Web Crush Wednesdays: Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural

Fandom secret: I actually really like a lot of Buzzfeed’s content.

I know it’s the cool thing these days to shit on everything that happens to carry the name “Buzzfeed” on it, and yeah, some of their videos and articles take a full dive into “what the actual fuck”, but if you think there’s not a single interesting thing on there, then I have to believe you’re full of shit. For me, the prime time for watching Buzzfeed videos is the same sort of time period where one may be drawn into watching things from the creepier and weirder side of YouTube–some nebulous time at night where there may be something better to do, but who knows what that is. Thankfully Buzzfeed has a series that covers both of those categories; one that I hope continues to flourish.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Arcana

The last thing I need right now is another game. I know this, but I also know full well that I’ll always, always make time for dating sims. I was pulled into this one by a couple of people from one of my D&D groups and was pleasantly surprised to discover that while I’m certainly easily swayed into trying dating sims by people simply saying that they’re good, this game is good. Very good. Follow me below the cut for a tale of murder, magic, intrigue, and most importantly, the Arcana.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Peritale

I’ll be honest: I’ve been away from the webcomic scene for a while. I’ll see an update of one of the series I used to read often floating around online and hum to myself, “Oh, so that’s what those wacky kids have been up to.” It’s nice, but also leaves me somewhat  nostalgic for the time where I had several series I kept up with. While today’s web crush may not get me back on the webcomic routine (by no one’s fault but that of my own inattentiveness), it did achieve the one thing that many other series in the past years have tried and failed at: it drew me in enough to actually read through the archive.

Also, it’s cute as hell, so how could it not?

Web Crush Wednesdays: Binging With Babish

Through whatever machinations of fate and luck, sometimes I manage to hop onto a big thing before it becomes big. While sometimes that thing is a little more niche (like a mysterious little dating sim for mobile devices), making it that much more surprising when it does become huge, this time it felt inevitable that this YouTube channel would rise up in the ratings and take the internet cooking world by storm. If you’ve checked out the front page of YouTube at any point in the last year and glanced at the trending videos, then I’m sure you’ve seen a link to the show Binging With Babish. If you’ve avoided them because trending videos are typically trash and not indicative of what’s actually good on YouTube, then I’m here to tell you that you need to watch at least one episode immediately. I’ll even let you pick.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Two Scoops

A pervasive problem within the dating sim genre is representation. If you’re looking for a dating sim that stars attractive, thin, white or East Asian people, you’re pretty much set, but if you’re looking for anything else, you may have to look a bit harder. Recently, with games like Hustle Cat and Women of Xal, it seems like the indie dating sim scene is stepping up its game with adding more and more representation to the genre. Today’s web crush is a project that finally gives the limelight to one group of people who have been denied romantic representation in these games for too long: fat girls.

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: Dice, Camera, Action

In the hype of larger productions and bigger fanbases, it’s all too easy to completely miss out on less spoken of productions that are equally as good. With this seeming boom of Dungeons & Dragons webshows, it perhaps comes as no surprise that they suffer from the same thing—it’s definitely easy to fall in the shadow of amazing shows like Critical Role and The Adventure Zone. So today I bring you a beginner-friendly D&D webshow starring some of my favorite YouTubers and led by Wizards of the Coast’s own DM extraordinaire, Chris Perkins. Friends, readers, dim the lights, because it’s time for some Dice, Camera, Action.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Project Derailed

Once upon a time I was one of the many people trying to catch up with Critical Role. During this fantastical, entertaining slog (and it was a slog at times) fellow fan Noodle suggested to me that I take a different route with my catch up plans: instead of watching each 3+ hour episode, I read the summaries of the episodes instead. “What a perfectly logical solution!” I thought. While my stubbornness eventually saw me through the twenty-some episodes I was behind on, I ended up enjoying the site Noodle linked me to, Project Derailed, for its other nerdy content and reviews.

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: Folding Ideas

Whenever I get pulled back once more into that YouTube whirlpool—which is basically my life right now since winter decided it wanted to majorly shit on us one last time—I tend to go for one of two things: conspiracy/horror videos and review shows. Ever since Channel Awesome became exceedingly less “awesome”—there were rumors of mismanagement and general ego inflation, and I just didn’t like the people who decided to stay on the site—finding reviews for things I actually cared about was a bit of a crapshoot. However, thanks to an opportune link in the sidebar of a completely unrelated YouTube video, I managed to find myself back on Lindsay Ellis’s channel (she was previously “the Nostalgia Chick” when she was a part of Channel Awesome) and was subsequently led to Dan Olson’s media review channel, Folding Ideas. Low key and introspective, Olson presents his analysis with a good mix of easy to understand technical terms, a dash of social commentary, and sometimes even a bit of humor. And hey, anyone who doesn’t immediately start their review of No Man’s Sky with “aaaah!! It was the worst game everrrrrrr” is okay in my book.