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Podcast squee: Kaleidotrope
Jan. 17th, 2020 12:31 pmI still mean to do some Fandom Snowflake stuff at some point, but lately I've been making myself stressed out with anything and everything, so I'm going to do a little post on something unrelated to any ongoing challenges and things people do on certain days or whatever. I'm just going to talk a little about Kaleidotrope because I recently listened to it and it made me happy.
Kaleidotrope is, to quote the website description, "a queer romantic comedy podcast set on a slightly magical college campus and playing around with romance tropes, particularly fanfiction tropes." I'd seen it recommended a lot, and last week I finally gave it a listen, and ended up listening to all of it in a few days, so yes, recommendations entirely earned.
It would actually also be a good intro to audio drama / fiction podcasts / whatever you call them, if you've never tried them, seeing as it's a self-contained story in one season with 10 episodes, each about 30 minutes long, and very easy to follow with a very small cast (basically two actors most of the time). It takes the format of a radio show, and the hosts are Drew and Harrison, two queer guys who seem very much the opposites in their worldviews and how they do things, and... well, I'm sure you'll get a feel for where it's going pretty soon. Besides main story between them, though, there are tons of little romances and friendship stories and so forth happening via the listeners' texts, so basically you get a ton of queer stories for the price of one! Also, the main characters are unabashed geeks who talk about shipping and Harry Potter and musicals and many other things. Queerness also includes things like nonbinary representation. It's supremely fluffy feel-good without great queer angst or such - you all know if that's your thing or not, but I know I'm happy to have queer content where queerness isn't a problem.
You can listen to the show on the website, or you can get it from different podcatcher apps (there's a "Where to find us" on the website that lists where). The first episode will give you a very good idea of what's coming, it's not going to radically change genres after that or anything!
The show cheerfully embraces its tropeyness and its fandom roots, and it's not exactly hard to guess the developments of the plot, so you know, don't go looking for absolutely unheard-of unpredictable plots! Go in there looking for very queer, very fannish, tongue-in-cheek but romantic fun. If I have any criticisms, it's that at times the silliness of some plot points feels a bit over-the top, and it's rather obvious that the handful of cameo appearances by characters other than Drew and Harrison are mostly not professionals (I say mostly because, well, there was this one little surprise stashed away for me), but none of that really detracts from the adorable fun and sweetness of it all. So this is something for a time when you want something lovely and fun and sweet, perhaps to cheer you up from a rough patch or keep up a good mood in face of onslaught. Since it's such a short and compact thing, I'm sure I'll be listening to it again at some point - maybe more than once.
I honestly don't even feel a need to do a spoilery comment section at this point, I feel like I can say all I want without things that need to go under spoiler cuts. Though if someone who's also listened to this wants to chat in more detail, I'll be happy to go on in the comments, and in that case things might get spoilery. I just have this final comment: it was super adorable, SQUEEEEEE, ♥ ♥ ♥ biscuits and squirrels and radio show hosts with nice accents and tropes for all around!
ETA: Apparently this actually means I did today's snowflake challenge by accident! But since I didn't set out to do it and I'd been meaning to write this post anyway (it was waiting half finished in my browser, in fact), I'll probably do another thing for another podcast since I have a few I'd love to promote!
Kaleidotrope is, to quote the website description, "a queer romantic comedy podcast set on a slightly magical college campus and playing around with romance tropes, particularly fanfiction tropes." I'd seen it recommended a lot, and last week I finally gave it a listen, and ended up listening to all of it in a few days, so yes, recommendations entirely earned.
It would actually also be a good intro to audio drama / fiction podcasts / whatever you call them, if you've never tried them, seeing as it's a self-contained story in one season with 10 episodes, each about 30 minutes long, and very easy to follow with a very small cast (basically two actors most of the time). It takes the format of a radio show, and the hosts are Drew and Harrison, two queer guys who seem very much the opposites in their worldviews and how they do things, and... well, I'm sure you'll get a feel for where it's going pretty soon. Besides main story between them, though, there are tons of little romances and friendship stories and so forth happening via the listeners' texts, so basically you get a ton of queer stories for the price of one! Also, the main characters are unabashed geeks who talk about shipping and Harry Potter and musicals and many other things. Queerness also includes things like nonbinary representation. It's supremely fluffy feel-good without great queer angst or such - you all know if that's your thing or not, but I know I'm happy to have queer content where queerness isn't a problem.
You can listen to the show on the website, or you can get it from different podcatcher apps (there's a "Where to find us" on the website that lists where). The first episode will give you a very good idea of what's coming, it's not going to radically change genres after that or anything!
The show cheerfully embraces its tropeyness and its fandom roots, and it's not exactly hard to guess the developments of the plot, so you know, don't go looking for absolutely unheard-of unpredictable plots! Go in there looking for very queer, very fannish, tongue-in-cheek but romantic fun. If I have any criticisms, it's that at times the silliness of some plot points feels a bit over-the top, and it's rather obvious that the handful of cameo appearances by characters other than Drew and Harrison are mostly not professionals (I say mostly because, well, there was this one little surprise stashed away for me), but none of that really detracts from the adorable fun and sweetness of it all. So this is something for a time when you want something lovely and fun and sweet, perhaps to cheer you up from a rough patch or keep up a good mood in face of onslaught. Since it's such a short and compact thing, I'm sure I'll be listening to it again at some point - maybe more than once.
I honestly don't even feel a need to do a spoilery comment section at this point, I feel like I can say all I want without things that need to go under spoiler cuts. Though if someone who's also listened to this wants to chat in more detail, I'll be happy to go on in the comments, and in that case things might get spoilery. I just have this final comment: it was super adorable, SQUEEEEEE, ♥ ♥ ♥ biscuits and squirrels and radio show hosts with nice accents and tropes for all around!
ETA: Apparently this actually means I did today's snowflake challenge by accident! But since I didn't set out to do it and I'd been meaning to write this post anyway (it was waiting half finished in my browser, in fact), I'll probably do another thing for another podcast since I have a few I'd love to promote!
