Fiction Frequency

This has been a long time coming, we're beyond excited to finally have reached the point where we can say:

Please join us on Kickstarter to help make Beck's End, our atmospheric folk horror audio drama, a reality!

We're working with some fantastic people to make this happen, and we are absolutely certain you'll love what we're making. Once the show is made it will be released for free, in full, for everyone (the Shadows at the Door guarantee!) but in order for that to happen, we need some help in the coming month. Please support our campaign if you can, any amount you can spare will help, and if you cannot – trust us, we know what the times are like – a reblog, or a share, or a "hey look at this thing I found on tumblr" to a friend or a discord server will all be massively appreciated too. The AD community on here is one of the best corners of the internet, and we can't wait to bring you a brand new show to love!

the new season has been out since mid-April and we are already halfway through it. i know the WTNV team has been posting about it on their social channels for months leading up to it. i dont think we are doing anything differently, promotion-wise, than we did with the first three seasons which seemed to find their audience much more quickly.

personally i find it rather frustating given the amount of work we put into this show, but im not really sure what to do about it. i know part of it is down to the fact that audiofiction is a far more competitive field than it used to be, and there's also so much noise and chaos in the world these days that its hard to find anything, and so many terrible problems that fiction feels less important.

The death of all "social" media didn't help either. Whenever I people watch now (and I do it myself) it's just doom scrolling to death, with the algorithm feeding me, not getting what I actually want to follow. (Bluesky and Tumblr behave better, but they have nothing like the numbers twitter did.)

the new season has been out since mid-April and we are already halfway through it. i know the WTNV team has been posting about it on their social channels for months leading up to it. i dont think we are doing anything differently, promotion-wise, than we did with the first three seasons which seemed to find their audience much more quickly.

personally i find it rather frustating given the amount of work we put into this show, but im not really sure what to do about it. i know part of it is down to the fact that audiofiction is a far more competitive field than it used to be, and there's also so much noise and chaos in the world these days that its hard to find anything, and so many terrible problems that fiction feels less important.

1.) a mild oversaturation problem in the audio drama space. back in the day, and by that i mean the early 2010's, night vale/night vale presents projects were a dime a dozen and made people aware that podcasts could even be used as vehicles for storytelling. nowadays, there's SO MUCH stuff coming out on a monthly, and, dare i say, weekly basis at this point that getting lost in the shuffle of new content is inevitable

2.) alice isn't dead came out about a decade ago, around the same time as night vale's peak in popularity, so people losing track of a sequel being in production is mildly understandable

3.) a harsh truth is that the general fascination of the audio drama space has almost always been about white men with either heavily implied or canon homoerotic relationships with other white men. wlw, especially if they're woc, are treated as a divisive niche in the long run and just don't attract the tumblr hordes always looking for their new white boy of the week

4.) social media has changed. a lot. i blame all of this on the twitter takeover that used to be one of the best places to advertise audio drama back in the day (i would know, i was there) but ever since the change in ownership, people had to gravitate more to different platforms and rebuild their following from scratch on websites that aren't quite suited for promoting shows (that's not to say you can't build a substantial following, of course. it's always possible.)

Find me an audio drama that matches this vibe.

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Meet Moeen: widower, father, teacher, and long standing member of the community.

Moeen does his best, but things have never been the same since he lost his wife. When his daughter Bailey went off to university it was like a piece of him had left too. But she's back now, he needs her, and he'll never let her go again...

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And you already know the rules.

-post a fake audio drama

-post a review of someone else’s

Your optional prompt is:

ok so when my horror fan friend recced this i expected a total gross-out with fake meat-squishing and slurping noises abounding, but the reality was really different, and very fun! (not that horror-meat isn't fun, but this is different fun.) i know it's a romcom at heart, but anya raises some interesting philosophical questions about bodily autonomy and where that line is drawn, and the theoretical recipes charlotte reluctantly talks her through are like, the audio equivalent of hannibal's cooking scenes. i admit i got hungry listening.

Welcome to Night Vale has LGBT protagonists but not a massive focus on the protagonist’s found family (though it exists), and Time:Bombs has extremely tight-knit coworkers and no romance.

Small Victories is so good. IT IS SO GOOD!!!! An absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking, glorious exploration of addiction, grief, and the ups and downs of recovery as a road, not a destination. I've just started Season 3 and I feel so lucky to come into this story as that season has been freshly released.

A recently recovered drug addict tries to start her new lease on life, too bad life has it out for her. This drama follows Marisol through the ups and downs of a year in her life.

Highly recommend this show. It's interpersonal and psychological, almost slice of life at times. Marisol is Black bisexual woman in her early twenties with a girlfriend she loves but also puts on a pedestal and struggles to be honest with. The exploration of the ups/downs/rock bottom is when you stop digging is really difficult to hear but also incredibly loving. There's a lot of understanding and gentleness for what drives people with addictive personalities, without making excuses for the hurt they cause. Just... yeah, loving.

sOther audio dramas made by black people and featuring majority black casts include Fan Wars by Shenee Howard, Sumeria by Mark Luckie, Vega by Ivuoma Okoro, Deadbeats Inc by Aisha Casey, Bronzeville and Harlem Queen - though I'm not sure about queer rep. Shows made by mixed crews with black queer characters include Unwell (Lily is a queer black woman), Forest 404, The Lavender Ladies podcast, Kalila Stormfire and Masala Jones (2/2 - but sorry, there's more)

Punishment Island is made in Uganda and stars a queer black woman. The Van is engineered by Rye Dorsey, who is a black person, and features a bunch of queer characters. When Angels Visit Armadillo is made by a mixed crew and features a black lesbian character. Ok, I think that's everything I know!! Radio Elusia also has a mixed crew and black director, but I don't know if it'll feature queer characters (3/3)

Thanks so much! This is a great bunch to look at. Fan Wars can confirm no queer rep but it’s a very fun story. If you’re Star Wars Fan and have spent time in fanspheres it’s really worth a listen.

@mistah-aluminum and @cactusjuicepod also suggested the list put out by the folks at Death By Dying which isn’t exclusively queer but has some really good ones and overlaps with @lesetoilesfous suggestions. Find that here.

@bi-blue suggested Caravan, which has a creator of colour as the lead writer/director/producer and a whole cast of indigenous, black, people of colour working on the project. I love Caravan it’s a really fun story. A queer Western meets Dante’s inferno.

In a reblog on the original post @chekhovs-harpoon​ had some really good suggestions too I’m gonna add here as well: 

Have you heard of the RedWing Audio Drama? I can best describe it as queer black batman. Main character is a queer black man, by day he’s an uber rich philantropist, by night he’s a masked superhero. This podcast is fun cuz it’s got all the wish fulfillment/power fantasy tropes that’s usually aimed at a white cishet able bodied men, but this one’s aimed at the more marginalized people, queer people of color especially.

I can also recommend the Fuck Humans Podcast. Which is about a post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy world where humans and monsters live, and any relations between them are forbidden by law. And the story is about how love overcomes hatred and prejudice (and also hot monster fucker porn with plot and  feelings. be aware that this is an erotica podcast so the sex scenes are very graphic and that’s the selling point)

I also really love The Glass Appeal. It’s the future but many people are dying from diseases we’ve already cured because of capitalism. So a rogue group of cyberneticists are going around trying to start the solarpunk revolution by teaching people how to take care of themselves. but they’ve been framed by the big companies for bioterrorism and our main character was sent to jail and it’s up to his husband to prove his innocence. Despite the harsh conditions, this show feels really hopeful and the married couple dynamic of the main characters is the sweetest thing

Those are the shows i’d recommend at the top my head, but i’ve got more i just can’t remember them rn cuz i’m subscribed to literally 300 shows at this point. my dms are always open for talking about and recommending podcasts!”