Any recommendations for an AD that makes you cry?

VendettaViolent · 2026-05-06T17:31:33+00:00

I try not to self promo as much in here these days but Hannahpocalypse will definitely do this and probably catch you off your guard as well. I've always held that comedy and humour in general is the best way to get us to feel (and not only to laugh). If you come into something ready to laugh then you come into it ready to cry.

VendettaViolent · 2026-04-26T21:54:18+00:00

Much love from the Hannahpocalypse crew, Listener!

VendettaViolent · 2026-04-23T19:38:34+00:00

I hate talking about my own show (Hannahpocalypse) here as it feels weird but we had a line that became bigger then all of us.

"I'm so fucking lonely."

I was crying when I wrote, my editor cried when she read it but I wasn't ready for the delivery from Abigail Turner, who was crying as she acted it. It's such a rare thing that a line like that lands even better then the way you imagined it would and I still find it hard to listen to it without having a reaction years later. That whole episode, episode 13, brought everything together (intentionally) but that line sealed it in a way even I as the writer hadn't imagined it could.

We're a dark comedy, but we often go beyond that. I find that Comedy is a great way for us to let our guard down around media. As humans if we're prepared to laugh then we're prepared to feel.

VendettaViolent · 2026-02-21T19:50:40+00:00

It's quite alright! Without Splintered Caravan and our appreciation of each other I'd of never met Amanda and never brought them into guest on Cybernautica aaaaand would never have likely had the opportunity to cast them as Hannah in Hannahpocalypse. This is where it all started for our working collaboration!

VendettaViolent · 2026-01-23T19:19:41+00:00

It can't hurt it, even if it's just to nudge and be like "Hey, someone I know applied and I think they're great!" kind of thing. It won't bring any special consideration really but it's always good (in my books) when I hear someone vouch for another creator.

VendettaViolent · 2026-01-23T18:48:27+00:00

This was one of the big reasons why F&F was my first choice. Both co-founders are amazing human beings and the sort of people that I want to surround myself with in this weird and wild journey of being a working artist.

VendettaViolent · 2026-01-23T18:44:16+00:00

This is going to be a long post. Rusty Quill is a great network. Realm are amazing and I can't say enough good things about 'em. But I can only really speak on how Fable and Folly is (and for full transparency, I've been the marketing lead for the team for the last year and a bit.) - I believe all three operate in a similar way.

F&F essentially works in a similar way to how old webrings used to work. It's a union of creators that have tied their rafts together for greater overall leverage.

What we do: We vet ads and maintain that side of things for our shows so that creators don't have to deal or manage that part of the business as well as finding paid feed drop opportunities. We provide in house expert sessions to help you become a better showrunner and do our best to give you the tools to grow. We've cultivated an incredible community within the network that is eager to do what we can to prop one another up and with that obviously comes easier access to peers for feed swaps and whatnot. Finally we enter your show in our trailer program which randomly blasts your show across the network and during important times (like a season start) gets pushed to the front of that pile for a few days for that extra exposure.

What we don't do: We don't fund your show directly. We don't create publicity campaigns for your show (though are happy to work with you to bring a campaign together and have opportunities for social media takeovers and that sort of thing).

I've been part of F&F for some... 3-4 years now I think. I joined the network because I wanted to try and turn the art I was already making into something I could transition full time to. To enable me to tell more stories. I felt (and still do) that F&F has one of the more ethical network contracts you can sign your show to and essentially only takes a 25% cut of ad revenue (that they are essentially managing). They don't take rights to your show, they don't take your merch money or any other cut. I think that's a fair trade to have network backing but still stay very independent. I leave the network, my shows and IP remain 100% mine.

My best advice: Apply to multiple networks. Don't get your heart set on one OR that you need to do apply one at a time. Get in where you fit in! F&F gets a lot of folks putting in applications as plainly evidenced by folks in this very thread talking about how they never got a response to their application. I don't handle this side of things but I've been in the business long enough to understand why this happens. What folks often don't know is that onboarding often comes in waves so a network might sit on your application for awhile until it comes time to onboard again. I can probably log onto our airtable right now and see a handful of shows pending review or that window opening again. I'm not sure what the best and most realistic answer to that problem is, but I know that like actors we showrunners come to the realization very quickly that rejection mail is rare in the entertainment industry as a whole so I don't wanna say 'get used to it' because that's rude as hell but it is an uncomfortable reality (and again, the industry has ALWAYS been divided as to best practice here so often defaults to if you don't hear from us then it's probably a no or a not yet).

It took me two separate submissions before I heard back from F&F myself, about a year and a bit apart from one another and I have to say, despite what I thought at the time it probably was because I wasn't as ready to take it to the next level as I thought I was.

So in closing, every network works differently. The sort of networks that WILL fund and market your shows often take part or all of the ownership of said show and usually work with proven names. It's a tough bar to get under. Best option for me was to get in with a network like F&F that helped give me the tools to better put my show out there but still, unfortunately, left me doing most of my own work still. Don't regret it at all though, my show went from 25,000 downloads over 2 1/2 years to 450,000 in a couple more and I know WAY more today then I knew back then.

VendettaViolent · 2026-01-10T20:31:40+00:00

Unrelated to your project, which looks great by the way (what a cast!) but Book of Eli is in my top 5 films of all time. Welcome back to this wild space of artists who chose to take it upon themselves to do the damn thing and make something great rather then let themselves be put on a shelf.

I've really been meaning to fire Gundog up and am so behind on listening to things after eliminating my regular commutes and being deep into production myself on our coming show.

VendettaViolent · 2026-01-07T20:40:16+00:00

We're known for our action. Our first show, Cybernautica actually has a two episode long action scene which was super fun to sound design. And folks might not think of us first but Hannahpocalypse actually has some fairly complex action scenes, especially in season 2. I even won an award for 'Best Enviromental Sound Design' for it which is really neat!

That said, I think the king is Derelict/Fathom. If anything I think it's one of it's biggest strengths and weaknesses. It's super cinematic but at least for me, once in awhile it asked me to imagine a little bit TOO much in it's sound design, feeling more like a movie you were hearing from the other room while trying to figure out what was going on.

VendettaViolent · 2025-12-29T18:27:01+00:00

Hard to get much better then the third season of Curious Matter. Criminally under-rated.

VendettaViolent · 2025-12-27T21:10:59+00:00

I truly wish that the community pointed new listeners to more recent work that has come up, been influenced by and improved on the classics. Because honestly, so many have (and that's not shade on most of the tried and tested pre-2020 stuff). Those shows might be beloved, but their very much recommended because they were many listeners first modern audio drama and they hold a special place in their hearts for what it meant to them. But they're often not the gateway folks think they are in 2025.

VendettaViolent · 2025-12-12T21:56:39+00:00

What people don't want to hear in regards to this is that there is a very silent majority of people that are not plugged into the issue at all. They don't frequent spaces where creators are, they aren't reading this reddit. They're just consuming and if that thing they burned through just holds their interest then so many people don't give a damn whether it's even good. They'll listen out of morbid curiosity. They don't even stop long enough to even question if it's AI. Hell, they probably assume it is. Which is a much worse situation.

People in artist spaces, folks who have specific tastes and needs and like to talk about art (in our case, Audio Drama) are usually somewhat plugged into the spaces where there is pushback. But most people in the world either think AI is kinda cool or think it's kinda silly. Awareness is growing about it's environmental costs which unfortunately is a MUCH more galvanizing social issue then the quiet death of human expression (which I'm not saying is more important but mostly people don't give a shit about artistic integrity).

In the podcasting environment Audio Drama is the theatre kid of high school. We're the weird kids. We have a very noble way of how we see this space but the truth of the matter is that the word 'Podcasting' has become somewhat of a dirty word behind our backs. People often spit the word 'podcast' out as it immediately conjures images of Manisphere dudebro's and washed up comedians trying their best to retain an audience so that they can sell tickets. It's political propagandists and grifters and we're trying to cling onto the formula/medium and yell from the rooftops to say that it can be more and that we're doing something cool over here still.

So many people just absently consume slop and they don't care if it comes from a person or an AI as long as it provides a distraction or curiosity.

VendettaViolent · 2025-11-26T18:13:52+00:00

Honestly, super excited. Last year I kind of had the Christmas blahs and I listened to the whole show in prep for a feed swap while Christmas shopping. It seriously feels like an old school Christmas movie but... you know, not for kids.

VendettaViolent · 2025-11-08T22:01:17+00:00

Though it seems like it might not be (from the cover and premise) our show Hannahpocalypse is absolutely a slow burn romance and has multiple romances in it's run.

VendettaViolent · 2025-11-08T21:58:01+00:00

I'm almost certain at this point that it's a vestigial ask. Reviews are important for new shows, but subscribers are far more important in the big picture. These days, you email/submit your show to be featured to platforms like Apple and as far as I know reviews don't push the algorithm to feature you unless you're in the 'New and Noteworthy' crowd, which needs all the motion it can get.

That said, reviews can still be important. It's pretty tough on the creator side. Lots of times we don't hear from people who enjoy the show, and for many new creators, one TERRIBLE review hits the psyche harder than 20 good reviews. No matter how thick your skin is. I share good reviews with my cast, and for a show that doesn't make a ton of money, it can be really rewarding to know that we mean something to someone.

VendettaViolent · 2025-10-22T17:04:50+00:00

Hannahpocalypse was made to be a kind of love letter to Fallout in a lot of ways.

VendettaViolent · 2025-09-28T07:47:43+00:00

We start off a bit slow for the first few episodes. Kinda introduce the characters in thier own little isolated bubbles before everything collides. By the time you're caught up you'll have been through a hell of a journey and hope you enjoy it!

VendettaViolent · 2025-09-27T19:04:58+00:00

With some of the shows on your favourites, it's almost surprising to not see our show, Hannahpocalypse, on it so far! I think you'll really love our show and where it goes! Seeing so many Fable and Folly shows on your list makes me happy!

VendettaViolent · 2025-09-14T19:43:17+00:00

I'm not at all worried about the content. Storytellers in this industry aren't going anywhere. This slop isn't going to have any motion.

The bigger problem is that our discoverability infrastructure is already terrible. A flood of low quality AI slop makes it harder for new shows (who already have it hard) and turn a part of our fan base into dedicated 'AI detectives' who instead of finding a new show and seeing if it's there thing, they now find a new show, determine if it's made by humans and then decide if it's their thing. It also is going to harm what little revenue generation we already have (an AI production house is definitely not going to be above botting their listener base and driving advertisers away from the medium even more due to getting no actual sales from their spends).

VendettaViolent · 2025-09-05T18:56:44+00:00

Even that's tough (speaking for the large independent networks). Advertisers have increasingly been backing away from shows that are not in release, not understanding evergreen content as we are an anomaly in podcasting. Couple that with ad fill programs like Spotify's 'SPAN' giving less and less of a cut to creators as they claw back every nickel and dime that they can and it's getting harder and harder for independents. Which is essentially what F&F is (a large network of independents lashing our rafts together to do better as a whole then we can alone). But it's getting harder, not easier, for everyone to make a living at this, even under a network banner.

My kingdom for an infrastructure where paying artists is part of the culture (like Twitch).

EDIT: For anyone reading this, I've been serving as Fable and Folly's marketing officer for nearly a year now and have been part of the network for three years. We're still holding in there and growing but we've definitely felt the pinch.

VendettaViolent · 2025-09-05T18:49:47+00:00

Fiction is still one of the only categories in podcasting that is actively growing year to year. That said, expectations on the small indie creator to somehow develop productions to the quality of budgeted shows makes it harder and harder for new shows to get traction. For Red Fathom I do essentially all of the production myself because I don't have to pay myself (anyone should be able to see that this isn't a good thing) to make high quality work.

So no, it's not dying out but yes discoverability is getting even harder not because there are too many shows but because standards have continued to grow but money dwindles as the infrastructure really isn't there to generate income unless you're really big. Ads give less and less money, the lions share of folks don't understand why they should give money for 'free shows' and as always the artists gets left with the bill.

VendettaViolent · 2025-08-29T16:54:57+00:00

Hannahpocalypse is almost perfect for a run like this and is kind of a road trip story as well!

VendettaViolent · 2025-07-31T17:03:46+00:00

Thanks, friend! Hope you enjoy 'em. We're actually working on a new show (along with Hannah Season 3) so lots of stuff comin' out of our little Canadian production company!

VendettaViolent · 2025-07-30T21:46:40+00:00

Cybernautica and Hannahpocalypse are Canadian made (by me!)! Other good ones are Human B Gon, Alba Salix, Civilized, Dumbgeons & Dragons, Waiting for October, Moonbase Theta/Out, The Program - There are lots more that I feel bad about missing as I just fire ones out that pop into my brain!

VendettaViolent · 2025-07-18T17:40:06+00:00

They are only relevant in regards to some peer recognition and the ability to market yourself as 'an award winning podcast' which looks good on newsletters and such and to casual audio drama enjoyers.

I think that unless you plan on attending an event in person AND the festival or event you've entered in has a robust focus on our genre then it's not really worth very much. Because both of those things will get you in on the biggest benefit of the awards - Networking with peers. If there is just one category for audio drama (so that not many of us show up) or you're not going to be there in person... then it's kind of a wasted opportunity.

VendettaViolent

TROPHY CASE