It’s the Reason for the Season

Surely we must have something profound and catching to say up top?? Right?? RIGHT????

The Holiday Season has appeared. The decorations are going up. The presents are being compiled. Perhaps you’re retreating into anti-Holidays. Maybe you don’t give a shit. Anyway, we’re all here together. And who knows, maybe the Chicago Pope will do something else that’s awesome. You just never can know with this time of year. 

As always, we've included things coming in the upcoming month, and a look at what's happening on our Patreon (which you can join for ~as little as a dollar~) & Discord which is open to all!

Feelings: IT’S TIIIIIIIME

STELLA:

Stella is on maternity leave! She and baby are doing well and look forward to some crazy podcasts about all this in the future. Here are her memes!

ERIN:

I got to see The Happy Fits on Saturday and it absolutely ripped.

An exciting thing it only took me 36 years to learn about myself is I am actually an extrovert, I just need a lot of time to recharge. This last month was a real crash course for myself in how much social interaction I need or ultimately want. I can be very shy when I first meet people and I worked this month to really reach out and maintain my connections. I wound up doing two social obligations a week and found it was a rhythm I really enjoyed. Turns out I love my friends and want to spend time with them.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about loneliness and this time of year but truthfully don’t have many coherent or absolute thoughts on it. I had a friend of mine tell me that he was so lonely during the pandemic that he found solace in podcasts, stuff he no longer listens to but needed at the time. Having worked on NYD for this long it’s nice to be reminded that sometimes it might make people feel less alone.

As of writing I’ve only started shopping for one person, so godspeed to me over the next couple weeks, I guess. I love giving presents, it fills me with joy, but also damn it’s a lot of work. I used to have a theme and make something for everyone inside that theme (handmade scarves, art, ect), but now I mostly give boring things like three months worth of toilet paper, collectable pins, or tiny little painted miniatures. Also love to gift some math rocks, me.

I also went all the way to Menards and failed to get the right weatherproofing for my house. Such is life.

PRODUCER BOBBY:

A difficult thing to overcome is when you’ve convinced yourself you have a “bad time of year”. If you’ve conceptualized that and accepted it, not bad things mind you, you don’t always have the tools to challenge it. This December is when I’ll try to challenge my bad time of year. We’ll see how it goes.

RECOMEDINGDONG: 

In November I finally got itchy enough about ai and the internet to begin some serious de-googling and preparations to get off Windows! Switched to Vivaldi for a browser for now and am slowly shutting down all my old gmail accounts/drives (into just ONE Proton account). Nearly ready to make the full-time jump to Linux Mint, just making sure some of my midi equipment works. This work is worth it for me! It may or may not make a difference but it helps me not want to disappear completely!

I’ve been craving both a project and videogame comfort food, so I finally pulled the trigger on getting Dragon Quest X (a japan-only MMO) and the necessary mods for translation up and running. The amazing people over at Dragon Quest X Adventurer's Abbey and DQX Clarity. The game itself has been exactly what I needed. Getting that same feeling without having to set up a live translation API is what the charming Kingdoms of The Dump achieved! Too many games still on my list for this year... which doesn’t help with the self-isolation tendencies! 

This month’s Thoughts 4 U:

Don’t comment on people’s weight. That’s it, that the section. Applicable to any and all of our various family members who should f*ckin know better. Let them know it’s inappropriate.

Things coming this month:

• New Not Your Demo??????? We got one in before the outside baby arrived! Will we be able to keep it up? Who knows!

• Instagram! We’re there until the Bluesky alternative is up (though they do have a tiktok alternate that’s up and running and tied directly to your Bluesky account already! No, erin does not know how to use it yet). Until then at @nydproductions you can get show announcements, hilarious clips, and general revelry. 

• Tumblr! 

• Our Bluesky does exist even though it is sadly languishing over there - @nydproductions

Exclusive to our Patreon (it's only a dollar!) and open for all Discord!

• Join the book club in December! Discord has all the (virtual, do not worry) meetup information! We’re all reading a holiday themed book and bringing it to the meetup, so it’s very dealer’s choice with this month.

• Xtras on the Patreon include:

  • Episode outtakes - what are we going to tangent about this time??! 

  • Surprise content mini episodes

  • and more lurking around the corners!

And in the Discord, let’s hang out! We’ve got lots of cool little internet rooms.

• Memes! Bring me more memes!

• We’re doing a themed holiday book read this season

• We do actually talk about wrestling in there sometimes.

• There’s a lot of music talk, help us find avenues away from Spotify!

• Erin is liveposting fanfic (roughly) once a month in Stella’s Link Lounge! She’s also documenting it on our Instagram highlights. There’s unsurprisingly a great deal of smoke involved.

Jingle jangle, motherfuckers.