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A League of Their Own Aug 28, 2022

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#334: Lara is obsessed with the new A League of Their Own series, and loved the original movie. Link and Josué join her in discussing how the show expands on themes and characters in the original, and how showing queer joy really hits a home run. 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 my co hosts for tonight are Link Keller. Link Keller 0:24Hello. Josué Cardona 0:25and Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:26Hi, Josué Cardona 0:28Lara, it’s your turn. Lara Taylor 0:30I sound more excited every week. Josué Cardona 0:32You sound great. Lara Taylor 0:33Fabulous. Fabulous. Josué Cardona 0:36It is my pleasure to have you here. Yes. Lara Taylor 0:39It’s my turn to pick and I want to talk about some gay ass shit. Josué Cardona 0:43Okay. Yeah. Link Keller 0:44mmmYeah, Lara Taylor 0:47I mean, I had an idea and we can talk about that. But I also the show itself is pretty good. I want to talk about a league of their own. Josué Cardona 0:55The movie or the series? Lara Taylor 0:58Both, either, compare contrast. Yeah, yeah. Josué Cardona 1:04I’ve seen the movie many times. I’m a fan. Lara Taylor 1:06I’ve seen the movie very, very many times. Josué Cardona 1:10My favorite Madonna song is this used to be my playground? Lara Taylor 1:15It’s where I fell in love with Geena Davis. Josué Cardona 1:18She’s great. Yeah. Lara Taylor 1:20And Rosie O’Donnell and. And Madonna. I Josué Cardona 1:27I’ve mentioned Geena Davis on the show many times because of the Geena Davis Foundation. And their motto is if she can see it, she can be it. It’s for girls to see like in media to see you very positive portrayal Link Keller 1:39it’s only for Geena Davis Lara Taylor 1:40The Geena Davis Foundation, where Geena Davis can see herself in all the media she’s been in. Josué Cardona 1:51And be it. Lara Taylor 1:53Um, but Josué Cardona 1:55long kiss good night. Have any of you watched that movie? Lara Taylor 1:57No. Josué Cardona 1:58I love that movie where she where she plays an assassin. That was that loses her memory. And then Samuel Jackson shows up like as her handler and she’s a housewife. No, Lara Taylor 2:11no, but that sounds like bad ass. It’s Geena Davis. You better not be quoting the wrong Josué Cardona 2:16I’m pretty sure Lara Taylor 2:18Okay, Link says yes. Josué Cardona 2:19Just gonna Yeah, okay. Yeah. My first DVDs I bought, like the one I haven’t seen in a while. Continue, sorry. Lara Taylor 2:26Yeah, yeah. No, but I’m watching that movie. As a kid. I could probably quote the whole movie from beginning to end. Maybe not off the top of my head. But if you got me going, I could the whole thing. The song that they sing, is there like it? I sing it all the time. And it’s been stuck in my head for weeks now. I think so. If nobody has heard of a league of their own, it’s about the women’s all American girls baseball team or baseball league. During the during World War Two when the men were off at war, and all the baseball players got shipped off to war. So who was going to play baseball? women were going to play baseball. I almost want to say like there was a lot of things that went over my head in the movie when I was a kid like they were talking about STDs and I had no idea avoid the clap Jimmy Dugan. But I the the movie itself. It hit me as a kid like, I love baseball. I am probably the only person on this podcast who loves baseball Josué Cardona 3:43can confirm Lara Taylor 3:45can confirm and just watch it. I love baseball movies. More than actual like baseball. I feel like baseball is an experience when you go to when you go to the game. It’s different than when you’re sitting at home watching on TV. I still love watching baseball games on TV and missed it when COVID happened and there was no baseball going on. And I definitely tuned in for the weird games with the canned audience and the cutouts and all of that. And I hope they someday make a movie about baseball I think the weirdness of baseball during COVID Josué Cardona 4:23be like the league of their own. Tom Hanks plays a cardboard cutout in the stands. Lara Taylor 4:31I have a feeling one a Tom Hanks was probably a cardboard cutout for one of the teams. But it was one of those movies that was like you saw women doing something that they wouldn’t normally be doing and this is in the 90s Fast forward to now. I did not as a kid watching that movie originally. Like as an adult looking back on the movie. I know how gay That movie was. But as a kid, they shied away from a lot of it. And Rosie O’Donnell played her character very queer even though it was never said. Josué Cardona 5:09So an interview with her recently where she said that she was told to like tone it down Lara Taylor 5:13did you see an interview or a tik tok of an interview? Josué Cardona 5:16Look, I don’t know where I saw things anymore, but it was most likely on Tik Tok. Lara Taylor 5:22Because I saw that tik tok Josué Cardona 5:23it counts it counts. Lara Taylor 5:24It does. It does. Yeah, yeah. But she she played the character queer even though the director told her not this isn’t gay. And in that interview, she says, Well, they’re making a TV show of A League of Their Own, with but with gay. And I’ve been excited about this show since I heard about it. It was off my radar for a while. And then all of a sudden, I saw an ad that it was going to be on Amazon. And that’s all Nina and I did that week was watch A League of Their Own. It was amazing. And I think the original concept I came up with when I was pitching the idea, the show today was like, how do reboots or remakes or whatever, bring new context to things and I think watching that movie as a kid, and as an adult, I had somewhat of an idea of what the experience was. But watching this show, they give you more time with characters that are clearly built off of ideas of characters in the in the movie, and different new ideas as well. But watching what it was like to be queer, a queer person, a queer black person a queer black person working in a factory in in World War Two, it was it was definitely interesting and brought, I don’t know new context and the show broke me a few times. I definitely cried a lot. I think more than I did. watching the movie as a kid. Because spoilers for a movie that’s like 30 years old. The Rockford peaches don’t win the whole thing. And it was very sad for me. But I don’t know. Josué you saw that movie. Josué Cardona 7:31I have seen the movie. Lara Taylor 7:33Did you watch any of the show? Josué Cardona 7:35I did. I watched I’ve I’m halfway through the third episode. Lara Taylor 7:39Okay, I haven’t gotten to the ones that broke me yet. But Josué Cardona 7:42yeah, Lara Taylor 7:43I don’t know. Josué Cardona 7:44Yeah, Lara Taylor 7:44I had a hard time the first episode. I was like, oh, that’s clearly supposed to be Dottie Henson. And oh, that’s clearly supposed to be Doris Murphy. Josué Cardona 7:53No. They’re different though. Right? Lara Taylor 7:54They are but you can kind of get it like catcher came from a farm. Josué Cardona 8:00She’s never set foot on a farm. What are you talking about? Lara Taylor 8:02Exactly. Exactly. I liked those. I liked the plays back to the the original. The coach in the movie hates being there doesn’t want to be coaching. And he actually loves it and wants the attention in the show. So it was different enough after I think watching that first episode, I was comparing it a lot to the to the movie. And then at the end I was when there’s I can’t remember what happens at the end. That was queer. But I was like, oh, that’s how this is different. Okay, I’m here for this. Josué Cardona 8:42Yeah. Lara Taylor 8:43And it’s all my queer friends can talk about. Link Keller 8:49The scene this scene was Greta cutting Carson’s hair and saying “Do you want me to stop?” Lara Taylor 8:56Yes. Link Keller 8:57WHOO HOO that’s good shit right there. Yummy. Lara Taylor 9:07It was interesting to watch with with Nina because she and I both have different experiences with our queerness. And when we came out and how our relationships were, and there were moments when like, she was like, this is really hot. I was like, talking about Carson having a husband and then basically cheating on him but not because she said I don’t want to like I’m not happy. I’m leaving you in a letter, but she wasn’t sure if he read it or not. We went back and forth on this many times me and Nina, but she was like, this is hot. And I’m like no, it’s not. I don’t want to be that person that’s with somebody that’s with somebody else. I don’t I don’t want that and it was very interesting conversation. But it was it was interesting seeing what each of us brought our experiences to seeing the movie This show feels like one long movie. I know plenty of people who watched it as one long movie. Josué Cardona 10:06Well, um, something you just said about like, it’s interesting how people you know how you experience it differently. So, I’m not a queer woman. Despite what Tiktok says, and I, I’ve been reading a book called the book by bell hooks called the will to change men masculinity and love. And I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve been reading that and so I started watching the show. And of course, like, what jumps out at me is the way that women are treated during that time. And that’s a big part of the movie as well. But it’s just so infuriating. And to think that, like, my mom was born in the 50s. So like, my grandmother went through all this stuff. My mom still it was better for when my mom you know, was young, but like that still wasn’t that long ago. Lara Taylor 11:00No, it wasn’t Josué Cardona 11:01and and just those moments where, like, the the lady from the, the, I forget her name, but she that she owns the department store are the makeovers like the one makeover stuff, the one that’s in charge of making them lady like, Lara Taylor 11:19yeah. Josué Cardona 11:20When that moment when she says, like, No, I’m not making you look ridiculous. I’m making you not look ridiculous. Like, I’m gonna help you enter that world, that world of men. And then once you’re, I’m gonna help you get there. Once you’re there, do whatever you want. But if you want to play if you want to, like any power, any recognition, these are the rules. This is something that you have to do. Lara Taylor 11:45And there’s a lot of talk about rules throughout the show and the rules of being a woman the rules of being a woman in baseball, the woman the rules of being queer in the world. Link Keller 11:57Yeah, it’s almost like a game is a really good way to structure something when you want to talk about the roles people exist within and society and how we structure them and police them. So weird, huh? Josué Cardona 12:15hmm Lara Taylor 12:15hmm hmm Josué Cardona 12:15I don’t know. Like, the only other show I’ve been watching now is the house of dragons. And like, right, like The last episode was very much that type of thing. I’m like, You’re a woman. You can’t play here. Like this is a man’s world thing. Just hitting it, you know? So. So hard. It’s almost like, like, it’s like fatigue, like, oh, this week, like, everything we’re watching as a reminder of that, and not how it was, but like how it still is in many ways. Yeah, yeah. Lara Taylor 12:51Yeah. I’m definitely picked up on that in house a dragon. We just watched that last night too. Lara Taylor 13:00But yeah So those are things on my mind Lara Taylor 13:04at least there you’ve got dragons, like, she’s got a dragon. Link Keller 13:07There should be dragons in baseball is what I’m saying. Lara Taylor 13:10There’s no crying in baseball, but there’s definitely dragons in baseball. Josué Cardona 13:15But like, I haven’t gotten farther into the show, so I don’t know how much they’re gonna explore this. But like in House of dragons, like she has power. She’s a dragon rider and all these things, right. And she still has status and like she’s still in a position where she can do a lot of stuff. But I like this The, even though it only happened a little bit in the show so far, in A League of Their Own. Actually, there was just one scene that comes to mind right now. When the I think they’re like, I don’t remember if it was at the crab dinner or something that she tells, like, the friend of the girl was trying to play baseball, she she’s like, Oh, stop it, I will go on a sex strike if you if you if you don’t continue, right. It’s like this idea of like, there is even even in that time, right? There’s still like, people still have some power, like women still have power in a relationship or, or in that relationship in particular, you know, that it’s still explores that right, like, it’s not just showing a completely submissive, and I mean, the movie does that too. Right? Like, that’s kind of the it’s, it’s cool to see them playing baseball and like, really playing right. It’s something about Yeah, we can do it too. Yeah. Lara Taylor 14:34Well, and in the show, there’s a lot of eventually as we go through things, there’s a lot more power that is given to women and that they were that they take like, oh wait. They’re making money off of us. Like yes, we need them. They are paying us they are but they can’t make money off of us. They can’t make money off of baseball without us. Being here, and they need us to do that. And at one point in the show, the manager leaves the coach leaves and spoilers, Josué, Carson becomes the the leader of the team and becomes the manager. And everyone’s looking to her, and she keeps fighting and pushing for this is what needs to happen. And there’s a moment where she’s fighting with a man and like, ultimately wins out on like, this is the rule, we need to follow the rule, she has to be all sneaky and work around and like try and convince them. But it happens. And she has some power compared to the other women in the group. Because she’s a married woman, right. And she doesn’t have to follow all the same, she has to follow the rules that the league puts out like, you can’t smoke in public, you can’t but there’s less pressure because she’s already married and doesn’t need a chaperone necessarily for things. So Link Keller 16:06I think they do a really good job of showing the different power dynamics of women who are all all oppressed in this timeline, but in different ways. And the ways that Carson as a married white woman is treated and her power in comparison to the the women on her team who aren’t white, versus Maxine and the other black characters compared to the more obviously queer presenting characters. And I think they do a really good job of showing that, like these power dynamics are constantly happening. It’s not just like, you’re a woman, therefore you have less power is like yes, but Asterix. There’s more to it. There’s Lara Taylor 16:55there’s there’s a lot of intersectionality there Link Keller 16:57multi faceted. Yeah, absolutely. Lara Taylor 17:00And those same people taking the power back where they can where Maxine is like Well, I’m gonna tell your secret if you don’t do this for me. Which is a whole different dynamic or some of the other like, I’m not gonna pitch I’m not gonna I’m not gonna play you’re not going to make me do what I what you want me to do you need me right now. And I’m not going to with why can I think of her name? The the main the main pitcher, the striker Spanish striker. Yeah. There’s so much going on in the show. And I have said that if they don’t have a season two, I’m going to riot because of the way they ended the first season especially. But there’s so many with the intersectionality I think it was really cool to see these two parallel processes. And I’ve seen many tiktoks about this as well to how Carson’s story is about coming into community as a white queer woman and having it’s n…

Full show notes at the publisher

Fusion or Possession? Aug 21, 2022

Show notes

#333: Josué and the crew talk about examples of fusion in media, including combined identity, shared goals, and power imbalances. 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 Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:24Hello, Marc Cuiriz 0:25Link Keller, Link Keller 0:26what’s up? Marc Cuiriz 0:31And Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:33Hi. Marc Cuiriz 0:37That was very anticlimactic right there. Lara Taylor 0:40Yeah. Marc Cuiriz 0:42I mean, it’s kind of hard to beat Link’s energy honestly. Lara Taylor 0:44It really is. That’s why I didn’t try. Marc Cuiriz 0:49All right, Josué, I believe it is your turn this week. So what is Josué Cardona 0:52it is my turn. So I was reading comic books, because I do that sometimes. And yeah, I may have mentioned once or twice that I, I am a fan of Mark Waid. And when I found out he was writing, the Batman Superman series, or world’s finest, there’s many different iterations of this. It comes and goes as a series. It’s been, I really, really like it. There’s something about a Superman and Batman. Seeing their inner thoughts about each other is always really funny, if they’ve got a hell of a bromance. And and it just, I don’t know, the only only those books tend to really go deep into that. And so I saw a Tiktok, where they showed something that happened, and I could not believe it. So I watched, I watched, so I read the comic book. And there is a moment where Batman and Superman in the middle of a battle. Thanks to magic. They fuse into one being. That’s the that’s the reason why I wanted to see this and it looks badass. I don’t know, I like the look of it. Like, the moment they make a statue of that or an extra for your whatever. Like I’m, I’m I feel I feel it in my pocket. And I’m I love that fusion stuff. I think that that was such a cool part of Steven Universe. I love it in, in Dragon Ball, of course. And it’s one of those things that the the way it comes up in in these shows and is also the point in, in, in this comic book is that to like the sum, the sum is greater than the like, this new thing is more powerful than the sum of its parts, right? So it’s like, oh, we can’t we’re both fighting. And we’re both doing this, but we can’t do it as individuals. What if we come together and we become this new thing, and it’s always like an exponential level up. Also, Voltron Power Rangers like anything, I think those count too. one of my one of my favorite things from like, the original Power Ranger series was like, of course, you had like the main, the main Megazords. And they would the main swords, right. And they would form and make this Megazord. And then later on, like, they introduce the Green Ranger, and he’s got this dragon. And once he turns good, it’s like, aw naw, he also adds to the to the thing, like they would bring in more people and it was like, more fusing just more stuff. And I love how Steven Universe did that too. It was like, we can Lara Taylor 1:06we can all fuse! Josué Cardona 1:54do it too. Yeah, why make why just two, fuse with anybody. And they have different names and personalities. And anyway, I’ve always loved the this example and even just the thought exercise of, of two things fusing together of two people, right like and think about how if you could fuse with someone else for you know, what would that be? What would we be called? What would it you know, what greater abilities would you have? I almost I wanted to propose and we can still do it after if we want. One of my favorite episodes that we’ve done was the spidersonas one where we each drew our spider says it’s I was going to invite everybody here to design a fusion of themselves with anyone or anything else. Link you drew a fusion of a cat and an ant earlier in the in the pre show? Link Keller 4:44You should specify that it’s Garfield i think it’s important for our listeners to know it’s Garfield Josué Cardona 4:53was a specific cat and nonspecific ant Link Keller 4:55Garfant. Josué Cardona 4:55Garfant. You did your homework Yeah, so again, I think there’s, there’s there’s something really cool about this idea in media of this, like, joining together of powers, but just not not just like, Oh, it’s a team. It’s like no, what if we, what if we could fuse and come together and become this new thing? And I love that stuff. And and I don’t know that having like Superman and Batman do it was it felt novel even though it’s something I’ve been seeing, you know, in other stuff for years. There you go Western media catching up with with anime and manga. So, so yeah. So how do you feel about fusion? And what are your favorite fusions? I’m very, very curious. Do you know what fusion is? Marc? Marc Cuiriz 5:46I, I may have I might have a couple of of ideas of what fusion is. I Josué Cardona 5:54here on Geek Therapy’s official Dragon Ball podcast. Marc Cuiriz 5:57Yeah, that we’re, you know, Geek Therapy is official Steven Universe podcast. So I might I might have dabbled a little bit in the idea of fusion here. So for me, I have a whole wide like a lot of the fusion stuff that kind of comes to mind is obviously Steven Universe. But as I mentioned last week, been really on this whole Dragon, Dragonball Z train. So it’s all like right there. I actually think one of my favorite fusions in Dragonball Z at least and this is a, this is an answer that I’m sure nobody’s really expecting. But it’s actually Piccolo. Because here’s the idea with Piccolo, like you have kind of like in Dragonball Z, you have Kami. And then you have Piccolo. And at some points, like, like before, like Dragon Ball even began, they split apart, or the original Namic had split themselves in two because there was this more corrupted more evil half and then there was the good half, the good half became Kami and the other half became the original King Piccolo, and then Goku then defeats King Piccolo and Dragon Ball. But then he like splits. Yeah, split, split, splits on an egg that becomes the piccolo that we see throughout the whole show. And then during the Android slash Cell Saga, they come together and realize that if they were to rejoin and become whole again, then they would have this exponential power that, you know, in as I’ve as I’m rewatching they even said like, nail as he was dying. And before he fused with Piccolo said, if you guys were whole, you would be able to take on Frieza no problem. So that like says a lot about how this is like more of a reconciliation between Josué Cardona 8:01Yeah, Marc Cuiriz 8:02the like, there’s the darker side of of who we are as people and the sides that we, you know, maybe present or the good attributes of ourselves. And they learn to coexist, and they come together to make you whole again, and then once you are at peace with those things, you have this giant power up this giant power boost. And that’s why I think piccolo or the Namic that has long since forgotten his name is probably one of my favorite fusions of Dragonball Josué Cardona 8:37I love I love the fact that you use the word reconciliation. And and basically you’re describing things like Carl Jung’s integration of the shadow. That’s a great way to kick off a conversation. Marc Cuiriz 8:52I surprise people sometimes. Josué Cardona 8:54That is a good yeah, I hadn’t. I hadn’t thought of that. Marc Cuiriz 8:57No one really does. But I think I think it’s because I’m rewatching it now. Josué Cardona 9:01Oh, yeah. Marc Cuiriz 9:01And then like, obviously, like, I’m paying attention more to the dialogue. It’s like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And then you look at it from just these different viewpoints. And it’s like, Oh, I see. It’s, it’s these two halves that were fighting for so long. And even when they’re even when they’re like trying to like when Piccolo is trying to convince Kami, Kami’s like, No, I do not want this. But it’s after they sort of are able to sort of talk it through and then they try to come to the realization like no, we have to work together like this is who we are. However, Piccolo obviously has undergone a tremendous amount of change over the years with gohan because of Gohan and comic and now see that which is why now he’s more willing to work together with Piccolo in this sense. And then they become Josué Cardona 9:13integrated Marc Cuiriz 9:37whole again. Yeah, they become integrated But that’s the dragonball z one my favorite fusion of Steven Universe. I just want to touch on this. I would have to say it is Rainbow quartz 2.0. Josué Cardona 10:16Okay, okay, Marc Cuiriz 10:17I just kind of like, I like the style, it’s new. And it’s because of the way rainbow quartz 2.0 sort of presents themselves. It’s different than any other fusion that we’ve seen. And I just kind of like the, the kind of wittiness like the, like, kind of I care free sort of lax nature of rainbow quartz. And then like, the whole Mary Poppins with the umbrella is also just fun. So Josué Cardona 10:51remind me That’s it’s Steven and Pearl, right? Yes, that’s, that’s rainbow quartz. Marc Cuiriz 10:572.0, Josué Cardona 10:582.0, yes. Because the original was with Rose, Marc Cuiriz 11:04exactly. Josué Cardona 11:04Got it got it Marc Cuiriz 11:05And that one was more of like a 80s dancer. Josué Cardona 11:12I like I like how, like, in that sense, it’s almost like comparing kami and Piccolo is very much like, two halves. They came apart and now they’re coming back together. And then in with Steven Universe, like, you see examples like rainbow quartz 2.0. It’s like, like a mother and a son. Right? It’s like, like that relationship. In Dragonball, you have people who don’t like each other. Very much like Goku and Vegeta coming together? Because they, it? It’s like the relationship doesn’t matter, in a sense, sometimes, right? Because what you’re trying to achieve is something different. But there are other examples where like those relationships matter a lot into in what is being built or created. Just different examples of that. Like, it’s so many examples to choose from. Marc Cuiriz 12:08I’ve got I’ve got plenty of Dragonball Z analogies, but I want to give the others a chance to speak Josué Cardona 12:13How did you feel? How does it feel to not be able to just watch things anymore? And have to take notes and and think about? Can I talk about this on the podcast? Can I make Lara Taylor 12:23it I’ll never be the same marc never be the same. Josué Cardona 12:26You con’t just watch something Marc Cuiriz 12:26you know You know, you guys say this. And sometimes I’m like, God damn it. Other times, I’m like, No, this is really interesting. And I’m glad I’m being able to now view things from a particular lens. And it’s having me it because I crave deep insightful things. And because I’m a I like to dabble with philosophy and stuff, just like when I view things from a different perspective, and I can sort of see like, these different things, it raises new questions for me, I’m like, Ah, well, what about this? Oh, okay. Now this kind of plays into this. All right, now I see it. So it’s kind of fun and exciting. And there are times when I can actually just turn my brain off. And I’m just watching an image enjoying the show, so I can still just sit there and watch something. Marc Cuiriz 12:37I don’t remember what that’s like. You’re lucky. Enjoy it while it lasts. Marc Cuiriz 13:20Yeah, that’s that’s the that’s the one thing I think my ADHD for is the fact that I can still turn off my brain and just kind of just sit in that flow state and enjoy it and be able to retain what I’m watching. But not put any hardcore thought into it. Josué Cardona 13:36Well, fusion is we hope at least fusion is been ruined for you and you can’t just watch things fuse and from now on. Lara Taylor 13:45What is the meaning behind that? Josué Cardona 13:47Yeah, going with integration of the shadow was like That’s Wait, yeah, that was that was deep. that was something? Yeah. What about you, Lara, what how do you feel about fusions? Lara Taylor 13:59Um, there are so many examples of fusions, my brain went into two very different directions. Let’s start with the one that’s a little more fucked up. My anime example. Josué Cardona 14:17No, no, I did not expect that we would do this. Please, please. Please don’t say full metal Lara Taylor 14:25That’s what I was gonna say, I’m not gonna say it now Josué Cardona 14:27please don’t say your wife’s name. Lara Taylor 14:30She’s also in the other example, but okay, but this was I just think about the idea. I’m not gonna go into detail about what this fusion is but it is the one that like breaks your brain and your heart when it happens. But the idea behind when two things come together, is it meant to? and taking responsibility for in this situation in full metal it is not their choice, but choosing Who you’re, who you’re fusing with carefully? And what you’re fusing with carefully. Is it actually going to work? That’s all I’m gonna go into on that one. Josué Cardona 15:10wait wait wait Lara Taylor 15:11Now I don’t wanna talk about it. Josué Cardona 15:12No. I did not expect to go here. I tried to stay away from from thinking about Lara Taylor 15:19that Josué Cardona 15:19I mean I had a dog for like, Yeah, always. But it it. I love the point that you’re making, right? Because in that example, in the show, these are like chimeras, right is the idea. Yeah. So you’re putting things together. But this guy just did it just just to see if he could, basically right there was no, there was no, Lara Taylor 15:41sometimes the sum of the parts doesn’t make something better necessarily. Josué Cardona 15:46Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I think it’s a it’s a great example, as well of like, oh, you know, peanut butter and jelly works. Why not? Peanut butter and Lara Taylor 15:55my dad eats peanut butter and pickle relish sandwiches. I think it’s disgusting. Why Josué Cardona 15:59not? Peanut butter? pickle relish. Link Keller 16:02okay but peanut butter and pickle is also a classic combination. So even if you find it distasteful, it is long, long history there. Marc Cuiriz 16:11That history deserves to be forgotten. Link Keller 16:13nah you guys are wrong Josué Cardona 16:14Hey, don’t don’t yuck yums. Lara Taylor 16:16don’t, we’re not yucking yums. Josué Cardona 16:17how dare you Marc Cuiriz 16:17You’re right. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right. Lara Taylor 16:20My dad and Link can like peanut butter and pickles. That’s fine. Yeah, Josué Cardona 16:25I mean, pickles and pickle relish also, two slightly different things. Link Keller 16:30So there’s peanut butter and bread and butter pickle slices. So it’s not like a dill pickle. It’s like a sweet. Josué Cardona 16:37Yeah, Link Keller 16:38and I haven’t had that in 20 years. So Lara Taylor 16:42but it’s like Josué Cardona 16:43peanut butter and jelly. My favorite fusion. Lara Taylor 16:46One of my favorite real life fusions is a chocolate milkshakes and french fries. And people think I’m crazy sometimes for doing that. And but if I were to try and dip my french fries, in a strawberry milkshake, it wouldn’t taste the same and wouldn’t be as good to me. Josué Cardona 17:06I was gonna say like, I don’t think these count as fusions. But then I but then I remembered that I’m in Chicago, and there’s Portillo’s, and they sell a chocolate cake shake the kind of a fusion, right, because they throw the chocolate cake in there. And then they put the chocolate shake. Right? Like they make something up, that’s more of a fusion that’s not like dipping Lara Taylor 17:23that’s more of a fusion. But it’s, it’s the idea that like things don’t necessarily go well together and making a choice about what you’re going to fuse with and spend your time with is important. Which leads me to my second fusion. This one this one, not not dark. I’m goi…

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Return to Dragon Ball Z Aug 14, 2022

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#332: Marc has been rewatching Dragon Ball Z and the crew discusses what it’s like to return to old favorites. What’s the difference between influence and resonance, and how do these media continue to shape who we are? Transcript Josué Cardona 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network here at Geek Therapy. Really the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And laughing to my right is Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:23Hi. Josué Cardona 0:27Then the other one is Marc Cuiriz. Marc Cuiriz 0:30Hello. Josué Cardona 0:32And Link Keller. you there? Link Keller 0:35yaarrr matey Josué Cardona 0:38Marc, it’s your turn for topic this week. Marc Cuiriz 0:41All right. We’re not talking about pirates this time around. I actually so for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been binge watching Dragon Ball Z like your original with all the filler and everything Josué Cardona 0:56Not Kai? Marc Cuiriz 0:57No, not Kai i I’m watching it in its pure uncut form. Josué Cardona 1:03Subbed or Dubbed? Marc Cuiriz 1:05Dubbed. Josué Cardona 1:06okay, Marc Cuiriz 1:06I I tried subbed, and it was a little rough around the edges, I might switch after the Frieza saga. Josué Cardona 1:14Have you ever watched the Pioneer Dubs? Which were the original dubs that were brought to the US? I before Funimation dubbed it? Marc Cuiriz 1:23Yes. And I cringe every time those those ones were were they were something. So I’ve been so as I’ve been like, rewatching it, it’s sort of become like a comfort show for me that along with Brooklyn nine, nine. But it got me thinking a little bit about shows or like movies or like books and things like that as sort of like a basis for the path that I chose to kind of take in life. Like, I be like with watching Dragonball Z reminded like watching it now is like reminding me of like, how amazed and how like, fascinated I was with cartoons and with anime when I was a little kid. And why like, I wanted to stay on that track rather than for other people that like grow up, like, quote, unquote, grow out of it. Like, you know, we have people like we had friends, when we were little that were really into Pokemon with us. And then as he got older, like you might have stayed with Pokemon, and they like, moved on to sports, or they moved on to other hobbies and interests. You know, they kind of phased out of things, but for me, like, want rewatching it is making me sort of like kind of go back to like, why I chose to stick with cartoons, basically. And like anime, and like, why I enjoyed it. Like, why I enjoyed it in the first place. And why continuing to enjoy it now even though like, you know, it’s really old. But I, I don’t know, like, it’s one of those things. It’s like, it’s like a nostalgia trip for me. And it’s like reminding me of like, where I started almost in the Geekdom world. So like that said, I’m just kind of curious of like, what for you guys? Like, if you had to think about it, like what are some of those types of media for you? Whether it’s a movie book, TV show, series, whatever. Josué Cardona 3:20I have a question for Lara. Yes. Are geeks kids in grown up bodies? Lara Taylor 3:27No, they’re not. Josué Cardona 3:29Okay, cool. Lara Taylor 3:30Don’t get me on my soapbox. I have. I’ve had to say that several times. Josué Cardona 3:34I know. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I bring that up. Because, right. That’s a blog post that you wrote a while back on Geek therapy.org A few years ago. Lara Taylor 3:46And like eight years ago, nine years ago Josué Cardona 3:50you don’t gotta be that specific. It’s been a while. how old are you? Lara Taylor 3:53Don’t be specific. don’t be specific Josué Cardona 3:59Because because I think that that’s something that people like we’ve heard a lot. It’s like, oh, like, you’re still doing kid stuff. Or like, I’ll have I mean, I’ll have people. I’ll be at work. And sometimes people will see my background and be like, Oh, that’s so cool. And they’ll connect with it. But other times they’re like, oh, like are you in a kid’s room? No, it’s my room Lara Taylor 4:19Or I mentioned this this past week, Nina and I went to Shabbat services at a New Synagogue we’re going to and the executive director was trying to get to know as she was mind blown by how young I look, but also was like I mentioned Geek Therapy. And she was like, do you work with teenagers? Yes, I do. But I mostly work with adults. Josué Cardona 4:42Always have to make that caveat. Yeah. Yeah. So at work recently, someone a co worker who is much younger than me, was saying, Oh man, I miss those days when you just spent the day playing and you came home and you were so tired that you just went right to bed. I really That’s those days. And he was like, do you miss them? I was like, Ah, I try to have them like I have them. I play harder now than when I was a kid. They I feel like I didn’t have that much in my childhood. And Lara Taylor 5:15there’s no parental oversight. You can play games as long as you want. Josué Cardona 5:18Yeah, yeah. But there was something very sad about this young guy, like 25 talking about, like, how he doesn’t have that kind of fun anymore. Like, everything is so hard and you know, work your life. And I was like, ah, but that’s, I don’t know if this goes to what you’re saying, Marc, but like, I realized, and it was probably in my early 20s, when I came back around, and I started thinking, like, oh, wait a minute, there were things that I really enjoyed before. And I don’t haven’t gotten to do them as much anymore. I mean, go back. And it started. It started with comic books. It was like making connections it went from, I think I was I was rewatching, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I wanted more. And I was like, oh, wait a minute, there’s more in the comics. So then I started buying comic books. And I just started reading comic books like crazy. Like I, I had library cards at multiple libraries. And I would max out graphic novels, and I would have these stacks. And I’ll go through them go back. And it was it was it was so much fun. It was so crazy. And from there, I got back into manga and anime, and I had never really stopped playing video games. But I was I was, I was able to enjoy it, I think more. So I mean, that’s one part of it. Another another thing to what you said, there, there have been like two huge betrayals that I feel in my life, to people who used to play games with me when I was a kid. And then they stopped playing. And those are my parents. They used to play a lot. And I think that’s the reason why I play video games. And my dad used to take me to the arcade. And like my earliest memory is playing Super Mario Brothers with my mom. And, and then like, I don’t know, at some point, they stopped playing. And it was kind of weird, too. So all those things are things that came to mind. For me, Marc, but I think I think I still like a lot of the same stuff that I did when I was when I was a kid. And I appreciate how a lot of things have kind of grown up with me in a way. Like there’s some things that I’ve tried to go back to, like I tried to watch the original he-man cartoon that has not aged well at all. But then they did the sequel series that came out last year. And that was really cool. It was it was like it was it was the same show. It just picks up immediately where it left off. But it was but it was like modern. It was like oh, cool Lara Taylor 8:02it had writing instead of it was an ad for toys. Josué Cardona 8:06Yeah, well is a better ad for toys Lara Taylor 8:08better ad for toys with narrative. Josué Cardona 8:10Yeah. Yeah. It was I used to love the narrative is it’s like it’s everything else about it. Yeah, that was weird. I don’t know. Am I am I tracking with you, Marc and where you want to go? Marc Cuiriz 8:22I mean, for the most part. Yeah. I think it’s like, for me, it’s like, not I’m not necessarily thinking about like things that like we’ve tapered off of and then like we rediscover it, and it’s like, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, because Dragon Ball is something that I’ve I’ve been with like I you know, I’m like waiting for the new movie to drop. So I can go watch that. And I’m all about the already spoiled and new forms for Gohan. And Piccolo. Josué Cardona 8:49Don’t tell me nothing. Marc Cuiriz 8:50I’m not telling. Josué Cardona 8:51You didn’t know there were new forms how dare you Marc Cuiriz 8:53Well, now you know, congratulations. They’re they’re worth it though. I’m building up hype. Josué Cardona 9:00We should watch it in the in the theater should go together Marc Cuiriz 9:03see now you’re speaking my language. Yeah. But it’s like for me like going back and like rewatching the original series because I’ve never really watched it fully. Because I can never really appreciate the filler for kind of what they were. It’s now like, it’s making me sort of like reminisce and like kind of have a newfound appreciation for the things that I enjoyed when I was younger. And just how they shaped me into being the person that I am today. Like, you know, like for me like you know, my wife, she will usually make the joke of like, when you when are you going to grow up or things like that? Yeah, she’s jokes around with it like because of like when I collect like the Pokeball tins, like the collectible tins and I’d have them on full on display. And I’m always like, well, this is this is me, this is you know, I want to, like this is just this is part of my my life and it’s been a it’s been a huge part of my upbringing and everything and I’m gonna show off my knickknacks. All live long day. My Assassin’s Creed statues, they’re gonna be proudly on display until I can’t find any more places to put them and then they’ll probably stay in the box. But like it something like Dragon Ball and and Pokemon is like, you know, it shaped me like I was looking I’m more so like thinking of like what are some shows are like series and stuff that like helped shaped you guys into the people that you guys are today from like, young childhood stuff? Josué Cardona 10:42Yeah, then some of the stuff I said before applies, like literally playing video games with my parents when I was a kid. I don’t know any time in my life when I didn’t play video games. And and I still play games on like mobile phone games with my with my parents. We still talk about that if I don’t if I don’t play, my dad’s like, hey, everything okay? Like haven’t seen you on the leaderboard this week. And my mom just bought an iPad and she was like, Josué I need to you know, I need to make sure all my games files transfer over. I was like, ya know, my dad actually once called me very disturbed, because he couldn’t, like he had lost all his progress in a game. And, and it was funny. Like, I think it’s like the the time he’s most like, called me to, to help him with anything. It was pretty funny. And then I will say I remember watching as a kid also, Star Trek with my parents. And, and I think that was a big one. I think that’s why sci fi is like that shaped me. Because I think about technology and the future. And, and I think about it deeply the way that good science fiction now helps you to think about things and I think that definitely shaped who I am. And I think the first the first sci fi I ever watched was was Star Trek The Next Generation specifically. And I’m still watching Star Trek now. that’s my answer answers. Lara Taylor 12:23It’s interesting, because this way, we are the same person. We are the same person. And I think I never really I’ve always been a geek. I grew up in a house of geeks like my mom and I used to play video games together. We went to Disneyland all the time. And I think I don’t really go back and rewatch things as much as I used to. Because there’s too much to watch. And I’m like, I need something new. I need to take in all this. I’m never going to be able to watch all the stuff I need to watch. Although I am re watching avatar and Legend of Korra and it’s gotten me to the point where I am this close, so close to writing fanfics so close, I’m so obsessed. Um, but anyway, as far as stuff from when I was young video games, we watched Star Trek together. DS nine was my favorite but we watched next generation and DS nine and Voyager together as a family. The Disney trips and I think I’m not as big into sci fi but I think as I am like fantasy, but like watching Star Trek gave me this, like hopefulness for the future. Which maybe now my soul is being crushed by the future I’m in but maybe there is some hope for the future with Star Trek. My dad and I used to watch Star Wars all the time. We had the laserdisc player and my dad still has his copy of the original Star Wars trilogy before George Lucas went back and edited it on LaserDisc. So it’s like the highest quality you can get without going into the territory of George Lucas messing with things after the fact. But I do think that those things like it’s just a part of me. I can’t separate individual pieces except maybe, I don’t know. Growing up on Disney helped me with my parental grief going into that. I mean, there’s a lot of dead parents in Disney. But it also gave me like, a love for fun and a love for adventure. I think that’s what I got from it. And I’m still watching Star Wars and loving how much Star Wars and still watching Disney movies and guess what Disney and Star Wars are now the same thing so I get I get everything. Everything. Josué Cardona 14:58I’m curious to you because I was thinking about Link in video games, and I’m curious about your response to this, right? Because I think there’s like two different pieces here, Marc which is like, like, one thing that like defined who you are, maybe as a person like it, like it influenced you a lot. So maybe, Lara, in your case, it’s like, Oh, I gotta try to have fun in my life, right? That’s something I picked up from the media that I was exposed to as a kid that I liked. That resonated with me. But I wonder, too, as we as we keep talking, like how much of it has affected not just the way you maybe you see the world but maybe like the professional, or career path you took or what you studied in school? Curious? Link? Where are you at? I’m here. What do you think Link Keller 15:52I love video games. Haha. My earliest memory, I’m gonna I’m gonna tell you guys a story that I think really describes who I am as a person. My earliest memory that I have, and I must have been five. Because my parents were still together. My brother wasn’t born yet. We went to dinner at one of their friend’s house. I do not remember anything about these people. What I remember is that they had a golden retriever. And they had a joust cabinet in their house. And I thought that that was the pinnacle of adulthood. And I’ve been living my entire life trying to get to that point. I don’t particularly I like I am more of a cat person than a dog person. But the goal for me is to someday own a video game arcade cabinet and a pet. That’s mine. That’s what I’m going for. Lara Taylor 17:00Goals. Link Keller 17:01Goals. So five year old me, really, you know, set high expectations for 33 year old me. Yeah, I haven’t returned to any media recently from my youth. But last year, I did go back and read reread some of the YA novels I was really into as a child. Tamora Pierce is the author, the lioness, quartet and Wild Magic quartet and the protector of the small quartet, which is my favorite, that one’s about Kel. Who I loved, I reread most of those last year. And it was it was it was very interesting. And I think part of it was, is like I was just coming out of the whole grad school situation. And I was finally like, I’m gonna read, like for fun, which I haven’t done in like years at this point. And so I was reading for fun. And I was reading something that really resonated with me as a kid, you know, stories about girls, choosing their own path in life and wanting to help and protect other…

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Everything Bagel Aug 07, 2022

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#331: The crew watched Everything Everywhere all at Once and LOVED it. They talk about family dynamics, the power of love, and the choice to make meaning in a chaotic world. 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 0:24Hey, Marc Cuiriz 0:26Link, Keller. Link Keller 0:27Hello. Marc Cuiriz 0:29And Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:31Hey, Mark. Hey, everybody. Marc Cuiriz 0:33Hello. Hello, guys. So, link, we missed you last week. Link Keller 0:37I missed you all, too. Marc Cuiriz 0:39But I believe since you missed last week, this is your turn this week. So what do you got for us? Link Keller 0:45Well, while I was on vacation, I convinced a couple of friends to watch a movie that I have been dying to see a little film called everything everywhere all at once. And we laughed, we cried. I have been thinking about it constantly. And I rewatched it again last night in preparation for our recording. And by God, it’s such a good movie!! Josué Cardona 1:19It’s one of those movies that on the second. It’s it’s like you have to I feel like you have to watch it again. A second time. Link Keller 1:26I think that’s right. I think you do. I think you do have to watch it again. Lara Taylor 1:31I’ve only watched it one time. And I mostly get what was going on, but like so like I understand it more than inception. Link Keller 1:41more accessible than inception. That’s the tagline Lara Taylor 1:43Yeah. But there’s a whole lot of in the beginning, I was like, What the fuck is going on? So Josué Cardona 1:49I think it’s a lot of just like, there’s a lot there that you’re not supposed to. It’s impossible to know what it means. Right? It’s all hidden. So then when you watch it the second time you’re like, Oh, it was all there. Like there was all this stuff going on. But also every time I have a discussion about the movie with someone I feel like this movie’s got layers is in my opinion. Lara Taylor 2:08It’s an onion, an onion. Josué Cardona 2:10It’s an onion, yeah. Yeah. Why do you want to talk about? Link Keller 2:15Well, first I want to start with we are going to be talking spoilers. But for our listeners, unless you are like very adamant of avoiding spoilers. Please listen to this episode, because talking about it is not at all the same experience as watching it. And even if you know every plot beat, the experience of watching this film is amazing. I would consider this in the top tier of all films of all time. How much I think that this is fantastic and amazing. visual auditory experience. So if any of you want to opt out, that’s fine. I understand. But like Lara Taylor 2:58many of you watching this, many people in the discord would cosign that that is the best. That’s like the best cinematic experience. I saw that right when it came out too. Josué Cardona 3:10Also if if someone if you haven’t seen it, stick around because you won’t believe what I’m talking about what actually happened in the movie anyway. Try guessing if it’s true or not. Lara Taylor 3:22Maybe we’ll throw some little lies in there. Just maybe, Lara Taylor 3:25maybe, maybe. Link Keller 3:26you’ll know when you see it. Josué Cardona 3:27Maybe Link Keller 3:28and see it again. Yeah. Yeah, no, I want to talk about this movie because obviously I loved it. It is fantastic. Movie. It is a heartwarming family story. It is fun sci fi multiverse stuff in you know, recently we have had several multiverse movies. And I think this one Josué Cardona 3:55everything is a multiverse movie Link Keller 3:57that Well, I think that this movie is the top tier of multiverse movies. Which is hard to say because I did deeply love Spider Man into the spider verse. But this was so good!! Yeah, I think it’s got really deep, delicious themes to talk about. It’s philosophical. It is humorous. It is heartwarming, it is emotionally destroying. It’s great. I I just I can’t wait to talk about this with you guys. Lara Taylor 4:38There are a lot of what the fuck moments Link Keller 4:41Yes, there are. Josué Cardona 4:43It’s it’s it’s one of my favorite live action animes I’ve ever watched. Link Keller 4:47that is a great way to describe it. Josué Cardona 4:50And it’s yeah, I also think that this movie works really well as we never use this term. Like, like a Rorschach movie. But I really do think that depending on your current state of mind, it will hit you in different ways. I think because it touches on so many things, and in ways that it’s like the first time I saw it, things were very clear. And the second time I saw it, things were very clear in a different way. And I don’t think either one was wrong. So I can’t I can’t wait. show me show me those notes, Link. what you got? Link Keller 5:30Yes, I did take notes. And I do also want to point out that this is in this notebook. At least this is the first time that I’ve, I’ve done both pages. Usually I keep it to one page for my notes, but I was just too excited. Also, I drew the everything bagel a couple of times. Yeah, if you got daddy issues, there’s something to relate to. If you got mommy issues, there’s something to relate to. If you have ever been depressed, and nihilistic, there is something to relate to. Lara Taylor 6:02If you’re a parent, there’s something to relate to. Link Keller 6:06Absolutely. Lara Taylor 6:07If you like hot dogs, Josué Cardona 6:08if you have parents there’s something to relate to, Link Keller 6:11if you’ve ever enjoyed anything that Jamie Lee Curtis is in, you have something to look forward to. God, she’s a treasure. Oh my gosh. Ah, okay. So, basic outline, our main character played by Michelle Yeoh. Evelyn is Josué Cardona 6:30fun fact, if you have the subtitles on, it refers to her as bagel Evelyn, Link Keller 6:36Bagel Evelyn. aww. She is a wife and mother and her family owns a laundromat and they are in the process of doing their taxes. That’s it. That’s the whole movie. Josué Cardona 7:00That’s how Part One starts Lara Taylor 7:02then Nope. That’s the whole movie. Marc Cuiriz 7:04Yeah, that really is it? Lara Taylor 7:08It starts and ends with it. Yes. Josué Cardona 7:11Spoilers. Link Keller 7:12Spoilers. Yes, Josué Cardona 7:14it’s taxes. Link Keller 7:16Evelyn is strained, she is exhausted with her life and the struggles that she has to deal with a distant and unapproving father, her husband who she feels is very silly and not very competent. And her daughter who representation lesbian is, you know, not doing a ton and Evelyn finds issue with all of these things. She’s very displeased with the state of her life, and how she got into this position. While on the way to go do her taxes, something mysterious happens where Waymond her husband’s changes and tells her that something big is happening, and that she has a choice to turn left and go to her tax meeting, or to turn right and go into the janitor’s closet. And she’s like, What are you talking about? Dude? That’s so weird. This opens up a whole Multiverse she gets these earpieces that allow her to jump into parallel dimensions. Some of them yes to access them, some of which are like that choice that binary choice of turning left or turning right some of which are very very distance including having hot dog hands. Josué Cardona 9:07hotdog Fingers Link Keller 9:08hotdog fingers Lara Taylor 9:10hotdog fingers Anytime that came up I just I could not I could not so Link Keller 9:15great prosthetics Josué Cardona 9:16cuz you’d love because you because you love them so much. You can like Lara Taylor 9:20no Link Keller 9:20because they are disturbing Lara Taylor 9:24very disturbing. I was like they went hard on the hot dog hands one. Link Keller 9:31they commited to the bit. Marc Cuiriz 9:33They really did. Lara Taylor 9:35they did. Link Keller 9:37But yeah, we get to see Evelyn sort of start to figure out this. Verse jumping is what they call it. And she finds out that there is a villain Jobu Tupaki who is moving through the verses and destroying things and alpha Waymond, the cooler version of her husband who introduces all this to her. Josué Cardona 10:02that’s subjective which one’s cooler Link Keller 10:04I agree, I strongly agree. But he basically is like, Hey, I think that you are the only one who can defeat her. I think that there is something about you that is extra special, it is going to be the way to defeat Jobu. And then it’s a it’s an adventure story. And we get to go on an adventure. And it turns out, Jobu is actually her daughter Joy. Who has become so good at verse jumping, that she is everything everywhere, all at once she is able to jump between all of the universes. And she has the coolest outfits. It’s it’s just great. That’s the basic rundown there. Josué Cardona 11:06I I want to edit some of that. Link Keller 11:09Okay. Josué Cardona 11:10Because because I don’t think that, so, she showed potential. Alpha joy from the Alpha universe showed potential. And then she got pushed too hard and basically fragmented into into all of them, right. So it’s not like, she got so good. It’s almost like out of her control. In a way she just is now. All versions of that all at once. And it’s You made it sound like Oh, she’s so good at it. But it’s like, no, like this is this is a despairing thing, right? Like she she, she it’s like a like when we talk about superpowers, that being a curse. And yes, she’s super powerful. But at the same time, Link Keller 11:52it was something that was put upon her, but she Lara Taylor 11:56she probably worked at it and got better Link Keller 11:59when they introduce her character is very much in a position of power. Especially over other people. Josué Cardona 12:08Yeah, Link Keller 12:09specifically in this way that she can she can control jumping between different Joy’s across the multiverse without the equipment that the other people need to do so. But yeah, I don’t. I agree. That is not is she didn’t opt into it originally. Josué Cardona 12:31Yeah. Yeah. She was she was pushed and which is like, I mean, I think, see, like, I don’t I don’t think I don’t think you’re wrong, either. Right. It’s like, it depends on how you look at it. Like, Oh, is she she just really good at that? Or is she stuck? And I think I think ultimately, I think she’s she’s stuck though. Even though Yeah, she she has this ability. And she’s using it. She could be using it for good. But she’s not because because it’s hard and it kind of sucks. Link Keller 13:04Well, and because she is in a state in which the idea of good no longer applies, because it’s everything. Right is like the idea of like, I could use this power for good. It’s like, Yeah, I do. And also I use it for bad. And also I use it for neutral Josué Cardona 13:25none of it matters, Link Keller 13:27none of it matters because it’s all happening constantly. Yeah. Josué Cardona 13:34Which has a lot to do walk around with that knowledge and that experience. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to jump in like 30 times during your just how much you’ve recap so far, because there’s so much like, ooh I want to talk about that. ooh I want to talk about that. Link Keller 13:54so let’s let’s get into it! Marc Cuiriz 13:55Yeah, I’m, I’m very much like, like this, this movie was got me really thinking and I was like, Man, this is such a great like, philosophical movie. And this just was like, I was like, oh, baby, like I’m so ready for this. I could go on so many, like, just I’ve wanted to talk about this movie. And for whatever reason, I’ve been able to like keep it to myself all day today. Like at work. I wanted to just run up to people have you seen this movie, we got to talk about this movie. And I was like, nope, nope, we gotta save it gotta wait because there’s just there’s so much here. And Josué Cardona 14:29so talk about the movie. Marc Cuiriz 14:29Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I kind of agree with the like with kind of what you were saying about like how she’s like both really good at it. But at the same time, she’s stuck. But you were saying how she’s more stuck. I’m leaning more towards the answer of Yes. Like I like I think I think it’s a matter of like yes, she’s stuck in Yes. She’s also just really good at the power. And Lara Taylor 14:53she’s everything everywhere all the time. She is stuck and she’s just really good at the power. Link Keller 14:58Yeah, exactly. they really took the improv “Yes, And” it was like, that’s the heart, we’re doing that Marc Cuiriz 15:04basically. And so for me like seeing how, like, seeing, like the nihilistic viewpoint of like, viewing the world and viewing the universe in this sort of way of like, here’s now this human that is essentially like, an, like, I wouldn’t say omnipotent, but like in some form of like they can, they experience everything. They they have a shared amount of focus in pretty much every single possible universe that they’re involved in, with obviously, like, determined depending on what universe they want to jump to. That’s the one where, like, there, that’s where a good chunk of their focus is, but like the rest of their attention is equally divided amongst all the other universes. And for someone to be experiencing all of those decisions that all those different joys are making all the exact same time, you can tell like, in a way, you can see why she developed the viewpoint of like, actions are merely actions, they have no meaning and they serve no purpose, because at the end of the day, none of it matters. What matters. And this is what Evelyn sort of teaches her at the end is like, Yeah, nothing does matter. But I’m choosing to still give it meaning anyway. And I think and Waymond was like such a great, like, I loved his character, because he was so goofy, just so he was a great comic relief, but also a great plot device. Like he was central to the entire story, but it was played in such a way that you wouldn’t even think it. But because he was the one constant throughout the entire thing. I think that was just so perfect. Like it was it was a plot plot device. And it was a central focal point of the entire story. But you paid no attention to it, kind of like how Evelyn really pays no attention to him up until the very end. Which I I just, it just got me it was it was one of those like, Ooh, is a real good feel good thing. And it was a good way to like I kind of like saw myself a lot and in Waymond a little bit in terms of like, the different characteristics of like, being patient and being kind and choosing to fight with, like loving and acceptance and understanding. Rather than just throwing hands right away. Like, in ways like I saw, like, bits and pieces of myself in there plus, like just generally being a dork and being goofy, but doing it in a way that like it also works like it helps things out. Josué Cardona 17:49So this movie has a bunch of I guess, dichotomies like opposites right? There’s almost everything has an opposite and every character like there’s an opposite. Do you all know what’s what the opposite of an everything bagel is? Lara Taylor 18:05A stale doughnut. Josué Cardona 18:13A googly eye. Look at the and Link Keller 18:19yeah, yeah, okay I can follow you there Josué Cardona 18:21visually you see you see. So from the very beginning Waymond, like keep its googly eyes on stuff. And he anthropomorphised my the blah, blah, blah, whatever. You know what I mean? He’s like, it’s got eyes, the laundry is is is happier over here than it is over here. He has this way of just bringing joy to everything. Right? It’s like, and his life sucks. Right? And it sucks. This is this is this is the interesting thing, right? Because like, this is the way I see it. Evelyn blames him. But it’s her attitude pushes Waymond away to get to the point where he’s the one asking for a divorce even. And, and he she’s pushed h…

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Ms. Marvel? Marvelous! Jul 31, 2022

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#330: Josué, Lara, Marc, and special guest host Sophia Ansari discuss Ms. Marvel, the importance of positive cultural representation, and the joy of seeing yourself in media. It’s Halal! 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 joining me today is Marc Cuiriz Marc Cuiriz 0:22Hello, Josué Cardona 0:23Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:24Hey, Josué Cardona 0:26and special guests. And I believe first time on GT Radio. Sophie Ansari Sophia Ansari 0:31hello Josué Cardona 0:34The Sophie Ansari from Hero Nation. Sophia Ansari 0:37Yes. That’s me. Josué Cardona 0:38Welcome. Sophia Ansari 0:41Thank you. It’s so good to be here. Oh, I feel so happy. Josué Cardona 0:46So I did not want to talk about Ms. Marvel without you. And so it was actually it was Lara, who suggested that we need to talk about Miss Marvel and I agree. And I think and I’m curious how you. Yeah, Sophia? What does Ms. Marvel as a character, mean to you? Sophia Ansari 1:08So how much time do we have Josué? I told you I have a journal full of thoughts. It’s like my dissertation. Lara Taylor 1:17Six hours CE course right here. Sophia Ansari 1:20Totally do. That is such a good idea. No, I Okay. Yeah. So I hope you know, if I cry, I know I’m in a safe place. But Oh, Miss Marvel, what can I say? I’ve been processing this for six weeks with friends with my therapist who? Goodness, she doesn’t know anything about comics. But she’s learned so much this past month. Josué Cardona 1:46And I’m curious about like, even before the show, rather than just the character in general. Because we’ve talked about this character first first, for so long. You and I Sophia, but just like on GT radio, we’ve talked about Ms. Marvel, so so, so much. And she’s come such a long way. Over the years. Like I was explaining to a friend, Ali from the show. I was like, Oh, the Avengers game like Kamala Khan is the protagonist of that game. Right? And he’s like, you know, that’s like, that’s like now that even with the show out, right, so so she’s incredibly popular character. Yeah. So I’m curious, you know, even before the show. Sophia Ansari 2:24Yeah, I mean, reading I growing up, read comic books. And you know, I love love storm, because, hey, you know, she’s not white. And I’m like, Oh, I can, I can see myself in her and always looking for someone who looks like me. Of course, always a fan of, you know, I love Batman and Superman. They mean so much to me. But when Kamala came along, it was the first time where I was like, oh, that’s me, you know, this geeky Brown, Pakistani Muslim girl. You know, I always say, you know, she’s from she’s from Jersey City. I’m from Ohio, which is basically like the same thing she loves wolverine. I find him very attractive, you know, like, geeked out over the same things. And so I just felt like it was like, somebody went back in time, and recorded me as a young, teen, geeky Brown Girl in Ohio. And yeah, made a story. And yeah, she’s always made me feel seen. And so she’s always been just this very special character. I’ve known her and loved her since the very beginning. When I found her, I was like, wait, what, you know, even just to see the word like Pakistani in anything. That was a big deal for me. Cuz a lot of people don’t even understand where Pakistan is. You know, they don’t you know, so. So that was important. So yeah, she’s always been such an important. Yeah, piece of art for me. And then the show comes along. And here we go. Again. Now it’s an actions and it’s, you know, on TV on this other scale, this other whole piece of art, right, we’ve got the comic books, which alone are magnificent, and amazing and funny. But now you have this other piece of art that we can appreciate in a whole new way. And I feel seen again, and I’ve been telling people when within anticipation of the show, you know, sort of worried like, oh, I don’t know, you know, how are they going to do this? And I didn’t even realize the weight I was carrying from the trauma of Muslim depictions and misrepresentations in the media. Like I didn’t even realize I was carrying all of that until I watched the first episode. All of that was lifted away. It was just lifted away. And there’s a lot of my friends that haven’t seen the show. I assuming you all have watched it from Okay, okay. So there’s a lot of my Muslim friends, my Pakistani Muslim friends who actually haven’t watched it. And I’ve been trying to process and understand why. And I realize it’s because, again, we just have decades of misrepresentation, that we don’t want to believe we can have meaningful representation, right? We’re like, expect to be hurt again. Because we’ve just been through so much all the depictions that are out there in the movies and TV of Muslims. You know, we know they’re always vilified or their terrorist or whatever, you know, all of that I felt personal ramifications of that as a Muslim American woman in America, and I wear a headscarf. So there’s also this other target. So I’ve personally felt the ramifications of the depiction in media. So this show, this show is just so meaningful in so many ways, because it really just humanizes Muslims. Right? And they’re just like, normal people. So yeah, I don’t know how much time that was, but I can keep going on. I want to hear your thoughts and not just keep going on and on. But yeah, she just means a lot. Josué Cardona 6:05Yeah, we’re gonna touch on a whole bunch of that. And I know for, for me. As someone who actually grew up in New Jersey, and have been to Ohio, I’m not sure how similar those two have been. I haven’t seen all of Ohio. I’ve loved the character for a long time. And, and this show just, I think part of part of part of what has surprised me, and I’m sure we’ll get into all of this is I carry that same fear for Hispanic representation. So I carry it for everybody who’s not white. Right, like every time like, oh, here we go. Because I, I know what it’s like to see. And actually, I heard the actress who plays Kamala on the show, I saw a piece of an interview with her yesterday, where she said, every time you know, you’re, you’re on screen, it’s like, that is representative of your entire culture. And because this show is it’s Kamala, it’s her family, it’s the mosque, it’s the community. And then you get to see so many this, this is the part that surprised me, and I Link isn’t here to remind us that like Disney as a corporation of Marvel, the corporation above all that stuff, but like that, that is true, and seeing how it feels like they care so much to show so many aspects of a culture that I I’m not very familiar with. And most people aren’t unless that’s the community you live in, or you’re close to that, right. And there’s so many, so many cultures that that we don’t get to see like that. And if this was, I don’t know, it felt so responsible and so full of care and like, positive intent, you know, or like, there was, it was, I am, I am shocked. I am shocked by by what this show did. And I’m curious to hear from you, Sophia how I’m shocked that they just did they tried. And I’m assuming that it’s positive representation based on on tik tok alone. So, and I’m curious how you feel about you know, specific things, but, but yeah, like this, this show blew away, like blew me away, and my expectations were or had been surpassed so much. And that’s just like, that’s just on tone on people on like, perspective. Like, as far as quality and everything, like it’s just like, as a Marvel show, too. It’s like, yes, like it is it is good. It feels part of the universe. And all of the changes that they made to the character. At first, I was like, oh, okay, um, because I’m down for a different version. Please get creative with it doesn’t have to be exactly the show. But the meaning behind the way that they changed some things, once you get to the end is so so significant, toward the positive, like so intentional, that and it doesn’t remove the fact that we still have the other version in the comics as well. So like we have another version of the story that I don’t know, it’s it was a I I’m still like, almost speechless. Lara Taylor 9:47Those changes were something I was going to I was worried about. And by the end of the first episode, I didn’t care as much because they had done such a good job. When she gets to the embiggen thing I was like, Okay, I don’t care anymore. This is awesome. They kept that. And then at the very end, I’m like, okay, all of those things, I was worried that we’re going to be missing from her character because of the the change in the origin. They gave me that and more because of the meaning and the intention behind what they did with her origin story. It was beautiful, beautiful. love it so much. Sophia Ansari 10:26I agree, yes Josué Cardona 10:28Yes, Marc, what do you think of this show? Marc Cuiriz 10:31Hmm, I think I think I was very much actually. Like in the same boat, kind of like you were like, I know, I’ve seen obviously the how different cultures and different communities can be misrepresented in media, and kind of carrying that sort of weight with you, without even really knowing it. And then every time you’re watching, like a show, like Ms. Marvel, where for me, I was really, really excited when it came out. I was like, oh, we need to watch this, like the day of I made sure every single Wednesday like before, like before even dinner was made I was having it pulled up and ready to go. Because I was just excited that, you know, again, it’s one of those characters where it’s highlighting a completely different community, one that I’m not so familiar with, but just seeing that representation. And then like, especially after the first episode, just kind of seeing like, what you’re saying how it seems like Marvel and Disney like really trying to show that they cared to highlight these different perspectives, and also showcase kind of what it like, what it can kind of be like, just even in a, like, they draw the similarities between the Marvel Universe and even what goes on in everyday life with in our reality. And as the show kept progressing, I just kept getting more and more into it. And I could tell that my wife was getting a little like she was, she was into it, she really enjoyed it. But there were there are times when she got pulled away. And I think it was because of that whole, she couldn’t really connect to it. Because she doesn’t know because, you know, she’s white, growing up in predominantly white communities, so she wasn’t necessarily exposed to those sorts of things. So she always had a lot of questions. And those questions would often pull her out of the moments at times. And I mean, I’m not the most familiar with, like the comics and everything like that. I haven’t been too much of a comics reader. But just based on what I do know, based on, you know, listening to old podcast episodes, or just watching YouTube videos and things like that, I kind of helped fill in as many blanks as I could, but also just also having those same questions and the same, but I came in at it from like a point of like, like, wonderment basically, I was like, I wonder how they’re going to do this. I wonder what’s going to happen with that. And that always got me to, like, look up new information and look up more about the character and look up more about just how Ms. Marvel is as a superhero, and so on and so forth. So long story short, I really enjoyed the series, I thought it was great. I thought it was amazing. And I’m really excited for where they’re going to take this character moving forward. Josué Cardona 13:14I’m gonna flip something on you, Marc and then then I want to hear Sophia’s take on this. There’s a part of the show that feels very educational, right? There’s like the celebration of of Pakistani American culture as well, right? Because it’s like here in this country. But then it’s like, nah let’s actually show the history. Let’s show how this, we talk about it. And then we show it, which I don’t care how they got there. But I was so happy when they did. Right. And and it’s one of those things where, like, we we talked about Assassin’s Creed, which is a game series that that Marc kinda likes. And they’ve had these like educational nodes in between, right? It’s like taking out the opportunity of like, now that we’re here, and we’re in this world, why not take that extra step? Since we’re already here and kind of weave that into the story or give you the opportunity to learn more through not only exposure, but like, let’s let’s visit history, let’s time travel. And that is one of the things that just it’s like, it almost feels like I don’t know if we’ll have an opportunity to do this again. So let’s let’s, let’s go all out to the whole thing. And Sophia, I’m curious how that like, is that? How do you feel about all of that? Like, did you think that they would go that hard? Sophia Ansari 14:33No, that’s a it’s a great question, because people even asked about was the partition even a big storyline in the comics? And it really, it was discussed very briefly in the comics, and there’s like a couple pages on it. Lara Taylor 14:45Yeah, Sophia Ansari 14:46but it wasn’t like a big, big thing. And I love how the partition in the show isn’t just like a background story, but it actually helps Kamala makes sense of herself and her powers, Josué Cardona 15:02we spent the whole episode there. Sophia Ansari 15:03oh my gosh Josué Cardona 15:06I still can’t believe this is true. This is this is real! Sophia Ansari 15:08this this episode, this is where I might get emotional. But this episode was very emotional for me. Because my family was directly impacted by the events of the partition. I have stories that my mom has told me about her grandmother. So my great grandmother, and so there’s a line in the show where her brother Aamir says Every family has a partition story. Yes, every family has a partition story. And I remember hearing my mom’s stories about my great grandmother, who lived through that. And the night when everyone was packing up their belongings, because everything happened very suddenly. And I don’t know, if you all, you know, went deeper into learning about the partition, but there’s just it’s such a sad, sad time in history, so much loss, it’s just devastating. And they mentioned in the show, the bloody trains, or we call it like blood trains. My great grandmother witnessed that, you know, as people were scrambling, trying to get out, they would get on these trains, and these trains would be looted. And people would come on with machetes and kill every single person on the train. And when the train would arrive to their destination, it would just be full of just bodies and dripping in blood. And sometimes the only survivors were the children who hid under their parents bodies. And my grandmother saw this and my my great grandmother saw this. And my grandmother was very small at the time. And yeah, we apparently my family was, we were wealthy in India, they had money and we had land, we had to pick everything up, only take whatever we could. My mom tells me that there was a caretaker that would help on the farm. And he didn’t want to stay. He wanted to come with my family. And he was actually Hindu. But he was he saw my family as family. And he said, I don’t want it Don’t leave me alone. So he came along, they got on the train, and they made it out of there. And you know, settled in Pakistan, and my mom has all these stories about growing up the caretaker. I mean, he lived for a really long time. So she even remembers him. Right? And he would have stories of that. So yeah, directly like this, this is this kind of stuff, where it even made me reach out to some of my family members to even learn a little bit more about my h…

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Plant Parents and Garden Geeks Jul 24, 2022

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#329: Josué has a growing hyperfixation: plants. The buds talk about their experiences with caring for plants, and all the fruitful metaphors that can bloom from such a rich topic. And of course, they can’t leaf without a few good recommendations of some garden-variety media. 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 ourselves and each other is through the media we care about. My name is Marc Cuiriz and I am joined by link Keller. Link Keller 0:23Hello, Marc Cuiriz 0:25Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:27Hi. Marc Cuiriz 0:28And Josué Cardona. Josué Cardona 0:29Hello, hello, hello. Marc Cuiriz 0:32Josué it is finally your turn this week Josué Cardona 0:35finally. Marc Cuiriz 0:36Yeah, so please enlighten us. What is your topic? Josué Cardona 0:39Yeah. So I, I really like it when we get a chance to do workshops for GT, Geek Therapy 101, or we teach like introduction to Geek Therapy. We’ve done them many, many times. And I always ask at the beginning, what is one of your fandoms or hobbies? Like, what is something? If you could, you know, what’s your favorite pastime? And, you know, we get usual like, oh, like, we’re doing comics and video games and cosplay, movies, blah blah. And somebody always says gardening. And every time I just know it, I know, somebody’s gonna say gardening. So I jumped in. I’m like, oh, gardening. That’s great. That’s great. Awesome. Like, tell me a few things about gardening. I don’t know anything about gardening than the like, tools and the different things I don’t know. I’m like, Oh, I’m sure you know, a lot about gardening. And you can see, like, some of the things that happen, you know, with your plants, you’re you think about them. And there’s probably metaphors that you connect to in in real life. And then they’re probably helpful. It’s like, Yeah, perfect. So it’s like gardening and sports, or to like my, and religion, like those are like the three like super, the ones that we never talk about. But that helped frame it for people who kind of don’t understand what we’re talking about. Depending on the person, one of those three, will get them. And then and then it’s easy to explain. So, I moved recently, and I’m a plant parent now. I’m one I’m now I think I’ve clicked checked off all of the stereotypical millennial things, I think, I think I’ve completed the bingo card. And now I’m now my plant parent. And it was like, some of the stuff is just, I don’t know, it’s, it’s, it’s fun. I’m enjoying it. But also, it’s just a good, like, all that stuff that I talked about at the workshops, it’s true, like, the metaphors are there, they’re very clear. And if you’re doing something like messing with plants all the time, there’s certain ideas that kind of come through your mind that are that may be relevant in other parts of your life. So today, I want to talk about that about taking care of plants about gardening, and also a few video games that have to do with plants. Because this is this is it’s very, it’s very, very topical. And so some things are kind of obvious. So I’ll start with asking all of you, what is your current level of knowledge regarding the plant kingdom? How many of you have plants you have a house Marc? Do you have plants? Marc Cuiriz 3:22I do have a house. And I do actually have a few plants. However, they are not my plants. They’re my wife’s plants. However, she’s actually leaving for Sweden, with her mom, they’re going on vacation for about 10 days. So Josué Cardona 3:36rest in peace plants Marc Cuiriz 3:37I am now in charge of taking care of the plants. And she made sure to go through in detail. This is how you water them. This is when they need to be watered. And this is how you’re supposed to take care of them. All these things. So Josué Cardona 3:49what do you think of that? Were you surprised by the level of detail and instruction required? Marc Cuiriz 3:59No, because I, I have friends and I have I know people that are plant parents, and are very knowledgeable when it comes to plants. So I know like there’s a lot that goes into it. I don’t think my attention span would allow me to be able to do that. So that’s why personally, I don’t think I could ever get into gardening. Although there have been times when my hyperfixation is like, I want to grow strawberries. Does that ever happen? No. But it’s one of those things were like, it seems interesting to me. I just feel like I don’t I don’t think I’d have the the amount of attention span or like the amount of like motivation. Motivation is probably the wrong word. But just like, I just know me and I know I’d end up forgetting about them, or I just like wouldn’t be able to take the best care of them. But for her like she’s doing pretty well with all of them. And I mean, it’s 10 days, I can keep them alive for 10 days. Josué Cardona 4:55Yeah, this is my current hyperfixation. Lara Taylor 4:58it can go downhill very quickly, Marc. Josué Cardona 5:00very quickly, Marc Cuiriz 5:00I’m, I’m sure. And, you know, I will gladly take the blame for that if if for whatever reason, even if I follow those instructions to a tee, they somehow still die on my watch. Josué Cardona 5:12It’s your fault, for sure. Marc Cuiriz 5:14You know, I’m just gonna take it as a sign that I should just never take care of plants ever. You should never touch anything green ever again. Josué Cardona 5:22So, so yeah, this definitely my current hyper fixation. And I wish I wouldn’t have followed through, but I have, until now I have quite a few plants. And one thing that you said is one of the first thing that I’ve recognized that is a challenge for me. And it’s like, there’s no instant gratification here. Like, they don’t just pop like this. Video games have lied to me. You know, just wake up in the morning and you know, they’re flowered, and they don’t have a regular schedule. Lara Taylor 5:54Depends on the flower Josué Cardona 5:56what, what? Lara Taylor 5:56depends on the flower. Lara Taylor 5:57That’s true. I was about to say, I have one flower that every other day, it is as flowered. And I’m like, okay, okay, I see the pattern. And so that has been a really good exercise for me to to commit to something that is very slow, very, very slow process, and you kind of do the things and you cannot wait to see what happens. That has been, that has been a a good exercise for me. And, and that was one of the first things where I was like, oh, oh, this is challenging, but like I see, I see the benefits here. And actually, in one of the things one of the reasons why I wanted to do it was because I saw a video that said that most there was like only three out of 10 House plans to get purchased like survive the first two months or something like that? I don’t think so. So like, how, how was that possible? I don’t know. Like that stayed in my mind. And I have I was as a housewarming present. I was gifted a plant and I started taking care of it. And so I started thinking about like I can I can do more of these like this one thing. I’m doing all right. Yeah, so Okay, interesting. Keep us updated. Marc on how many plants you kill? Marc Cuiriz 7:22Well, I hope none. However, I will say Josué Cardona 7:26we hope none Marc Cuiriz 7:27but I will say I am very proud of the fact that like on Mother’s Day, my when we had like my mom and like her mom and my grandma over my mom had bought all the moms and Alyssa like these rose bushes like small rose bushes. And so she decided okay, like we’re gonna buy a big plot like a bigger pot and like replant repot it I can’t speak today apparently. And even though like it was like starting to die because it took us a little bit to like repot it Now like with with our constant like watering at all, like every day and like taking care of it like it’s actually started to like re bloom and everything so it’s been it’s been pretty cool to like see those things like that’s Lara Taylor 8:12that’s an accomplishment Marc roses are really hard to transplant. Marc Cuiriz 8:16Exactly. And the fact is that like yeah, like they’ll die out but like one like it’ll occasionally just like bring back a couple more a couple roses. So like I think it’s pretty cool. I think it honestly needs to get pruned a little bit. Josué Cardona 8:29Look at you Marc Cuiriz 8:30I know, I I’m learning just gotta help it a little bit. But other than that, like, she’s she’s been doing it so hopefully I don’t fuck it up. Josué Cardona 8:42Hopefully. Good luck. Good luck, Marc. All right, Lara, you you know about roses apparently do you have do you have plants? Lara Taylor 8:51I have. I have a house. I have a yard. I have. I am currently in a battle with trees that are invasive, and taking over and growing out of our foundation. And they put like, they, they, like, secrete this like toxic stuff into the soil so plants won’t grow. That’s been fun. But Nina and I, until we moved here could not keep a plant alive. We got one of those things at like a science museum where you just are supposed to. It tells you how much to water it and it’s gonna grow mint out of the little jar. It died immediately. Link Keller 8:59That’s so funny. Lara Taylor 9:04it’s so sad. Lara Taylor 9:11mint is, like so resilient and you’re like not here. Not my house Lara Taylor 9:36it drowned. We kept a few succulents alive for a while but that was also difficult. We had a friend had centerpieces at her wedding with like it was like a metal tin with a whole bunch of different succulents, and all of them died except for like two. And those died last year. So they lasted a few years. But we have found plants that we haven’t killed yet. I planted marigolds in the front yard. And all of them except one that had a little one of those trees underneath it that secretes the poison is doing great. And I’ve learned a lot about removing the dead heads off the flowers, and they’re blooming, they’re thriving. And it’s kind of getting me back to I used to garden with my grandfather when I was a kid all the time. And not that I remember all the things that he told me but like, I do have some experience and it’s nice. But the hibiscus plant we bought the flower immediately fell off the plant is still alive, but the blooms that keep trying to pop up. Yeah. they’re dying they just fell off. Josué Cardona 11:07You’ve mentioned toxicity, and I had not realized how toxic plants are. Most of them I think every single plant I own is like that. Don’t Don’t eat it. Don’t let dogs eat it. it’s toxic to everybody Lara Taylor 11:24There are so many plants I’ve had in the house and didn’t realize that is they’re bad for cats. And we grew up having them in the house. But like my mom knew where to put them so the cats couldn’t get to them and things like that. But yeah, a lot of them are toxic. And every time we buy something we have to Google it it’s okay to have around the cats especially since our neighbor’s cat is an outdoor cat and we don’t want to hurt her so Josué Cardona 11:50that was that was surprising to me. alright, Link, what do you know about what do you know about plants? Link Keller 11:55uhh. some some stuff I don’t Lara Taylor 12:00water. soil. Link Keller 12:02sunlight. Sometimes I talk to them give him a little of my carbon dioxide. That seems nice. I I got as a housewarming gift. When I first moved out on my own at 19 18-19 My uncle gave me a cutting of a jade plant from where he lived at the time in Seattle. And I kept it alive and I kept moving it with me and it kept growing and so I hack off a chunk of it and put it in a new pot and I gave it to other people and the the original cutting that I got I ended up planting at my friend’s house in Santa Cruz because they had a big opening in the yard and I was like my jade plant is happy here Can I can I plant some of it there but I took some smaller cuttings with me when I moved up here. uhhh they all died. They did not turns out if they’re not like in the ground, which they weren’t, they were in pots. They don’t like being in the snow, which it did here. And so they dropped all of their leaves and shriveled up and died and it was very sad but I know that the the original cutting that I got is still alive in Santa Cruz which I’m pleased about but I do have some other plants. You can see some of them behind me. And then you can’t see it in the window but I have a couple of Pothos cuttings in water. I’m not great at keeping them alive, but I live with somebody who is a plant person and is very good at keeping things alive, well. Much better than me. I’ll say that she does still kill plants but um less frequently I think. so there are there are a lot of plants in my house. I don’t know what most of them are. I do not know how to take care of most of them but they are very pretty and it’s nice to have lots of greenery in the living space and our front window and everything. And then there is a gorgeous hydrangea bush in the backyard that is just starting to put out blooms and they are like this really deep indigo color right now which is so cool. That’s probably one of my one of my faves but yeah, I like plants. I don’t like to have too many because once it starts feeling like a chore I am like I’m not I’m not doing that. I know you need water I’m not doing that is not happening sorry but Just you know, just a couple that I’m responsible for I can I can hang with that. Yeah, I love learning about plants. And I love that tik tok shows me lots of things. And I like taking care of plants in video games. Josué Cardona 15:15We’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. Yeah, I think I think you, you all know more about plants than I did two weeks ago. Today, it’s another story, I have gone down a rabbit hole, Link Keller 15:27new special interest unlocked. Josué Cardona 15:31You have no idea. You have no idea you Link Keller 15:33have named any of your plants yet? Josué Cardona 15:35I have. I’ve also named the locations, the sights of the plants as well. Different names, because I’m using an app called Planta. And this thing I have, it has a record of each of my plants. And it reminds me what to do. And if it’s like hey, today, water it, but check it and then it very detailed instructions of like, the soil is like this, or it’s not like that, or it should be here. I have a light meter, I have a moisture meter. I’m not messing around here. I’m, I’ve gotten deep, I’m going deep. But it is like a game. Right? Like that’s it. That’s how I started doing it. Actually, so a friend gave me the joke was that my the my, the place where I moved in, it’s like, ah, had some kind of maybe not good vibes. So we were joking about like, we need some sage here for when I move in. So she gave me a sage plant. But before that, I because of that, because of the joke about the sage, I bought a kit on Amazon to grow. Like my own sage and I was I was trying to grow sage. And it did not go very well. But But now, I mean, there’s, there’s a couple of them that are growing. And then the one that my friend gave me is actually also that one’s doing very well. And so that was like the beginning I was like, oh, wait a minute, like, I’m trying to germinate the seeds, and I’ve got different ones. And I was like, it was just like a big I was just, I was just experimenting. I want to try, I’m gonna do I’m gonna plan four different types of sage, I’m gonna see what happens. And I would do slightly different things with each pot and so that I started enjoying that a little too much. And now Now we’re you know, we’re, we’re pretty deep into, into the plant thing. And so that app is super helpful. And I’m and I am learning a lot and I’ve gotten very, very into it. And but it does feel like a game. It was like a challenge that I that I finally wanted to unlock or like tap into or like just raise the difficulty level a little bit. I thought okay, I’ll take on a new challenge. And, and I wanted some kind of greenery in…

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Spiderhead Jul 03, 2022

Show notes

#328: Marc and the crew discuss Netflix’s Spiderhead; touching on topics of drug use, emotional manipulation, and unethical psychological research. Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that you can better understand yourself and the people around you through the media that you care about. I am link and I am joined by our crew, Lara, Lara Taylor 0:30hey Link Keller 0:30Josué, Josué Cardona 0:31hello Link Keller 0:32and marc our topic chooser of today. What is our topic marc? Marc Cuiriz 0:41Well, okay, first off, I didn’t even get to say hello. First off. Lara Taylor 0:45You’re not allowed. Marc Cuiriz 0:46I guess I guess Lara Taylor 0:47only here to give us a topic, Marc Marc Cuiriz 0:49I’m only allowed to just simply present the topic and then I just disappear. I just become a background character. So today’s topic, Link Keller 0:57hey marc Josué Cardona 0:58hi Marc Cuiriz 0:58guys, thank you, Josué. Thank you. I missed you. You weren’t you weren’t here for last recording. So welcome back. Josué Cardona 1:06Thank you. Marc Cuiriz 1:07Anyways, today’s topic, guys. So just recently, I was more so strong armed. And I’m kind of glad I was into watching spider head, which is a relatively new movie on Netflix that has Chris Hemsworth in it. To kind of give like a brief description of the movie. It’s basically like, set in like a dystopian type of world where these inmates are volunteers for running tests on certain types of drugs, which can kind of, I don’t know, manipulate emotional states, something like that. And yeah, I initially did not want to watch it. Full disclosure Josué Cardona 1:52even though it had spider in the title? Marc Cuiriz 1:54Yes. Because simply because of the fact that it said like it was more of like a thriller. And for me, I’ve had such a negative connotation to thriller movies because of how my childhood was and how inappropriately exposed I was those from my dad, because my dad’s a bit of an asshole. But my wife was like, No, I really like it looks really interesting. Like, we just have to sit down and watch it and she like, put her foot down. And was like, we always watch what you want to watch. So tonight, we’re watching this and I was like, Alright, fine. Like, I’ll give it a go. If it’s if it’s something that I don’t like, then I’ll like, close my eyes. And then we watched it. And by the end of it, I was like, Well, damn, this is like a great episode topic. And I think it needs to be discussed and then she looked at me with those eyes of like one I told you so into like, You’re an asshole for not wanting to watch this movie. So did anyone else watch it? Aside from Lara who I know didn’t watch it? Link Keller 2:58I watched it yesterday. Josué Cardona 2:59First of all, Marc watched it yesterday. Yeah, I watched it today. And thank you Marc for that insight into your home life. Yeah, I did. I did. I watched it. No regrets either. I think I think it’s a it’s a very good topic to discuss. It’s such a it’s such an interesting things. Yeah. Did you how’d you feel about being a thriller? Link Keller 3:23Were you thrilled? Marc Cuiriz 3:25It made? It made me question the genre of thrillers entirely. I was like, okay, clearly, I don’t understand what a thriller is. Lara Taylor 3:34I don’t think you do, Marc. Marc Cuiriz 3:35so Exactly. Sounds like clearly I don’t understand what this genre of movies is. So I have potentially been missing out on a lot of great pieces of media throughout my entire life simply because I don’t know. I guess I just, I just don’t, I’m just a scaredy cat. Alright, so anything like that remotely touches on that? I’m like, No, no way, Jose. So unclearly I need to now rethink my entire life and my life choices about movies. And who knows, maybe I’ll come back with like some old movies and like Hey, guys, have you watched this movie and and then you guys are all gonna look at me and be like, yes. Lara Taylor 4:10Yeah, yeah, I’m a little sad. I didn’t have time to watch this movie because thriller younger me thrillers were my jam. Like I love like, double jeopardy. And like, yeah, a bunch of them. I can’t even remember the name to a lot of them Josué Cardona 4:25We should have an Ashley Judd appreciation episode. Lara Taylor 4:27There’s a lot of older like Denzel Washington and Sandra Bullock movies that are thrillers that I can’t remember the names of 12 monkeys. I really liked thrillers wonderful, wonderful genre. I used to watch them on TNT all the time. And they were the TV versions of everything. That’s what you should have been watching. Josué Cardona 4:50I missed these conversations. Alright, so it’s got it’s got quite a few topics. I’m so happy that now you know I mean, I think you’ve been here for a while. But this is the first time I remember marc where you’re like, Oh, this is an episode, isn’t it? This is this is something we got to discuss. I can’t just I can’t just let this be. it’s not just a movie now. Marc Cuiriz 5:12Yeah, I, I sat there for 20 minutes after the movie was done, and I was just like, ruminating on it. And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, This is gonna be this is this, this has to be an episode like this. Just, I can’t ignore it. And then like, I when I said that to her, she just like looked at me. She was like, Are you actually kidding me right now. So I’m, I’m glad that this this moment has finally happened. And now now, I feel like I’m just part of the Scooby gang at this point. Josué Cardona 5:41It’s Geek Therapy, rule number 12. I’ll take time to reflect. Marc Cuiriz 5:46So one of the big things that like, stood out to me was just this was the whole concept of like, the drugs in general of like, what they were designed to do, and like, what sort of like the, the intentions were for them. Like I understand like, are we going spoilers? Josué Cardona 6:08So I mean, I think we don’t have to go into into complete spoilers. But let’s definitely recap. Link Keller 6:14The spoilers are about to talk about is like the main thrust of the movie, and we do need to talk about it. So I think that’s yeah, spoiled Josué Cardona 6:23we will talk about Yeah, Marc Cuiriz 6:26yeah. Josué Cardona 6:26plot wise, you know, we won’t but but like, what’s what’s happening is this is actually a it’s it’s a it’s a research and detention center. So it is a program where people are have been arrested and convicted. And they are serving a sentence. And apparently they applied to be a part of this program. That is separate from the the general. Marc Cuiriz 6:59state penitentiary Josué Cardona 7:00the carceral System. Yep, yep. Yep. And so they go to this place that is very…is it Denmark that has the, the jails that are like, with clean courtyards, and Marc Cuiriz 7:13I think that’s Norway. Josué Cardona 7:15Maybe it’s Norway. Lara Taylor 7:16like free roaming prison? Josué Cardona 7:18Yeah. Yeah. And like, the guards are just like in regular clothes, and they’re just watching, you know, it’s like, it’s more rehabilitation, then. Then punitive punishment. But in this case, they, you know, part of it is that they are, it’s also a research program. So the inmates are participating in these experiments, where they have something very similar to Lara’s insulin pump. But it actually has all of these different substances. And then the researchers controlled them with a, an app on a phone. And they can and they can control how much and which different experimental drug is released into the system. For example, there’s one called What’s this one? Which, which was which one was laffodil? laffodil was what was the number for laffodil though? 4 6 6? it’s not 16? Josué Cardona 7:20G 46? Josué Cardona 7:32B. 46. Was it b-46? Josué Cardona 8:00No, I think it’s G-46 Josué Cardona 8:24G-46. was laffodil, basically made you laugh. And I unafraid that they had these moments where they were talking about horrible traumatic experiences. And they still just like, it didn’t faze them. Because they were, they felt so good. And there were others. There were other different drugs that they were using. And so that’s kind of like the premise of the of the movie. Did I miss anything in terms of like the setup? Marc Cuiriz 8:53No, no, I don’t think so. I think that’s, that’s kind of a good general overview and recap of like, the basic premise of the movie. But yeah, kinda like getting into like, the, the substances themselves and like what they are supposed to, like, elicit in the person. And my first thought was, like, wow, this, like, I know, it’s supposed to be set and like, more of a dystopian thing. I like these things. I have real like, full on control of like, hey, we want you to be like, like, unable to, like, have a straight face. Like you’re gonna be laughing and here let’s adjust it to make sure of that case. But to me, it’s like, thinking on like how medication is like, in our world right now. And like, to me it the thought came to my mind of like, I feel like we are actually more close, closely related to the movie than we really would like to believe. Because we have like antidepressants and we have like, all these different types of medications that are designed to affect one’s mood like mood stabilizers and things like that, Josué Cardona 10:01two of us right now are actually just used like on camera things. Marc Cuiriz 10:07yep. So and so for that, like, while these things have like, like they just slide, put the put it on the slider on the app and just like, okay, there you go, you’re injected with this amount. And it’s like an immediate effect, like, it’s an immediate effect of like, a drastic change in their behaviors. But for us, it’s like, we sort of have a system that’s like that. And we sort of have a system where, like, for a lot of people, like they’re reliant on those things to help them be able to navigate through day to day life. And so my thought was, like, when it comes to what these drugs were used for, and what their intentions were for, thinking about, like, if those types of drugs were in our, like, reality, like face of reality, like, how great of an impact do you think like, those types of drugs would have on just the general population as a whole? So like thinking about like, having, like a laffodil, how do you like how would like people like us be like, use that, in a sense? Or how is it that other humans would want to use a drug like that? Or like, the N-40, or whatever it was? Josué Cardona 11:27Luvactin? Marc Cuiriz 11:28Yeah, or like, the, like, all those sorts of things are the one. I can’t remember which one this was, I think it was like, Josué Cardona 11:36verbaluce? Marc Cuiriz 11:36yeah, verbulace, where he like, gets you to talk, right? And like, just thinking about, like, how that like, like, just imagining those things were in our world now. Just like, how much of it? Josué Cardona 11:50So I want to I want to Yeah, I want to test something. Lara, do any of these things sound like the effects are the reasons why people smoke weed or take alcohol? Or? Lara Taylor 12:01Absolutely, Josué Cardona 12:02I see it on your face. Lara Taylor 12:03Yeah, exactly. It’s not necessarily a direct correlation that this thing is going to make you laugh a lot or this thing, but you smoke enough weed, you’re gonna have some giggles. Josué Cardona 12:15depends on the weed Lara Taylor 12:16But yeah, depends on the weed. Right? Depends. But like, there are different we already have drugs that do that. That may I mean, the whole point of ecstasy, right. Make you feel open. Love everything. So yeah, there are plenty of substances that we already do use to do that. The psychotropic like the the medications that we use, psychopharmacology-cological I can speak today, those medications also aren’t direct, like, you take an antidepressant, it’s not going to make you happy. It’s going to give you the chance to be happier, more of the time. But, yeah, the Josué Cardona 13:04one of the interesting things, Lara Taylor 13:04we already have drugs that do these things, Josué Cardona 13:06one of the one of the, I thought was more explicit, and clever, maybe I guess it was to me. Comments in the movie was when, like, they are, they are thinking of ways to make money off of these drugs. And so they’re thinking of different ways to market them. And one person comes up with the idea of the laughing one, to sell it to Comedy Clubs Link Keller 13:33that character’s name is Mark. Josué Cardona 13:36That’s Mark. Yeah, just getting a guy ideas guy. And I think the funny thing about that is, what if we like gave at comedy clubs, or places where there are comedians, we gave something to people, when we sold something that would like have them loosen up and make them think that jokes are funnier? Right? So it’s like, it’s funny the way they they address it in the in the movie gets like, you got to think bigger than that. It’s a on on the one hand, it’s also Link Keller 14:10like, there’s a reason why most comedy clubs serve alcohol, like, that’s already there. Josué Cardona 14:15Right? Right. Right, right. Like, right, like that’s, that’s one parallel, but then also just the idea of, like this commoditization of, of just any feeling or anything, right like that, you what if we did have a drug for every single feeling, so that we could just adjust our experience that way? And I mean, we try a lot. And we do experiment, different things. But if it were just that simple, it’s like, Ah, I’ll do this. Right. I’ll take one of these. I want to I want to cry during the or like imagine like you go to the you go to a thriller and you take a real inducing drug or you go to a to a sad movie, and it comes As with, you know, crying pills, because the experience is way better, you know, if you cry, it’s like, that’s how you get the full experience. And I know that I think, would would people would people do that more? If it was one? Just easier. two, if it was economical. three, if it was legal. four, if it was. Yeah, and if it was marketed to us in that way. Like, would it? I think? I don’t? I think I think we would, I think we would actually, we absolutely would. Lara Taylor 15:43I feel like people would, I feel like this is also a Black Mirror episode in the making. Marc Cuiriz 15:47Yeah, you know, the way you talk about it, in that sense, it’s giving me like Bioshock vibes with like, the plasmids, where it sort of becomes this commodity, but then slowly, but surely, it’s like, slowly, like transforming society in a way where now all of a sudden, they’re like, I have a feeling like if it was used enough, or pushed and marketed to a point where soon people are craving it, because then they become overly reliant on it, like, they feel like they can’t exist, like they can’t showcase their own emotions without the assistance of one of these drugs. And then, you know, and then you have things like the darkenfloxx, where that’s something that can definitely be like, miss, like, almost certainly misused. And also, like, it carries those sorts of intentions where you might have someone or like, you have a drug that like increases anger, and then they some people just stockpile up on that. And then all of a sudden, they’re just hopped up, basically, I’m like, adrenaline and anger. And now they can like, tank a few bullets before they’re finally going down. But like they’re on a rampage or something like that. Which then, you know, Will, I feel I have a feeling something like that would just kind of lead to more of like the downfall of society, which, where the, the whole BioShock thing kind of comes into play. But that’s, besides the point like that, that those like parallels, like, are already like something that I’m seeing. And I don’t know, like, I’m also trying to see it in a way of like, how these things can also be used for their, like, the therapeutic process, like the main character, like his whole point of like, he wan…

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Death Mechanics in Games Jun 26, 2022

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#327: A cancelled TAGGS presentation has risen from the grave into a podcast! Marc, Lara, and Link are joined by special guest Mary Devorak to talk about how games utilize death mechanics and how we can use them to delve deeper into our understanding of death, dying, and grief. Transcript Link Keller 0:11Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that the best way to understand yourself and others is through the media you care about. I am link, and I am joined by my co host, Lara and Marc, and our very special guest, Mary. This week, we are going to be doing an extra special episode. We recently had the second annual TAGGS summit TAGGsummit, the summit Lara Taylor 0:46TAGGS Marc Cuiriz 0:47the summit that was TAGGS Link Keller 0:53therapeutic applied geek and gaming summit online conference which you can buy media passes to catch the first one from 2021. And soon the recordings from the second taggs will be up and you can even buy your passes for tags 2023 If you’re feeling very proactive. But yeah, Mary and I were going to present at taggs and through a series of unfortunate events did not. And so we were like you know what it’s time to be pirates and take over GT radio, and do what we want to do, which is talk about Death mechanics in games. And that’s video games and board games and TTRPGs, because all the games are delicious. And death is everywhere. All the time. Lara Taylor 1:51Marc and I are here just to look pretty, even though you can’t see us. Link Keller 1:57I hope that you will join in. Lara Taylor 1:59Of course, of course, Link Keller 2:00you have insightful things to say. But yeah, that’s that’s basically what we’re gonna do tonight. I guess to start us off. I love talking about death. I’ve talked about death on this podcast several times, and in real life incessantly. And I think it’s really important that we talk about I come from the death positive backgrounds. For those of you who don’t know, that was started by Caitlin Doughty, who is a mortician and YouTube person. YouTuber now. Link Keller 2:45phenomena. Link Keller 2:46Yes. Her her YouTube channel is Ask A Mortician, highly recommend there’s lots of very cool videos, informative stuff, funny jokes. But yes, basically, the idea being in death positivity is that like sex positivity, this is a part of life that has a lot of stigma attached to it. And we tend to avoid talking about it, when we really should be talking about it. Because it’s natural. It’s normal. It’s going to happen to you to you, to you. So I love getting the opportunity to talk about stuff like this. Mary, would you like to give a little bit of your death background? Mary Devorak 3:35Yes, well, first of all, every time I’ve tried to do this presentation, talk thing. Life has tried to take me out. But not this time. We’re here now. It’s Third time’s the charm apparently Lara Taylor 3:50fighting against death right there. Mary Devorak 3:52That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Now it’s just trying to take my wife out. So okay, who am I? I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. And so I worked a lot with grief and queer community, and all sorts of everything. I am also a death doula. Well, I’m trained as a death doula. And a lot of people aren’t quite familiar with that term yet. It’s very much a part of the death positivity movement, and it’s getting more popular. But basically, death doulas just as birth doulas help life come into the world. We help guide life into their next world. It’s basically like, like I help people with their last wishes and arranging everything and all sorts of things that we never even think about when we’re dying, or having a loved one who is dying. And I often talk about like myself as a dying person, because I was born with a terminal illness. And it’s not terminal anymore. It’s chronic, and I’m alive. And I will not be someday just this all of us will not be. And the cool part in both of the jobs that I do, I also get to use games. And when I’m more on a death role I do some like, what I call grief gaming. And yeah, so we get to talk more about that today. Link Keller 5:52Yes, I am very excited. I am coming more from the video games side of things. That’s what I have more familiarity with. But we did also do some research on some TT RPGs, and stuff like that, that will we will touch on. Where do you want to? Where do you where do you guys want to start? Link Keller 6:21I guess I guess we can start with defining what I mean by death mechanics in games. Basically, mechanics are the ways that players interact with the game. That is like the rules, obviously, the most base level there is it is the rules. It is also the way that players understand the rules. So it’s a little bit more gray area around there. It can also include like when we’re talking about TTRPG is you can have homebrew where you’re making up your own set of constraints and goals and stuff. And so basically, it’s the ways that we engage with the game and more specifically, the way that death is a part of that engagement with the game. In most games, death is just a fail state, it just means you have lost. Sometimes in video games, it’s often like you reload so you get another chance. Older video games used lives as a way to have a failure states in early videogame history. It was used death was used both as a shorthand for like to get people to understand is like this is a you lost like you died. But also, arcade games are about making money. So the more that you die, the more that you put more coins in to keep playing. And that very much popularized the the verbiage of using death and dying in games even though they weren’t realistic examples of death and dying. in TTRPGs that’s also still very common board games like death is just it’s a fail state. But there are lots of examples. And there are more every year which I love of games that are engaging with the idea of death and dying in more interesting ways more realistic ways. Think I will start with a very on the nose example. And that is a morticians tale which is a video game that came out in I want to say 2017 by laundry bear games. It is a game that is loosely based off of Caitlin Doughty’s first book, and which is autobiographical. So it’s really about her life. It’s you play as Charlie, who is a young mortician starting at a mortuary. And in the game, what you are doing it like the mechanics of the game is you move around in a room and you engage with a computer where you get to read some emails. And then you engage with the body where you prepare it for a funeral, either through embalming or cremation. And then after finishing that part, you go into the funeral home, presentation room, the funeral room, and you get to listen to the family talk and it shows a bunch of different ways that people engage with grief. It shows people you know crying it shows people who are like worried about what’s gonna happen next because you know, you don’t have a will from that person. And so whoever the next of kin is has to just sort of guess what what that person the decedent would have wanted. It shows people who are laughing and joking, it shows people who are like, Man, I’m just like really hungry, can we can we get some fast food after this. And I think that that’s like such a cool game because obviously, it shows all these different types of grief experiences, which I think is really important. It talks about more of the industry side, wherein a lot of private family owned funeral homes, get bought out by big industry corporations, who keep the name and everything the same so that you still you think it’s a small little private thing, but it’s, it’s a mega Corp. But most importantly, in the game, when you are performing the embalming and the cremation, like, you actually get to see the step by step process of what that looks like. Now, the graphics of the game are pastel purples, and blues. And it’s not super realistic. But the steps of the process are realistic, which I think is so important because it gives people an opportunity to actually learn about this stuff. Because a lot of times, we don’t feel comfortable asking, or we don’t have a person to ask. And it can be in the moment of actually encountering that in your own real life. Like you don’t want to ask question like, hey, what did you do with that corpse? Like that’s, that’s grandma? Can you not? can you not ask that right now? Shut up. But yeah, I think this game is a great intro into learning about that stuff. Lara Taylor 11:28And that gives people like, the way the graphics are in the game, it gives people it’s an accessibility point where people who are gonna get grossed out, don’t have to be as grossed out and can ask those questions. It’s not CSI, like level realism or whatever, some people get grossed out by that. So that’s pretty cool. Link Keller 11:51It is. Mary Devorak 11:52That’s exactly what I was thinking. on that. It’s, it’s so much more accessible to everyone because they don’t have to worry about too much. They don’t want to see Lara Taylor 12:04exactly. Mary Devorak 12:11This is a super great game, I actually get like, a lot of people who ask about what happens or just have no idea about anything at all about the process, and then, you know, someone in the family has died. And I do my best to give them a space to talk about, you know, and explore any of those questions that you wouldn’t usually ask in front of most people, like, Oh, what happened to that corpse? What’s going to happen? And this provides like, a different format, which I really love. And it allows a little bit of separation because it’s a cartoony type of feel. So we can still go through it together, or they can even just do it on their own and talk to me about it. And they get the education and the knowledge that they want. And for some people that helps them move forward and move through that very difficult time. Link Keller 13:24Yes. It’s reminds me of immediately swerving out of games, The Haunting of Hill House in one of the early episodes of that season. And I’m forgetting the character’s name, but she is a funeral director mortician and she talks through the process of preparing a body for a showing and I thought that that was done well in that they showed that it is a process somebody somebody is doing that job of dressing up the body and preparing it and making it look not alive but more lifelike. By but it was also like, you know, obviously not a real corpse on the table in that TV show, but it was a little bit more intense because it was more realistic looking. And I think that that’s one of the ways that a morticians Tale really is very powerful is that it is it is soft and cartoony and that does like gives the space for us to engage with it without it being scary. Haunting of Hill House is a horror show so it likes to be scary Lara Taylor 14:44it scared the crap outta me. Yeah. Mary Devorak 14:46That explains why i didn’t see it Marc Cuiriz 14:48Yes, yes, spooky show’s not for me. Lara Taylor 14:54Link will eat all the spooky shows up. Link Keller 14:58yumyumyum delicious Lara Taylor 14:58me too Link Keller 15:02Okay, do we want to talk about a TTRPG? Example? Mary Devorak 15:08Yeah, we definitely can. So what is the best one? Well, it kind of makes a little bit of sense to talk about Rest in pieces. So this is an interesting game, it was very recently released, like around 2021. And it it’s a type of game where you have a Jenga tower. And it’s like a card base game as well. And basically, you’re death’s, roommates. And so the Grim Reaper is your roommate. And it goes through like bad days, and difficult friendships. And so it allows me a lot to talk about, like, how would you have this hard conversation? In a way that’s not as directly talking about death itself, it’s like, taking it as a theme. And then talking about some other things in different ways. One of the quotes on the on the manual says, Death is all about happy endings. And they have some like really cool little cards, I feel like it was done so creatively, they have a card that represents death, which was the Grim Reaper, and it describes the Grim Reaper as a millennial obsessive and possessive. Like, I mean, I fear of death is coming. forea Sorry, but in this game, death is good, getcha. Yeah, there’s a lot of different examples of the different types of cards. But basically, it uses humor. And you can process a lot of different types of themes with this particular game. Friendships grief, just living with someone I’m thinking of, maybe using this for a transitional age use, like we’re gonna move in with roommates. Not really related to death. But I think it’s cool that it’s not all related. And it also involves the narrator, they call, they call that the GM, the narrator in this one. And the narrator puts pressure on the players to make their days as hard as they can be. And I think that’s a great reflection of what it’s like to go through death, dying and grieving. It often feels like life is and death are just giving us the hardest things that could could we could possibly imagine. And sometimes we don’t know how we’re gonna make it through. And we do. So. Link Keller 18:25I think having the aspect of the Jenga tower is really fun, fun and flirty. I think it’s great, because anybody who’s played Jenga before, like, you know, at some point, that tower is coming down. Lara Taylor 18:44There’s some anxiety there. Yeah, we’re gonna fall Yeah, Link Keller 18:47there is will I cause it? Will it be my fault? Will I just have to sit there and witness it happened before me? Gosh, that sounds very similar to something else. Death dying. That’s what it’s like. You know, like you just living life is you’re gonna keep pulling those pieces out of the tower, and eventually it will topple. I think that that is such a fun way to sort of analogize metaphoricalize, death and dying in a game mechanic is incorporating this game that a lot of people are very familiar with. And just adding in the extra comedy layers of the cards and everything. Death is a roommate, I think is very funny to me. Lara Taylor 19:37Yeah, the Jenga tower is a mechanic and a lot of like solo RPGs to help you kind of figure out when your fail state is or when the game is going to end. It’s not always a fail state. But yeah, good way to know when things are going to. Mary Devorak 19:56Right. Marc Cuiriz 19:59I definitely have to say That’s the first time I’ve ever heard Jenga being utilized in a way to think of death. And honestly, I’m here for it. That’s something that’s actually something really cool. I never really thought about it in that, in that way of like, you know, death is one of the things where it’s going to come and like, when you’re dealing when you’re living with life, like you’re living life with people like, especially like in like partnerships and relationships and stuff, like there are people that are just constantly just gonna be pulling out those pieces until one day. It’s gonna topple either somebody accidentally bumps the table, or, you know, you just pull that one piece. I’ll really depends. Lara Taylor 20:37Or you get angry and table flip it Link Keller 20:41I was just thinking that I was like, I’m not gonna say it. Thank you. Thank you, Lara. Mary Devorak 20:47And what a great reflection on like, how we could live choose to live our lives and the choices that we have in life. If there is a person who just takes and takes all those pieces? Do we, you know, do we want them present? And, like in those ways? And do we want to give them opportunities to continue to take more pieces? Or do we have a choice to find? People who maybe will help build us up? Lara Taylor 21:19Yeah, we just got real deep on the Jenga game. I love it. Link Keller 21:23mmm thats geek therapy Lara Taylor 21:25I thought of it as like it. I mean, I use a comparison for anxiety all the time, because there is that anxiety of what’s goi…

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness May 22, 2022

Show notes

#326: Lara, Marc, Link, and special guest Kayla discuss the new Doctor Strange movie (it’s really Wanda’s movie) and how it represents processing grief. Transcript Marc Cuiriz 0:11Welcome to GT radio on 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 0:27Hey, Marc Cuiriz 0:29Link Keller. Link Keller 0:30Hello, Marc Cuiriz 0:32and a very special guest, Kayla. Kayla Devorak 0:36Hello. Marc Cuiriz 0:38So how was my Josué impression everybody? Link Keller 0:42Spot on. Kayla Devorak 0:43It was pretty good. Lara Taylor 0:44It was pretty good. Kayla Devorak 0:45felt like a ten outta ten Marc Cuiriz 0:47I think was a little too peppy. He’s normally more toned down. But you know, I tried to bring in the energy because Lara Taylor 0:55I mean, you didn’t do the big breath beforehand. Marc Cuiriz 0:59That’s true. But nobody ever hears that because I usually cut it out. Lara Taylor 1:03True. Marc Cuiriz 1:04I don’t let anybody hear that. That breath. Yeah, so we are here today to discuss the new Doctor Strange movie the multiverse of madness. Or in this case, it’s just a Wanda going I don’t know. What would you guys say? Link Keller 1:28It’s marvel’s mothers day movie. It’s mom. MoM is mom. Marvel’s Mom, Lara Taylor 1:35it’s perfect. Full full spoilers for this episode. Marc Cuiriz 1:41100% 100 spoilers Lara Taylor 1:41if you haven’t watched the movie Get out of here. Like Josué did. Marc Cuiriz 1:46Exactly. Link Keller 1:47Or stay it’s fine. No judgment. Kayla Devorak 1:50Some people don’t mind being spoiled. Marc Cuiriz 1:52I mean, yeah, it’s really me. I enjoy spoilers. Kayla Devorak 1:55I don’t mind them. I don’t mind them either. Lara Taylor 1:57It depends on the spoiler for me. Marc Cuiriz 2:01So I just wanted to get everybody’s initial thoughts, feelings, anything about the movie? Who wants to go first? Lara Taylor 2:12I mean, I brought the topic up, I will go first. Marc Cuiriz 2:15There we go. Lara Taylor 2:16There was it was a long string of Holy shit. Like that. That’s all I’ve got, like, my brain was exploding the whole movie. I really liked it. Yeah, I have opinions about things. We can talk about them later. But Marc Cuiriz 2:35I feel like that was that was definitely my whole reaction too I was like, Oh my God, there’s literally so much in this. And just like the introduction of a lot of characters, I just, I was completely mind blown. I definitely I had my seat like fully reclined because I was in one of those types of theaters. And I was I had actually put it like, all the way back up. And it was like at the edge of my seat because I was like, are they going to do it? But there’s a lot of things in there. Lonk, what was your thoughts? Link Keller 3:09So on on on GTRadio I am I’m the least invested in the Marvel Universe. And Lara Taylor 3:20I like hot takes on the reviews by the way Link Keller 3:23I did I didn’t think I was gonna get a chance to watch the movie. And so I did read some reviews. And I watched I watched a YouTube video review about it which honestly, that was a mistake. I did end up watching the movie I just I watched on Monday and so I have seen it. And while it is not my favorite movie, not my favorite Marvel movie. There were definitely parts I enjoyed and Lara Taylor 3:55link! this most link one it is a Sam Raimi horror film Link Keller 3:59the Sam the Sam Raimi horror aspects were my favorite parts. So that should not be a surprise to anybody. But yeah, overall, it was it was a movie with some cool visual effects and a couple of plot holes that you just don’t don’t think about it. That’s fine. And and a couple of like, really rad character monster design. So I love that. Yeah, that’s those are my surface level thoughts there. Kayla Devorak 4:35It’s one of my it’s my top three, Marvel, one of my top three Marvel shows, TV between the TV’s and the movie. So I liked it. I think my jaw was on the floor through the whole thing and I went with my wife and my father in law. Who’s never really does not watch any Marvel shows. I don’t think He’s even seen dr. strange one. Lara Taylor 5:03Kayla, are we the same? Link Keller 5:04I have not seen dr. strange one. Kayla Devorak 5:07I don’t even think he’s seen endgame guys. Like, Link Keller 5:11I did see wandavision. So I had like a fair amount of context. But it was very funny. Like Dr. Strange is like, Oh, he’s at somebody’s wedding. She’s probably important, right? Lara Taylor 5:23You could infer Kayla Devorak 5:25I’d argue you had enough context to be honest. Kayla Devorak 5:28I did suss it out. It wasn’t. Kayla Devorak 5:33Yeah, that was interesting. He said, Oh, that was an interesting movie. And I was like, I can’t stop thinking about it. This movie is amazing. Lara Taylor 5:40That’s kind of the reaction, but I went with my wife and my mother in law. i Kayla Devorak 5:44Are we the same person, why are we the same person?! Lara Taylor 5:49And, and she has seen some Marvel stuff, but I don’t think she saw the first Doctor Strange. Yeah, it was kind of her reaction. That was interesting. There was a lot of action. Kayla Devorak 6:02Like that wasn’t there was a lot of like, that was a weird movie. And he’s has a girlfriend who doesn’t like any sci fi, and he said, she would never watch that she would hate it. I was like, I’m really sorry that she doesn’t like science fiction. That makes my heart hurt. Marc Cuiriz 6:22Now, I went and saw it with with my wife too. And I think this was the first Marvel movie that she said that she did not like, now, we’re both not really big, horror people. But for me, it was just it was a nice little trip of nostalgia with me, especially with Sam Raimi. It was just like, Oh, I just gave me those. Those feel good vibes of watching Spider Man back in back in the old days. Link Keller 6:46old days? the early 2000s Marc Cuiriz 6:46So it was nice. I say this as I’m like, the youngest one here, but it’s fine. But no, I’m trying to keep more so curious Kayla that you said this is like one of your top three favorites, even including the shows. So I want to know, like, what what exactly about this movie? Like makes it like the into the top three for you? Kayla Devorak 7:11Yeah. So I really appreciate when Marvel decides to not lean into its comedic brevity. Because I think you can tell really good stories and like darker spaces. And it really leaned into it finally after like, running away from it after Thor 2, like we haven’t really had, like, darker, grittier stories from Marvel. But also, I liked that. I’m really into like, multiversal like thought, and I actually, it’s, it just continues to, you know, prop up my internal thesis that I have running about dreams and just a variety of things. And so it allowed me to continue to kind of think about that stuff. And, and I also just really appreciated the way that really, it’s like Wanda’s movie like, Stephen Strange is there, you know, and that’s the title of the movie. But at its core, it’s really about it’s really about her resolution, Link Keller 8:28that that was something I watched it with a friend and that is something I was pointing out to him is like, yeah, basically everything that happens, she is making the moves. She’s making the choices and everybody is just reacting to her. I’m like that really puts her in the main character position pretty solidly, like everything Dr. Strange was doing was like, just sort of like oh, I guess I should do something about this, though that dude man really convinced that he is the solution to every problem. And if he doesn’t currently, right now have the solution to the problem. You know what he’ll just check in with another Doctor Strange and he will have the solution to the problem. I was like, sir, you might consider sitting down and maybe listening a little bit. Lara Taylor 9:17You know, Link, That is the theme for Stephen Strange’s character. Link Keller 9:22that’s Strange’s character? he’s extremely convinced Lara Taylor 9:24since before he was a sorcerer supreme Kayla Devorak 9:27he was a surgeon. Yeah, that is his whole entire existence. Lara Taylor 9:30Christine tells him many times. Link Keller 9:33main charcter syndrome Kayla Devorak 9:34She says it in the in the in the movie. Like you always have to be the one with a scalpel. Link Keller 9:39Hmm, Lara Taylor 9:40you are the solute you think you have to be a solution to the problem. Kayla Devorak 9:45Yeah, so I think that’s why it’s it’s up there in my top three. Link Keller 9:49Because Wanda is great. Kayla Devorak 9:51Wanda is great. Lara Taylor 9:53Wanda is great. I am mad at Kayla Devorak 9:56she’s my favorite Olsen twin. Lara Taylor 9:58Absolutely. If there’s one thing that my clients and I also, we talked about this movie, and all of us that I’ve everyone I’ve talked to is like, we didn’t hear I couldn’t understand her say that pivotal line to herself in the movie because it was like, mumbled and quiet. And it was just like we all had to look it up after the movie. Oh, that’s a that’s a good, meaningful line. Know that they’ll be loved, I think. Yeah, I just remember in while we were watching the movie, leaning over to my wife and my mother alone. Did you hear what she what she said? It seemed really important. Link Keller 10:42No, I assumed it was just the what I was watching had not super great audio balancing, but maybe the whole is just a movie. It’s a little bit of a mumble issue. that happens sometimes Marc Cuiriz 10:55it’s interesting, because I think I don’t know maybe if it was just because I paid for like the the high end like Dolby cinema or whatever. Or if it was just my particular theater, but like, I had no problems hearing the line. Like I heard it. And I was like that, that was like, a perfect, like, ending to, to the whole story itself like that. And you know, she knows like, while in her reality and her universe, she can’t have what she always wanted. She can take comfort and solace and knowing that in, in other universes, she is able to have that. And even though it’s not her her, like in that reality experiencing it, she is still experiencing it. Just, you know, it’s just a different part of her a different aspect of her that sort of thing. Kayla Devorak 11:50Yeah. I also didn’t have I also heard it while watching it and was like, Damn, yeah, it is a Mother’s Day. It is a Mother’s Day movie. Absolutely. Lara Taylor 12:03and it came out Mother’s Day weekend. Kayla Devorak 12:05it did Marc Cuiriz 12:05it did Lara Taylor 12:07on free. Well, not on Free Comic Book Day, but it was Free Comic Book Day and Mother’s Day weekend Kayla Devorak 12:12it was Yeah. Link Keller 12:14I did like the the aspect of having dreams be windows into the multiverse. I think that’s very cool. Kayla Devorak 12:22yeah let’s talk about it. Link Keller 12:23And I said that and my friend was like, Yeah, but like, I have dreams where I’m not a character there. And I was like, Well, I think maybe you just watch too many movies. And so your mind is like cinematic version but Lara Taylor 12:38or, or maybe would even dream where you’re paying or you’re not there in that universe Kayla Devorak 12:43or youre paint, you know, yeah, what do I think about that? Has anybody read or watched the Wheel of Time in here? Lara Taylor 12:51I have not. Kayla Devorak 12:53Well, Lara Taylor 12:55Kayla’s gonna tell us a story. Kayla Devorak 12:58I mean, that, you know, spoilers, but certain characters can basically dream walk in Wheel of Time. And, and basically, the multiverse. The multiverse basically exists in this the in this in wheel of time as well. But people can actually consciously choose to move through the spaces, whether through dreams or through like portals. And I just really love this idea that we’re kind of connecting to just as real, this idea that there’s like broader realities out there. Right? Because the world is very large and vast, and we can’t know everything. So how do we know that that stuff doesn’t exist? So I like the idea that maybe somewhere a different Kayla got what she wanted at one point in her life. And maybe that was something that maybe at this point in my life here, maybe that was a point where it was like super traumatic, or super hurtful or harmful, right. But maybe it went differently for different Kayla, which I think is cool. It also like I’ve been kind of going on this journey with like, alternate reality multiverse type stuff since grad school, because I had to read this book called of water and Spirit by Malidoma Somé, and he is an African shaman, but also had been kidnapped by the French and was in Catholic priesthood type stuff. But because he was a shaman and in his tribe, he went through like, this like ritual, and it blew my mind because it was like the first time I was like reading like a nonfiction book where they were being like this happened and we experience it. and as like, as, like a tribe and as a cult like this is something we go through like to get to the other side of our like cultural experience as like a community and a group. Like, you have to go through this thing to. It’s like the final stage in a way. And it blew my mind because I was like, well, who’s to say that like, that doesn’t come out in our media anyway, like, who’s to say like those those parts of our world, like the spirit world, or what have you isn’t showing up in our media in like, low key ways, you know? And so I just continue to like, you know, lucid dreaming. Oh, you’re just exploring the multiverse guys, like no big deal. So Marc Cuiriz 15:53Oh, my goodness, I think that like the whole, like, this whole thing with the multiverse, I think this opens up a whole lot of things now, like for them to just completely like redo stories or remake stories. Now. I think that’s like one thing that they can definitely do if they really wanted to, like, milk a whole lot of money. But I’m more so like, interested to see what they’re going to do with America now. Like now that now that she’s introduced into everything, and then you know, and the origin basically a big game for like, where are they going to go with this next? I think that’s what I like the most I’m looking forward to. Lara Taylor 16:35The interesting thing is I’ve read the the short run of America Chavez. And she didn’t get an origin story in that she’s a pre established character who her origin story was in other comics. And I, there were a lot of things that I was like, they’re going to shy away from this. They’re going to shy away from nope they went there. And I really liked seeing that, that beginning of hers, and like this fear that she like the fear that she like, basically killed her moms. And there’s no proof that you killed them. You made it to a place and started living like you didn’t. But that’s a fairly common thing that kids blame themselves for a parent’s death. Or a traumatic thing that happened Link Keller 17:30uncontrollable circumstances. Kids are very much like, Well, I must have done it. It must have been me. It’s very Doctor Strange, of her no. I really liked America. I wish that they had given her more. Kayla Devorak 17:49Yeah, Link Keller 17:49more time more input Lara Taylor 17:52I think she’s getting the show. Link Keller 17:54She felt very. On one hand, she felt very much like an object that was just being moved around between competing groups. But that being said, the flashback scene and my favorite scene, which is at the end with zombie doctor strange. Kayla Devorak 18:15Yeah! Link Keller 18:15I thought I thought that was honestly like the heart. The emotional heart of that movie was that scene of him being like, everything, like you can do this. You are capable. And everything that has happened to you has led you to this point. I’m like, That’s so good. Yum, yum, yum. I love that. And it’s being deli…

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Our Flag Means Death May 08, 2022

Show notes

#235: Link’s new obsession is Our Flag Means Death. They talk it through, as a crew. 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 am joined by Marc Cuiriz Marc Cuiriz 0:22Hello. Josué Cardona 0:23Lara Taylor. Lara Taylor 0:24Hey, Josué Cardona 0:14and Link Keller. Josué Cardona 0:25Hiiii Josué Cardona 0:27Link. What are we talking about today? Link Keller 0:29Today we’re talking about our flag means death. A fairly recent HBO Max show about pirates. And the pirates. Oh, they’re queer. And I love it so much! ooooooh! Josué Cardona 0:49If you really love a show, like if you say you love the show, like how many times have you watched it? I mean, come on. Link Keller 0:56I am halfway through my seventh rewatch of this show. Josué Cardona 1:02You love the show. Link Keller 1:03now, I do not I do not rewatch shows like like this in this like, like, I will. I will rewatch a show. You know, a year later. Like I did that with Russian doll. I did that with Buffy a couple of times. You know, two, three years in between a rewatch. I’ll be like, Oh, well, you know what, I love that show. It feels good. I want to rewatch it. This is the first time I have ever, ever finished the last episode. immediately clicked back. Episode One. We’re starting over again immediately. Josué Cardona 1:43And that happened six times. Link Keller 1:46I paced it out a little bit more in between. I you know, I watched Russian doll Season Two and I’ve been watching some anime and stuff. I’ve been adding some other things in in between but it’s it came out in March. And I think I started watching it at the end of March. Yeah, yeah. Seven times. That’s it’s a lot. I am obsessed. Josué Cardona 2:15Why? Why, Link? Link Keller 2:18So a couple of reasons that I think we’ll touch on probably all of them but the queerness is the biggest reason. It is starring Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi, who I love. I have enjoyed their work for several years. What We Do In The Shadows is a big one that a lot of people are familiar with, which I also really loved that show did not immediately rewatch that one. Like the pirates. But yeah, yeah, I it is it is so it’s not subtle queer. It is. It is a queer show. There are queer characters, there are several couples confirmed. Like it’s beautiful. And it’s it’s it’s like a comedy show is how it is like, promoted and it is funny, but it is honestly it’s like a rom com. It’s a gay pirate rom com. And I didn’t realize that I had a pirate ship shaped hole in my heart until this sailed into my heart it is I just love it so much. It’s beautiful. It’s funny, it’s endearing and it’s not queerbaiting and it’s fantastic. i Yeah. i I don’t know probably on my third rewatch. I was like okay, but you guys like you’re gonna watch it right? and we’re going to do an episode on it. Right right guys? So I softly and then more fervently bullied you guys into watching this show. So what did you guys think about it? Josué Cardona 4:21Did everyone watch the show? Okay, Lara what do you think of the show? Lara Taylor 4:28I liked the show a lot. For some reason. I didn’t get into it until I had to get a couple episodes in. But like I think that’s me with most shows. I don’t the exposition is hard for me, but I loved it. Um, I want a season two like right now right now, because I want to know what happens. Also, the queerness really got to me in some sweet moments and funny moments but not one Like the gays were the butt of the joke moments, right? Like, it’s it was beautiful. And I am also obsessed with pirates. So and I was obsessed with pirates before the gay pirate show. Josué Cardona 5:13I thought Vikings were your thing? Lara Taylor 5:16They are my thing Link Keller 5:17there’s a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram. Lara Taylor 5:19They’re on boats and they fight. Josué Cardona 5:21are vikings Pirates? Link Keller 5:23sort of Lara Taylor 5:24Probably maybe they do the same things as pirates. They’re just older. Marc Cuiriz 5:30just older? Yeah, like I know what you mean. Lara Taylor 5:35as in like years decades Josué Cardona 5:38once you hit 40 you’re a viking Lara Taylor 5:44so Josué we’re pirates now Josué Cardona 5:45you’ll be a pirate you’ll be a viking next year. Lara Taylor 5:47so will you Josué Cardona 5:50you. okay. Marc reactions? Marc Cuiriz 5:58Well, I loved the first episode. And I will admit that as all I watched so far, Josué Cardona 6:06oh no, we’re booting you. eject. Marc Cuiriz 6:11I’ve been wanting to really just sit down and binge it because I really loved the first episode. Like it was to the point where I like I didn’t want to watch and then have to, like, Stop, like, halfway through because something else was happening or like, I had to go do something. Plus, this is like the last like, this has been like the last two weeks of like, my, my semester. So like, I had, like, eight page, like single spaced papers that I needed to write. Like, I had a whole bunch of stuff. And I mean, I still have stuff I have to do by the end of this week. Josué Cardona 6:40Marc, Marc, Marc, I mean, look Marc Cuiriz 6:43it’s no excuse. It’s no excuse. It’s gay pirates. I get it, Josué Cardona 6:46you’re new, you know, you’re a new cast member. And then you come here and you break Link’s heart. So unbelievable Lara Taylor 6:53the last person who broke Link’s is gone Josué Cardona 6:56we got rid of them Link Keller 6:57okay but, you watch you watched the pilot, and I am gonna give you credit for that because that is more than the other person did Marc Cuiriz 7:07i have also Lara Taylor 7:08that’s true Josué Cardona 7:09in the time to watch the pilot of our flag means that you could have watched most of Lara Taylor 7:15over the garden wall. Josué Cardona 7:18so you’re good Marc Cuiriz 7:19Exactly. I will also say though, I have also watched every single tik tok about it, that Link has sent me so Lara Taylor 7:26Okay, okay, Marc Cuiriz 7:27I’ve at least put in that effort. But no, I I did also I did start like part of Episode Two. And then that’s when I stopped it. And then I got upset and I got really agitated cuz I was like, I don’t want to stop I want to keep watching it. I just didn’t have the time to do it. So after this week, I’m definitely going to go through and watch it and then I’m going to be two weeks behind and all the gay pirate stuff, you guys are going to be way past it. And I’m going to just be catching up to it. But I have full intentions but like I said I really just thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a nice different take on carry on a main character that I was already familiar with. And then just kind of seeing the spin on it and seeing the story continue on essentially was great. I loved it. I love the humor is fantastic. Josué Cardona 8:14Explain that. Explain what you just mean. What do you mean why are you familiar with the main character are one of the main primary characters of the show? Marc Cuiriz 8:21All right, so this is where the Assassin’s Creed is finally coming into play everybody here we go. So So in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag this like you play is Edward Kenway. But one of like the side characters that like is like a friend is Stede Bonnet. Like he sort of like tricks him in first Josué Cardona 8:41Steve? Marc Cuiriz 8:41Stede. I said stede bonnet I didn’t say Steve, my goodness, what am I, a savage? Josué Cardona 8:45it’s a reference to the show. Marc Cuiriz 8:49That’s true. That’s true. Sorry, Lara Taylor 8:51sorry it went over your head Josué Cardona 8:52obviously didn’t watch it Marc Cuiriz 8:54went over and over sorry, guys, I’m a little a little behind on the times. No, but I you get introduced that character so that you see it as like that that businessman type of thing in the game. And then at the very end, that’s when he’s being cast off. He’s gonna make his own as as a pirate and kind of like leaving everything behind, but obviously doesn’t divulge too much into his story as to like, why he’s doing it except for like, they hint it like he was part of Blackbeard’s crew. And Blackbeard got so annoyed with him that he just gave him his own little like, boat and was like here, go off and do your own thing. And then to kind of see see that classic like characteristics that they had in the game and see it being transferred into the show. And it just it really just kind of feels like it’s all like the same person just doing it. Because it’s the same like bumbling like, Oh, I like they accidentally like like a Scooby and Shaggy thing where they accidentally fall and do the right thing. Like oh, Aside from from killing somebody, but you know, you know what I’m saying like it’s one of those like classic like goofy like clueless humor that like it just like transitions so well from the game into this. And like I looked at the like the cast list and I see like even other characters from the from the game that are obviously like mainstay like historic, like historical characters from the Golden Age of Piracy. And just like seeing them also, like I’m looking forward to seeing like, Mary bonnet. And like, who was it? What is it Olu? Link Keller 10:35Oluwande. Lara Taylor 10:35Oluwande Marc Cuiriz 10:35Yes. Yes, like characters like that. Like, I’m just like, I’m just so interested in seeing, like, I just want to see more of this. I just want to just take it all in. Lara Taylor 10:44I completely forgotten that Stede Bonnet was in Assassin’s Creed. Josué Cardona 10:49but I didn’t I didn’t know you liked Assassin’s Creed Marc. That’s interesting. That’s really cool. Marc Cuiriz 10:54You know, it’s not that many people know about me, but I’m just a really big, really big fan, but I keep it on the low key you know, Josué Cardona 11:01I’m glad I’m glad you brought this up. So you know, spoiler warning now for the rest of the episode. Sorry, Marc. That’s fine. You enjoy the the rest of the season. Marc Cuiriz 11:12I enjoy spoilers actually Link Keller 11:13it’s gonna be a sweet reward when you’re all done with your semester. Marc Cuiriz 11:17it’ll fit really well. I’m going to treat myself to some gay pirates. Josué Cardona 11:20Spoilers. Mary shows up. So, so it’s interesting some of the stuff that you said. I mean, first of all, right, like some of these characters are real, right are like kind of like historical figures. The gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet. I think I love the idea of the setup. You don’t have to call the episode this, but like I, to me, it was like, Oh, our flag means existential crisis because he’s, it’s that story of someone who is just like fed up with their life or is unhappy, and, and is willing to do things differently or go go on an adventure, right? And then the sense of the show, but just like try something new and change course. And sometimes that means leaving things behind. Sometimes that means leaving your family behind. And, and so really this is that, right? Like we come into a situation where this person of of means, right? It’s just like, Ah, I want to be a pirate. I want to make a pirate ship. And then I want to just get a crew, and I’m just gonna go out there and be up. I don’t know how to do it, but I’m gonna go be a pirate. Lara Taylor 12:33Gay pirates. The midlife crisis? That’s the name of the show. Yeah, Josué Cardona 12:37yeah. Yeah. This episode may be the show. I think that’s, I wouldn’t be surprised. That was one of the working titles. Yeah, yeah. So I think I think that, because that’s the framing of it. And then within that you meet, you know, a group of I’m not sure that they’re misfits in the sense that, like, the show doesn’t really doesn’t really, like I think other shows would have a crew like this, right? And then and then it’s, like, the joke is how weird they are and sure, They’re bad pirates, but there’s nothing about them that’s like, that doesn’t fit into that world. And there there are, there are fun, very, very, very different. Like, each person is so so different. And they’re they’re quirky, they’re queer, and there’s just a lot, and it’s so. But that’s not what the show is about. Right? Like, it really is about like this existential crisis of these two people in particular. And that’s really like, what what drives everything moving forward. And so that, that part, I loved, and, and I think is super, super relatable. And what you mentioned about the queerbaiting, I’m sure we’ll get into it more, and there’s some really good episodes of The and one episode in particular, of the queer comics podcast on the Geek Therapy network, where Nina and Jessica really go into this and explain it well. But I think it is so evident that the queerbaiting just happens constantly. But you really notice it when it’s like because it’s missing here. Right? It’s like, are they or aren’t they? Right? And like before you even get to the finish that question like the show’s answering, right? Lara Taylor 14:26oh. they are. Josué Cardona 14:26Yeah, that shows like yeah, oh, I’m sorry. Where are we? Where are we vague? Lara Taylor 14:31You can pretty much assume everyone’s queer. Like, Josué Cardona 14:34yeah, yeah, it’s like, but how would we know if these? Oh, because they kissed Oh, because they’re like, share, like, oh, it’s like, Oh, right. Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you for just like not leaving that to the imagination. And again, like I think it I think, I think this show matters for a few different reasons. But that one, that one is I think it’s a great example like this is this is what it looks like when you’re not queerbaiting the audience and it’s again it’s evident because oh, this is the absence of it is, is very loud. And it’s it’s great. I really liked the show. I’ve only seen it once. Link. Lara Taylor 15:12I have also only seen it once. Link Keller 15:15Yeah, there’s no queerbaiting. There is queer feasting. Josué Cardona 15:19feasting. Lara Taylor 15:20I like it new term coined here Marc Cuiriz 15:27you heard it here first folks. Josué Cardona 15:29So those are our reactions Link. Link Keller 15:31love that Josué Cardona 15:32guide this conversation. Where are we going? Link Keller 15:34Yeah. So you you touched on the midlife crisis aspect. And I think that is another really important thing is that there there is a fair amount of recent queer media that is explicitly queer. And I love that, but a lot of it is focused on younger people, particularly high schoolers, Early College, which is fine. Love that. I, Lara, you mentioned Lara Taylor 16:00we need more, Link Keller 16:00you mentioned a heart heartstopper. And I binged that all in an afternoon. I wasn’t feeling well. Lara Taylor 16:07that’s a nice binge Link Keller 16:08So I just stayed in bed and watched the whole thing. It was very cute. Lots of queer stuff, loved it. But it is so rare to see older people, older men have this kind of romantic arc in a comedy show. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. And it’s just so fantastic. And I know, you know, from tiktoks that I’ve seen from people talking about it on Twitter, that there are people who are like, I have never felt that my queer life arc of realizing I was queer, you know, in my 30s or 40s. And then finding love, you know, I never thought that I’d ever see anything like that. Excuse the dog barks. And getting to see that reflected in their media is like, Wow, I like that’s beautiful and loving and something so rare and special. And it’s, Yeah hoo! Lara Taylor 17:08And even though they’re pirates and doing all kinds of pirate, things like the the the romantic arc is so innocent. Link Keller 17:18It’s really funny, because the first episode is so much set up in is it’s a story arc of being like, basically a workplace comedy, but the workplace is on a pirate ship. And then a couple episodes, and it’s like, Wait, you’re playing that like kind of little…

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