Web Crush Wednesdays: The Cryptid Keeper

I’ve made no secret here that I love things of a cryptid-friendly nature, so when I stumbled across The Cryptid Keeper podcast — through no one’s recommendation except the iTunes search function — I was intrigued. I immediately downloaded an episode to check out, but worried before I had a chance to listen that the hosts would end up being Dean Winchester types to whom I was never the intended audience. Much to my surprise and joy, I soon discovered that the hosts were two millennial women #justlikeme. But really, just like me, down to their love of Lin-Manuel Miranda and tendency to quote Spongebob. Within an episode, I was hooked.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Bright Sessions

I’ve been on quite the podcast binge lately; between Revolutions, The Adventure Zone, The Black Tapes, and my ongoing attempt to listen to every episode of Stuff You Should Know. That said, I’m not quite sure how I stumbled onto this week’s web crush—maybe a mention on my Tumblr dash?—but I’m glad I did. The Bright Sessions is a fascinating podcast about a woman—Dr. Bright—who specializes in therapy for atypicals, people with various powers. The show is a great blend of X-Men-like powers, teen drama, conspiracies, secrets, and complex moral issues, alongside a positive portrayal of mental healthcare and therapeutic coping mechanisms.

Minor spoilers for the show below the jump!

Web Crush Wednesdays: Trash & Treasures

“A bunch of friends who might not be film experts, but sure do have funny opinions, watch bad movies and rag on them” is a podcasting trope by now, if such a thing can exist. How do you wade through the sea of cinematic chit-chat to find one you know will be good? That’s not actually a question I can answer, since I was lucky enough to stumble into Trash & Treasures sideways, but I can help by assuring you that Trash & Treasures is one worth checking out.

Trash & Treasures is where self-described “three weirdos”, Vrai, Dorothy, and Chris, watch movies and sometimes TV series that have been lost down the back of the pop culture couch. Maybe they’re a product of Disney’s awkward and edgy dark era where the company was low on funds and fighting with Don Bluth, maybe they’re an obscure single-release piece of queer action cinema, maybe they’re… just plain bad. Each episode is devoted to a different piece of media, and the trio discuss the plot, context and history of how this movie came to be and how they came to find it, and which parts of it are terrible and which parts are actually, maybe, kind of good.

Lady Geek Girl Reviews: Rabbits

Pacific Northwest Stories, which has expanded to become Public Radio Alliance, the same group that creates shows like The Black Tapes and Tanis, has recently come out with a new podcast called Rabbits. The podcast is only four episodes in and it is definitely addictive and interesting, but it also already has several issues that really bug me.

Spoilers for Rabbits below.

(image via theghostinmymachine)

Alice Isn’t Dead: “The Last Free Place” Season Premiere Review

(image via nightvalepresents)

The first episode of Alice Isn’t Dead Season 2 is here, and it’s just as interesting as I hoped it would be. It seems like some of my assumptions about who was playing Alice was wrong, but that just gives us more questions than answers. The episode also does an excellent job at exploring the psychological effect of police brutality on people of color.

Spoilers for Alice Isn’t Dead’s “The Last Free Place” below.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Potterless

Harry Potter is a pillar of civilization by this point. What began as a series of children’s/young adult novels is now a virtual empire, with eight movies, several spinoff books, movies of the spinoff books, theme parks, and the website Pottermore to ensure that the franchise is constantly alive and being added to. Given the impact this series has had since its release in the ‘90s, you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the Western world who hasn’t been influenced by it—and it would be nigh-impossible to find someone who hasn’t read the books that have shaped a generation.

You’d think that, but you would be wrong—Mike Schubert, a twenty-four-year-old American man, has never read the Harry Potter novels that so defined the childhood of his peers. And so, in a grand experiment, he’s sitting down to read them all one after the other, and discuss them with his Potterhead friends in this week’s web crush: the Potterless podcast.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Spirits

Mythology is super fun—though this is easy to forget when most of our access to it comes in textbook form. I’d love to soak up as many legends and stories from around the world as I can, but Wiki-walking can only get you so far, and often you can get lost in those walls of text and the academic language. Plus, how do you know where to start?

These epic tales of heroes, gods, demons and magical shenanigans were often meant to be told out loud, spread by word of mouth for the purpose of entertainment. A podcast, then, is the ideal modern medium to get yourself into these ancient tales. Today’s web crush Spirits is exactly that, and it comes with a bonus dose of friendship, feminism, and alcohol!

Lady Geek Girl Reviews: The Black Tapes Podcast

A few weeks ago I was pretty bored and so I decided it was time to listen to a new podcast. For the most part, I have almost exclusively listened to Night Vale Presents podcasts so far, so I felt it was time to branch out. I looked up several of the current most popular fictional podcasts and became interested in one called The Black Tapes. I tend to shy away from horror, but our former author Fiyero has been introducing me to more horror as of late; I found myself hooked on the show and listened to the entire first season in one night.

Spoilers for The Black Tapes podcast below.

Lady Geek Girl Reviews: The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air

I adore Welcome to Night Vale and love Alice Isn’t Dead, and… well, I was really disinterested in the first episode of Within the Wires, and never listened past that. However, the moment I heard the name of Night Vale Presents‘s latest podcast, The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air, I was intrigued. So one day on my way to work I downloaded the podcast and proceeded to give it a listen. While it is as wondrous, strange, and enchanting as many of the Night Vale Presents podcasts are, I felt like it was really lacking comparatively. The biggest issue was sadly something that Night Vale Presents has otherwise really been known for—diversity.

Spoilers for The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air after the jump.

We Need More Queer Stories in Speculative Fiction

Recently I have been embracing my queerness more and more. I’ve always been open and proud about my pansexuality, but circumstances have made it so that I couldn’t be as out and as proud as I wanted to be. For example, even now I can’t talk about or even mention my sexuality at my job, or I could be fired—the hazards of working for a Catholic church. I was nervous about going to my local Pridefest because if someone saw me I could have lost my job just for attending. This is an obstacle that is sadly still in my life, but other obstacles have since fallen away. Before this, I hadn’t come out to my father; however, I have now, with thankfully very few obstacles. I have also been engaging more with the queer community: something I was previously afraid to even attempt because of how prevalent I heard the bi and pan-phobia was in the community. But so far, to my delight, I haven’t personally encountered any such issues. Now I can be somewhat more open in my life, and the recent Pulse shooting prompted me to be even more open in defiance of all the hate. Together, this all has led me to want to engage more in the queer community and queer culture.

Of course, being a nerd, I naturally wanted to look into queer stories in sci-fi and fantasy. Sadly, as you can guess, there are very few.