Jess & Hids Make A Podcast

Send us Fan Mail We’re back, baby!! Thank you all for your patience while we took a short break to reset. This episode Jess leads off with another awesome and amazing woman from history! She tells us about Nellie Bly, the first female investigative journalist and honestly just a really amazing woman! Hids takes a trip to Siberia and tells us about Lake Baikal, a rift lake in southern Siberia that...

Send us Fan Mail After some back and forth with the Uno Cards, Jess goes first again! (Huzzah, Hids says!) Jess’ topic this episode is one of our favorite recurring cards: CRYPTIDS! We learn a bit about the Baku, a Japanese creature that eats nightmares! But be careful, if they’re really hungry they’ll eat your hopes and dreams, too! Hids gives us a look at the rise of Spiritualism in America duri...

Send us Fan Mail Jess is back with another awesome historical woman, Lady Elizabeth Cathcart. She was locked away by her gold-digging husband for TWENTY YEARS when she refused to give up her jewels and her estate. But he got a healthy dose of karma in the end. Hids talks about the Egyptian craze that spiked during the Victorian age and has influenced so much in architecture, art, and design ever s...

Send us Fan Mail Jess tells us about Orangey the Cat! Orangey was a famous cat of the 1950s/60s Hollywood movie and television scene. Well…Orangey was actually several cats, but who’s counting? We also learn a bit about Frank Inn and we really like him for his animal training and his care of a variety of animals during his life! Hids dives into conspiracy theories…specifically one from 2016 about...

Send us Fan Mail Once they finally stop laughing…sort of…Hids gives us a brief look at the Men in Black! They’re going back to 1947 and the start of the UFO craze in the US. We visit Washington State and learn a bit about the first appearance of the Men In Black. Are they supernatural? Are they FBI Agents? Are they just a hoax? Jess takes us across the ocean to Egypt and tells us about an amazing...

Send us Fan Mail Tangents abound! Hids takes a look at a Smokey Bear, the iconic and longest running public service announcement campaign in US History! Wildfires are a very real threat across the US and the world, and Smokey has been a voice for prevention and safety for over 81 years! Jess takes a look at something slightly creepier than bears…vampires! Specifically the rise of the current ‘roma...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back! This episode kicks off our new schedule. We’ll be dropping episodes every other week for the foreseeable future. This week Jess reminds us to touch grass and how good it is for us to be outdoors as she discusses Sylvotherapy. Nature is really cool and we all need to spend more time in it! Hids talks about another awesome woman from history: Amelia Earhart!! We’ve all b...

Send us Fan Mail This week we’re dropping a Warm Embers episode full of announcements, updates and conversations! Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Join us! Jess and Hids for a cozy, low stakes actual play D&D podcast! A Tale of Two Kobolds. Follow the adventures of Fizzz and Bang, two adorable Kobolds, as they face a world that’s bigger than they are in an effort to find each other, and maybe learn a bit about themselves along the way. Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Order has been restored and Jess goes first in this episode. She talks about the top secret illegal government project, MKUltra, famous now for dosing unwitting civilians with LSD and conducting horrible experiments on them. Hids introduces us to the brilliant scientific mind of Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, the woman behind bluetooth and early forms of wifi. Oh, she was also the beau...

Send us Fan Mail We have a shorter episode this week. Hids is still recovering from being sick and their voice is less than stellar. The streak breaks with this episode and Hids goes first! They give us a quick look at the pink fairy armadillo, an adorable little creature from Argentina! Jess pulled a recurring card and takes us back to the golden age of piracy and a look at the Jolly Roger and it...

Send us Fan Mail Hids’ streak of not going first lives on as Jess takes us back to New York, 1964. She dips into a true crime story, so a trigger warning for murder, but what she really gets into is the fascinating psychology of the Bystander Effect and how the death of Kitty Genovese kicked off a decades long study, and paved the way for the 911 emergency call system. Hids also travels back in ti...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been a while since we’ve done a Raven Riff, so we’re bringing it back with a fun look at The Raven. We love cheesy movies, Vincent Price, and Edgar Allan Poe and this wonderfully cheesy comedic horror from 1963 has all three PLUS Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Unfortunately for Jess, this movie also features a young Jack Nicholson. Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Episode eight has arrived and we’re bringing out the Punk! Jess revisits various punk genres and we come up with a few of our own along the way. Hids does a bit of science-y stuff as they discuss Halley’s Comet and the Comet Panic of 1910! Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail In our second episode of 2026, we finally decide it’s time to set some intentions and talk about our plans for the new year! The goal? Chill. Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Hey we’re back! We had a bit of time off to recharge our batteries and now we’re ready to kick off the new year and continue on with Season Two! Jess starts us off (are you surprised?) with the wild story of Centralia, PA, a town that burns with an eternal fire. Hids goes into a little bit of a linguistic journey through cemeteries and graveyards and tells us about the symbolism a...

Send us Fan Mail Jess opens with a holiday vibe and tells us about various holiday legends and superstitions from around the world.  Hids had a bit of a wild magic surge and takes a little trip to Finland to see an art installation by Reijo Kela called The Silent People. Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Things are slightly back to normal this week…well, only in the fact that Jess is going first! Huzzah! Jess gives us a brief history of the rise of the Fantasy genre in literature. Did you think Tolkien invented it? You might be surprised.  Hids has a quick topic this week simply because there is very little known about the Telescope Fish! Hids thinks they’re kinda cute…in a creepy...

Send us Fan Mail We have a short episode today! It's a bit of a wild magic surge because we don't actually talk about the topics we drew in the last episode. Instead, Jess talks about The Spoon Theory, from its origins to how the metaphor is used today. Hids dives a bit deeper and talks about a handful of metaphors that branched from The Spoon Theory, including the avid TTRPG player&apos...

Send us Fan Mail Come along with more unedited chaos and science!! Jess tells us about fata morgana, a fascinating mirage that only happens in very specific conditions and has led to failed expeditions and oceanic superstitions like the Flying Dutchman! Hids wraps up their discussion on Edgar Allan Poe with a look at some of Poe’s influences on American literature as well as his many appearances i...

Send us Fan Mail We’re so stoked to be here with our first episode of Season Two! And oh boy, do we have a good one for you! This episode was recorded just a couple hours before upload, so it’s coming to you totally unedited and full of our usual chaos. In an odd synchronicity with our very first episode, Jess starts this season talking about one of our all-time favorite humans: Vincent Price!  An...

Send us Fan Mail Wild Magic Surge!  ADHD strikes… and so does the d20! Hids has gone first again!!  Hids takes a quick look at the Hays Code. This was an attempt by Hollywood to avoid government regulation and censorship on the movies that were being produced from roughly the 1930s to mid 1960s.  Jess spends some time in the same era, but she’s focusing on some of the architecture of the time, Goo...

Send us Fan Mail Wow! Fifty episodes!! We are so close to one year of Jess & Hids Make a Podcast! This episode is chaotic because why not? About ten minutes before we started recording, we asked a couple of our Patrons to give us 50 questions to answer. So… Well, here you go! Have fun and we hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording! Support the show Join our Discord!

Send us Fan Mail Something is seriously wrong with Hids’ d20. For the somethingth time in a row, they’re going first!  This week, Hids delivers a brief history of the Wild Hunt, you know, the topic they promised early in October? Yep, finally making that happen!  Jess is back on track with her famous women of history and tells us a bit about Doris Duke, an heiress to a massive fortune and her (mos...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 48 is a wild ride!!! Actually…it’s a slightly chaotic shift into a realm of good news and Hope Punk vibes. We both found good things from around the internet to share and hopefully spread a little joy and scatter some warm embers across the downloads. Support the show Join our Discord!