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Recall Recall Jun 18, 2023

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#354: The crew talks about learning new habits and skills, but sliding back into repeating old ones. What’s the deal with that?? Transcript Josué Cardona 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined today by Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:22Hey, Josué Cardona 0:23Link Keller. Link Keller 0:25Yo, Josué Cardona 0:26And Marc Cuiriz Marc Cuiriz 0:28Hello. Josué Cardona 0:29Hello, Team. It’s my turn again, is it? is it my turn again?. Lara Taylor 0:34It is, because you decided to give us a topic. Josué Cardona 0:38Because nobody else came up with a topic. So my, my, my topic came to me when we when I was playing, small little, little indie game called Legend of Zelda tears at the kingdom. never and never heard of it. Yeah, no, it’s good. It’s good. So there will be no spoilers here. But I had to kind of what I call this not a, I had a realization. So I’m playing this game. So for context, this is the sequel to breath of the wild and I played, I played about 150 hours a Breath of the Wild through two playthroughs. I liked the game a lot. And one thing that I liked about the game was how you kind of had this very open world and you weren’t sure if you could climb that mountain, or if you could get this far and get to a particular thing. And so I’m playing tears of the kingdom. And I’m doing exactly that, again. It’s like, oh, my god, can I climb the mountain? Can I do this? Can I make it this way, I’m gonna try this. And I’m enjoying it. And after a play session, I stopped. And I thought, wait a minute. This is a sequel. There’s like 100 different ways that I could have done this. Because there there are all these new tools that weren’t available in the first game. And even though the game is teaching me to use them, and sometimes even requiring me to use them, to get from point A to point B, I’m so used to the way I used to do it, that I just did not actually use any of those things. So of course, it got me thinking how, how we do that in real life. That’s like, oh, I go to therapy, or I go to the gym, or I want to go to school, do trainings at work, and you don’t remember the things that you just learned. And you keep doing things. Like you were doing them before. Like you go back to old habits and you start like, why does that happen? What has happened to him? Why am I not using all the new features and Zelda? Why am I not using all of the amazing things that I’ve learned in therapy over the years? Lara Taylor 2:57Because new habits are hard to build. Josué Cardona 3:00get out of here Lara Taylor 3:00And we’d like to be in our comfort zone and do things the way we know. Josué Cardona 3:05Oh, explain that to me. I don’t like it. I don’t get it. Lara Taylor 3:12I don’t like it either. I can explain it, but I don’t like it. I also I do like some new things in games. I like new games and things like that. And I will get to the real life piece of it. But like I’m playing Jedi survivor and I keep getting new stances and new outfits and things like that. Nope, I want Cal to look the way he was on. Like the first cutscene I changed the color of his outfit to be more colors I like but like I don’t I don’t mess around with all the hair and stuff. I like the the two lightsabers and the double bladed lightsaber. I don’t use the new stances. Yeah, I like to use the things I’m used to. Partially because I know I’m more efficient at it and I know what I’m doing. Josué Cardona 4:03But these new tools are we’re more powerful and we can do more. Lara Taylor 4:07They are sometimes they are sometimes they’re not right. Like if I were to try and teach myself to type on a keyboard the way you’re supposed to at school. I would be way slower than I am right now with my master typing skills. Josué Cardona 4:21but wait, how do you type? Link Keller 4:25elaborate, Lara Taylor 4:26elaborate, my hands go that place where you’re the starting position you’re supposed to with your pointer finger on the little dots right on the F and the J But my fingers don’t go to the ones that exactly the way that they say whatever. Like I don’t know. I can’t tell you exactly which ones go where but I just type and it’s not the way that they teach you in school. Exactly. Josué Cardona 4:51Well this was backwards that this one is like if you learn the right if you the way that you do Lara Taylor 4:57the new way is faster. Josué Cardona 4:58Yeah, and then you stopped. Lara Taylor 5:00they stopped teaching it. Josué Cardona 5:01No, but then you stopped. It just started doing the old way. That’s my life. Lara Taylor 5:07Okay, I guess that makes sense. But yeah, we like to do the things that we are used to, because we are creatures of habit. And it is really hard to build routines and do new things. Because it’s not what we know, and not what we’re used to. And our brains fall back on those old patterns, because that’s the neural pathways that have been firing, right, and it takes a long time to switch to new pathways. I think I have to say that at least once a day, at my work sometimes five times a day Josué Cardona 5:39to yourself? Lara Taylor 5:40to clients Link Keller 5:41three to clients, two to yourself. Lara Taylor 5:43And to remind myself both that I also need, I take time to change that my habits, but also that my clients take time to change their habits, and that it is a process. Josué Cardona 5:56So even, like that makes sense to me. From a behavioral standpoint, right, for certain things, but what about, Does the same apply to your thoughts? Like to to thinking? Does it does the same? revolve around traumatic responses to, you know, all these things? Does the same apply? Lara Taylor 6:23I mean, I feel like it does. I mean, we’re talking behaviorally, but thoughts and thoughts and traumatic responses and all those like anxiety pathways, that’s all going through your brain too. So. Josué Cardona 6:38So but so. But what why do we so we develop the new habit? Lara Taylor 6:47And it takes time Josué Cardona 6:49why doesn’t it stick around? Why does it go away? Lara Taylor 6:50it doesn’t stick around because you have to keep doing it to get it to stick around. But then that means you have to keep doing it, even though you want to do the old ones Josué Cardona 6:58What if you don’t want to do the old one? That’s the problem. You don’t want to do the old one, you want to do the new one? Why don’t we Why don’t we go back to the old? Lara Taylor 7:03See, I want to do the old one. Link Keller 7:09It comes down to it’s like neurological resources, right? It costs more energy to do the new thing. Not necessarily because it is more difficult, but because it is new, your brain needs to pay more attention to it. Lara Taylor 7:25Right Link Keller 7:26I think a great example would be like when you are driving a route to work or school or whatever. And you’re driving the same route all the time, like there comes a point where your brain is not engaging in the drive above the very baseline bottom level, and you just appear in the parking lot where you’re going, you’re like, wow, I don’t remember actually driving here, but here I am. And so if you change your path, you have to be way more focused and your brain is way more engaged in that is more resource intensive. And so if you’re not being like, really on top of reinforcing the change, your brain is like, my whole bag is doing as many shortcuts as I can. And I know that this one is shorter than whatever the heck you’re trying to do right now. So I’m just gonna swing, swing over into the old habit. I’m gonna save you a couple of batteries, so you can play more video games or something. Lara Taylor 8:28Which is precisely why we ended up going on autopilot. If we’re going the same direction to go to a friend’s houses we are to work and it’s like, oh, we drive the path to work all the time. So that’s where we must be going not to the friend’s house. Yeah, Link Keller 8:43I’ve done that a couple of times. You take take a freeway exit that goes to one place you go to regularly it’s like this time I’m going to the DMV. That’s like the next block down is like, No, you’re in the parking lot is a place you always because what? Dammit. Lara Taylor 9:00that’s not where I’m meant to go. Link Keller 9:02Now you have that shame moment of like, Gosh, I really hope nobody’s paying attention to the weirdo who just drove into the parking lot and then looked really annoyed and then turned around and drove away. Is everybody judging me right now? Oh, God. Josué Cardona 9:14Yes. So Lara Taylor 9:18It might not have been then, but Josué is definitely judging you now. Josué Cardona 9:22Yes, for sure. I’m gonna Judge Marc now. Marc Cuiriz 9:27Please. Josué Cardona 9:28Now, Marc, I’ve have a question for you. And Lara, I guess because, you know, when when y’all have seen clients lately, how often Like yeah Lara you said every day. You have to mention this, but you You’ve both done, like inpatient settings. Right. And so how often do you see like, how often do you see a client suffering from something doing way better for a while and then falling back right? To the old behaviors, which, which again, are not. They’re not helpful. Maybe they are comfortable, you know, just just Link Keller 10:13Or it’s like they were useful in a certain context. But that context no longer exists. Right? A lot of trauma responses are like that, where it’s like, we don’t want to shame people for doing a behavior that allowed them to survive. But when you’re not in that survival state anymore, that’s harming you. So how do we change it? Marc Cuiriz 10:36Yeah, I think for, for me, since I really do worry, listen. So right now I’m working with that inpatient level, I do get, I do get some repeaters, every now and again, and there’s a couple times and I kind of joke around with them about it. But a lot of times to what I’m kind of seeing is, it’s not that they don’t need to act in that certain way anymore, or react that certain way or behave a certain way anymore, it’s that, unfortunately, for us, nine times out of 10, when they’re discharging, because we’re just for stabilization, they’re still going back to those same things, and they don’t have the resources necessarily available to them to create a change in their environment. And so their brain kind of goes back into that instinctual mode. And then they start doing the, they start re engaging in their trauma responses, because to them, they’re still in that survival mode. And so for them, that’s what’s working, but it’s also not working, and then they end up coming back because either a family member gets fed up with it, because they’re not realizing that they might be the problem. Or, you know, it’s again, like they it, they take that response, and they go a little too far. And, you know, then it becomes a danger or a concern, and they know that they need to come back. And, you know, I try my best to try to set them up for that path of success or fight to find a way to make it work. And the unfortunate thing is that sometimes I just can’t. And then that kind of falls into my own thought patterns and things like that. So everything that I learned in therapy about saying it’s not my fault, because it’s not, you know, it’s not like I’m purposely doing it that goes right out the window, and I go right back into people pleasing behavior. And I just want to make everybody happy, please stop being mad, stop being sad, just be happy, please. And then I often have to catch myself. Sometimes when I’m in that self degrading talk, or that or I’m getting too hard on myself and be like, Hold on, wait a minute, we learned how to not do this. So let’s stop doing it. Josué Cardona 12:55Why did you stop doing it before? Why do you keep doing it? Marc Cuiriz 13:00you know, it’s what I like to call my ultra instinct mode, where I’m just not thinking at all Josué Cardona 13:07got it got it Marc Cuiriz 13:08about my thoughts about my actual thinking process, I’m not thinking about my thinking, I’m not meta thinking here. It just, it just happens. And it just kind of falls back into, it’s almost like a, like a subroutine where it’s a process that’s constantly running in the background. But I’m not paying any sort of active attention to it. So I’m not recognizing that it’s still there at times. And it’s only when I start trying to figure something out that I start finding it just randomly somewhere in the crevices of my brain. And now it’s at the front and then once it’s called once I have brought it to my attention, then I can start dealing with it. But I think ultimately, it’s kind of always like a background process. It’s just constantly running. I can’t find it’s like a like I lose a tab. You can’t find it. You’re trying to close everything and you just can’t find it anywhere. Link Keller 14:02I like I like that metaphor. My My mind went immediately to like, why is my computer chugging so hard? Let me just go to the Task Manager. It’s like why am I running 80 versions of Spotify right now? Why is that happening? I’m not even listening to music. Just force force quit everything. Josué Cardona 14:22why don’t you just restart the computer, defrag, rewrite the code Link Keller 14:26that’s the unfortunate thing it’s very hard to do a force restart on your own brain. Marc Cuiriz 14:34I can’t just like Link Keller 14:34fresh drivers, like what is going on here? Marc Cuiriz 14:37I unfortunately cannot just go to sleep and the middle of the workday and just collapse on the floor and just do a hard reboot. Lara Taylor 14:46But Why not Marc? Link Keller 14:48I wish TV was real where when anybody bonks you on the head with any item it immediately knocks you unconscious for 30 seconds to two hours but you’re always perfectly fine afterwards I would love that Lara Taylor 15:03no concussion Link Keller 15:04to be real. I would love to get just bonked on the head. Just knock me out for a little bit Josué Cardona 15:07would you like to see stars or birds? Marc Cuiriz 15:10Ooh, I think I see stars Josué Cardona 15:12I think I’d be a bird person. Link Keller 15:16Can I? Can I pick the bird? Or is it just like basic? Josué Cardona 15:19I don’t know how this works. Link Keller 15:21it there a bird upgrade? Lara Taylor 15:22Is it like, Roger. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Birds? Link Keller 15:27I want Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I want Roger rabbits running around my head. Lara Taylor 15:31Okay. okay Marc Cuiriz 15:32I like that. I like that. Josué Cardona 15:34It’s your Bonk. So, of course, I’m asking all these questions, right? Because because it is, it is so frickin hard to to give these things up. Especially right. I mean, it all goes back to trauma. I was back to your parents. Right, that early programming is so so hard. It’s so frustrating. I mean, we wouldn’t have we wouldn’t have. Some of us here wouldn’t have jobs if it weren’t because of because of this? Link Keller 16:08Yeah, Josué Cardona 16:10who knows what ya’ll’d be doing? It is it is it is incredible. And I I was just so surprised to have that feeling in the game as well. Right? Because it’s not even. It’s like you forget that you have these tools. Right? And and I think, Lara you I mean, you know, you, you made it to the punch line, like within the first 30 seconds. You’re not repeating, right that you need to repeat this stuff, you need to do it over and over again. You need to I want to stay away from the word habit. In a sense, just but right, but you’re not wrong. Lara Taylor 16:49Like, yeah, teachers talk about, like, kids need to hear something at least three times to remember it. More than that. Adults need to hear it. And I get so many clients who are like, I know, we’re talking about the same thing that we talked about last week, or we’ve talked about this a month ago, I know we got to talk like why are…

Full show notes at the publisher

Inherited Hobbies Jun 04, 2023

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#353: The crew discusses how we got into certain interests and fandoms, who we have passed them on to, and the unique feeling of pride watching someone go farther and deeper into the hobbies and media we love. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your lovely co hosts, Marc Cuiriz and joined with me today is Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:29Hello, Marc Cuiriz 0:31Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:32Hey. Marc Cuiriz 0:35And the wonderful link Keller Link Keller 0:38ello. Marc Cuiriz 0:41So Oh, sway, I believe it is. Your turn this week, you so graciously volunteered Josué Cardona 0:48my turn. Marc Cuiriz 0:48So please tell us. Josué Cardona 0:49Yeah. So So I’ve been thinking about how there’s a story. I had a client once who, you know, with my clients, I would always start asking them, Hey, what are you into? What are your favorite hobbies? What do you what do you like to do? It was part of my intake process. And there was one client. I always remember, he was like, middle school aged. And I asked him, you know, what he enjoyed, what he enjoyed doing what is his favorite thing? And he said, shooting guns. And that kind of, you know, like, put up some red flags for me. But don’t yuck my Yum, you know, being being open, you know, GT model. I was like, oh, cool, like so. So what is it about that, that you like, and so he started telling me, and I find out that he, he loves going to shoot because that’s the only or that’s the primary activity he does with his father, who he rarely gets to see because his parents are divorced. And whatever his father comes to get him they just, like, go out to to a range somewhere and, and fire some guns. And so ever since that, I always, I’ve always thought about how, how important it is, when, like, the meaning behind the why or how we got started into some of our hobbies. My mom passed away recently, and so I I didn’t, I don’t, I don’t like procedurals, like, sure I’ll sit down and watch an episode of Law and Order anytime. No problem. But like with someone else, not not not just me when it come from, for me, but my mom love procedurals. And when she died, there was a particular one that she she just loved so much. He was really into it. And so I still, like, I still I’ll watch an episode, like I have them running. And it’s like my way of kind of like continuing what my mom like to do. But I can’t deny that like, I like it. Like I liked the show. And and I’m I’m pretty invested. And and so watching those shows now has an incredible amount of meaning that goes beyond just enjoying the show. And and like I have, you know, I play video games because of my parents. I like sci fi because of my parents. And sometimes I forget that. But but it was something that was that was passed on. And I don’t know if there’s just that that mean, Link Keller 1:23and anime via Astroboy which doesn’t count anime, but it does. Josué Cardona 3:31It’s the first anime so it does count. But my dad didn’t know it was anime. So does it count? Lara Taylor 3:38They cancel each other out. Josué Cardona 3:41Yeah, he’s like, Oh, watch this show. I like like those Japanese cartoons. You like that? Link Keller 3:47You gave this to me. You did this. I learned it from watching you. Josué Cardona 3:53Well, And this is something I want to get to later on. But like, Yeah, my dad grew up watching Astroboy and then he’s like, Oh, what’s this Japanese cartoons stuff. I’m like, Are you serious? Same with video games. Like at some point, they kind of just fell off. I used to go to the arcade with my dad every weekend. And suddenly, like oh 3d games were too much for him. And my mom didn’t want to play Tetris and Mario anymore. Now that they’re older, they play games on their phones, and it’s the whole thing. But i i There’s something weird about like, almost feel like you’re abandoned. Because you still like this, this particular this particular thing and they they don’t or they don’t as much like with my with my niece who I saw recently she she I got her into Star Wars. Like she really didn’t know what it was I got her into it. And now she has a past me in every single way like in terms of knowledge and just like she will just I don’t know how many times she has rewatched Clone Wars. And like the first time she saw Clone Wars I showed her my spreadsheet with the show in actual chronological order, and not the, not the order in which it was broadcast. And I still haven’t finished watching the show, and she’s watched it like four times. And there’s something, there’s something really, it’s like a weird sense of pride. And, and passing something down with, it’s not really a skill. It’s not, I don’t know, but I and I wonder what it will be like, like, what it means to her to be so into that, like, not just love it, but that it was something that that started with us together. Right, so I found that, you know, with, with a lot of our hobbies, it can go beyond just, I think it’s cool. Right? I think I think that’s a good way to start it. But we love these have connections to to our childhood or to our past or to and Lara, you’ve brought up, you know, your friend who passed away and kind of like, you know, the connection to some of those things. So do you all have examples of like that, you know, where your hobby like this, this passion for this thing started? And how it was connected to something or who or when? your stories? Marc Cuiriz 6:19Yeah. So, I mean, I’m kind of was the same way too, when it comes to when it comes to video games. My dad was one, the one that he’s the one who condemned me to this with the original Nintendo system and playing, you know, the original Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt, things like that. And then it evolved into Pac Man. So whenever we would go to an arcade, that was the game that my dad and I would take turns playing almost exclusively, we would always be at the Pac Man Machine playing that. And so that became our thing. And then obviously, over time, it, you know, I moved on to sort of the newer games, and then he sort of falling off of it. And then, you know, with the eventual conflicts that my dad and I eventually ran into, obviously, he doesn’t play video games much anymore, except for, you know, stuff on his phone. But I think one of the big things that I still have a pretty huge passion about that he and I still can kind of do together as bowling. That was something that my dad and I and my and my brother, we would do that almost every weekend. And in the town that we were living in, there used to be at a local bowling alley that we would always go to. And I loved that place. That’s also where the Pac Man Machine was. So that was also like a double whammy. But we would pull all the time, we would bowl for hours on end. And even now like, like it’s one of those things where if I could I, I would bowl every weekend. I love it. I know I’m not the best at it. But I still greatly enjoy just being at an alley and playing for a couple hours or just hanging out with people. And my dad and I don’t necessarily do that so much anymore. But when we do it’s, it’s kind of like a nice little, you know, a nice little nostalgia trip for the both of us. And it’s kind of funny, because when I was younger, I used to see how he would bowl. And I always thought it was really weird because he would like throw the ball up and it but it would have the spin on it. So it would you know, do a nice little curve. And now I try to imitate that. And now I’m doing that, that type of style and throw with the ball just to see how it works. See if I can modify it perfected a little bit so that way I can you know play a better game but I think that’s at least one of the stories of least of it from a hobby of mine that I still have a pretty good passion about but it’s one that I don’t necessarily like you know, scream from the mountaintops like like Percy Jackson or Assassin’s Creed or anything like that. So Josué Cardona 9:20do you like did you ever go to play and think about your father or go and play to think about your father or not play because it reminded you of your father Marc Cuiriz 9:39I would never I don’t think I’ve ever gone like by myself to go to like to just just like because I know I would think about him. But whenever I would go bowling, like whether it’s with friends or it’s for an outing or whatever. Or even what the countless times I’ve gone with my wife like it goes without fail that every time I’m at an alley I inevitably we’ll mention something about him, I will talk about him to some degree. But I definitely have never shied away from it. I wasn’t one of those things where even when he and I were not on the best of terms, we were, I would still go and play because it reminded me of these good times that we did have like, it was a time when he and I basically used it as a form of escapism. Like, I know he was going through a lot. I know he’s still going through a lot of stuff. But for the two, three, sometimes four hours that we were at the bowling alley, just playing games, those worries weren’t there. Those problems weren’t there. It was just us having fun. And so whenever I go, that’s kind of what I associated with it and going there to have fun and not thinking about my outside problems. And I have those more fond memories of being with my dad so Josué Cardona 11:10I know some of yours Lara, Lara Taylor 11:11Josué yeah you asked that question. My brain short circuited because I have so many. Josué Cardona 11:19We’ve talked about Disney parks in the past. Yeah, Lara Taylor 11:21I was talking about Disney Disney parks with my mom in the past. One of the ones that actually kind of gets me that came up is World of Warcraft, not necessarily something I picked up from my mom, but from one of my bridesmaids like my best friend who’s also my barber. She Josué Cardona 11:44so many connections, Lara Taylor 11:46so many connections. She would tease me all the time. When we were younger, about being geeky She’s five years younger than me, I was a counselor at camp, she was a camper when when she became staff, then we kind of became friends. But she was always kind of like a little sister to me. But she would tease me all the time, all that nerdy shit, yucking all kinds of yums. But some, at some point, in her freshman year of college, sophomore year of college, she started playing World of Warcraft. And that was the one thing I would not do. And I say that a lot. I’m not gonna watch anime. I’m not gonna play an RPG. I’m not gonna play WoW. And I played WoW, and it was a very long addiction that to get rid of. I, I am not one for video game addiction. But this one, I it’s really hard to drop that habit with the World of Warcraft, they get you Link Keller 12:52is this in like the 2007 2008 timeframe? because I remember almost everybody I knew who had ever played WoW was like that was when they were deepest in the hole. Lara Taylor 13:05She got into it. We were playing Burning Crusade. And I can’t remember when that came out. But it was right before Wrath of the Lich King. And her boyfriend at the time was my roommate. And he’s the one who passed away the one that Josué mentioned earlier. But he used to play and he reactivated his account and we would play together and she was living six hours away. So that’s how we would all hang out. And this story kind of pulls in like I don’t know, the same kind of thing Josué was talking about with passing it on further like my nephew who can I don’t remember how old he was at the time. Must have been I think he was like 12 or 13 at the time. We were playing with him too. And he still cannot kick his Wow habit. And he is raiding every week with his friends and he’s made several friends that he went to Blizzcon with and those are those are his people. But having those memories of getting to play with them to the wee hours of the morning when all my my friend she was like all I have left to eat in this house are m&ms and beer. And that’s what she was eating and drinking while we were playing. But it was really cool to have her show me the ropes like she so not nerdy, so not geeky. I was the one that was the geek and she’s showing me how to level up and how to go do this daily and how to go get my she gave me all her gold and like it was great to get her to admit that you know some Things are fun. And you can just have fun with those things. And you don’t have to be embarrassed about the fact that you like them. And then she fell in love through it too. So but yeah, that was a, that was a lot of fun. And I don’t play anymore, because I did not log in for a long time. I’m like, why am I wasting $15 a month on this? But I still think fondly on it. I mean, on my shelf behind me. I have like Funko Pop Vinyls. I’ve got a stuffed animals from from Wow. And I’ve really liked the the novels. So I’ve read a few of those. I have no idea what’s going on in the world now. But yeah, it’s pretty, it’s pretty cool to know that my nephew is still playing and still engaged in it. Josué Cardona 15:58Your barber bridesmaid friend was also like, you saw her grow through the camp and actually take a position just like yours. Is she still a counselor at the camp? Lara Taylor 16:11No, but I have seen her so we’ve been friends since she was like I said since she was in college. So I watched her go through wanting to be an artist than wanting to be a barber she, I was her first haircut. After a summer at camp where three of us directors wanted Mohawks one came with one and so they shaved my head and I needed someone to cut my hair. And when we were at Disneyland one time, she’s like, let’s cut your hair. We bought some clippers, let’s do it. And then she snapped turn the the clippers on and was like you know, I’ve never done this before, right and then cuts my hair. And other than like one or two here and there throughout the years. And now Nina cuts my hair most of the time. She’s the only person who’s touched my hair other than like I said one or two random haircuts. But now she owns her own barber shop. So I’ve seen that growth and that torch get passed along. Josué Cardona 17:07Did The World of Warcraft. Like Was that like a stage that? Was that just feel like part of the relationship like a normal part of that. Did it change? Lara Taylor 17:20it felt like part of the relationship it was she does a lot of things where she likes to tease me but she actually likes the thing kind of like I did with my friends a lot I’m not gonna watch anime no no Sailor Moon allowed on in my house. And now I’m obsessed. She did that same kind of thing. Which is interesting because she did not know that about me as she was growing up. So yeah. Josué Cardona 17:46There’s also that like really good feeling of having someone enjoy something that you enjoy. Especially if they were resistant to it. No, no, no. Yeah, I played World of Warcraft to play with you. I got like to level three never played again. Lara Taylor 18:03Never played again. Link Keller 18:06Smooth dodge there Lara Taylor 18:10I mean, free to play for so long and then they got you hooked in Link Keller 18:16fifteen dollars. Lara Taylor 18:19Not only do you have to buy the game, although now it’s got like a pack so you don’t have to shell out what like 3040 bucks and expansion but you have to buy all the expansions to play to Link Keller 18:35makin’ money. Josué Cardona 18:36Do you have a story? Link Keller 18:37Sure. Josué Cardona 18:38or four or five? Link Keller 18:40so many. I inherited my love of fantasy books from both of my parents. My love of d&d from both of my parents and my love of video games from both of my parents. So all all three of those I got from them. Josué Cardona 19:11Do you feel connected to them through the through through these hobbies s…

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Analysis Paralysis May 21, 2023

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#352: Josué, Lara, and Link discuss choice paralysis, how we make decisions, and the anxiety around making choices. Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio, on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that the best way to understand ourselves and others is through the media we care about, including video games, movies, comic books, TV shows, plays, loose change in a parking garage, anything, we can find it and find a way to connect it to the people we care about. I was doing so good, and I couldn’t I couldn’t handle that. So I ruined it myself. I just swerved right off the road. I’m, I’m so happy to be here with my two co hosts. I am link I am joined by Lara Lara Taylor 0:56hey, Link Keller 0:57and Josué. Josué Cardona 0:59Hello, Link Keller 1:00sweet Marc is taking a sabbatical Lara Taylor 1:05taking a break. Link Keller 1:07um, today. I’m not sure what our topic is entirely. But I think that Lara knows a little bit more about that. So I’m gonna toss it to her. Josué Cardona 1:17Do you not know what it is? Or are you not sure what it is? Because there’s so many options and you just have no idea which one to choose? Link Keller 1:23It’s probably that. Josué Cardona 1:24Yeah, Lara Taylor 1:24I mean, we face that every week coming up with a topic, right? I want to talk about decision paralysis or analysis, paralysis, whatever you want to call it. I’m not feeling it as much this week. Last week, I was definitely feeling it. This happens quite a few times where the games I am most excited about come out at exactly the same time or within a week of each other. And I think this one has been one of the the worst for me. Like okay, well, I really wanted to play horizon forbidden west burning shores. I was so excited. I got that. As soon as it came out. It was TAGGS weekend, and I still got it and did not play it till after TAGGS. And just like when horizon zero dawn came out Legend Zelda, there’s a game coming out very soon. But in between all that I have Star Wars Jedi survivor. What am I to do? Now this week, I’ve already made a decision. But last week, I was panicking because I had to choose between. There’s some queerness and queer content in horizon burning shores. I’ve been excited about a Star Wars Jedi survivor for I don’t know how long since I’ve beat fallen order. Basically. I love me some Star Wars. And also, I have played I think all of the Legend of Zelda games that I can play and still not beaten a single one. And so I need to continue that tradition. So what am I to do? What am I to do? I don’t know. What are y’all doing? Josué Cardona 3:27Did you did you tell us what you decided for this week? Lara Taylor 3:30Huh, well, for this week, I decided I’m going to play Jedi survivor because I did not beat Breath of the Wild and have not watched someone beat Breath of the Wild. Which is easy to remedy. But I feel like the way I’ve been playing games action adventure games. I could probably be Jedi survivor in a few weeks. And then I will I will probably see this is where I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Am I going to get tears to the kingdom? Or am I going to play through my Aloy queer story that I want to? I don’t that’s the decision I have I have to come up against next is a couple of weeks about it. Josué Cardona 4:20So so it hasn’t been easy for you to for you to make this decision. Lara Taylor 4:24No. Josué Cardona 4:25Are you sure you’re not going to play Zelda at midnight, like the rest of us and the rest of the world? We’re super hyped for all your friends are here. Want to play it? Lara Taylor 4:35I’m not. I’m gonna I’m gonna be playing when y’all are playing. Tears of the kingdom I’m gonna be playing Jedi survivor. Josué Cardona 4:44What if it’s a topic of next week’s podcast? Then you have to play it before? Lara Taylor 4:49No, Josué Cardona 4:50no? Okay. Okay, okay, so Lara Taylor 4:52I’m gonna play Jedi survivor because I know and I don’t want to do what I always end up doing when I switch games around and mess up the controls and forget how to do things like, I am in a groove with like throwing my dual wielding lightsabers and chopping off arms and all kinds of stuff. Josué Cardona 5:11What else are you chopping off? Okay, so so so the this I mean, you know, some people call it analysis, paralysis, decision paralysis, that can be a really significant source of anxiety Lara Taylor 5:25absolutely Josué Cardona 5:26for a lot of people. And it can also be, it’s in the name, paralyzing, right? Like, it just stops you in your tracks. And sometimes you don’t make a decision, either in time or at all. And that can definitely negatively affect you in a number of ways. Lara Taylor 5:44So here like, this is not the worst case scenario. Plenty of people have had worse, analysis paralysis. I bought. I pre ordered Jedi survivor months ago. I knew it was coming out the day it came out. And I forgot to play it until Sunday when I had access to it at 9pm on Thursday, because I was so like, what am I going to do? Which game? Do I keep playing? Forbidden, forbidden West burning shores? I didn’t play that either. So not worst case scenario, but also I do have to justify buying the game at launch for cost. So Josué Cardona 6:27this sounds kind of fine. Sounds kind of like watching Netflix. And by watching Netflix, I mean, you’re just watching the menu, right? Like going through, you’re not actually watching any, any show. that happens when you have too many options. Lara Taylor 6:41There are a lot of options out there. I was talking to a client this week. And they mentioned something about like, they would like to rewatch their comfort shows or whatever, and I don’t rewatch anything. There’s just too much. Josué Cardona 6:54It’s too hard. Yeah. So. Okay. Okay. So does this happen to you with everything? Lara Taylor 7:04I don’t know. Josué Cardona 7:05or just every Seven years when I when a new Zelda game comes out? Link Keller 7:07I have Zelda induced choice paralysis Lara Taylor 7:13you know, Aloy and link kind of they kind of they kind of got a beef apparently, because I mean, this is just DLC. But, Link Keller 7:25but still Lara Taylor 7:26it’s all such good content. And I just, I don’t know. I mean, I’m okay, missing out on some things like I didn’t play The Last of Us until like, a couple months ago. So I can hold out. And the hype is real. And I am sure I will try to hold out until I beaten Jedi survivor. And ya’ll be talking about how excited you are about Zelda. And I’ll buy it, but I may not play it. Josué Cardona 7:54So it’s interesting, everything you’re talking about your your decision is in prioritizing it. Because you, you still believe you’re going to do the other one, whether you do or you don’t. You’re planning on just do in the order that you’re going to Lara Taylor 8:09do buy a lot of books, and I do buy a lot of board games and games on Steam that I never play. But most AAA games that I get, I buy, I play Josué Cardona 8:21right, right, right. But but so I think something that makes it even harder to make a decision sometimes is when you have multiple options. And that’s your only chance to choose you may not be able to choose those other things, Lara Taylor 8:34right Josué Cardona 8:35Like a job. or where are you going to live? Like those are hard life transitions. Do I get the surgery or not? Do I you know, a whole bunch of things. Lara Taylor 8:48do I sell my kidney to go to that Taylor Swift concert. Josué Cardona 8:53Is that is that did that happen to you? what did you decide? Lara Taylor 8:55that’s that hasn’t that it hasn’t happened. Although right now the resale value on these tickets is like at least a mortgage payment. So it’s not gonna happen. Josué Cardona 9:11So this is hard for you. Link, Do you experience this? Link Keller 9:17Yes. Josué Cardona 9:20Good talk thank you Lara Taylor 9:23thank you for your tedtalk Josué Cardona 9:25true story Link Keller 9:28i I’m trying to think of a more recent example. I guess I guess the most recent example is I in preparation for tears of the kingdom coming out. I’m trying to get through my to be read shelf. I have a lot of books on it. And I was like I got to thin this out a little bit before the video game comes out. That’s going to suck all of my attention from all things And so it was this past week and a half. I’ve been like, okay, which book Am I gonna read next? And then just be like, well, am I more likely to finish this one book? Because I want to finish it before? Because I don’t want to end. You know, I don’t want to be 75% of the way through a book and then just dump it because it’s video game time. Lara Taylor 10:23Oh, you mean like I did with horizon? Zero Dawn? Link Keller 10:25Yeah, exactly. And so and so it’s like struggling. And it’s like, I want to read all there on the shelf because I want to read them. But again, it becomes prioritizing, like which one am I going to read first, which one am I most likely to finish before the deadline. I’ve been picking well, because I read one book over two days. And then I have it’s a trilogy series. But they’re novellas. So they’re all like under 200 pages. I read one yesterday and I read one today, I’m going to try and read one tomorrow, I can finish the trilogy before the game comes out. But it was difficult, like looking at my shelf to be like, which one? Do I choose here? and spending You know, a couple of minutes just staring at them. Like one of you will speak to me right? And they don’t. And then I’m like, Well, maybe I’ll just I’ll go and I’ll sit on the edge of my bed and just think about it. And then it’s like, well, maybe I’ll actually distract myself completely and go back on tik tok. And then it’s like, oh, it’s been like 45 minutes I’ve been sitting on the edge of my bed scrolling through tik tok, I hate this. Why am I doing this instead of making the choice? Yeah, that’s that’s where most of the emotional frustration comes in for me is that I get overwhelmed by the choice making process that then I bounce out, just disassociate into something else, basically, for an amount of time, and then I feel shitty about myself, because I was doing that instead of just making the choice, which is annoying when it’s something for fun, like reading, but absolutely infuriating. When it’s something like you are so hungry, you need to eat right now you have two choices. Food A or food B which one? It’s like, oh, I don’t know about all that. Lara Taylor 12:28We literally had that situation in our house last night. Both Nina and I had had a long day didn’t want to do anything. We’re trying to decide on what we were going to order. She asked me if I wanted Phở. And I was like it’s too hot. I don’t I don’t want a hot like soup. And is there anything you want? And I was like, I don’t know. I’m just hungry. And so there was a moment where it was like well, I guess we’re not eating tonight then. And we eventually got to IHOP but whatever. Yeah. Link Keller 13:00yup Lara Taylor 13:02But still it’s like oh, I guess we’re starving. Link Keller 13:06Yeah. Josué Cardona 13:07So link how many books were on your to be read shelf? Link Keller 13:10Oh. Josué Cardona 13:14Just ballpark it. I mean Link Keller 13:185,6,7,8,9, 10, Josué Cardona 13:20we’re up to ten? Link Keller 13:2213 At least 13 Josué Cardona 13:23At least 13 Okay, Link Keller 13:26though, they’re, like we’re already into so it was really like six Josué Cardona 13:33Okay, okay. Link Keller 13:34There’s like an upper tier of the TBR and the bottom tier of the TBR Lara Taylor 13:39I have I have a kallax shelf that is too deep of books and graphic novels. I would say there’s like at least 50 on that shelf. Josué Cardona 13:49Okay, so So in the case of Link Keller 13:55I guess technically it was between four books because three of them were set and you have to read those in order. Josué Cardona 14:01So you have like this logic system right that you’re going yeah making like you have this criteria that you’re going through it got to the point where you had four only right and all your your most obvious rules for for removing anything anything else from the lineup is gone. So now what are you trying to avoid a particular feeling? Like is it a fear of not reading the best one is it a fear of making the wrong choice? like what What was your reason for the paralysis? Link Keller 14:38I guess the the stress comes from okay, I already mentioned this little bit I’ve been spending. What I would define as an unhealthy amount of time on tik tok and Lately my, any sort of stressor is like, Oops, tic toks already open on my phone, guess I’m scrolling. And so the stress in this situation is I, I read some books in preparation for TAGGS. And I picked up books when I went to visit my sister in Portland. So it’s like I have new books. And I want to read them and I want to enjoy them. And I want to Lara Taylor 15:30and all of them. Link Keller 15:31Yeah. And I want I want them to be moved from my TBR on to my regular shelves so they can join the the dragon’s hoard of books that I have. And so the stress of wanting to keep reading and keep up the momentum of reading books. Knowing that when Zelda comes out, I’m going to prioritize that and I’m not uncomfortable about that. But I am concerned that I spend so much time on tik tok, I’m not doing the other things that I want to do and enjoy to the point where like, that is anxiety provoking where it’s like, I’ve been on Tik Tok for a while and it’s like, why am I not doing the other things I want to do? Okay, but what do I want to do is like, do I want to put on a movie I want? I’ve been wanting to watch scream six for months. Now at this point is like, do I want to put on scream by myself? No. Well, okay, do I want to watch an episode of dimension? 20? eughhgh, do I want to read this book? Let me just go. Let me just walk the four feet to go grab it. And it’s just like my brains like. And while it’s doing that, oops, tiktoks open again. Oops. Josué Cardona 16:59Why is your brain doing that? Link Keller 17:02Um, gosh, I don’t know, probably several reasons all bundled up together. Josué Cardona 17:13Choose which ones to talk about first. aww too many Choices Link Keller 17:16the discomfort of wanting to make a choice and not immediately just making it and then doing that thing is like, makes my body feel uncomfortable. But it is even more uncomfortable when I make the choice. And I still don’t do it. And then like shame gets in it. And so it’s like, I want to start reading this book. I’m going like, I’ll even like pick up the book. I’ll get in bed. It’s on bed next to me. And I’ll be like, oh, I’ll just like, open up my phone to put on like fireplace noises as background because I enjoy that. And because I’m on my phone. Also, I’m on my I’m on Tik Tok again. And it’s like, and I get frustrated with myself because like I wanted to read I set myself up to read it’s, it’s available to me right now in this. There’s no blockade here, except that my brain is not disengaging from just one more tik tok, like, let’s just, I mean, I’m sure the next one’s gonna be so funny. And make me feel so great that it will be just so easy to just close it and switch over to my book. And it’s not and it is and I don’t and then I’m like, mad at myself for not doing it. And so definitely this past week, I’ve been like strong arming myself into reading. Something that has helped is I’ve literally moved myself out of my room. I do everything in here. But the weather has been nice. So I’ve been going out onto the back deck in the sunshine and reading out there. And that has helped and is probably why I read two books in two days. Lara Taylor 19:03On that’s impressive my reading like, Link Keller 19:06again, they’re very short books. The first one was only 90 pages. So it was like, it’s not that impressive, but it is contextually to how hard I’ve been struggling to get myself to actually sit down and just read is…

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Book Yuck, Book Yum May 07, 2023

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#351: Josué, Marc, and Link discuss books, what makes us fall in love with them, or bounce off them completely. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your very lovely co hosts Marc Cuiriz. And I am joined by Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:27Hello Marc Cuiriz 0:30And Link Keller. Link Keller 0:31Yo. Marc Cuiriz 0:34All right, Josué. It’s your turn this week, I think I think you’re the one who said this who’d like shoved Lara’s idea. You’re like, no, no, that’s next week, I want to do this. Josué Cardona 0:44Lara has no power here. So I’ve been reading a fiction book for the first time in a long time. I am doing the whole Goodreads reading challenge thing I, I said, I’m going to read a book a week gonna do 52 this year. And so far, I’m ahead of schedule, according to Goodreads. But that’s because I’m mostly listened to, to nonfiction, which are often shorter than then some fiction books. But I’m, I’m on my first fiction book of the year, but I wanted to read it for a while. And it just it reminded me of that one time that I said on here that Ready Player One was one of my favorite novels. And link just looked at me with such judgment and disappointment. And it just it just, it just hurt so much to be rejected so hard. And it just, ugh, the yucking of my yum was so painful. Link Keller 1:53I do admit to that I yucked, I yucked that yum pretty hard. Even I’m pretty sure I apologized at the time. But for the record, I apologize. It was not kind or understanding of me to yuck that yum. Josué Cardona 2:09It just hurts so much. Link Keller 2:12I still don’t like Ready Player One. But I’ve actually through you and our conversations have come to appreciate what it is, which is very valuable in our conversations. So Josué Cardona 2:24Right. It’s like I get the critique, I don’t disagree with the with the critique. But this is part of what I want to get to. Later on, which is, you know, like, we can like books for different reasons. And this isn’t a book, but I remember watching rewatching back to the future recently, and thinking Marty sucks as a character. Link Keller 2:46he’s a real stinker Marc Cuiriz 2:47yeah Honestly, Josué Cardona 2:48and there’s so many movies, I’m like, I enjoyed this movie, but when I try to look at it as like, oh, do I like these characters? So many times like No, not at all, right? And I’m all about the world building, I want to know, I want to know what the magic system is like, I want to know what the technology is I want to know, you know, the culture, how things work, that’s, that’s something that I enjoy. So like, Ready Player One is a nostalgia fest. Like, I it was, it was like a dream come true to imagine all of these things happening at one time. I don’t I like at the time, I was so excited about that I wasn’t even paying attention to the the narrative of, you know, like the tropes that this this character is going through. But going back to the rejection, and the triggering of my abandonment issues, by Link Keller i i That’s one of the reasons why we do what we do. Like the origin story of geek therapy is all about that. It’s about having people, you know, and in usual context of what we’re talking about, right? And in some kind of therapeutic relationship, some kind of intimate relationship where something that you that you like, and you really appreciate is rejected. So I want to kind of jump into a few different things. One is just overall, why is reading good for you? Right, just that, like the basic the basics on that, just so I know that it’s not happening anymore. I don’t think people are like, Oh, books, rots your brain, you know, but but that used to be a thing. I used to be a thing, you know, and I have had clients and I know people who you know that kid who’s reading books while walking down the street. You know, like you can’t get you can’t get them out of the book. Because they love it. And then if it gets to that point, some people are like, Oh, You know, why don’t you be more social? Or why don’t you put the book down and go play with a ball and it’s like uhh I’d rather read my book. So there is still that kind of, you know, rejection that can happen. So I want us to talk about how to, like, just be mindful of, of, you know, don’t yuck yums. And then the other end of that, hey, here’s some, some actual real benefits to, to just reading in general. And then also, in between there, those two we get like books for different reasons, like a book can have problematic aspects and but or just suck in certain senses, right? It’s like, oh, the writing literally typos and misspellings and the grammars, bad but like, Yeah, but like, I really enjoyed it, you know, like, you can enjoy it or it can be meaningful to you. So that’s, that’s kind of very simply explained. Topic for today. So this one’s for the book lovers out there. Do you guys do you guys read a lot? Marc Cuiriz 6:22You know, when, when I was younger, I used to read like all the time, it was always a thing where usually whenever the power would go out, and because the power would usually be out for a couple of days, sometimes I would just immerse myself in books. I would I would often, like stay up late and read a book. And then my mom would come in at like midnight and be yelling at me telling me to go to bed and like No, no, just one more chapter. But as I got older, I stopped reading as much, I think is just once I got introduced to the world that is a PC gaming that dominated my free time. And as I got more and more into video gaming, I just kind of turned away from books. And I think it was also just like, a bit of a burnout too. Like, you know, growing up, I had a lot of those expectations of like, well, I’m, you know, I was the smart, I was a smart child, I was the one that was always doing well. So I was doing a lot of these more academic things. And by the time I was like a junior in high school, I just kind of got burned out of it. I was like I don’t, I don’t want to read anymore. But I’m slowly starting to get back into reading. I think I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already. But my wife and I, we tend to read a book together. Right now we’re reading a book called wayward for like one of our book clubs. So we’re reading that together, which is nice. It’s I think having somebody there to share the story with and also how to have discussions with about the story is is a nice thing for me because it helps keep me engaged because I’m very picky with my books. If I if a book doesn’t catch me right away, then I get bored with it. And then it just kind of throw it off to the side and say, Yeah, I’ll finish that later. And then I never finish it. I have a plethora of books in my bookshelves that I’ve started and have never finished. Josué Cardona 8:28You don’t have to finish them DNF them. Marc Cuiriz 8:32It’s not that like I it’s not like I’ve just like said like, No, I don’t want to finish this book. No, it’s just that like, it’s like, I’ll get back to it. I’ll get back to it. And then I just don’t I don’t get back to it. I just forget about it. And then I forget where I leave off. And I don’t want to start all over again. Josué Cardona 8:48I know Marc, I know what you mean. How’s wayward? Marc Cuiriz 8:54so far, It’s pretty good. It’s, it’s kind of it’s a different thing for me because I’m very much a person that likes when it’s clearly defined in terms of like how the story is I like it being more like continuous and linear feeling like it’s more smooth. And this book it it tells three different stories. And each chapter it switches between the three main protagonists, but they’re also in different time periods, like one is set in 2019. One is set in like 1942. And the other one is set in like the 1600s. But they’re all connected because they all have the same lineage. So like they’re all related. They’re all descendants of each other. But like it tells each of their different stories and like how they’re connected to the theme that I’m pulling from so far because we’re only like a quarter of the way into the book. But the connecting theme seems to be nature there. These three characters are very in tune with nature. So I’m interested I’m excited to see how it turns out at the end. Josué Cardona 10:00So what do you like about it? Other than how it resembles Assassin’s Creed? Marc Cuiriz 10:08You know, I didn’t, I didn’t think about the Assassin’s Creed link right there. But you might have a point there. Josué Cardona 10:16For, like, what do you what are you talking about now? Marc Cuiriz 10:21But the thing is, is that like, it’s not like she’s like the, it’s not like they’re reliving it, it’s just like, This is how all these people are like, they’re connected in some way, shape or form. Yeah, across generations of like, you know, they’re rediscovering their, their heritage or their lineage, things like that. But what I think what I like about it is, it’s, it seems like very much like a, like a historical fiction and like a, like a typical fiction, like, slice of life fiction. But it’s, it’s giving this more magical sense to it. So it’s, it’s like giving you a little bit of fantasy as well. So it’s like, accurate to the time periods, like when it switches to the character in the 1600s. Like, it uses Old English and it’ll use old English spellings of everything, too. So sometimes it’s a little difficult for me to like, like, Wait, how do you say this word? I don’t know what this word means. But like the way the language will change, it makes it it kind of helps like pull you into what time period it is. And seeing the puzzle pieces slowly start fitting together as to how this overall story is panning out from 1600s to 2019. And how it’s all relevant together. I think that’s what I’m liking about it. It’s like, it’s giving you puzzle pieces and you’re slowly starting to put it together yourself. Whereas in some, like a lot of the other books that I typically like to read, it’s kind of like a movie and you’re just kind of watching it like you can. I mean, I can’t visualize it, but I imagine people that are reading it can visualize what is happening and can see it playing out in their head like a movie. Josué Cardona 12:04aphantasia just so hard. Marc Cuiriz 12:06It really is. Josué Cardona 12:09Link Do you like books? Link Keller 12:13I fucking love books dog. Imma book fiend. Josué Cardona 12:18I know. Link Keller 12:19I saw I saw Tik Tok recently is like, okay, so there are bookworms and they are voracious readers, they’re always reading something new love to read. And then there are there are book dragons, which hoard books. And I am coming to terms with the fact that I am pretty evenly balanced in those two. Josué Cardona 12:47Does that mean that you buy a lot of them? You buy more than you read? Link Keller 12:51I buy a lot of books and wow, okay, I’ve lived here. Two years now I’ve lived in this house. And then like two and a half years that I’ve been up in Washington State. When I moved up here from Santa Cruz, like I had, I had moved a whole bunch in the years prior to that, and so it was constantly like thinning out my book collection, so that it’s feasible to actually move into a new place. And it’s like every time I move to a new place, it’s like Oh, I’m all settled in. I have my books on my bookshelf again. Time to buy more. There’s there’s a single empty space on my bookshelf. I’m gonna go to the bookstore. Oops, I bought eight books. I guess I better get another bookshelf. Now. There’s so much empty space on this bookshelf. I better buy more books. Fucking love books. I did definitely. While I was in grad school, I pretty much stopped reading for fun because I was reading textbooks and countless articles and my peers online journal posts and shit. I was like I was reading a ton but it wasn’t like for fun and enjoyment though I did often enjoy and have fun reading that stuff. But I definitely inherited my parents love of fantasy genre. And so I have a ton of fantasy books. I still read a bunch of fantasy books expanded a little bit. I’m trying to get more into sci fi stuff more recently, and horror because I love it but I have found that like horror genre for books isn’t really like its own thing. It’s like fantasy with horror elements or sci fi with horror elements or historical fiction with horror elements and so There’s, it’s been interesting getting more into horror genre and sort of figuring out like, Okay, what what actually makes this its own genre and not just like we put a scary thing in this other thing, which is pretty fun. But uh, yeah, I’ve, um, I just finished a book yesterday. So I’m currently Josué Cardona 15:22what’s it called? Link Keller 15:23it’s called How to Sell a haunted house. Josué Cardona 15:26That book sucks and you’re a terrible person for reading Link Keller 15:34y’know Josué Cardona 15:34how’s it feel Link Keller 15:34it doesn’t feel great? but it’s also It’s not you’re not wrong. It’s unfortunate. No, it was okay. It was okay. I enjoyed it. I like haunted house stories I had just purchased and finished reading another book by the same author, Grady Hendricks called horrorstör, S T. O R and the OH has the two dots above it because it is a ghost story that takes place inside of an Ikea type business. And that one was really good. I really liked that one. How to Sell a haunted house was not as good, still enjoyable, not as good. I liked horrorstör a lot more. And then I’m about to start the next book on my on my TBR shelf, which is legitimately a separate shelf from my other book shelves because it was in one cubby on my on my cube shelf, and it got to full so I bought another shelf for just my to be read books. unhinged um. The next one on my on my shelf is a beautifully foolish endeavor, I think is what it’s called. It is the sequel to Hank Green’s debut novel, an absolutely remarkable thing which I read last year. I think I briefly mentioned it on the podcast. It’s about first contact. Aliens. It’s very cool. It’s got like, vaguely video gamey elements, which I really enjoy. So I’m interested to see how the sequel is I hope it holds up. We’ll see how it goes. Josué Cardona 17:21What Link Keller 17:21you didn’t, you didn’t tell us what book that you are reading. Josué Cardona 17:24Oh, the one I’m reading right now is called by Babel. B A B E L by R f Kuang. And it’s I’ve heard very good things about it on booktalk. And it sounded very interesting because it has a lot to do with languages. So the main characters all speak multiple languages, and actually the magic system and in this world, it works around languages and translation. And I never read a book where language was like the main thing it was great. Link Keller 18:04Have you ever read Snow Crash? Josué Cardona 18:07I have not read Snow Crash Link Keller 18:09Holy shit, dude, that book is gonna just blow your skirt up. You’re gonna love that book. You should definitely add that to your list because I think you will really really enjoy snow crash. Josué Cardona 18:21I’ve been recommended Snow Crash but never in the context of like, what I was talking about for this other book. Link Keller 18:28There’s overlap also, a fair amount of overlap with Ready Player One. So Josué Cardona 18:34how do you how Ready Player One? Link Keller 18:37Snow Crash is a sci fi book about a Josué Cardona 18:40no no, I got you. I got you. And then I thought you went between Link Keller 18:42VR Worlds. Josué Cardona 18:43Yeah, no, no, I knew that I thought you meant with between Babel. And ready player one like how Link Keller 18:49but yeah, there’s probably overlap, but Snow Crash? Seems like it would it would bridge those two books and you would really enjoy it. Josué Cardona 18:58I I will knock it up on my list. I will put it up higher on the l…

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Asking/Receiving Apr 23, 2023

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#350: Josué and Marc talk about the particular discomfort of realizing you need help, and asking for it. From My Hero Academia to Batman, we love hearing stories about team members realizing the strength and power of actively receiving support. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your co hosts, Marc. And with me is my doppelganger. My older version, Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:32I don’t like the way you said older, like, emphasized it. Marc Cuiriz 0:35Well see you do it to Lara. So I felt it was only fair to do it to you. Josué Cardona 0:39Gotcha. Just you and me today. Marc Cuiriz 0:41It is the two Amiga ops. Back at it again, I don’t even remember when we were talking about this before. But I seriously don’t even remember the last time it was just the two of us. Josué Cardona 0:51i dunno I dunno Marc Cuiriz 0:53Well, anyhoozels I So over the past couple of weeks, I was getting caught up, I was kind of wrapping up the sixth season of My Hero Academia. And as I was watching the sixth season, I started, started pulling up this main theme. And I thought it was kind of interesting for us to kind of talk about and that is reaching out and sort of learning and understanding when and how to sort of reach out for help, especially when you’re not quite sure how to do so. Or you have always been in an environment where you really couldn’t. And so now you’re trying to figure that out for the first time and learn until you kind of turn to others for support. So, yeah. Josué Cardona 1:48Yeah, that was good. Marc Cuiriz 1:49yeah right? You if you haven’t seen season six, right? Josué Cardona 1:52No, no, no. But I mean, you can, you can, yeah, Marc Cuiriz 1:56so I’ll I’ll do some some light spoilers for those that haven’t watched it. It’s, I’ll try to keep them very light, very brief. Obviously, the manga has been out for a little bit. But if you’re like me, and only really watch the anime, I’ll try to keep it light and breezy here. So if you’re familiar with my hero, you know that the main character Midoriya he has the quirk one for all. And over time, he starts sort of gaining a better grasp of the power. And eventually he starts unlocking the other quirks from the previous users, and he’s able to start utilizing them. So now, essentially, he can have up to seven quirks with them. And so obviously, it kind of builds up to this final battle with One for all and all for one. And at the end of the fifth season, you start seeing that it seems like Shigaraki is going to be the new all for one. And so the sixth season kind of kicks off with like a battle between the two. And Deku, who is being classic Deku realizes after the fight that just by him being around everybody, he’s putting their lives in danger. So he decides to work with the pro heroes, and becomes almost like a vigilante to lure out all for one. But also, he’s effectively trying to do this on his own. So he’s nonstop, he’s he’s barely eating, barely sleeping. He’s constantly moving, taking out villains wherever he sees them, or any bad guys, whatever, trying to protect everybody. But this obviously wears him down because he’s trying to do this all on his own. And he even turns down, it turns away from all might and starts kind of branching out on his own. And his classmates don’t, don’t take this well. They’re like, Yo, you shouldn’t try to do this all on your own. Because you’ve been teaching us that. As heroes, we need to meddling when, especially when you’re not needed, or when you don’t need to is like the essence of being a hero. So they try to go and knock some sense into him. And it’s this like them, trying to match his speed and trying to go at the same pace as him to show him that they’re not going to turn their backs on him and they’re not going to become reliant on him because they don’t want to be reliant on him. They want to work with him and overcome this issue in this fight together as a team, and as friends. And this is where Deku who’s always tried to be there for others, is now learning that he needs help himself. And there is a particular quote from Uraraka. She says to like a crowd of people, when they do bring them back to the safe spot that just because he has a special power doesn’t mean that he is special, he still just a kid, he could have this special power, he can do all these amazing things. But that doesn’t make him special. He’s not invincible. He’s just a kid who’s doing the best that he can to try to bring back the peace. And I thought that was it, it was it’s a very deep, heartfelt moment. And it just like it really resonated with me, because I know, when I was growing up, I had a lot of those same struggles of like, learning when to reach out for help. I was the one that people would come to, to talk about their problems, work through these things, whatever it is that was going on. And I didn’t know how to reach out for help myself. So that’s why I thought this would be a really cool and interesting topic to kind of explore and see what other forms of media kind of touched on this. Josué Cardona 6:13Yeah. Well, that that whole chat, I don’t know how light and breezy that was. But definitely the the character Midoriya slash Deku. He, he pushes himself so much in the series, right? Like he’s got. I mean, he starts with no powers and right and early on the show, he’s got scars and tons of broken bones. And he’s just, he’s always pushing himself. Way, way too hard. And it’s almost ironic that he, the only reason he’s he’s able to keep doing what he’s doing is because of that, that nurse whose quirk can can heal him constantly. And but also his power, right? Like his Quirk. The all for one is all about, like, this group of people coming together. And they’re all in a way, like, not just giving him power, but also supporting him in different ways. As the show goes on, right? It’s like you’re building off of what else these people did before you, and there’s a part of them in you. So you’re not even alone in that sense. But then you’re saying that later on, he gets to the point where he feels like he has to do everything on his own. But then, but then so so you’re saying that he gets to a point where he starts realizing that he needs help, but it doesn’t know how to go about asking for it. Marc Cuiriz 7:39No, he is more so like the his classmates sort of show him that it’s okay to need help. Like you like it’s they’re saying, like, you do not have to do this all on your own. Because you want to protect us. We don’t want your protection, we want to be by your side. And so this is sort of like him realizing what when he needs the help. Josué Cardona 8:11like they want to help him but he doesn’t want their help. Marc Cuiriz 8:14Yeah. Because he wants to protect them. He wants to try to be the standalone hero that like no, I’m going to protect you. And they’re like, dude, no, we don’t want that. You’re our friend. Yeah. And so it’s him sort of starting to realize like, Okay, this is the time when I need help, because I can’t do this on my own. And I mean, I’m gonna guess that, because right now the season six is over, we’re waiting for season seven, I’m going to imagine that season seven is going to be a lot more of that like, okay, like, he’s going to start learning to rely on his friends and his classmates to sort of help them out. But I don’t know too much about that. I haven’t gotten that far in the manga yet. Josué Cardona 8:57So so how did this resonate with you then again? What what, like, what did it bring up for you? Marc Cuiriz 9:03So like, like I was mentioning earlier, like with, with my own struggles with learning about when I need help, and how to even reach out for that help. That kind of resonated with me pretty strongly. And actually, in my therapy today, I, we were sort of I was sort of reminiscing and recollecting on like, what brought me to therapy in the first place. And it was I brought I mentioned that like, it’s because I realized that this was the time when I needed help. I realized the when, and by starting therapy, I was learning the how. So something I there was just things going on in my life that made me realize that this was the time that I needed to start reaching out for help. And then over the course of a few years now, I have learned how to reach out for that I’d help when I need that help or that extra support? Josué Cardona 10:05Like, how, what like, what was? What did it for you? Marc Cuiriz 10:11Like what, what caused me to realize when I needed to reach out Josué Cardona 10:15like it’s, there’s a line, right that you, you crossed any there was there was like a door you opened? How did you get from, from not knowing how to ask for help? Like what were the first things that you started learning that helped you? Marc Cuiriz 10:33Yeah. So I think what what kind of caused me to step over that line was I had some close i had I had a small support network, people that I could really, truly rely on, I didn’t really trust a whole lot of people that kind of kept a lot of people that arm’s length or even longer. And the few people that I did keep close to me, I started realizing we’re pulling away because of my own tendencies and my own unhealthy behaviors. And so because I was at risk of losing the only real support that I felt I had, I realized that there was something that needed to change. And I kind of figured like, well, I can’t, I’m not going to ask them to change because that wasn’t the mindset that I had. So I kind of felt like it was a me thing. As Taylor Swift would say, I’m the problem, it’s me. I had to do the callback. moving, moving forward, I realized that okay, it’s probably me, I need to make the change. So that’s when I started looking for for therapists. And what started me on that. And then, over the course of the first year of therapy, I started learning when to start recognizing when I was starting to hit low points. And when I was when I realized and was starting to recognize when those points were coming, or when I started noticing a dip in my mood to one develop more healthy coping skills to kind of deal with those mood sets, especially when my old coping strategies were becoming ineffective because they were overused, or they just weren’t as effective anymore. But also learning to be more open, and allowing more people to sort of come in that wanted to be a part of my inner circle. Because I often kept people at arm’s length because either I didn’t trust them, or I didn’t want to burden them with my problems. But then I started to realize that not the people that want to be there for me, are going to be there. And it’s important to be able to turn to them when I need that support. Because they’re there they’re offering it. I’m not trying to force them to to help me. They’re willingly saying, hey, no, please. Let me help. And then, yeah, I mean, it’s obviously a work in progress. It’ll always be a work in progress. But I know for me, I have really pushed myself. And I think I’ve come a long way since when I first started therapy. But this, this whole season was like, caused me to have that, that call back to the beginning stages. And I was like, hmm, I really resonate with this. This really reminds me a lot of of me at some point. And now here I am, I’ve gone through all these changes since I started. And like the the drastic difference between me then versus me now is unreal. Josué Cardona 13:51So you know, there’s a there’s like a, there’s a good tactic and therapy, or like, what would you what would you say to a friend that’s going through the same thing that you’re going through? Or like what advice would you give them? So I’m curious if when you’re watching the show, you’re like, Deku, you idiot, like stop doing that? Like, oh, wait, that was me. Marc Cuiriz 14:14Yeah, no, I, I’ve had a couple of moments like that. It’s even in earlier in the season. Earlier in this series too. There have been moments where I’m like, Dude, why? Why are you doing these things? And I’m like, oh, wait a minute. that’s me. Josué Cardona 14:29Yeah. I, I’ve always I think I’m better at it too. But it was really hard for me to to ask for help. I was gonna say, and I don’t think I’ve been cured, but I haven’t. I haven’t. I’m like, I can only do so much. Now. I think I think I’ve gotten a lot better. But like I won’t, I won’t ask for too much help. So like Yeah, like one time, I had to, like borrow money from my sister and I asked her for like, the bare minimum, you know, because like, I didn’t want to, I want to go too far. Recently, I asked you to come to my house and drive a pretty long way to do something at my house, because I wasn’t here. And that was a big deal for me to ask for help. But the thing that pushed me over was that I had had someone else come to my house twice already. And I couldn’t bring myself to ask them a third time. So I was like, it was like, spreading it a little thinner. And I was like, and, and it was you because I trust you, you know, like I was, I don’t think like other than the two of you here, there’s nobody else I would have asked. And, and so that’s a huge improvement, for me like to just ask that. And actually, my, my, the other person who who helped out, she offered when I was traveling. And so that made it a lot easier, because I never would have asked had had she not offered first. But since I was already, you know, getting help. And then and then it sucks, because then I feel like I owe people, you know, I went to a meditation retreat a long time ago. And one thing that they said was that it is I forgot, I forgot the exact wording. But the lesson was the importance of accepting charity. And so for these meditation retreats, there were 10 days. And you don’t pay anything at all, because that’s part of the part of the experience is accepting the charity of others. So once it’s done, if you want, you can pay something, anything, whatever you want, so that it supports other people in the future who wants to do it. But you don’t have to. So when you get there, it’s people are just providing you with lodging, and teaching and food. And and you don’t. And that was something that was a huge. That was a that was a moment for me. Like that idea. Because I did the day I went to a restaurant. Went to a Lou Malnati’s for the first time, Marc Cuiriz 17:40what? the first time?? Josué Cardona 17:41the first time, I’m Giordanos person. If, if you’re not from Chicago, none of this makes sense. Oh, my goodness, it’s pizza. We’re talking to pizza. But I went for the first time. And I and the waitress brought the pizza. And she says, Do you mind if I serve you? The slice? And that’s the first time I’ve ever had anybody asked it that way. And the truth is, I do mind being waited on. I do not like it. Even at a restaurant, even though that’s a person’s job. I do not like it. But even when I was a teenager, like, again, like I don’t know, there’s between me and my therapist to figure out exactly what this is. Maybe you can help me. But like, I didn’t want my mom to wash my clothes. Like I didn’t want anybody to like, do stuff for me. I got to an age when I was a teenager. I was like no, like, nobody do nothing for me. And and I don’t know where that came from exactly. But even now I do not like being served. And so when she asked me that. And I didn’t say yeah, actually, I prefer you not to serve me. But I what I did, I asked her does. Does that happen? Often? How often do people tell you that they don’t want to be served? She said it happens, surprisingly, more than you think. Okay, so I mean, again, is being served the same thing as being helped? I think it’s related. You know, I think I think there’s some I think it falls into the category. Yeah, well, like lots of people deal with that. Right.…

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Recast, Refashion, Remake Apr 02, 2023

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#349: The crew talks about characters in media being recast, and apply the metaphor to real life relationships. (Link apologizes for forgetting to mention the extremely good example of Greg from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend until after recording) Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am link Keller and I am joined by my beautiful co hosts, Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:31Hello, Link Keller 0:33Marc Cuiriz. Marc Cuiriz 0:34Hello, Link Keller 0:35and Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:38Hey. Link Keller 0:40Today we are talking about recasts in things, probably mostly TV and movies, but I don’t know we’ll see how it goes. Josué Cardona 0:55No, no, no, mostly in real life. Link Keller 0:57Mostly in real life, watch out for Body Snatchers. They’re everywhere. You gotta stay on your toes. Lara Taylor 1:03For the record. One of one of the examples I have is a video game example. Link Keller 1:08Look at that perfection. Yeah, so. So yeah, we’re gonna be talking about recasts and how they impact the way that we think and feel about the media or the characters and and then probably try and make some metaphors to real life. We’ll see how that part goes also. All right, Josué Cardona 1:41yeah. Lara, why. What what did you like? You want to talk about recast? What what is a recast or Lara Taylor 1:46a recast is when you have someone playing a character representing a character and then either in the middle of the series or like in the middle of the season. In between seasons, something happens, someone, someone dies, someone’s difficult to work with, they got a better offer at another show or something, something happens you have a new person representing that character. This came up because I was watching Superman and Lois and in the first episode of the new season, they recast Jonathan Kent. The one of the one of the main characters, yeah, he’s one of the two twin boys, Superman and Lois’ kids. He, I think it came up because usually in a recast, and we can talk more about this, I typically have a hard time accepting the new person in the role. And there’s many reasons for that. But in this particular situation, I actually think after only watching him he was only a handful of scenes because the he wasn’t the focus of the episode. I prefer him as Jonathan Kent. Josué Cardona 3:00woah Lara Taylor 3:02He, I think the actor tried to mimic the mannerisms of the previous actor who played the role. He looks more like his twin brother. They’re fraternal twins. But he looks more like, like the previous one was almost a blond haired kid with a family of like, dark haired people. And so he didn’t quite fit in. And I think this, this kid fits in pretty well. And it’ll be interesting to see what else he does. I may regret my decision of saying that I liked him in this role. Because I’ve only seen him in one episode, but we’ll see how it goes throughout this season. Josué Cardona 3:40Yeah, you may change your mind. I don’t know. To me that’s surprising. Cuz would you say that that? That’s usually the experience? Or do usually, Lara Taylor 3:49I usually I usually hate recasts. There’s I can probably think of some examples of ones that I don’t mind. I grew up watching soap operas and in soap operas, people are recasted all the time. In in those situations, I think I would just I wouldn’t like them at first. And then I’d get used to them in the role and be like, oh, yeah, no, I don’t miss that other person. But there are other situations where I get attached to the person. This is how I envisioned this person, this character, how they speak how they move, and in some, usually it doesn’t work very well for me. I think that’s the case for a lot of people. In general, change is hard for people but especially if you have a visual representation of a person, and it’s it’s different from recasting in like, you reboot a show or you reboot a franchise, right like we’ve had how many different Batman’s we talked about that a lot. And everybody has their favorite one, but that’s very different from this continuity. This is supposed to be the exact same Batman as the Batman in the movie before and it’s a different person that actually We Link Keller 5:00I actually have a Batman example. It’s not Batman. It’s Katie Holmes was in Batman Begins as Rachel and then she got recast and was played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who in my mind when you’re like talking about that set of Batman’s, you’re all like the lady I picture, Maggie Gyllenhaal not the original, but that’s a rare example Lara Taylor 5:35because she is very important in that second one Link Keller 5:38she’s crucial Josué Cardona 5:39I completely forgot about Katie Holmes. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Lara Taylor 5:50Some things that can make it easier for me with the is when the series plays with it and makes fun of itself. And I’ve one of the recasts I absolutely hated although I also did not like the movie in general was the mummy franchise. I love the first two. Rachel Weisz is Evie. I’m just gonna say that was that was pivotal to my young queerness. I will just put that out there. And I don’t even know who it was. That was recast as her in the third movie, the third mummy movie that people were like, there was a third mummy movie? But they make the joke like, oh, it seems like you’re a whole different person. And I thought that was funny. And it went along with also the bad humor of the rest of the film. But it was I mean, it made it easier for me to I hated the movie. So it was easier for me to like her. I just hated the whole thing. Link Keller 6:56The actresses name is Maria Bello, she played Evelyn in the third movie Josué Cardona 7:02oh really? I like Maria Bello. I didn’t know I didn’t know she was. Lara Taylor 7:06Well, now you have to watch it. Josué Cardona 7:07Yeah. I didn’t remember there was a third one. Lara Taylor 7:12Gently isn’t that one, I think as the Emperor, Link Keller 7:15yes. And Michelle Yeoh, which maybe that’s the reason to watch Lara Taylor 7:19okay, maybe I need to rewatch it. Josué Cardona 7:26I’m surprised by all of this. Lara Taylor 7:29I like blew your minds. Yeah, I Josué Cardona 7:30know. Yeah. So when you brought this up, the first thing I thought of was like, how much it can bother us? Sometimes it can be like you said it, sometimes it can be better. But it reminded me of, like, when I said earlier, real life? Yeah, like sometimes we have, like Marc Cuiriz is is not playing the role of Dr. Baby Brandon Saxon, right. But but he like took over that, that that role, you know, and so that’s kind of where we’re where my mind went to, when you started looking at an analogy there. Where sometimes you have people in your life sometimes a partner, sometimes a parent. sometimes even siblings, right, like, they can take kind of that, like, they take the room from that belong to somebody else, or somebody kind of takes that role. And it can also be difficult can be better sometimes. It um, it varies. And I’m and I’m wondering how, how much that works like how, how much how similar it is or how helpful it would be to use those examples of recasts and in movies, and TV shows and video games and even animation. Where to me animation is weird. It’s like everything is the same but the voice is different. There’s there’s something Lara Taylor 9:06there’s something very off about that Josué I’ve talked about life as strange a million times on this show. I love the game. I have been obsessed with Chloe and Ashly Burch her voice actress and Ashly Burch really wanted to come back for before the storm and could not because of the strike I don’t want to sit like nothing against the voice actor in the second one. However, that was not Chloe to me. I did not hear Chloe she did it. okay job of like trying. Like there’s something about like I said with with Superman and Lois, the new actor. He was able to mimic mannerisms and things with this. It’s purely the voice and that that’s kind of hard to do without sounding I I don’t know completely off all I’m gonna say is I never finished playing before the storm and so I don’t think that’s because the game was bad Josué Cardona 10:12really? it was because of like you couldn’t get over Chloe’s voice? Lara Taylor 10:15I don’t I don’t I don’t think it was that either. i Josué Cardona 10:18Okay, Link Keller 10:18it wasn’t Lara Taylor 10:19but Link Keller 10:19exclusively that but that was a factor. Lara Taylor 10:23I don’t I don’t think. I don’t know necessarily but I have a theory as I think about this now that I connected with Chloe right in the game, and it just didn’t feel like the same connection in the second game. I don’t know if it was the voice. I don’t know if it was I Link Keller 10:45writing Lara Taylor 10:46on to something else or but I just didn’t. I never finished it. And that first I did text Josué after I finished the first chapter of the second game, which is the prequel and said it wrecks me emotionally. But the connection might be different. I don’t know. I’m just gonna put that out there. I have a hard time with change everybody. Josué Cardona 11:14do you Lara Taylor 11:15however I do get used to things I like I said soap operas. The biggest example I can say of this is the Harry Potter movies. I love the first number door Richard Harris is one of my favorite actors and has been i i loved him in Gladiator. He seemed like an old friendly grandpa kind of guy and I hated when they switched to I can’t remember his name. Yeah. Link Keller 11:44Michael Gambon. Lara Taylor 11:46Yeah, I hated that. And then he got he grew on me as because there was no going back. He died so we go on to a new actor there’s no going back. And as as it went on movies went on okay, this seems like Dumbledore but he’s not my Dumbledore my Dumbledore is one from the first two movies you know Link Keller 12:07Yeah, I never really recovered from that. Granted, it wasn’t like I had like a strong emotional connection to Dumbledore in the first place. So it wasn’t like a big deal. But I was always like this Dumbledore is not doing it for me. Why is he bein’ so mean? Lara Taylor 12:24And then also in these situations, like they also changed director at that time and directors changed in future movies. So the theme and the tone and where they were going with Dumbledore was different from those first two movies. So it wasn’t just the recast what like I said, I was able to kind of overtime, Link Keller 12:47acclimate. Lara Taylor 12:48Yeah. Josué Cardona 12:50How much? Or how different Do you think your experience would have been Lara With before the storm, like the wrecking of in that first chapter, if it would have been, you know, had it been Ashly Burch instead? Do you think it would have made a difference? Lara Taylor 13:09It might have like, literally the thing voice acting and I mentioned this when we were talking about The Last of Us last time we talked I can recognize the voice really well. So the last of us, as Ashley Johnson is in The Last of Us show I hear Ellie like I don’t hear like I could hear it and feel it. I guess in the same way that music hits emotional notes for me, so does sound and voice so with before the storm that wasn’t it didn’t sound like her to me. And I played horizon for Horizon Zero Dawn and instantly I was like, oh, it’s Chloe, even though it’s Aloy. Yeah. Josué Cardona 14:05So So was it? Was it distracting? Or was it uncomfortable? How would you describe it? Lara Taylor 14:15A bit distracting? Probably because I was trying to compare the two the whole time. Josué Cardona 14:21Okay, and then link for you. Dumbledore was it was it like that? Like was it just so distracting every time he was on screen? That it like pulled you out of the movie? Link Keller 14:30It was more so that like the vibes had changed. I think just having any any old white guy in a in a robe functionally works. It’s just that the vibes change Lara Taylor 14:45the vibe. Link Keller 14:47I think like with Ashly Burch specifically like she has done so much voice acting, and I have been a big fan of her work since like 2008. So I think having a switch at all is like you have to sort of reconceptualize internally. And that can be like a very quick process, or that can be like more involved. But I think having somebody that you already really care about, and like their work, there’s like an extra layer of Oh, I forgot the word I’m looking for. There’s like an extra barricade that you have to get through. Because like, it’s, it’s different. It’s like, that’s the thing, but it’s like, it’s different from the person I really liked. So it’s like an extra layer there. Lara Taylor 15:49I think a lot of people who like Netflix’s The Witcher, are going through that with, with Henry Cavill. Leaving and Link Keller 15:57yeah that one, that’s gonna be an interesting one. Lara Taylor 16:01Yeah. The two of them are very different. They’re so different. So different. Yeah. Josué Cardona 16:11Yeah, there’s a big difference between recasting a supporting character versus a leading Lara Taylor 16:18the main character. Yeah. Josué Cardona 16:21The titular character, I, because so what this made me think was of like, maybe your friend moved away, or a parent died, and now you have a step parent, and like, you’re having an event, right? Or there’s an experience, and then you’re thinking, like, it’s almost intrusive, right? The thought of like, well this is okay, but I wish the other person was here, which could just be distracting and could ruin the experience of, of what you’re trying to do. And the feeling sucks, I mean, despite what happens later, but that that can be the again it can just pull you out and be extremely distracting. Link Keller 17:04Definitely, comparison is at the root of the discomfort there. is like our brains are wired for pattern recognition. And comparing is a big part of pattern recognition. And so when we come across this threshold point of like, the pattern has changed. Better. Doo doo doo doo doo, compare and contrast, run, run the diagnostics here is like that’s that’s where it can get really discomforting. Josué Cardona 17:38What’s funny, because Because Lara said, it’s it was like your mind, right? It was a very cognitive explanation for Chloe. It was like, No, I kept comparing right in my mind. But Link, you said, it was the vibes were different, right? And it just felt really interesting. Link Keller 17:56So like when those movies came out, like a young teen, and so my relationship to Harry Potter was very different. And my relationship to watching movies was very different. Like, I don’t know, Dumbledore the actor’s name either of them until way later, like I was very much. Daniel Radcliffe is the only name I’m going to remember. That’s not true. Also, Emma Watson. Lara Taylor 18:25That’s the one you should remember more. Link Keller 18:30But yeah, definitely. Then being like, I don’t know. 14. Nish when it came out? 15. Maybe. It was very much more like, I didn’t like the vibes. Yeah, but that that switch happened in the third movie. And the third movie was my favorite movie. Because Daniel Radcliffe has the best hair in that movie. Lara Taylor 19:00everyone has got their own criteria. Link Keller 19:02I don’t want to talk about Harry Potter anymore. Josué Cardona 19:05So Richard Harris only played Dumbledore in the first two? Lara Taylor 19:11two. Yeah. Yeah. And then he died. Okay, I know. Also, we’re both Chris Columbus movies. Link Keller 19:19Yes, Josué Cardona 19:20that means but that means the other guy played it for six movies. Lara Taylor 19:23Yes. Well, and still the the one that is the beginning one is my favorite. Josué Cardona 19:31Yeah, yeah. Lara Taylor 19:33For multiple reasons, not just like, I tend to like, first, so like, the first person to play the Josué Cardona 19:41Yeah, Lara Taylor 19:41but a…

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The Adaptation of Us Mar 19, 2023

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#348: The crew talks about adaptations; how they are successful or unsuccessful, what we expect and desire from them, and how they engage new and existing fans. Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network where we believe that media is the best way to understand ourselves, and others. I know what I’m doing. I am so excited to introduce my co hosts and myself. I am link. Hi, hello, welcome or welcome back. Joining me today, my esteemed peers. Marc Cuiriz. Marc Cuiriz 0:43Hello, Marc Cuiriz 0:45Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:49Hi, everyone. Link Keller 0:51And everyone’s favoritest guy, Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:57Hi, Link, you’re my favorite too. Link Keller 1:02This week, oh, you know, we have a topic, we’ll see how it goes. I’m interested in talking about adaptations. Whether that is from a book to a movie, from a movie to a limited TV series, from a video game to a TV series, all of all of the ways that you could adapt a thing from one medium to another. And what, what that process is like, because, as we say, Here, frequently, Media Matters. And also the words of the guy whose name I’m forgetting the medium is the message. And so I am in interested in talking about adaptations that we enjoy that we feel did well, I didn’t do so hot. That sort of thing. We’re in a silly goofy mood here tonight. But I think I think it’s gonna be good. We’re gonna have a good time. Obviously, it’s a one week post, the end of The Last of Us series on HBO, the finale came out. It’s gonna be several weeks later when our listeners actually hear this episode. But that’s where we are currently in physical time space. So that’s at the top of my mind. But I do have some other adaptations I would love to touch on. But let’s let’s start with The Last of Us How? How are you guys feeling about all that? Lara Taylor 2:45My opinion currently is it’s the best thing ever. Josué Cardona 2:50Best adaptation ever or just best thing? Lara Taylor 2:53Both. I think I’ve not watched anything adapted from a book or a video game that has kept the feeling the same. Even though there are things that have changed, I think it does need to change. There are a few moments in the show where I’m like, I know exactly what’s going to happen. And like it happened the same way it did in the game. And I was like, Okay, there’s nothing new. But there were a lot of things that did change that were so emotionally impactful and made the story even richer. I think one thing for me is I started playing the last I’ve only been an hour into the Last of Us, remastered when I couldn’t play it anymore. So I played The Last of Us Part One bought it after the first episode came out. And that’s about as far into the game I’ve gotten and then finished that game in a weekend and played part two in about two weeks. And I really think that watch it playing through those games allowed me to see some of the stuff they’re trying to do to weave the two stories together. But they couldn’t do in the game because there are things from the second game that made it into the first or into the first season of the show. That just kind of weave those together a little better than I like it. The show made me cry. It did not make me hide in terror like the game did. But it was wonderful. And I love Bella Ramsey. Link Keller 4:37Agreed. Agreed. They are excellent. I think the last of the show was maybe the best adaptation I’ve seen. It’s definitely up there another really great adaptation is the book stardust into the movie stardust it has some differences but I thought that the the movie was really well done If it took the best ideas from the book and realized it into a motion picture that in a way that like really utilized the strength of film. But The Last of Us was so good. Yeah. Josué Cardona 5:19What? What makes it a good adaptation? Or like? No Better yet? Yes. How does it feel? Yeah, let me change the question. How does it feel to have a good adaptation? Link Keller 5:32I think that’s pretty contextual to the original medium, what it is being translated into. And also the viewers relationship with that story, right? We’ve talked about this before is like people resonate with like different aspects of stories, there are people who are really into world building, or people who are really into plot and there are people who are really into characterization. And so having an adaptation of a piece of media that is, you know, very much focused on one of those three things. And then the adaptation doesn’t do that same kind of focus or focuses on something else. Like that can be really cool, because you’re changing mediums. And so it’s like, it’s giving you a chance to explore stuff that wasn’t in the original content. But it can also be really like polarizing where people are like, that’s not what I liked about the original. And now this new thing is I don’t like it because it doesn’t have the thing that I liked. Marc Cuiriz 6:32Yeah, I think, for me, what I really liked about the show, because I think I’m in agreement with everybody, I think it’s probably the greatest adaptation. And just overall it’s it’s, it’s an amazing show. What I really liked about it was how it was a HUD took something that was, you know, initially just like for people that played video games, and it made it a much more generalizable thing. So now, people who don’t necessarily play the games could experience a really great story. And what I also liked was how to kind of fill in gaps of when you’re y’know, you’re just looting and shooting things. They added things to make it even more like even more rich and ultimately grounded the characters and made them made the story just feel a lot more full, like flushed out. Like, you know, like what the whole episode were focused solely on? Oh, my goodness, what are their names again, Link Keller 7:43Bill and Frank, Marc Cuiriz 7:43Bill and Frank, there you go. There you go. Like, that whole episode was just so beautifully done. And then in the way they incorporate different flashbacks to like, even, like, right when the outbreak was happening, you know, and all this sort of stuff, like I thought it was, it was so cool. And to have this experience then with my wife, who isn’t a gamer who doesn’t play those sorts of video games, and then have her being able to enjoy this story and experience it with me. And then having her come out at the end of the season saying that was actually really good. I really enjoyed the story. I ultimately thought like, this is this is great, because now it was something that I could share something that I’ve played through and really enjoyed. And I can share that with with her and have that deeper connection with it. And now it’s a story that we can enjoy together. Especially as now she’s will sit there and watch me as I’m playing through the second game. And will inevitably do that when when season two for it drops. Lara Taylor 8:56Yeah, I think there are so many people on the internet that are like it’s not they did this different than the game. That’s the whole point. I think there are for me, there are plenty of times where I’ve read a book and then watched the movie and been like, Well, why didn’t they add this and why didn’t they add that? I think there’s maybe one thing the entire season that I was like I really wish they had kept this thing from the game in the show. Everything they expanded on was great. I loved, Kayla and I had a conversation about Ellie’s casting and a lot of people were complaining about Bella Ramsey and she they did an amazing job and the idea that she looks they look so much like Ashley Johnson and having Ashley Johnson come on the show and play Ellie’s mom. For one just listening to her moving around in that scene, and it’s talking to herself and all of this, and I was like, Ellie, it’s, and I just, I also, I’ve had her head, her voice in my headphones for like, I don’t know, three weeks now. So I just, it was amazing. And they look so much alike. And it added this richness and added to Ellie’s story that we didn’t know, we didn’t know anything about her really before, what happens in, in left behind. So I thought that was really cool. And Bill and Frank story, of course, I’m gonna love also some of the things that they kept the same. from, like, left behind. There were things I was like, how are they going to handle how that DLC worked with the flashbacks and the the back and forth and the way they did it in the show is wonderful. And they kept almost everything. And it was the sweetest thing. And I loved being able to see that moment with them with Ellie and Riley in a different way, because I wasn’t terrified that the the infected were going to come after me. So So I was more relaxing than playing the game where I’m constantly creeping around trying to make sure I don’t get spotted by somebody so I can stealth kill everybody. Link Keller 11:25I didn’t play the left behind DLC, but I did know like the gist of what happened and watching that episode. I was so anxious the whole episode just just clenched butt. I was it was it was rough. Gorgeous Episode I, that one’s my favorite, honestly. But I do I do think that it’s like, really interesting to see the trade offs in this adaptation, right? It’s like in the game, you are playing as Joel and occasionally Ellie, but mostly Joel Right. And so that is how you build player empathy is like they are embodying this character, you are learning their story as you move through space. Like that is a very easy way to build empathy is because you are embodying this character, and having that shift into you’re just watching, you’re not participating. And so how do you add in enough pieces to get the viewer on the same level of empathizing with these characters as they did when they embodied them and I think that they pulled it off. And I do think a lot of that is Pedro Pascal being the internets daddy. And Lara Taylor 12:46right and at the Mandalorian premiered was in season three premiered recently. So Josué Cardona 12:52I only watched Pedro Pascal shows today, all day. Link Keller 12:55It’s Daddy Day. He he’s great. But I do think that in the same way is like having the player play as Joel is limiting in letting the player understand the way that the world works and how the other characters feel. And that is opposite in the show where they are able to spend more time and giving these characters more depth and letting you understand more fully and deeply how this world has changed post the infection. And I think it’s just great. I loved it. Josué Cardona 13:34So you all liked the game already. Right? Like the game was meaningful to you beforehand. Well, you Lara, kinda, right. Lara Taylor 13:45Kinda. But I mean, I watched an episode of the show and by halfway through the show I had finished the games. So yes, I liked the games enough to play them in like two or three weeks. Marc Cuiriz 14:00I think I was I was pretty much in the same boat. Lara, because for me I had played through like the beginning of the game. I remember when I played it through the first time there was a particular part I just couldn’t get past the the clickers and the game and I got so frustrated. I just stopped playing. But I remember trying to pick it up again. When before the show was released, and then at when the first episode aired. I was like, Okay, well, I want to play through the game. I want to make sure I get done with the game before I watched the whole thing. So it was really cool because, like, because of my like how much time I had to play the games. I would play through a section and then I would basically the next week, watch that very same section unfold in front of me. And so then like I’m basically almost seeing like, Okay, this is how the game did this part of the game. This part of the story and here’s now the TV adaptation of it and seeing that the the, the differences that they chose with how to tell the story was really, really cool. But I also liked how they kept specific dialogue from the game in the show, because a lot of that was very impactful. Like those specific words, they carried some meaning, except for the monkey bit. That was that was just funny, it’s monkeys. Lara Taylor 15:29But that entire first episode felt like the gameplay of the game. I felt like I was in the game. And I at that point, I hadn’t played that part of the game for I don’t know what, like, four years. So I still remembered what it was like. And it felt like the game and that was when I was like, Okay, well, now I’m gonna go through this again. And traumatize poor Nina, who is a trooper, she doesn’t do horror, and she watched the whole show with me and was able to really connected with it and loved it and wants to continue and watch me play through most of the games. I just kept my headphones in so that she didn’t have to hear the clickers. And can I tell you playing with the 3d audio on the part one? That’s an experience. But that first episode was just phenomenal with keeping things like, exactly like in the game. And I don’t know, there. Like I said, there are other changes that they made that I think are wonderful, but the dialogue that they kept was the poignant dialogue. And there’s, I can’t wait to see what they do with season two, which part two is going to be more than one season from what I’ve heard? And I think that makes sense. It’s a longer game. But there’s a lot of empathy building and role reversal and things that I’m like, interested to see how they try to play with that. But Ellie’s my girl so Link Keller 17:17yeah, one of one of the biggest changes is that the game took place. The the infection event took place in 2013, when the game came out. And for the show, they pushed that back to 2003. So that the 20 years later is current, which I thought was like such a genius choice. Honestly, you were talking with Lara Taylor 17:41screw with us both ways. Link Keller 17:42yeah really. I, I played the game when it first came out. So in 2013. So it has been a long time for me. And so I remembered some stuff. But mostly I remembered the way that the fandom reacted to the end of the game, which has been very interesting to see that, in some ways, repeated with the end of the show, and in some ways a little bit different. But it was it was very funny. I was like, I wonder if having it be this TV show and having the way that they have framed the interactions here. If people are going to have the same kind of reaction to the end. I’m trying not to be spoilery too much. But the answer is people are still pretty mad. Oh, yeah. Lara Taylor 18:38Yeah, it was. It was interesting because I saw Bella Ramsey had there’s articles going around that Bella Ramsey says that the ending is going to divide people’s like, oh fuck, what did they change? Link Keller 18:50That’s just the ending is gonna divide people, period, end statement. Lara Taylor 18:55It already divided people but okay. I was like, it’s gonna divide the the people that know the story. No, it’s just dividing more people that have never had access to the story before. And I think people there are people that don’t play video games, and there are people who can’t play horror games that would probably be better, like watching this show. And I don’t know. It’s so so good. Josué Cardona 19:23So what is it about? Like you mentioned, for example, mark that you know, you’ve played the game, your wife wouldn’t play the game. But now you can share that story. And like Lara to what you just said, way more people are gonna watch the show. Then play the game. In part because like, like you said, like, it’s more consumable now, right? It’s much easier you can just sit down and watch it and you know how to throw the controller in fear of clickers Lara Taylor 19:51Like it’s like what, like nine ish hours compared to 17 hours of gameplay? Josué Cardona 19:57Yeah, and Right, there’s no there’s no shooting and fighting. And…

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Button Mashing Through Life Mar 05, 2023

Show notes

#347: Marc and Link discuss stories about ‘What if’s and alternate timelines. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Marc Cuiriz, and I am joined by link. Hello, Link. Link Keller 0:25hello Marc Cuiriz 0:28So it is just you and I, this week, Link Keller 0:31the Dream Team, Marc Cuiriz 0:32the absolute goofball Dream Team, someone decided to leave the recording doors open for us. And we just weaseled our way in here. And here we are Link Keller 0:46going to tear it up. Someone’s gonna come home to a bunch of stuffing strewn about the house because we ate the couch. Marc Cuiriz 0:57That was a weird metaphor, but I’m gonna roll with it. Okay, so I have been doing some reading, which is a shocker because I have not been doing a whole lot of reading. But this lately I’ve been doing a little bit of reading. I’ve been reading this book with my wife. It’s called the midnight library. I’m curious, have you heard about it link? Link Keller 1:25I have heard you mentioned it before. And I’m very intrigued. Marc Cuiriz 1:29Yes, Link Keller 1:30I’m going to add it to my, to my extremely long list of books I want to check out from the library. Marc Cuiriz 1:38Yeah, it’s, it’s a book that it’s got a weird writing style to it. In terms of like how the chapters are laid out, like, one chapter is like, I miss my cat. That’s literally the entirety of this one chapter in particular. And Link Keller 2:01like a single line of a chapter? or a chapter worth of explaining how much they miss their cat? Marc Cuiriz 2:07like a single line, Link Keller 2:09Oh, okay Marc Cuiriz 2:09like I’m tired. I really miss my cat and something like that. And then the title is, the title of the chapter is something I’m not quite sure. But it it scratches an itch that I’ve been I’ve been wanting to scratch for a while. And that is the philosophical stuff behind it. So um, without doing a whole, like no spoilers or anything for the book. But it in general, the basis of the book is this woman Her name is Nora, she decides that she feels that the world would be sort of better off without her life. She’s been kind of struggling. And so she attempts to take her own life. And then she finds herself in this vast library. And in this library, all these books that are in there are actually all different variations of herself. And they’re all living different points of her life. It goes into quantum, it talks about quantum physics. And the idea that all different possible realities are happening all simultaneously. They’re just obviously a little off. And some things are a little different. But ultimately, they’re the same thing. And so she’s navigating through this one book called The Book of regrets, and it’s all of her regrets that she’s had throughout her entire life, and trying to find a life that feels like it’s the right one for her. So basically, she’s almost like hijacking a different version of herself and experiences that life. And if she ultimately finds it to be disappointing, then she gets pulled back into the library. And then she can find travel and try a new life and see how that works for her. So it it scratches that itch of like existentialism. And it’s funny because Nora in her root life as she calls it, she was a philosophy major. So it talks a lot about different philosophers and different ideas of the self and of how you view your own life. And I don’t know, I just thought it was really interesting. What do you think about it? Like what do you what do you think about the idea of alternate realities or alternate versions of ourselves? And the idea that they either are happening at the same time simultaneously what along our life or the idea that maybe I I don’t know in some way, shape or form. There’s a maybe a way that we could eventually see these alternate realities kind of like string theory. Marc Cuiriz 2:23Well, I think that the premise is very intriguing. And I do like multiverse alternate reality stories where a character has the ability to examine their life through a different lens. And I think that that’s a fun, a fun little game to play in your life. It can, it can be beneficial, in reexamining the way that you look at things, and events and people in your life, it can also be negative in that it becomes like a rumination thing where you’re obsessing over stuff out of your control or out of the realm of possibility. It’s pretty contextual, but I do think it’s a it’s a great premise for a book. Marc Cuiriz 6:18Yeah, I like how this book is really doing its best to be relatively subjective in terms of how Nora is sort of viewing both herself and her route life. And these different lives of her own. Like, when she jumps into life. She has no memory of anything that happened prior to this point. She’s literally jumping in and as like, what’s happening, what’s going on, I have no idea what’s going on. So like, in one life, she decided that, at one point in her life, she thought about being a glaciologist. So she jumps into this life. And then next thing, you know, she opens her eyes, and she’s on a boat in the Arctic. And she’s like, Oh, what am I doing here? Link Keller 7:11I’m cold. Marc Cuiriz 7:12And people are like, expecting her to know things. Because in that life, that Nora knows things, she’s the she’s a glaciologist, it’s her expedition. And she has to try to play it off. Like she knows what she’s talking about. But she’ll frequently ask questions of like, what are we doing here? Again, I’m sorry, can you remind me about this thing, this thing is such a such and all these sorts of different things. And I don’t know, I just think it’s, it’s an interesting topic to kind of think about, and I know for, I know, it’s something that’s kind of been explored and other things as well, like the most recent example I could think of is dr. strange in the multiverse of madness. That takes it in a different route. Instead of it like kind of being like string theory, or in I forgot how they worded it in the book. But they basically were saying it was like the idea of quantum physics and having them all overlap with each other. In this case, it was more along the lines of like, these different universes are coexisting, but they’re not like overlapping in any way, shape, or form. And then you have America Chavez, who can punch a star in, in these in these in these universes, and just be like, and I’m gonna try this one out for size and see how it’s like. But I don’t know, if you had that opportunity to sort of examine either different universes or see different versions of link. Would you do it? Link Keller 8:51Oh, yeah. I mean, I think I would, I think, mostly from a curiosity standpoint, rather than wanting to escape my current existence so much, but you know, the answer would be different if you asked me when I was 16 Yeah, I think that I think that that’s very intriguing. I think the idea of being able to see the what ifs of your lifetime and getting to examine that but I do think like, there is something that I find like, terrifying about like that, that idea of like, my consciousness jumps into another version of myself, but like, they disappear and I’m in their place and being having to figure out like, Oh, God, what are the rules here like that sounds very scary, very anxiety provoking. I would still probably do it just like again, like I said, like the Curiosity is high on that. But yeah, the idea of jumping in, it is like, oh, in this version I’m what I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a child very original. I know. It’s like the idea of like, popping in like, Oh, you have an appointment to take care of this animal and be like umm I can pet it and give it a little kiss on its forehead but the health care for this animal that’s I don’t know how to do that people are expecting me to know how to do that. Oh, no. Oh, no! Marc Cuiriz 10:33Oh, yeah, like, I mean, I’m not far enough in the book. I’m though I’m like still in the middle of it. So I don’t know if like, she eventually learns how to like, essentially fake it till you make it. But yeah, that’s, that’s one of the things where I’m like, when she like jumps into these worlds. I’m like, Are you like, there’s a couple of them when she jumps in. And then she makes an absolute fool of herself. And just makes herself look like like, She’s totally embarrassed. And I know for me, like, I think I would be in the same boat of like, if I had the opportunity. I think I totally would want to see what the different me’s are doing and accomplishing and their lives. But at the same time, I would be absolutely terrified. Like, like, I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was a kid. That’s really original. I I used to watch, I even watch the weather channel like all the time. Link Keller 11:35I just want to wear a smart suit in front of big green screen. Come on. Marc Cuiriz 11:40Yeah. Or I wanted to be the people that like chased. I wanted to be a storm chaser. So I wanted to like chase the tornadoes in the storms and like document those things, I always thought that was so cool. So I can imagine if I were to step into a version of myself, in the middle of one of those storms, I would be freaking the hell out and be like, Oh my god, what am I doing? Link Keller 12:02too scary Marc Cuiriz 12:03like I thought this looks good in theory, but I’m gonna take a hard pass on this. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just want to get away where it’s nice and safe. The wind? bye Link Keller 12:19Yeah, yeah, I definitely think I would prefer taking on a an invisible watching figure and just get to bear witness and not have to participate, which I think probably does say something about me. I don’t know if I want to delve into it. But yeah, I think the the pressure of having to become a version of myself. That isn’t me in my lived experience, but has all these expectations placed upon them? And having to suss that out through context of what’s around me. And what do I think that these people would expect from me? And that sounds like level 100 social anxiety. Which is honestly pretty funny because I do not get embarrassed easily. Like it is hard like, but the having to grapple with like, Oh no, these people have expectations of me. And it’s not just regular life where I’m trying to like suss out what people’s expectations of me it’s got a whole extra layer of like, I’m also not the person that they have the expectations upon, but I am embodying their space. It’s like that extra layer be like Oh, no! Marc Cuiriz 13:47Oh, like. I’m just imagining, like, if I like in, in one chapter of the book, she is like an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. And she’s supposed to go in front of a university and do a TED Talk, a live TED Talk. And I’m just imagining, like, if I were to step into myself, and I’d have to give a TED talk about something, and I’m like, I have no idea what I just did. Like I have I have no idea what I did. I have no idea what this what this version of me has gone through. I don’t know what this TED talk is even about Link Keller 14:22you’re like turning around. You’re like, is there a PowerPoint? I can just read? Is it how do i What do I do? What am I talking about? Oh, God everybody’s looking at me. Marc Cuiriz 14:33That’s the thing like even if you did have a PowerPoint, how would you know? You don’t know if you do have a PowerPoint? Link Keller 14:40What is the alternate version of you is really bad at making PowerPoints. God what a nightmare. Marc Cuiriz 14:47No organizational skills that doesn’t know how to pick up PowerPoint Link Keller 14:52this alternate. Marc Cuiriz 14:53That’s my reality. So Link Keller 14:54dimension version of Link who isn’t good at PowerPoint? No!! That’s the evil me, I guess. Marc Cuiriz 15:07Oh my goodness. Yeah. It’s, it’s definitely something that I’ve, I’ve always sort of thought about even growing up as a kid of like, I wonder like, I’m sure everybody always has those moments where they’re like, I wonder what if like, what if I had, like you said you wanted to you ended up becoming a vet instead of becoming the host for this amazing podcast? What if, you know, you decided out of nowhere at one life? You were an ice skater? And you were at the Olympics? Doing ice skating? Link Keller 15:43That would be quite a swerve. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Like, there’s certainly the like, intriguing aspect of like, how have I changed? But I think I would also be really interested in how, like, my social groups have changed how the world around me is different. I would be pretty interested in that. Marc Cuiriz 16:15Yeah, I think. And I think that also brings up the the idea of sort of learning to be appreciative of the life that you do have currently, like, yeah, you could have been or that. But instead, you’re here rocking out with me. And I could have, I could be out chasing a storm right now. And instead, here I am wanting to to make a difference. And I’m slowly learning and mastering the ways that is Geek Therapy. And it’s great. I think that the path that I ultimately chose for myself, is one that I am satisfied with. And I know that for a lot of people, it’s not always like that. But I wonder that if someone who wasn’t satisfied with their life, and how it turned out whether it was stuff within their control, or out of their control, if they had that ability, I wonder if that would cause them to have a newfound appreciation for the life that they do have. Because for all they know, they could hop into a life that where they thought things were going to be different. And instead, they achieved what it is that they sought to achieve. But it wasn’t worth it. Or it just wasn’t quite what they expected it to be, you know? Link Keller 17:44Yeah. That is that is frequently like the backbone of those kinds of stories, whether they’re body switching, or Timeline Jumping, or what have you is ultimately looking inward and expressing gratitude towards who you are, and what has gotten you to that point, which I think is a really important type of story. And why it keeps getting told over and over again, is because people do need to be reminded about that. It’s, it’s so easy to get in the weeds about like, well, if this situation had been different than my whole life would be different, I would be different, and things would be better and all this stuff [bumped mic] Sorry. And ultimately, you know, through some sort of adventure, coming to the conclusion of like, actually, what what I have and what I have experienced is meaningful, because it happened to me, because I experienced it. So, yeah, that that kind of storytelling comes up a lot. I’m trying to think of some other examples. I haven’t. What’s the name of that show? Fuck. I gotta google it. Hold on. Marc Cuiriz 19:09Well, I do when I was thinking about this, because I remember thinking about this as a potential topic for like, a couple weeks ago, when we first started when I first started reading this book with my wife and a random, Fairly Odd Parents episode came to my head. And it sort of follows a similar premise of of the Midnight library, although like, there’s obviously no like, reality hopping. But like Timmy makes a wish that he had never been born because he wants to see and he thinks that the world would be worse off without him. But in reality, like everybody’s lives are actually better. And he’s with like Jorgen then he’s like going through it. So he’s like a little fly on the wall, like he’s invisible. And it’s ultimately showing that like, he thinks that like, oh, man, there has to be somebody’s life who is miserable or is worse because I’m not around. And it gets to the point where they are trying to determine No, in fact, then now you’re gonna get thrown into this fiery pit, that all the other children who wish they’d never been…

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The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known Feb 19, 2023

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#346: Link, Lara, and Marc discuss the particular excitement and anxiety of sharing a beloved piece of media with others. Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that we believe that media is really important and it connects us to each other and how we understand ourselves. And I am one of your hosts, Link Keller, I am joined by Lara Taylor, Lara Taylor 0:34Hello Link Keller 0:35and Marc Marc Cuiriz 0:37hello Link Keller 0:39My friends. Let’s do this. Lara Taylor 0:44yeah what are we talking about Link? Link Keller 0:46So we we are coming into this with a very loose topic, I didn’t really know what to pick. And so I, inspired by earlier today, I have decided, okay, wait, how do I let me let me do let me paint you a whole picture here. Lara Taylor 1:06Close your eyes and go on a little ride with Link Keller. Marc Cuiriz 1:10Unless you’re like me, and you can’t visualize it, in which case just just try to conceptualize this. Link Keller 1:19Tik tok showed me a not a sponsored ad, but an advertisement from somebody’s personal site. These very cool transparent post it notes so that you can write on the post it note and put it in a book and you can still see the text underneath. It’s very cool. They also came with strips, so it looks like highlighter strips. Lara Taylor 1:45Oh, that’s cool. Link Keller 1:46And I was like, that’s so cool. And I realized recently I had been not missing grad school, but missing elements of the school experience, one of which being reading books, and taking notes and marking up pages to you know, pull pieces together and formulate thoughts and all that and I was like, I miss doing that. And so this advertisement was perfect timing. I was like, oh, I want those so bad. And so I ordered them. I spent too much money on post its, to to be frank. But I’m very pleased. I ended up getting three different colors with the intention of starting a book exchange with two of my friends. We’re still sort of sussing out the specifics, but basically one color for each person. And we’re each gonna pick a book and fill it up with notes and then send it to each other. And so the book I picked was Gideon the ninth by Tamsyn Muir, which has the locked tomb series has become one of my favorite series. Recently, I’ve become lowkey obsessed with it. So I went to Portland over the weekend to visit some friends and went to Powell’s. Which you guys Powell’s is amazing. fantastical. I have said this to several people at this point. But I have been into a fair amount of like beautiful churches and synagogues. And I have never felt more spiritual than when I’m in Powell’s. It’s this huge Multi Floor bookstore. They have used books and rare old books and like up it upstairs in their like, fancy old book room. They do lots of events and stuff. There’s a coffee shop inside. It’s it’s great. I, I picked up another copy of because I already owned the locked tomb books that are out. So I picked up another copy of Gideon explicitly for this book exchange thing. And I started reading and marking up pages last night and I’m having a really good time but I am a little nervous slash excited about sharing this book with my two friends. Because what if they don’t like it? Or what if they like it, but they’re just like sort of lukewarm. Like it is like I don’t know if that’s worse or not. I have recommended this book series to several people at this point. Jessica is one of them. She’s working her way through the audio books. Thankfully she is very much enjoying it. Lara Taylor 4:47I think Kayla has either read it or Link Keller 4:50Kayla has read it. We’ve talked about it before. Yeah, and my one of my housemates asked to borrow the copy that I have and he read the first chapter and he’s like it’s not for me and gave it back to me and I was like, I’m not gonna take this personally, but I’ve taken a tiny little bit personally. And so I thought that that would kind of be a fun topic to discuss as sort of the emotional impact of sharing a piece of media with people that you care about, and the piece of media that you care about, and the sort of emotions that come up from that. Honestly, like a vulnerability of being like this thing is really important to me. I hope you like it. So Have either of you two ever done anything like a book exchange? Or just like a book recommendation, other media too video games, movies, something where you’re like, look, this is really important to me, and I want to share it with you. But I do have like, a tiny bit of nervousness that is like if you don’t like it, it is gonna break part of my heart. Lara Taylor 5:59Definitely, definitely. Um, I think the media Okay, Marc, you look really excited. Go ahead, Marc. Marc Cuiriz 6:07uh no, um, Here’s here’s some tales about how my heart was shattered into a million pieces. Lara Taylor 6:13I’ll bring us back up with some hope you get you break us down? Marc Cuiriz 6:18yes, I’m gonna break it down here. Okay. So I don’t know if it might have maybe have been mentioned a couple of times here on this to your podcast, that I am a Percy Jackson’s fan for ever in my life. And so when my when my why, what the words are hard when my wife and I first started living together, I was like, I want to read these books, I want you to kind of see the reason why I like them. And so I started like reading them to her as like my way of like, hey, I want to share this really this thing that I really enjoy. And she would fall asleep to it every single time. So she just like, they’re not her type of books. That’s totally fine. I get it. And I understand that, but it’s just like, my favorite series. And just to kind of keep up the charade of it. I kept reading the books, one for myself and two in hopes that maybe someone could say something that would eventually catch her. I’m on the Heroes of Olympus series. Still nothing. So you know, I think it’s safe to say that that ship has successfully sunk. And then another thing this is this is more video game related. But I remember introducing our friend to Assassin’s Creed. And this is this is where it hurt me the most. They had I set them up to play brotherhood because like, Brotherhood’s the good one, in my opinion, like the best one. They played through it. And I was like, Oh, what do you think of it? Like, tell me all about it? And they’re like, Yeah, I didn’t really I didn’t really like it kind of sucked. Combat was weird, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Link Keller 8:13oh, no, Marc Cuiriz 8:14my heart. And after that, it’s just when it comes to Assassin’s Creed, I really have to suss people out before I I drop a suggestion like that. Because I don’t I can’t I can’t stand my heart Link Keller 8:27being burned Marc Cuiriz 8:29too many burns, man. Lara Taylor 8:31So many burns, because this is a piece of media that is so close to who you know, we talked about like link, you said in the beginning, this is how we learn about ourselves, that we learn about each other. And you’re sharing this piece, you’re taking this piece of your heart, this thing you love, and you hand it over to somebody, and please treat it gently. And they drop it to the ground. Marc Cuiriz 8:54They’re like, Oh, wow, Gee, thanks. So then just proceed to just smash it on the floor. Lara Taylor 8:59And that’s why here at Geek Therapy. We don’t like to yuck people’s yums we can have criticism of things we can like have reasons we don’t like a thing, but we can be excited for the fact that somebody else likes the thing. Yeah, Marc Cuiriz 9:13but yeah, so now as now that everything is kind of like I’ve gotten over the Percy Jackson stuff. My wife and I are now doing this new thing with each other. Where at nighttime, like before we go to bed, we we have a book and like switch off every other night like reading a chapter or a couple of chapters if they’re short chapters to each other. So the first book we read, it was called the defining decade I forget who it’s by but it’s like a nonfiction book about like, the the 20 something years and like the things that people learned, or this person had like written about through their clients like the things they’ve learned as a 20 something year old. And now just last night, we started a new Book. And she was kind of reading it to me a little bit. And I was like, Okay, this actually sounds kind of interesting. And now I’m, like, hooked on it. And I want to just read through it myself, but I have to hold myself. It’s called the midnight library, by Matt Hank? Haig? I think it’s Haig. And I just remember like, the first chapter, it was like talking about like existentialist, like, questions and theories. And just like the idea of like, redoing your life, and I’m like, huh, this is, this is my little philosophical Num Nums. I need this. I like this, this is a way for me to be able to have discussions about this, because this is another thing that like, now we can like, have discussions about the books that we’re choosing to read together. And it’s also a book that we both are finding interesting, rather than one book that I find interesting. Another book, she might find interesting, and we’re just kind of like, not compatible. We’re finding a nice, middle ground. So there’s a little bit of hope there, Lara. Lara Taylor 11:03There is there is a little bit of hope there. Um, I think it’s interesting. I think I do get my heart broken, especially with movies. And I’m like, Oh, you’re gonna love this movie. And somebody’s like, it’s not that great. And I’m like, whatever. It, I love the thing. I’m going to share it with you. Yeah, you don’t like it that much. Okay, I can understand that. But also, it still hurts. It still hurts because this means so much to me. Although there are some times I don’t, I don’t worry about that. Because the movies that I’ve been watching lately are giant Marvel movies or whatever. And it’s like, okay, most people I know are gonna like it or appreciate something about it if they don’t like the whole thing. Um, but Kayla, friend of the show, sometimes guest on the show, was doing this like queer book trade thing. Like, she’s obsessed with reading. I think last year, she read 114 or 120 books, she’s already in February at like 120 something not 120, 20 Something books in two months. And so basically, she’ll read a book, and then pass it on to a queer friend and just ask that, then you then pass it on to another queer friend to kind of keep the thing going. And I think that’s a great way of exposing us all to more stories. I think her thing was wanting to only focus on like queer stories and centering queer stories, which I’ve read so many books that I wouldn’t have read, and also some that I would have read because of her suggestions. And so I’m repaying the favor, because there’s a couple of books that Nina and I have read that are on her list that she hasn’t gotten. And so I know she’s going to like them. Which is why I feel safe sharing them because I’m gonna be like, here read this thing. And she’s gonna think it’s the greatest thing ever. There’s another as far as Marc in his like, back and forth reading with his wife, Nina and I were thinking about doing Maia Kobabe’s gender queer a memoir, most banned book in the country, wonderful book. We got a copy of that. And when it first came out, and we’re thinking about, it also goes with the post it notes, we were thinking about having two different color post it notes and putting a sticky next to everything in the book that each of us, I would go through, put a sticky note with everything that I resonated with everything I liked. And Nina was thinking about doing the same, we never ended up doing that. But I think it would be really cool a cool way to learn about each other and have this back and forth. Because we already both know that we love the book and thought it was great. So there’s no heart there. But the vulnerability is in this is someone’s memoir, about gender and about sexuality. And like, I mean, she’s my wife, but being able to like, have those moments of like, this is something that was important to me in this book. And I don’t know if you knew that about me or not, kind of thing. So I may bring that up for something for us to do. So yeah Link Keller 14:18I legitimately I don’t think there’s anything more romantic than reading with your significant other. I think I think that that would be a lovely thing to do. Lara Taylor 14:29Yeah, Marc Cuiriz 14:30it definitely is nice, because I know for me, when I was a kid, I would love reading. I would stay up. You know, most like nowadays kids stay up late playing video games. I was staying up late reading. Link Keller 14:44same Marc Cuiriz 14:45I think. I think there was one time my mom came, like Hulk busting into my room at two in the morning was like, What are you still doing up, go to sleep and I was sitting there reading a book and I was like, I’m just reading. I just it was so good. I didn’t want to Put it all down. She’s like no go to bed. I was like, oh, when you Link Keller 15:03when you slam the book shut because you’re like I’ve been caught, but you keep your finger in on the page that you’re on, you’re like, I’m not. I’m not done though. Lara Taylor 15:11As a camp counselor, I loved having the problem of like waking up and looking around and seeing flashlights reading. Guys, you gotta go to sleep, we got to get up in like four hours, but Link Keller 15:23we’ve got an eight mile hike tomorrow, you need sleeves, like, let me finish this chapter though, come on, Lara Taylor 15:29and we would have it Link Keller 15:30be cool! Lara Taylor 15:31We would have like an hour after our lunch that was siesta where everyone was supposed to be quiet, just like hanging out, recharge for the day, take it, take a nap or do some reading or, like work on some art. There was this is how I got introduced to the Twilight series. I had a cabin of 12 year old girls at that time, and they were reading the Twilight book to each other. And they didn’t finish it that week. So I had to pick it up to find out what happened Link Keller 16:02can’t leave that on a cliffhanger, I gotta find out. Marc Cuiriz 16:06But I think the fact that we can read to each other now at night is a way for me to kind of slowly start getting back into books. And it’s something where like, audiobooks are nice for me. But I also know that I can get very easily distracted. And while they’re nice to have on the go, I also have the short attention span. So if the person that’s reading, it isn’t doing a great job, then all of a sudden, I’m all checked out. And now it’s lost on me. So this is a nice way for me kind of for me to kind of get reconnected with a physical book. And then her and I together can have a have a discussion about what we’re what our thoughts are on the book, what what do we feel like is going to happen, you know, dilemmas, things like that. So it’s, it’s nice, but I I remember I tried to get into Twilight and way back in the day. I read 100 pages, and then I closed the book and I gave it to my mom and I was like, Here you go. I don’t want to read this anymore. Lara Taylor 17:06And that’s okay. And that’s okay. But if I had shared the book with you, I would have cried if you did that. Marc Cuiriz 17:12But at least it wasn’t like I read like five pages. I was like, No, this sucks. It’s like I gave it a fair shot Lara Taylor 17:19you gave it a good shot, Yeah, no. Link Keller 17:21There’s also something kind of nice of being like, it wasn’t for me, but I did pass it on to somebody who would enjoy it. Lara Taylor 17:28Correct. Not like I’m throwing this in the recycle. Link Keller 17:32Yeah, it’s not I dropped it like behind my desk. And I’m not going to think about or see it until I move at some point in the future. Marc Cuiriz 17:41I bought it at the Scholastic Book Fair at school. So that’s why I was like, Well, I spent money on this. I’m not throwing this…

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Wakanda Forever Feb 05, 2023

Show notes

#345: Lara, Marc, and Link discuss Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, its representations of grief, and how we resonated with the storytelling. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Marc Cuiriz and I am joined by Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:23Hey, Marc Cuiriz 0:25And Link Keller. Link Keller 0:26Hello. Marc Cuiriz 0:28So guys, this has been a long time coming, Huh? Link Keller 0:32Hmm Lara Taylor 0:33I mean, I’ve been wanting to talk about it. When? When? Like, November, November? November. Marc Cuiriz 0:40November, yes, Lara Taylor 0:41November. Yeah, November. Marc Cuiriz 0:44Whew, man. Lara Taylor 0:45It’s been months. Yeah. Marc Cuiriz 0:47Yeah, Wakanda Forever. ooooh Finally touching you guys because they finally came out on Disney plus, what was it Friday? Right? Lara Taylor 1:00I don’t know. Because I watched it in the theater twice. Marc Cuiriz 1:06I mean, yeah, I watched it in theater. Opening night and I cried. Lara Taylor 1:14I cried a lot too. I feel like a lot of people cried a lot. Link Keller 1:19I watched it last night. I did not cry. Lara Taylor 1:23That’s so sad. Marc Cuiriz 1:25that’s big sad. Lara Taylor 1:27I cried at the beginning and the end. Marc Cuiriz 1:30So So tell me guys what what were your what were your thoughts? Lara Taylor 1:35I loved it enough to go see it again. Although, to be fair, the first time I saw it, we were the drive-in the car battery died. Spoilers time already. Right before Ramonda dies. And so I missed all of that. Except for the parts with subtitles. And I was still moved by what happened. I just didn’t see exactly what happened. Because I was dealing with getting battery jumped. But I saw it the second time around. And again, I loved it. And also like, oh, that’s what I missed. Okay. Now some other things make some more sense. But I thought it was great. I thought there were a lot of good themes of grief in there. And growth. So those are my thoughts. Marc Cuiriz 2:33Link, what, what sort of thoughts did you have? Link Keller 2:39Um…here at Geek Therapy. we try not to be too critical or yuck people’s yums so I’m going to do my best. It was not my favorite movie. There were parts about it. I enjoyed. I do think that the stuff where they were touching on grief was the strongest part of the movie. And clearly the weight of that is so important because of Chadwick Boseman’s death. So both the fictional characters and also all of the real people who knew him were grieving his actual loss. And I definitely thought that that was the strongest part of the movie but I wish that they had honed in and focused on just that instead of trying to do all of the other stuff that I felt like really undermines the emotional parts and it felt like too much like Marvel movie setup stuff that I did not really vibe with. But I will say Ruth E Carter, the costume designer. Ruth if you’re listening to our podcast, will you marry me because oh my god. Every outfit is a 10 out of 10 I could not look away it was a visual treat. Absolutely loved the costume design. i Lara Taylor 4:05If she does not win the Oscar for costume design it is it’s over? Link Keller 4:11I am because I am I gotta check if it’s still happening there was at the Seattle Museum Lara Taylor 4:19The costume Link Keller 4:19Yeah, they had her exhibit up there and I was gonna go with a friend and something didn’t work out and we ended up not going and I’m like super bummed like God I hope it’s either still there or it comes back again so I can see it because I love her costume design is so gorgeous. But yeah, that’s my baseline feelings about about Wakanda forever I thought the the opening not not the opening scene but the beginning part of the movie when they are doing the funeral procession was the coolest part of the movie i loved that Lara Taylor 4:58which was which was taken from actual like, so I can’t remember which tribe or tribes but act from actual African like funeral processions Link Keller 5:09that I am I am not familiar with most African funeral ritual, I do have some familiarity with like American, like black American funeral rituals, but I thought it was really beautiful to see and it definitely felt real. So yeah I liked that a lot Lara Taylor 5:32I don’t send them into into space in a thing. Link Keller 5:36I mean, I’m, I’m not gonna say that. I don’t know Lara Taylor 5:40Yeah, who knows? Maybe there is? Link Keller 5:42Who knows? But yeah, no, I thought that that was really emotionally impactful. I thought the, again, the costuming having everybody in White was so beautiful. Having the the use of the slomo in that scene was really great. It felt very much like, respectful of people who lose somebody and what that that feels like to exist within. while also bringing, you know, the big screen experience of getting to see so much stuff happening at once like that. It was really cool. I really liked that scene. Lara Taylor 6:22Yeah, yeah. Um, one of the things when you brought up Link your offline talking about your thoughts, and I had a feeling, overarching narrative, like wasn’t going to be what you were drawn to, but like the individual stories of grief and the individual character, the characters we love, and I think, yeah, you’re asking for like more of that. Link Keller 6:47If it had been a movie that was just focused on women’s grief, which it did in a lot of parts, like that was like the emotional through line there is is looking at the Queen and the princess dealing with the death of T’Challa. And how that ripples out through their community, including internationally, like having it be narratively focused on that I felt like would have strengthened to the entire thing, but it had to squeeze in so many other things happening. Lara Taylor 7:19Of course, Link Keller 7:19I was like, okay, all right. Okay, like, uhhhh Lara Taylor 7:24some things I was like, Okay, we did we, I felt most lost when like our CIA. Friends were around. I really liked Riri Williams, and I’m really looking forward to her show. But, yeah, my favorite parts for Shuri, Ramonda, Nakia, Okoye. uhh It was, those are the important pieces and looking at especially Shuri, who has literally lost her entire family. And what that does to her Link Keller 8:07What do you think, Marc? Hmm, Marc Cuiriz 8:11you guys are bringing up a whole lot of just tidbits of goodness here. And I think when I watched it, because I’ve only seen it, I only saw it once I didn’t go see it again. I haven’t had a chance to rewatch it. But when I watched the first time I think that a lot of my opinions of it and my views of it or were skewed because I was like oh, this is a Marvel movie. This is Black Panther. Like the first one was so good. And so I walked in. And just with it being a Marvel movie, I guess I was able to turn my brain off to my analyzing side of it, and just sit there and be able to enjoy the movie for what it was Link Keller 8:55there is something very wonderful about having that power. Marc Cuiriz 8:58It’s it’s a wonderful superpower. Link Keller 9:01I would also say I think viewing this movie in theaters is like the intended viewing experience. So I feel like you guys like you know, I have a okay TV. I sit close to it. But um, I you know, I was watching it at home by myself. I did. I did watch. Black Panther in theaters is the only movie I’ve ever gone to see by myself, which was like a big deal at the time. Now I’m like, Oh, I don’t go to theaters anymore because COVID But I do I do think that like getting the like full sound system because also the audio design was very good. Lara Taylor 9:42Yeah, Link Keller 9:42that would definitely elevate the experience. Lara Taylor 9:45um having gone to the drive in. The visual wasn’t so great for me. There was the helicopter scene towards the beginning. I was like, what just like and it was the second time around. I was Like, how did that helicopter like, get pulled out of the sky? And I was like, Oh yeah, he has wings on his feet. But Link Keller 10:09there were a couple of scenes that were like, real dark, really hard to see what’s going on. Which felt, yeah, sort of, out of place in Black Panther, Lara Taylor 10:19being in my car with a really nice sound system that rumbles was really nice. And at home, we have a home theater with a sound bar and a subwoofer. So it makes things really nice and almost theatrical to watch things at home as well. So I am probably Yeah, I get the best of the visual and audio experience most of the time. But I really enjoyed the movie. And I was having fun the whole time and figuring out trying to figure out what’s going on. I know it’s a Marvel movie, I know, they’re gonna pack a bunch of stuff in and that’s the stuff I’m usually looking for. Because they are catering to the nerd that is me. So Marc Cuiriz 11:05but I think what was really cool was it was incorporating my culture is a part of like, I feel like now my culture has really entered the Marvel Universe. And it feels kind of weird for me to say, because I’ve never really identified with a lot of my Mexican culture. But I think just seeing it there was like, I was like, Oh, wow, that’s really cool. And then the other part of me was like, wow, so we’re the bad guys in this movie. But obviously, it’s a lot more Lara Taylor 11:43but also not Marc Cuiriz 11:45yeah, exactly. Lara Taylor 11:45it’s colonizers Marc Cuiriz 11:47Exactly. Exactly. It’s the colonizers. So like it, but in my head that like that was like a little joke that I made in my head. I was like, wow, what were the bad guys here? Okay, I get it. But all in all, it was it was a really, I really enjoyed it. It was a really nice viewing experience for me. But when I was hearing, when reading Link’s, opinions about it offline and Josué’s as well, I was like, hmm, it got me to rethink on my experience in the movie, and there were a lot of things that I was able to kind of like think back and recognize and be like, Okay, I can see where you’re coming from I see those points Lara Taylor 12:27don’t let them steal your joy Marc. Marc Cuiriz 12:29I still really enjoy the movie. It’s not like all of a sudden, I hate the movie now. Like this, you know, this movie is not good to me. No, I still very much enjoyed the movie, and I enjoyed my experience. But I do see how my opinion like because it was a Marvel movie. And because it was brand new. And because the first Black Panther was so good, I could see how because I turned my brain off and was just able to enjoy the movie. My I can definitely see how I overlooked a lot of things and didn’t quite pay attention to a lot of things. Kind of like like how you guys are talking about like the women’s grief part of things. While obviously it’s all there, and I can see that I didn’t put a whole lot of focus into that particular piece. I think I’m more so focused on the different stages of grief just as a general piece. And it’s more more specifically with with Shuri’s anger towards everything. And her resentment that grows towards just the world as a whole and how that ultimately feeds into sort of the Black Panther that she’s choosing to become which is more vengeful, a little bit more serious then I’d say T’Challa was because obviously, you know when she undergoes the transformation, and she goes to the ancestral plane, she doesn’t see her family like she really wants to, because that’s not who she’s the most connected to at that moment. It’s killmonger and he’s sort of having her realize that Shuri and him are a lot of like in the same sense because they’re choosing to enact their grief and their pain in the same way. Lara Taylor 14:29I think about that fact that like she’s expecting to see her mother there and I was like, you think about she rejects everything about how her mother is grieving T’Challa. And so of course she’s gonna see killmonger Marc Cuiriz 14:47Yeah, like Lara Taylor 14:48of course, Marc Cuiriz 14:48they both decided like, like when you draw the parallels from it from the first movie and with the with killmonger and Shuri you can see the definitely see a lot of their similarities how They chose to instead of to kind of sit there with the grief and the pain and really process through it and come to terms with it, they chose to what was Shuri, she’s trying to do everything she can to avoid it, to ignore it. And I think with killmonger, he’s doing a lot of he wants to take action in hopes that the actions will make the feelings go away, when in reality, they’re not. But in that sense, like, they’re both trying to achieve the same goal of running away from the pain that they’re feeling for him. It’s the loss of his father. And for her, it’s, you know, her mom, brother, literally everybody else. So I thought that parallel between the two characters that I initially I didn’t even think it was a surprise to me when I saw it. But afterwards, I was like, that makes a whole lot of sense, considering how Shuri was throughout the whole film. And it’s also interesting to see just how like her character has developed over the course of the films and how much she’s grown as a person, but also just how drastically different her view of the world has been since the very beginning, when she goes, ‘what are those?’ to This stuff is stupid, and forget about this, because it’s not going to bring anybody back. So I’m just gonna focus on my technology. Lara Taylor 16:27Well, because it’s essentially from when the world discovered Wakanda what Wakanda actually was. Her world has been destroyed in so many different ways. And she’s been on this ride and can’t get off. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t, I haven’t read. So one thing that I appreciated about the previous movie, and this one, all, I have been someone who’s read all of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay’s version of Black Panther and world of Wakanda. And there were so many little nods and things that were included that made it so rich and good. And I’ve read a couple of other Black Panther runs, as well. But I haven’t read a lot of like, what Shuri’s experience was like, because in the comics, like T-Challa, dies, and then comes back or they or he dies, they don’t know where he is. And she has to be the Black Panther. And then I think she dies and then is pulled out of the ancestral plane and comes back. Because not sure if this one is accurate, but I think because T’Challa is going away to space or went missing going through a black hole or something. So there’s a very different Shuri. And I I hope that some of it was pulled from the stories in the comics. But yeah, lots of grief. Lots of different kinds of grief, lots of different I don’t know Okoye is also grieving, right? Grieving her, her best friend, her king, dying. And then she loses her job. That is everything she is and eventually gets to rise as as a midnight Angel. Which is so cool. In the comics. Aneka? Anika? who is the other midnight angel in the movie, and her partner IO are the midnight angels in the comics. And I was kind of hoping that we’re going there, but at least we got a little we got we got a little queer kiss Link Keller 18:55a little gay as a treat. Yum, yum, yum. Lara Taylor 18:58It actually happened. I wasn’t imagining it. So that was nice. And I think about all the things that Ryan Coogler had to balance in making this movie right all the Marvel stuff that like we have to make sure we get this in for the like a Riri Williams so we’re setting up the show. We got to set up the Thunderbolts with Madame Hydra and and all of this and he still manages to bring it full circle. There might be some pieces missing in the middle, but like, it’s about T’Challa and Chadwick Boseman and losing him and how, like they, like I said, and I will still stand by it. I think it’s a wonderful tribute to him, and I feel his presence in th…

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