Author: Nicole Tan

Credits

Writer – Nicole Tan
Noel – Nicole Tan
Bub – Alan Jiang
Dore’een – Your Friendly Neighborhood Cryptid Bigfoot
Gertrude – Emily Alvarado
Xiao Ying – David Chen

Bigfoot’s credit passage was lifted from Cryptozoology A To Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature by Lauren Coleman and Jerome Clark.

Music Credits
“The Confrontation” and “The Gall” by Podington Bear

The Recorder:

Credits

Writer – Nicole Tan
Noel – Nicole Tan
Bub – Alan Jiang
Grandma – David Ng
Deklect – David Ng, Latto Li, and Nicole Tan

Special thanks to Kevin Millbauer and Teddy Quedado

Music Credits
“The Confrontation” and “The Gall” by Podington Bear

I have two pitch ideas. Both of them are fictional.

The first one would be called “Customs Out of the Closet.” A young woman, Noel, moves into a new studio apartment. There is no furniture there except for a closet. While vlogging the new space, she discovers that her closet is actually a door to the underworld. Except the underworld has travel customs and the office in her closet is one of many checkpoints.

In the first episode, Noel meets the travel customs officer “Bub” in the closet. Bub is interrogating and doing the last checks on someone that looks a lot like Noel’s late grandmother. However, as the interrogation continues, Noel feels that something is not right, and that the spirit is not her grandmother. Noel and Bub discovers that the spirit is indeed not her grandmother, but another spirit attempting to flee the underworld. Bub recognizes Noel’s worth and instead of condemning her soul to the underworld, hires her to work with him.

The second podcast idea would be called “NPC Radio.”** A hermit weapon-smith, David, is well-known for his amazing skill at repairing and creating weapons. The listeners learn more about the world he is in through the conversations he has with customers, and we learn that maybe the world isn’t as idyllic as it first seems.

In the first episode, David’s friend, George, brings a young man to him. George is a guard that works in the closest city. The young man, Horace, is training under George to become a guard. In a sparring match with George, George breaks his heirloom sword by accident. While they are at David’s, Horace reveals bits of his past and he seems like the stereotypical “Chosen One” that will defeat the evil in the world. David agrees to repair the sword and the audience learns that there is something dark over the world, but we just don’t know what yet.

**tentative

In the last couple of weeks, President Trump’s tweets have been taken as an open declaration of war by North Korea. With North Korea continuing to openly test nuclear weapons and missiles, tensions between the U.S. and North Korea escalate and concerns about war, discrimination, and division are growing in the South Korean population in New York City.

Serving the Korean Christian community in Queens is the First United Methodist Church in Flushing. It has three floors, a gymnasium, and multiple classrooms for Saturday school. Korean immigrants and second generation Koreans from pre-K to high school attend every weekend.

With eyes on the community, the pastors working here are closely attuned to tensions in the atmosphere, especially as America seems to be heading closer and closer to war with North Korea. But Korean immigrants, far from their South Korean origins, take sides: peace, or war? It’s a stance that might segregate the community instead of bringing them together

According to Pastor Daniel Cho, or Pastor Danny as he is sometimes called, there is a divide among the Korean population on the topic of North Korea. “Liberals tend to be more supportive of the North Korean peace talks. The traditional conservatives are more about ‘No, they’ll never change. Communistic society, we’ve seen it.'”

The older, traditional conservatives imagine a land battle, like the Korean War, and they’ve seen the effects of Communism while younger generation holds onto an idealistic future. But that only takes into account first generation Korean-Americans, those that were born in South Korea and immigrated to the U.S.

Second generation Korean-Americans have a different view, too, as Pastor Yo Rhie has seen. “The Korean-American kids, more like second generation immigrants, have some kind of Americanized political view in this that North Korea is an enemy and the threat is real,” says Rhie, “and so, there is a division.”

Pastor Yo Rhie works with middle school and high school students. Her students keep track of the news and discuss current events with their parents. Yet, it seems that these students, born and raised in America, are more planted in the American life than their country of origin.

“If they think America is their home and their family lives there,” she says, “then just like South Korea, whether they should evacuate or not—that’s kinda like how people outside Korea view the situation. So I don’t think they will say ‘Oh, my family is there, we need to bring them to this land of safety.'”

A block away from the church is the Seo family. They’re a first and second generation Korean-American family. Brian Seo, a 16 year-old high school student, lives with his parents and elder sister in the U.S. He has never been to South Korea but almost all of his extended family lives there.

Brian laughs when he considers war with North Korea. “If war really breaks out, then I think that it’s no bueno. I feel more strongly towards my Korean roots than my American roots, but it’s because I’m not in Korea myself; I don’t know how it feels. I’m kind of like, detached to Korean?”

His mother, Soonae Seo, came to the U.S. in 2000 with her husband and three year old daughter. She grew up under the shadow of the Korean War and reflects a sentiment that is common in most South Koreans. Her daughter, Wonyoung, translates.

“In the beginning,” Soonae recalls, “the apprehension of the constant possibility of the war resuming has always been there since I was little. The people living in South Korea have grown desensitized because that apprehension has been there for so long.”

Regardless of the varying sentiment towards North Korea, an attempt for peace is still the first option. In November, the UMC will be hosting a Seminar Forum for Peace in the Korean Peninsula, which many of the pastors in Flushing’s United Methodist Church will be attending. This forum will be located in the United Methodist Building in Washington D.C. It will be a chance for the community to voice their opinions to congressional leaders.

As Pastor Noah Choi puts it, “It’d be nice if President Trump and Kim Jong-Un could talk it out peacefully. But in the event that that’s not possible, raising our voices together as loudly as possible, ‘Peace, peace,” couldn’t that method stop something like war from happening?”

For my second podcast, I want to interview some of the city’s Korean-Americans and their views about the current conflict with North Korea and the fears they might have about their families that are still living in South Korea. This is a big topic in the news as of late. I already got in contact with a friend that volunteers at a Korean church in Queens and she will be getting me in contact with some community leaders and first generation immigrants. For ambient noise, if I am able to arrange an interview in the church, there might be some great sounds there. I want to also try getting an interview with a family, so I might be able to get natural sounds of a Korean household, too.

For the first assignment, I plan on interviewing Oriana Carletto, a freelance artist and cartooning major in the School of Visual Arts. Oriana has already agreed to an interview and they have a niche in the gaming art community. However, Oriana recently collaborated with another artist and released their first original art zine, stepping away from easily more popular fanart niche. I’m interested in the artist’s side of transitioning from producing art for others to art for yourself.

The Adventure Zone is a live-play Dungeons and Dragons podcast hosted by Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint McElroy. Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop game that involves dice and a lot of roleplaying improvisation, so the podcast is exactly that. Travis, Justin, and their father, Clint, roleplay as their characters: Magnus, Taako, and Merle, while the youngest son, Griffin, is their DM (Dungeon Master) and guides them through the world with his words and plays every NPC (Non-Playable Character) that they come across.

It’s a podcast that originated from another series that the brothers do, so it was initially intended for fans of that podcast. However, it grew and attracted people from the “nerdier” side of the spectrum, as well as young adults that are interested in this form of interactive storytelling. It is all unscripted except for a basic plot that their DM, Griffin, has outlined and features music scored by the aforementioned.

There is advertising in the podcast, usually sponsorship from companies like Blue Apron. Other times, it is sponsored wholly by their network, Maximum Fun. They have a yearly drive to encourage listeners to donate and also sell shoutouts (“Jumbotron”) that are read by Griffin in the podcast during their ad breaks.The ads are usually in the middle of the episode.

The Adventure Zone is a pretty popular podcast with more than 130,000 subscribers and 80.7k followers on their Twitter account. It definitely made positive waves with their portrayal of sexually diverse characters. It can also be argued that their podcast made Dungeons and Dragons popular again among younger generations. A graphic novel based on the adventures of their characters is set to be released next year.

They recently finished their first season, the Balance Storyline, which has 69 episodes split into 8 arcs. A good place to start is episode 2 or at the second arc: Moonlighting. It is serial in nature, so for the best experience, starting at Episode 1.5 is fine, as long as you’re alright with vague discussions about the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.