#the big loop

[straylungs]

Audio Drama Sunday

> Hearthbound Edition.

This week, I wanted to feature some audio dramas written by my fellow Asian creators out here. As we are not a monolith, everyone brings such an array of specific cultural experiences to the work. Here's to telling more stories, our way.

🌲 @proserpinapark Episode 43 - A Warning From a Tree A nature god with blue-and-orange morality is such a fun trope. Mythology is just the primal way that we tried to make sense of the strange and dangerous world around us, embodied in beings like the Leshy who do not follow human rules or reason. And of course, Juni and Jessica, lost and unanchored in their own ways, seek to create a new mythology of their own.

⚰️ MERCY Season 1 Episode 3 - Shadow, Episode 4 - Winter, Episode 5 - Ingrave I've just been plowing through this phantasmagoria of a show. It's so incredibly difficult to nail high-action sequences in an audio-only medium, and every time, @strangekindstudio knocks it out of the park. On the softer end of the spectrum, I'm quite moved by the nuanced way Sawyer experiences loss, both for a child torn from him long ago and a beloved taken so recently. Both tragedies feed into each other, despite the time between them. Somebody give the man a hug.

🩰 The Big Loop Season 1 Episode 1 - The Studio Lofi, pensive, slow burn, I devoured this episode. It falls into my favorite genre of ghost story, that is, one where the spookiness is actually just grief. It also brings me back to those early years of moving to a big city and the feeling of being a small part of an immense, breathing whole, and the wondrous enormity of that.

🍼 @hinaypod Episode 2 - Ginaw What a fun combination of horror elements: haunted house, creepy baby, vengeful spirit. And it feels like a pattern now for my listens this week, but it really is just another beautiful meditation on grief. You can always count on Mari to charge in fearlessly and to trust her gut. And when all that fails, at least Donner's got her back.

🏍️ @undertheelectricstarspodcast Season 1 Episode 00 - Jettisoned I was really looking to fill the void left when I finished playing Citizen Sleeper 2, and Under the Electric Stars really scratches that itch. Sue me, I just love a down-on-their luck scrapper hustling to make ends meet in a grimy neon and chrome world. Eli Ramos has built such a buzzing and lived-in world-- I can't wait to keep exploring it.

[haveyoulistenedtothispodcast]

Have you listened to The Big Loop (2017-2018)?

Yes

Partially

No

Never heard of it

Voting ended onApr 11

Summary

The Big Loop is a biweekly anthology series from the co-creator of The Black Tapes. Hosted by Paul Bae (co-creator of The Black Tapes & PNWS), each episode is a self-contained narrative exploring the strange, the wonderful, the terrifying, and the heartbreaking. Stories of finite beings in an infinite universe.

[chemicallywrit]

Happy Audio Drama Sunday! It's been a long week and I'm exhausted, but art exists and stories are beautiful and I love getting to see people's work. Let's get into it.

⚡️ This week I listened to the first episode of @heartglasspod and was just blown away. Like not only are the writing stellar and the characters instantly fascinating, but this concept is so beautiful and weird that I am all in. There’s something very tempting about being able to talk to a loved one who’s passed, especially one whose death is suspicious, but the memory issue and the actual cosmological distance between our characters is bound to cause problems. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

🧛🏻‍♂️ The thing about @theholmwoodfoundation is: I love Tom. I love him. I can’t help but compare our characters to their predecessors, which I think Jeremy in particular would hate, but they all fill very different roles. That said, Tom is still decisive and funny and refuses to let Jeremy panic, which is very Van Helsing of him. The writing here is so nuanced, and the way these characters developed works so well. Can’t wait to figure out what the heck is up with Jeremy.

🪐 This episode of @iriscasefiles has it all. Gangsters. Linguistics. Violence in the face of unspeakable injustice. Soup. I am constantly impressed with Brian as a character—something about how “nice” doesn’t mean “helpless” is really delicious in the context of this particular anticapitalist setting. And it’s encouraging. You can always do something to fight injustice. Even if you’re just a waiter.

☀️ I don’t have much analysis about @thetowerarray’s finale of Calling All Adventurers, except to say I just love this show. The narrator’s first real adventure has come to an end and asked more questions than he started with. The slow burn mystery and eventual victory (but at a cost) was so skillfully crafted. I am very much looking forward to season two. And in the meantime, listen to the show! It’s wonderful.

🩸 There is a risk when crafting a dark fantasy like @last-dance-audio-drama to deal death willy-nilly. For shock value, for "realism," for the sake of keeping the tone. You all know the type of story. Last Dance isn't that type of dark fantasy. I'm caught up now, and 3+ devastating character deaths in and two episodes left to go, I feel like every single death has been earned. None is taken lightly or treated with scorn. Not a one has a background haze of a writer being like haha, gotcha! And each one hits like a truck. I am worried about what's about to happen to these characters, but I trust the story. Not for a happy ending--I think that's a little too optimistic--but for a good ending.

♾️ I'm like, years too late to The Big Loop, but I'm here now and WOW. The Big Loop started in 2017, a project of audio drama OG Paul Bae, and although it's an anthology, I would say all the stories fall into slipstream fiction. The setup is realistic, everything seems pretty normal, and then...things get weird. I'm only so far in, but every single episode has been a new and fantastic little gem. My favorite so far has been "All God's Children," which is very hard to explain without ruining the several twists. If you want to understand where audio drama as a medium came from and hear some absolutely killer writing and acting, please check it out.

That's it for me! I hope my fellow Americans have an Independence Day that is full of resistance and doing what you can, and I hope everyone else has a lovely week where you don't have to hear about what we're up to for once. See you next Sunday!

[mrpaulbae]

Eight Halloweens ago I launched The Big Loop starring the amazing Tara Pratt. I have a new audio series premiering soon but until then thank you for all your support for my little anthology series.

The Studio

Podcast Episode · The Big Loop · 2017-10-31 · 56m

[khoshekhskitten]

I'm looking for a podcast that has a bit of mystery and weirdness. A podcast that feels like a night eight days after new moon. Something where reality made a step to the left so everything appears familiar but mirrors don't work.

My craving is so specific ugh. @dreamboypodcast gets closest to what I'm looking for. Is there anyone who can recommend me something similar?

[tbtp-relisten]

THE BIG LOOP RELISTEN

Join us on Sundays at 7:30pm EST for a relisten if Paul Bae’s anthology series, The Big Loop. Each episode is not related to the others, so you can join in whenever you are able to.

Paul Bae is one of the co-creators of The Black Tapes Podcast, as well as a number of upcoming podcasts.

You can join the discord here: https://discord.gg/8VHmwCt

Join the 🙃 Audio Drama Nerds 🙃 Discord Server!

Check out the 🙃 Audio Drama Nerds 🙃 community on Discord - hang out with 38 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

[juliamorizawa]

Thank you so much to the Audio Verse Awards and to the listeners and creators in our #podernfamily! I'm so honored to be a part of this community and look forward to all the fun things to come!

[nightblood999]

Podcasts I love and would recommend, part 2:

1)      Within the Wires

Within the Wires is by the same group that created Welcome to Night Vale. There are three seasons, each telling different stories within the same universe. The first season is a set of relaxation tapes from an institution, the second season are audio guides to art museums, and the third season are various recording from a politician to their secretary.  My favorite was definitely season two. It was fascinating to hear paintings described entirely through words.

Warnings: There are mentions of needles in the first season, and quite a lot of swearing in the third season.

 2)      The orbiting Human Circus of the Air

Yet another from Night Vale Presents. The Orbiting Human Circus narrates the life of a janitor, Julian, at the Eiffel tower. Julian wants to participate in his favorite radio show, which takes place in the grand ballroom of the Eiffel tower, but unfortunately he has stage fright. I loved the old-timey style it was done in. There is also a branch off mini-series in the same universe, called the Second Imaginary Symphony, which is amazing, and even if you don’t listen to the podcast itself, I would recommend listening to the Second Imaginary Symphony.

Warnings: There is some secondhand embarrassment in the first few episodes, but the creators do a great job of making it more natural. There is a character who swears a lot in the second episode, so if that bothers you just skip his dialogue (its only like 3 minutes).

 3)      The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel

There are two main stories told through the Penumbra. The Second Citadel and Juno Steel. I have only listened to Juno Steel, and the longer I had listened the more it has grown on me. At first I thought it was cheesy, and maybe it was, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s really, really good. The characters are well developed. There is good voice acting, and vivid world building. I would recommend trying out the first arc, though the second season is when I decided I really liked this podcast. Juno is really funny once you get used to his character.

Warnings: While I am not completely up to date on this podcast, I can’t think of any specific trigger warnings, and I am confident that the creators would put a warning at the beginning of the episode if there was.

 4)      The Truth / The Big Loop

I put these two podcasts together because they are very similar.  Each episode is a different story, some are good, some aren’t my style, but so far I’ve been impressed by both of these podcasts.

Warnings: Because each episode is different, there are not overarching warnings. Usually there will be warnings at the beginning of an episode if there is anything to worry about.

 5)      Alice isn’t Dead

I almost didn’t add this one, because this is a list of podcasts I love, and while I liked Alice isn’t dead, I didn’t love it.

But

I put it on this list because of something really impressive it manages to do. This is the only podcast, show, movie, or book I have come across that captures the feeling of driving across the western United States. I live in the west, and that feeling is a big part of my life. Only this show has even been able to convey that feeling to me, and that is why I would recommend it.

Warnings: gross monsters, depression and anxiety, and a lot of swearing.