Call for Comments: Harry Potter and the Strangeness of Wizarding Politics

From Hannah: Like a large majority of nineties kids, I have a fondness for Harry Potter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the original series because I’ve revisited them so many times (but I’ve only read Cursed Child once). Honestly, I prefer the Fantastic Beast movies to the Harry Potter series. The…

e65. AR Gaming

(Note: an earlier version of this podcast had an audio problem. It has now been corrected. Please redownload if there is an issue) If we’d asked the question “do you play AR games?” five or ten years ago, we’d have a very different answer than we probably do today. It used to be very much…

e43. Sexy Ships & Head Canon

Remember that one time in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Hermione and Harry had sexy? No? How about that one time in Star Wars where Luke and Leia had sex? You don’t? Really? Well, surely you remember that time in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Sam and Steve had sex? Maybe?…

Call For Comments: Head Canon Shipping

From Mav: Since Valentines Day is coming up we wanted to try a little game for one episode. We want to have an episode where we talk about the idea of “shipping” in popular media. But we don’t want to just talk about why we do it. I think that’s pretty obvious. We already talked…

Call for Comments: Mystery Boxes, Spoilers, and Fandoms

From Hannah: Before I was on the show, we received a suggestion for a show topic on how popular culture fandoms react to spoilers from listener Jessi Bencloski. Spoilers are tricky, especially in big fandoms such as Harry Potter, Lost, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones. Part of what drives (or drove) those fandoms, especially once fan communities emerged online,…

Call for Comments: Generation X and Coming of Age Movies

From Mav: If you know me, you know I love movies. It’s one of the reasons I do this. If you know me, then you might also know that maybe my favorite movie last year was Lady Bird (I even wrote a review about it… cheap plug for my other site). Wayne watched it recently and we…

Episode 11: Toxic Offenders & the Dark Side of Fandom

As great as internet is for creating a safe place for people to enjoy all manner of geeky hobbies, there’s a dark side of fandom. From Gamergate to 4chan, there are some segments of geek culture that have a reputation for being toxic. A reputation hat sadly threatens to tarnish the public perception fo geek…

Call For Comments: Sex, Gender and Fan Fiction

From Mav: I have a fascination with fan fiction. In particular, I have a fascination with the way fan fiction has a history that complexly entangled in issues of sex and gender. I wrote about the porn and fanfic connection a bit on my personal blog a couple years back, and I even had some…