Up Your Nerd Cred

This week on Up Your Nerd Cred, we’re talking about the merch grab of it all. From Care Bears and Clue to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mortal Kombat, Pokémon, and Battleship, we’re looking at what happens when movies come from toy aisles, board games, arcade cabinets, comic shelves, and full-blown brand ecosystems. Because here’s the thing: a movie being made to sell...

This week on Up Your Nerd Cred, CiCi is flying solo and talking about one of the most disrespected team roles: the Heart. Sure, the Leader gets the speeches, the Brain gets the plans, and the Lancer gets to be correct in an irritating way, but what happens when a team loses the person keeping everyone connected to the mission, to each other, and to the people they’re supposed to protect? We’re loo...

Some dogs need puzzle toys, long walks, and enrichment activities or they’ll eat your couch. Some comic book geniuses need the same thing, except when they get bored, lonely, or isolated, they tear up the multiverse. In this solo episode of Up Your Nerd Cred , CiCi digs into the Brain trope and why the smartest person on the team still needs a team. From Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time to Dar...

This week, CiCi is flying solo and circling back to one of the ensemble roles that deserves a little more respect: the lancer. What makes someone a good second voice in a group? Not the rival trying to take the leader’s spot, not the hater who just wants to be difficult, and not the chaotic teammate making everything worse for fun. A real lancer is trusted opposition: the person who can tell the l...

We’re back with Part 2 of our season opener on why ensembles hit harder than one-off team-ups. This week, CiCi and AM pick up the conversation with the roles that keep superhero teams from becoming just a pile of costumes and trauma responses. We talk about why every team needs a brainiac, why the genius should probably not be left alone with a whiteboard and no emotional supervision, and how char...

After a surprise hiatus, Up Your Nerd Cred is back — and we’re kicking things off with the first half of a two-part conversation about why ensembles hit harder than one-off team-ups. This week, CiCi and AM dig into the difference between a fun crossover and a true ensemble: the kind of team where the characters don’t just fight together, but learn each other’s rhythms, weaknesses, emotional damage...

You say you want original characters… but do you actually support them? This week on Up Your Nerd Cred , we’re digging into one of the biggest contradictions in fandom: everyone claims they’re tired of reboots, remakes, and multiverses—but when brand new characters show up, they rarely get the same attention, time, or support. From characters like Moon Girl and Naomi to Mosaic, Sideways, and Escap...

How to Survive Comic-Con Without Missing Everything | UYNC S2 Ep __ What actually happens when you go to a comic convention—and how do you make sure you don’t waste the experience? In Part 2 of our con series, we’re breaking down what it really feels like to step onto the floor of a Comic-Con for the first time. From panels vs the show floor, to the chaos of con lines, to the unspoken rules of cos...

This week we're time traveling from early sci-fi meetups and zines to the massive spectacle of modern Comic-Con culture. We’re talking about how fandom sustained itself before the internet, how conventions like San Diego Comic-Con became industry powerhouses, and why studios now treat cons as targeted marketing goldmines. From Hall H reveals to regional cons across the country, this episode dives...

Who built nerd culture? If you’ve ever been made to feel like women “entered” comics, fandom, or nerd spaces late, this episode is here to gently (and not-so-gently) correct the record. Because women didn’t just show up—we’ve been reading, writing, editing, organizing, and sustaining nerd culture from the beginning. This week, CiCi and AM Diaz dig into the history that gets overlooked, from the ri...

Can a good person actually be a good leader? Or does leadership force people to compromise what makes them “good” in the first place? This week on Up Your Nerd Cred , CiCi is joined by longtime friend Matthew to break down one of the most quietly complicated questions in nerd culture: are great leaders born… or made? From Jean-Luc Picard’s unwavering moral code, to Delenn’s impossible wartime choi...

What happens when nerd culture collides with the happiest place on Earth? This week on Up Your Nerd Cred , AM Diaz takes the lead mic while CiCi reacts as the conversation dives into one of the most debated topics in modern fandom: Disneyland . Joined by special guest Tiffi Starchild , the crew explores the culture surrounding Disney parks, the rise of “Disney Adults,” and why places like Disneyla...

The Little Mermaid: A Gay Danish Allegory (Tentacles Optional) | Up Your Nerd Cred Did you know the original version of The Little Mermaid is significantly darker than the Disney classic most of us grew up with? Before Ariel was collecting gadgets and gizmos aplenty, Hans Christian Andersen was writing a story about identity, belonging, and the cost of trying to fit into a world that might never a...

It’s the end of Black History Month and we’re highlighting Black superheroes who don’t rely on lightning powers or “Black” in their codename. From Green Lanterns to War Machine, from Monet St. Croix to Queen Nubia, we’re breaking down the evolution of representation in Marvel and DC — and how modern storytelling is finally letting these characters breathe. Plus: BAFTA controversy, Starfleet Academ...

What does it cost to always be the strong one? This week, we’re digging into grief, trauma, and emotional resilience across Marvel’s Black heroes — from Luke Cage’s incarceration and invulnerability, to Storm’s claustrophobia and PTSD, to Shuri’s rage on the ancestral plane, to Riri Williams building armor around her grief, and Sam Wilson proving that sometimes the most powerful move isn’t a punch...

Were you the Black Power Ranger… or the Pink one? In this solo episode of Up Your Nerd Cred, CiCi dives into what it meant to grow up as the token Black girl in 90s TV friend groups — and the quiet, uncomfortable pressure to “identify correctly.” From Saved by the Bell and Clueless to Daria, Power Rangers, and that infamous “Pretty White Kids with Problems” sketch, we’re talking about: The scarcit...

We’re back with Part 2 of our deep dive into the Disney Prince pipeline — and this time, things get competitive. CiCi, AM Diaz, and the Solving for X crew finish the conversation by putting these princes to the test: hotness, usefulness, and whether they were wildly out of their league. From Prince Naveen and Flynn Rider to Hercules, Aladdin, and the Beast, we rank, debate, disagree loudly, and ab...

This week, we’re stepping outside the Marvel and DC multiverses (just for a minute) to talk about the Disney Princes — and how they evolved from voiceless, last-minute plot devices into fully realized characters with agency, flaws, and emotional growth. Joined by the Solving for X crew, we break down the different eras of Disney princes, what makes a “good” prince versus a functional one, and whet...

Did you grow up thinking cartoons were just something you watched before going outside—only to realize later they were also 22-minute toy ads wrapped in surprisingly strong moral messaging? This week on Up Your Nerd Cred, CiCi and AM Diaz dive into the cartoon blocks that shaped Gen X and Millennial nerd culture, from the Hanna-Barbera–dominated Saturdays of the 70s and early 80s to the crowded, c...

Did you ever wonder why you still remember cereal mascots, toy commercials, and Saturday morning cartoons with unsettling clarity? In this episode of Up Your Nerd Cred , we break down how entire generations—especially Gen X and Millennials—were deliberately marketed to as children, and how those strategies didn’t just sell toys. They shaped nostalgia, spending habits, and fandom itself. We introdu...

Welcome back to Up Your Nerd Cred, and welcome to Season 2. This week, we’re talking about toys-not just the ones we played with, but the ones that quietly taught us who we were allowed to be. From Saturday morning cartoons doubling as toy ads, to dolls and action figures that gave some of us freedom and others a box, this episode is about imagination, identity, and why nostalgia hits harder than...

If timelines keep breaking, and universes keep rebooting, eventually someone has to live with the consequences. In the thrilling conclusion of our Flash trilogy, CiCi and AM tackle the fallout of Flashpoint , the collapse of the New 52 , and the long road back to legacy through DC Rebirth . This is the episode where Wally West’s disappearance actually matters, where memory becomes a superpower, an...

The Flash isn’t just one guy in red spandex—it’s a whole family , and DC continuity has been putting them through a cosmic blender since the Silver Age. In this episode, we break down how Crisis on Infinite Earths reshaped DC’s multiverse, why Wally West had to grow from “Kid Flash” into the Flash, and how the Speed Force became the backbone of modern Flash mythology. Then we get into the most cha...

Did you know there are FIVE different Flashes? Because CiCi sure didn’t — and AM absolutely did. 😭 In Part 1 of this expert-level two-parter , we start at the very beginning with Jay Garrick , the Golden Age Flash who got super-speed via the most 1940s origin imaginable (hard water vapors???), and then jump to Barry Allen , the Silver Age Flash who helped revive superhero comics… and also helped...

What actually happens when superheroes, gods, villains, and reality-warpers run headfirst into real-world law ? Today we’re diving into the wonderfully messy chaos of superhero legal theory and asking the question absolutely no insurance adjuster is prepared for: Is Thor falling on your car… an Act of God? (And if Wonder Woman does it in her civilian form, does that make it better or worse?) In th...