What is THE ONCE AND FUTURE NERD?

THE ONCE AND FUTURE NERD is a serialized audiodrama podcast about three teenagers from modern-day Pennsylvania who find themselves trapped in a High Fantasy world full of powerful magic and feudal intrigue. Will they survive their new surroundings long enough to get back home? Will their genre-awareness be an asset or a liability? And what is it like to be a rabbit?

(Psst! If you are a journalist or advertiser and want more business-y details about the show, then this is probably the page for you.)

Who Makes It?

Zach Glass and Christian Kelley-Madera are two big old dorks who actually honest-to-goodness met in the marching band at Cornell University. They started writing together as an excuse to stay in touch, after moving to different cities to pursue careers in bioengineering and post production for film and TV, respectively. Honestly, you’ve probably never heard of these two before.

But after a fever dream of a Skyrim-binge that initially inspired the project, Christian and Zach set about assembling a large, multi-talented team of actors, writers, composers, and engineers to help realize the project. These people you might very well have heard of, thanks to their many credits on the stage and screen. You can see our full cast & crew list here. You can also see a brief rundown of the characters they play here.

Where should I start?

TOAFN is a continuous, serialized narrative. It’s best to start at the beginning if you want to keep up with the plot. But general consensus in the fandom is that the end of our sixth episode is what really hooked them. So, we combined our first six episodes into a single file for ease of access.

Series Premiere Supercut: Website | iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play

But if you’re looking for a small taste before taking the full dive, then you might check out Chapter 8, Parts 3-5. That’s one of our favorite runs of episodes that also work well as standalones without spoiling too much. If you love those three, you can always go back and listen from the beginning.

Chapter 8, Pt. 3: Website | iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play

Chapter 8, Pt. 4: Website | iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play

Chapter 8, Pt. 5: Website | iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play

If you’re looking for some help getting up to speed, we also have a full chronological episode guide, as well as a plot summary page. We also post our scripts along with each new episode, and the full back catalog of scripts is available here.

Subscribe to the whole thing: RSS | iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play | Or search “once and future nerd” in your podcatcher of choice

Anything Else?

Community:

TOAFN has a subreddit, a Patreon, a fan-run Discord and TV Tropes page, a Facebook page, merch you can buy, and a vibrant community of fan art/fan theories/dank memes on Tumblr and Twitter.

(Credits, top row: left-to-right: pdanno, Ren Donor, thefairywzard

bottom: Drawings by Audrey on Tumblr)

Testimonials:

FINALLY doing a listen through of @_toafn and digging it mightily. A real labor of love, this! I wish I’d known more about it when I was with @OFCRadio; they’re both so clever and genre-aware. And their characters develop so thoroughly and satisfyingly.

-David Rheinstrom, Podcast Creator and host of Radio Drama Revival (@radiodrama on Twitter)

OAFN is a great show that scratches a hard-to-reach itch. As a person who grew up on The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio show, this tells an original story in a similar tone. I really enjoyed listening to it, I can’t wait to see what happens.

-iTunes user “Adventures in Podyssey Geof”

Seriously everybody needs to start listening to The Once and Future Nerd podcast. First of all it’s funny as f*** with the BEST characters. Second of all, lesbians, what more could you want. And if you’re really not sold then there’s lots of super important commentary about stories and who writes them, colonization, and most importantly: weed.

-N.B. via Tumblr

If you don’t listen to The Once And Future Nerd then you are missing out!!! I never realised how attached I would get to these characters, they all have depth and complexities and I love them! I’m completely hooked on this show and after 2 weeks of bingeing I’m up to date and I can’t wait for the next episode!! Regan is the love of my life and I really look forward to seeing where the writers take her character!

-iTunes user “sazmataz44”

Regan is ABSOLUTELY my favorite bisexual rogue and her intro scene is a good example of why.

-Podcast Creator @_ChelleShock on Twitter

It has all the best aspects of a DnD campaign – entertaining characters, questionable solidity of the fourth wall, and high fantasy hi jinks galore, but with a tightly woven and executed plot, high quality sound engineering, and multi-faceted complex characters you will absolutely fall in love with. This podcast has made me laugh until tears have streamed down my face, startled me with sincere moments of character growth, brought me to rage on behalf of atrocities committed in the realm of Iorden, & coaxed forth every other emotion a story can possibly invoked. Do yourself a favor – listen to it.

-Laura Henderson on iTunes

TOAFN balances witty in-world humor with hilarious 4th wall breaking callbacks to today’s nerd culture, and crafts a special blend of classic “kings and mages” fantasy with an increasingly present introspective critique of current issues in fantasy and gamer culture and media. The characters are refreshingly real and complex; the world surprisingly interesting for all its classic familiarity to Tolkien and the Dungeons & Dragons setting.

-Rowan David, excerpted from a longer review at The Odyssey Online

I’ve listened to and loved Welcome to Night Vale, The Takeover, basically everything Patrick E. Mclean has done, multiple Mur Lafferty projects, Shadowmagic, The Prince of Hazel and Oak, and many more podcasts. Maybe I’ll add a more comprehensive list to this later. And yet, I have no reservations about calling The Once And Future Nerd one of the best podcasts (if not the best) I have listened to yet.

-O. Carciente, excerpted from a longer review on the Thoughtful Spurts blog.

The show is also more sociologically astute than any other podcast I’ve come across. Instead of being an easy escapist fantasy, the show lures the listener in with adventure but winds up discussing current social issues like class struggle, racism, misogyny, rape culture, cultural appropriation, and toxic masculinity…This isn’t to say that the show is one dark trudge through political unrest and social justice. The show is, more often than not, hilarious. The anachronisms the three teenagers offer strike the rare sweet spot between delightfully referential but not too pandering to the audience. The show also has a diverse cast of characters, including canon characters of color and LGBT+ characters…that develop slowly like those in Bojack Horseman or Friday Night Lights.

-Wil Williams, excerpted from two longer reviews on her Wil Williams Reviews podcast blog

Awards/Recognition: