the pictures to each of their official sites. I would probably recommend any of those, but I’ll also try to give a quick rundown on each, just because I love talking about them.

(Also, please hit me up if you’re looking for some specific content or filter options relating to these or some other podcasts I may be familiar with enough to answer ;) )

Now, since aP is the reference point you gave me (my kind of anon ;) ), I’ll start with some ensemble sci-fis right out of the gate, from the plot heavy to the character-centric:

Marsfall - intense space drama about a Mars expedition crew. There’s only one season out yet, but it’s real strong right out the gate, and I’m already in love with Jacki and ANDI (the commander and the AI of the ship, respectively).

Wolf 359 - starts off more as a space sitcom, but then shit eventually gets pretty real and intense. Already finished with over 60 episodes and all sort of additional content available, so the perfect binge material. (Also, bonus cameo by the ars crew at some point.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris - this one had a long hiatus after its first 5 episodes, but it’s coming back, so now is the perfect time to start. It has a bit of Firefly vibe to it (bunch of misfit smugglers in space on the run from a totalitarian government), but a lot more diverse.

Station to Station - leaving space for a bit, S2S is taking place on a research ship, where our scientist protagonist is looking for her missing lab partner. Weird shenanigans and memory problems ensue. (Season 1 is complete as of now.)

What’s the Frequency - aptly titled, WTF is a period detective noir story with some pretty weird shit going on connected to radio dramas, which I still don’t quite understand? Is it the devil? Is it even sci-fi? Who knows, not me.

The Bridge - there are sea monsters, a Transcontinental bridge, and watchtowers to keep an eye on things. The show follows the crew of one such watchtower. This is also where my plot-heavy -> character-centric concept kind of falls apart, because the show does a slightly different thing. In every episode, there’s a separate story narrated by one of the characters (usually Etta, the protagonist) about the lore of the Bridge, while the plot slowly moves along. Some of these stories of course involve the characters themselves, but you often don’t actually know for sure. Also, a pretty dope intro (ta-da-dam-ta ta-ta-da-damm ta-da-dam-dam ta-ta-da-dam DAM DAM TA-DAM TA DA DAM TA DAM TA DA DA TA-DA DAM DAM TA DA DA DAM DAM TA TASJGFKADFJ;DAL - anyway, it’s great :P).

The Bright Sessions - a show about people with abilities in therapy. There’s an overarching plot, but even once that unfolds, it still relies much more heavily on the characters, and what they’re going through in each episode. An excellent gateway podcast altogether, that is soon coming to an end.

Non sci-fi ensemble shows:

Under Pressure - also featuring ships and sea monsters like some of our previous entries, but now it’s a drama about a scholar joining a submarine science expedition to write a philosophy paper... but in reality, is there to deal with her grief.

Homecoming - about a program that’s supposed to re-integrate veterans back into society with some shady methods. Overall, this story wasn’t really in my wheelhouse, but it’s one of those high profile podcasts that have people like Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer voicing characters, so that’s nice.

Okay, so I left shows relying on one or two people’s narration for last, but these are actually some of my faves, so I hope you got this far. Pretty much all of these have some sort of fantastic elements, but I will try to put them in an order of plot-reliance:

Alice isn’t Dead - a truck driver is looking for her missing wife who isn’t dead. There’s also a conspiracy and serial killer monsters lurking on the roads. Podcasts in general have a lot of good horror to offer, but I just... can’t do them. AiD is my exception, and it’s narrated by Jasika Nicole, so... how could i say no?

The Far Meridian - an agoraphobic young woman wakes up every day to find that her home (a lighthouse) turns up at a different place. There may also be additional mysteries. Lots of magical realism, and shit getting weirder and weirder as the episodes progress. Created by one of the ars writers, it’s a gentle balm for your soul. Season 1 is already out in full.

Girl In Space - this one is about a girl in space. Shocking, right? She loves cheese and Jurassic Park, and is totally alone on her space station... until she’s not. Technically might qualify more as an ensemble at this point but... eh.

Mabel - haunted house, mythical creatures, and a caretaker leaving voice messages for her charge’s missing(?) granddaughter. Gets gradually weirder, gayer and more poetic as it progresses.

Within the Wires - I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH!!! I’ll start with that, because I should probably also confess that after listening to the first episode, I was convinced that it wouldn’t be my thing. The first season is told through these weird relaxation tapes, that you’re probably only half-listening to at the beginning. But things do become much clearer by the 3rd-4th episode or so, and by then it’s much easier to follow. It also has an anthology structure, where each season tells a different story with a different narrator, but it’s still connected and takes place in the same universe. Anyway, let’s just say that it’s probably my second favorite show after ars at this point.

Investigative fiction podcasts, which is sort of a very specific subgenre with plenty of content, I’m guessing:

Limetown - 10 years ago the people of Limetown disappeared overnight, and now a radio host is set to solve the mystery. Season 2 is coming this year, which is great, because S1 ended on a cliffhanger in fucking 2015.

Rabbits - a radio host is looking for her missing best friend, who disappeared playing a weird, ancient game, probably. Also by the same people who did popular shows like Tanis or The Black Tapes - but overall I heard mixed things about those, especially in the long run. I liked Rabbits though.

[bigshoeswamp]

Question Meme

Nickname: A bunch, though most just call me by my name. The most used one is “Ju”, I think.

Zodiac: Capricorn

Height: 1,59 m I think? Idk 

Last thing I googled: “The Gilda Stories”, it sounds really good, I think I’ll read it.

Favorite music artist: No way I could choose one lol. I’ve been listening to a lot of Caetano Veloso and Childish Gambino lately tho (and that expresses very well the mess that is my music taste lol)

Song stuck in my head: “Heaven in Hiding”, by Halsey

Last movie I saw: The new Power Rangers

What am I wearing right now: Pajama pants and a sweater

Why did I choose my url: I’ve told this story a couple times here already, but summing it, I tried a bunch of things, tumblr said everything I typed was already taken so I typed “if someone already has this name meh” in pt as my last try, and it worked.

Do I have any other blogs: I run @arsparadoxica-ptbr and @alice-isn-t-dead-ptbr for my translations and @ars-paradoxica-secret-santa for, well, the ars paradoxica secret santa

What did your last relationship teach you: No last relationships to learn from here lol

Religious or spiritual: Nope

Favourite color: Red

Average hours of sleep: 8 right now, 6 when I’m studying

Favorite numbers: 3 and 13

Favourite characters: Omg that’s hard. Since my blog is podcast focused, I’ll say Sally Grissom and Esther Roberts from ars and Keisha from aid.

How many blankets do I sleep with: 2 or 3 usually

Dream job: I don’t really know yet? I’m not much of a “~follow your dreams” person. Being a judge would be cool, though, I guess. 

Not tagging anyone, whoever feels like doing it, consider yourself tagged

[hextual]

Podcast Recs

The following recs/summaries may contain light-to-moderate spoilers, though I try to keep things vague and rot13 the more specific stuff! Here is an abbreviated spoiler-free rec list, for the sensitive among you.

Night Vale Presents

The three non-WTNV shows have all finished their first seasons (and Alice Isn't Dead just started its second). They're relatively short and contain complete story arcs. 

WTNV: The ur-podcast, the light horror fiction narrative that kicked off the trend. Y'all know it or you don't. If you've somehow never heard it and don't want to start from the pilot, I recommend trying Episode 13; it's a stand-alone episode in a slightly different format than the rest, but it gives a good sense of WTNV's general aesthetic. Also it's just really really good.

Alice Isn't Dead: A surrealist horror roadtrip about a trucker searching for her wife Alice, who isn't dead. She's got nothing to lose and a lot of dangerous road to cover.

Orbiting Human Circus: Bizarre and magical and a little bit heartbreaking, like all good circuses should be. Julian is the janitor of a heavily fictionalized Eiffel Tower, and he desperately wants to be part of the Orbiting Human Circus show that he cleans up after every night.

Within the Wires: Dystopian sci-fi 1980s AU, told through a series of 'relaxation' cassettes. More grounded in reality than the others, though that's not saying much. The medium is also foregrounded much more in the narrative.

Hiatus

Wolf 359: SUPER dark, though you wouldn't know it from the first dozen episodes. However, the inflicting-trauma to coping-with-trauma ratio is low enough that I listened to the whole thing and will almost definitely listen to Season 4 when it's released starting this June. Also, no queerness whatsoever (making it unique on this list).  

Eos 10: Spaceship sitcom. Less artistically ambitious than most of the others on this list, which is not necessarily a point against it. 

Airing

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Newer sci-fi podcast that I absolutely love; it ticks all my very specific boxes (including medium-as-message) and is also just really well constructed and executed. I adore every single one of the main characters. There are only 4 episodes but I'm so hyped about it. 

The Bright Sessions: Audio files from a therapist to teens and young adults with superpowers. Everything I ever wanted X-Men to be: light on the fight scenes/explosions, heavy on exploring what it means to have superhuman powers and how that might affect your life/relationships.

The Penumbra Podcast: Cyberpunk noir pastiche that sometimes gets a little too broad for me but is generally good fun of the Thrilling Tales! variety.

Ars Paradoxica: Time travel in one of its more complex interpretations. Paradox is a major plot element. Kind of sci-fi historical fiction?

Now for the more detailed writeups, including overviews of queerness and genre. As I said before, potential spoilers are rot13′d...but Here There Be Dragons etc.

Night Vale Presents

All of these are incredibly solid shows with an otherworldly feel to them that I love, despite being otherwise quite different.

All main characters are queer; WTNV has queer side characters (including nonbinary characters), but afaik the only other explicitly queer characters in AID/ORC/WTW are love interests of the MCs. That's pretty understandable, though, given that the casts of the three non-WTNV shows are exponentially smaller, and they've aired significantly fewer episodes.

I want to mention something in a totally value-neutral way: none of the shows feature homophobia or directly discuss queerness (lowkey exception for one episode of WTNV). I actually enjoy that, personally; it's usually very restful to spend time in worlds where queerness is normalized and unremarkable. Occasionally, however, I do want a slightly more direct approach, so I wanted to make a note in case you're in that kind of mood. 

Welcome to Night Vale The first and only podcast I listened to for about a year. Honestly, do I even need to say anything about WTNV?  I do want to mention that I think it's gotten a little bogged down in continuity over the last year. AFAIK it wasn't conceived as a long-running narrative arc, and a lot of its early charm came from the total lack of context. After Year 2, I feel like it did start spending a little too much time explaining things and filling out backstory for elements that, frankly, didn't need them. YMMV ofc, and I still listen to/enjoy every new episode, but I'm not madly in love with Year 3 the way I was with Year 1-2. Queerness: Queer af! The main character gets a full same-sex romance arc; V'q pnyy vg 'unccl-raqvat' ohg vg'f fgvyy batbvat nf n ybivat naq urnygul eryngvbafuvc, juvpu vf rira orggre. Multiple side characters are queer, including a few nonbinary characters who use they/them pronouns.  Genre: tucking into a short stack at 2am in a diner in the American Southwest, slowly realizing that the woman behind the counter called you by name even though you've never been here before, and also you can't quite remember how you got here in the first place. Alice Isn't Dead Beautiful, creepy, and acted by the brilliant Jasika Nicole. I'd place this more firmly in the horror genre than the others, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing, take note; there's some suspense and a little bit of violence. That said, I am usually MASSIVELY sensitive and can't even watch trailers for horror movies (I have made my peace with never ever seeing Get Out), and I was perfectly fine with it. Queerness: The main character is a woman married to Alice, who isn't dead. It's like the opposite of the Bury Your Gays trope. Genre: driving along a nameless interstate late at night, the world around you narrowed to the section of road thrown into sharp relief by your headlights, and the occasional glint of animal eyes. The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air ORC is the most fanciful of the Night Vale family. The other shows seem like they take place in realities just a shade off from ours, but ORC completely throws any pretense of realism out the window. There's no real sense of a world outside the Circus, and why should there be? The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air has an infinitude of fantastical delights: singing saws, a bird that can mimic (almost) a full orchestra, tap-dancing mice. There's no trick or sleight of hand involved, not even a dusty tome of magic spells. ORC simply presents a world in which these wonders exist in hidden corners. The story is sometimes melancholy, and there are regular hints of a deep sadness underneath the surface, but the main character is defined by his determination and...well, 'optimism' would be too strong a word, but he has an unyielding sense of hope. He doesn't actually think things will turn out well for him (and he's so often right about that), but he clings to the hope that this time, maybe it might. Queerness: Gur znva punenpgre nyyhqrf gb na rk-oblsevraq bapr. This is one of the lighter touches of queerness in the Night Vale family. Genre: peering through a dusty velvet curtain just offstage, while brightly-costumed creatures dance to a tune you haven't heard since you were a child. Within the Wires While all Night Vale Presents shows have some kind of narrative conceit framing the audio medium (community radio station, trucker radio transmissions, broadcast wish fulfillment), those tend to be vehicles for the story and stylistic flourishes, rather than core elements of the story itself. WtW is presented as audio cassettes on full-body relaxation, and the cassettes themselves become key actors. This is not a story that could be told in any other medium, which personally I freaking love. This is also a more sci-fi show than the others, despite being set in AU 1980s, and more blatantly dystopic. The world-building's a little more evident, which is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; I think it's a side effect of being more sci-fi than fantasy. Everything feels like it has an explanation, even if the explanation is not provided, and it all fits together smoothly. Also: the narrator has a mild kiwi accent, which I find incredibly soothing. Queerness: Yep. Gur znva punenpgre unf n pbzcyvpngrq ohg qrpvqrqyl abg cyngbavp (s/s) eryngvbafuvc jvgu gur jbzna gur gncrf ner vagraqrq sbe.  Genre: lying quietly in a sensory isolation tank until you inexplicably start crying for the first time in years.

On hiatus

Wolf 359 So, there are a couple voice actors in Wolf 359 that don't do a whole lot for me, performance-wise. I don't want to get more specific because YMMV and I'm also just a really picky audio consumer, but there you have it. Mostly it's not an issue, though. This is also one of the darker shows I listen to, although it starts out with more of a zany sitcom vibe. There's a fair amount of murder, murder attempts, and general people-being-horrible-in-ways-they-believe-to-be-justified. It's not something I think I could sit through again, but it is a captivating story told well. There's a lot of focus on the emotional arcs and characters dealing with trauma, which I am All About in sci-fi. 

Queerness: zero. Zip. Zilch. It doesn't feature any romance arcs at all, though, so...I found it tolerable. Honestly, if it hadn't come so highly recommended, I probably would not have given it a shot. Genre: placing your hand on a rusty, unmarked door that wasn't in the ship schematics, and knowing you must step through—you must step through. Eos 10 After my first pass at this write-up, I realized that I was being really negative—far more negative than this show deserves. So I want to be clear: I listened to and enjoyed every extant episode of Eos 10, and I'm looking forward to Season 3, whenever it's released. It's a pleasantly entertaining space sitcom and I've gotten attached to the characters; the writing's solid and the voice acting is generally pretty great. It's just not quite tailored to my specific tastes. Ok, back to what I originally wrote: This podcast feels a lot more mainstream/conventional in its tropes than the others. Unlike most of the podcasts I listen to, the medium is invisible to the characters: it's not pitched as a radio show or a voice recorder or a series of motivational tapes. To me, this adds another layer of remove between the audience and the story. It's fine, it's just very straightforward in its presentation, with no medium-specific conceit or anything. It’s not really outsider art in any sense, and could legitimately be a TV show if it had the budget. That's a pretty good description of the show as a whole, honestly. It makes no pretense at being high-concept, it just does what it does. Queerness: This one...is not very queer. One of the side characters is gay but it doesn't really come up a lot. There's also a gay minor character that gets mentioned but never appears, and it's kind of a running gag that the gay character has a thing for the main character, who insists he's straight. It's a gross trope and I kind of winced at it, but it's usually framed by other characters as "are you sure you're not interested, because [gay character] is way out of your league and you're really not going to do better," which mitigates it somewhat for me? Also, gurer ner uvagf gung gur znva punenpgre zvtug npghnyyl or vagrerfgrq va gur tnl punenpgre, but only time will tell whether it's queerbaiting or not. Look, it's not an ideal situation. If it’s a dealbreaker, I totally understand, especially since there's no clear answer to the "is this queerbaiting" question and due to some unfortunate creator health issues, we might not get one for a while. Genre: ducking out of the way as a harried-looking man in a lab coat and stethoscope pelts down the hallway, yelling "GET ME FIVE UNITS OF ALIEN SEX POLLEN, STAT!"

Airing

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

I love this show a disproportionate amount, given that only four episodes have aired. This is a newer podcast, and one I stumbled on completely by accident! I wasn't expecting much, but it was sci-fi and the main character's last name was Liu, so I decided to give it a shot. And then it turned out to be not only awesome but also totally queer! I think I actually said "HAH! YES!" out loud when the queerness was canonized within the first few minutes. (This is why I live alone.) Plus, this is a small thing from a throwaway line, but...the main character weighs roughly the same amount as I do. Do you know how often that happens with Asian characters? Never, is how often. For possibly the first time in my life, I feel like I can legitimately headcanon a main character who looks exactly like me. I'm definitely going to do some incredibly self-indulgent fanart at some point. Unprecedented overidentifying with the main character aside: honestly, it's like this podcast was tailor-made for me. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 1 (and kind of 2): Vafrpher ovbybtvfg wbvaf ent-gnt perj bs fzhttyref jvgu n sbhaq-snzvyl ivor naq nyvra phygheny pynfurf, nyy senzrq va n fvavfgre zrgnaneengvir gung hfrf gur zrqvhz nf n cybg qrivpr, CYHF cbgragvny ebznapr orgjrra na Rnfg Nfvna jbzna naq n Fbhgu Nfvna jbzna? Um, sign me the fuck up.  The only downside is that this has definitely raised my expectations for new podcasts by an unreasonable amount. Every new podcast I've tried since Starship Iris has been vaguely disappointing. My podcast standards are way too high now, and it's all Starship Iris's fault.

Queerness: YES. The main character is a queer woman, there's a nonbinary alien species and the alien crew member uses they/them pronouns, and there's a trans guy. Also, this is wild speculation, but V guvax/oryvrir/ubcr gung bar bs gur bgure srznyr perj zrzoref vf orvat frg hc nf n ebznagvp vagrerfg sbe gur znva punenpgre. There's some explicit discussion of gender identity in a non-traumatic way which tbh is like water in the freaking desert.

Genre: ??? it's too new and I love it too much to assign it a genre. 

The Bright Sessions

As I said in the spoiler-free summary: this is everything I wanted X-Men to be. Hell, it's everything I ever want superhero stories to be, and it's why I've been drawn to superhero stories since I was a teenager. The Bright Sessions deals with the complex consequences of, e.g., having empathy powers as a teenager while learning how to manage your own emotions and maturity. The main character is Dr. Bright, a therapist specializing in people with superpowers, which naturally provides the perfect angle for those people to get really navel-gazey about their lives. There is an actual overarching plot with a shadowy government agency, of course, but that's definitely not what I'm here for and luckily that’s clearly just a vehicle for the feelings.

Queerness: One of the main characters has a m/m romance arc; another main character is asexual; a side character (who may soon be considered a main character?) is bisexual. Because the conceit is therapy sessions, Dr. Bright does inquire delicately about how her patients may or may not be coping with emerging/existing queer identities, but none of them find it traumatic.

Genre: telekinetically fiddling with a desk puzzle limned in afternoon sun, as the doctor asks: "And how does that make you feel?"

The Penumbra Podcast

I'd had the Penumbra Podcast on my radar/subscriptions list for a while, but I'd never quite finished the first episode...until the remastered/rewritten first story was released. The difference is astronomical. The creators talk about audio quality etc. in their reasoning for recreating the first story, but for me, the main distinction is the skill in storytelling and the confidence to create noir without relying on questionable tropes to signal "hard-boiled!!!" I sometimes think the writing and characterizations are a little broad, but that may be down to genre. Penumbra doesn't really go for 'subtle' or 'realistic.' An important format note: there's a main character with episodic adventures, but in between the two-part adventures, there are one-shots in various genres. I actually skipped most of the one-shots because I'm not great with horror or kid stories.

Queerness: The main character of the main story is queer (jvgu na qryvtugshyyl rzbgvbanyyl pbafgvcngrq z/z ebznapr nep gung'f abg va n terng cynpr evtug abj), as are numerous side characters. It's a noir pastiche, though, so the main character is pretty self-sabotaging in all areas of his life; a 'happy ending' doesn't seem incredibly likely. One of the stand-alone stories is a queer Western, which I found delightful. It's also one of the few stand-alone stories that has a bonus follow-up episode.

Genre: taking a long, slow drag on a cigarette as the rain blurs the neon lights and filth of the alien city below.

Ars Paradoxica

Ars Paradoxica shares a producer with The Bright Sessions, which is why I tried it! Like all decent time travel stories, Ars Paradoxica is meticulously planned with a lot of moving parts. The worldbuilding is intense and requires actually paying attention, which can be challenging for me since I typically listen to podcasts while multitasking.  Frankly, it moves a little slow for me...which is odd to say about a show that regularly has timeskips of months or years and literally involves time travel. I guess I feel that way because there's a lot of attention paid to the action and plot, but less to the emotional character arcs. And obviously my narrative preferences run a certain way, so I'm only really paying attention to the character stuff. Which, to be fair, certainly exists and is carried through well—it's just not in my preferred proportions. Plus, the cast is quite sprawling compared to most other podcasts, and the tone is almost Crapsack World but not quite. 

Queerness: The main character is explicitly asexual and briefly explains it, and there are a handful of queer side characters. It's semi-historical, and there's some discussion of managing visibility etc. 

Genre: staring into the dusty gears of a massive clock running backwards as the minute hand slowly approaches a blinking red light.

[ernmark]

I’ve noticed that I’ve been having an increasingly harder time listening to Ars Paradoxica over the course of the last season. Not because there’s any decrease in quality or anything-- by all means, the voice acting, writing, etc, is all stellar, and always has been. But just listening to the episodes was really draining for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on until just now.

I think it’s the sheer number of characters. 

I’ve mentioned before that I may have a form of face blindness, and that it applies just as much to voices for me. I think a lot of that comes out in podcasts that have large casts, especially when they’re written to be more subtle and realistic (usually the more exaggerated a character is, the easier it is for me to recognize them).

In this last episode I was listening to, I had a hard time following any of the dialogue because I spent the entire time going “okay, now Dude is talking to a Lady. Is it the same Lady as before? I’m pretty sure not. The same Lady as the one before that? Maybe? I dunno. Is it? No? Wait, no, it’s somebody new, but I think she showed up in a previous episode. So who is this? What role does she play? What were they talking about again?” Usually by the time I caught up, the conversation was over and I got to repeat the process with the next conversation. (In this episode, there were five distinct female characters, only one of which I was able to recognize. The other four might as well have been the same person as far as I could distinguish them.)

Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with the quality or writing of the podcast. I think it’s awesome that it’s got such a rich, vibrant world with so much going on. Unfortunately, just the way that I’m wired means I’d have to do a thesis paper’s worth of research and analysis just to be able to follow along. It’s exhausting.

I think one of the things that’s attractive to me about the Penumbra is that the style of narration just happens to suit my condition really well. Every single time a new character makes an appearance, Juno takes a second to stop and describe them and kind of give their role in the story, which gives me a chance to get my bearings. It’s a style that happens to work really well for the noir genre, but not so great with a lot of others.