e137. Think Virtually, Live Locally! Our New Virtual Reality

Ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, people the world over have been forced to spend more time meeting and communicating virtually. As different communities have implemented differing levels of lockdowns, quarantine restrictions, and work from home protocols, and distance learning, life has increasingly taken place over Zoom. Socializing over FaceTime is the…

e136. Describing 14 Films We Haven’t Seen

In a world where four podcasters are exhausted from the never ended horrific news cycle of politics, racial tensions, pestilence and death that has been the year 2020, these weary souls decide to take one week away from serious pseudo academic pop culture analysis with drinking and swearing and do… goofy pseudo academic pop culture…

Call For Comments: Is This The Darkest Timeline?

From Mav: It’s 2020, and the world is on fire. We all know how bad things have been. Some of the things are obvious, longterm, and we’ve done shows on them before. Some of them are new: There’s a deadly pandemic that has killed over 213,000 people in the United States (and over a million…

e127. Dungeons & Diversity

In our contemporary moment pop culture is controlled by two forces. A focus on so-called “geek culture” and a push for more inclusive diversity across media forms. While there is certainly a long way to go, in many cases, leaps and bounds of progress have been made in the last several years, with greater attention…

Call for Comments: Revising Race in Dungeons and Dragons

Dark elves aka drow From Katya: Wizards of the Coast recently announced (by recently I mean mid-June. It’s been a YEAR y’all) ways that they’re attempting to address the game’s racist characterizations of, well, in-game races. In their announcement, they acknowledge the widespread critique of their rules surrounding races, particularly the ways that stereo-typically dark-skinned…

e113. Cartoons vs. Avatars

A couple of weeks ago, in order to placate the masses during a worldwide quanrantine, Facebook released their new “Avatar” system — a tool to allow users to create little cartoon characters of themselves for use in profile pics and stickers. Other technology companies have similar system. Apple has one built into its messaging system…

e105. Animal Crossing & Cozy Games in Worldwide Pandemics

If you’re listening to our show, chances are you live on the planet Earth (and if not, welcome!) and so that means for the last few week, you have likely been dealing with the near worldwide ramicfications of COVID-19 pandemic. That means social distancing, self quarantine, staying inside and… and playing video games . Right…

e104. 5 Victorian Parlour Games for Worldwide Pandemics

If you live anywhere on the planet Earth — and if you’re listening to this podcast, we assume you do — then you’re probably aware that we are currently in the midst of a global pandemic… the worst that the world has seen in at least 100 years. For a large portion of the planet,…

Call for Comments: The Cozy Games Stress Vaccine

From Katya: Animal Crossing: New Horizons dropped on March 20th, much to the relief of a lot of folks gaming through the COVID-19 pandemic. In the tradition of the OG Animal Crossing on GameCube or Animal Crossing: Wild World, players build up a small community of cute animal neighbors, cultivate and collect natural resources, and–…

e99. Pseudo-Academic Content: Listener Discretion is Advised

We live in a content driven world: Movies, Books, Music, TV, Comics, Video Games, and even Podcasts. “Content is king!” or so they say. But of course, different types of content are appropriate for different audiences. Anyone who has watched a movie in the last several decades knows that they have ratings, that is, a…