Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of Nerdificence. I am one half
Speaker 1: of your host, Danny Fernandez if he is out of
Speaker 1: town this week, but joining me we have our producer
Speaker 1: Joel Monique. Hey so excited to be bad coming a
Speaker 1: regular voice on here. I was gonna say, so the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks, we're going to be figuring out, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, be patient with us just what's going on.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that everyone is really safe,
Speaker 1: absolutely with the virus going around and um some of
Speaker 1: you know, I have lime disease and hashimoto so I
Speaker 1: just try to be extra careful when it comes to
Speaker 1: my health, as I hope that you all are. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: today we don't have a guest, but instead Joel and
Speaker 1: I are going to be geeking out about fandoms that
Speaker 1: really impacted us, impacted our youth, and kind of the
Speaker 1: things that we want to see in the future. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to do this because we were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, what do we talk about.
Speaker 1: We were going to do Bloodshot, and then the CDC
Speaker 1: was like stay away from crowds, and I was like,
Speaker 1: so maybe not movie theaters. That's no good. I get
Speaker 1: pushed back to They had the screening at a small
Speaker 1: theater at Live Nation. Um, but I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: do it. I haven't done a room of more than
Speaker 1: ten people since the announcement of COVID, and I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, let's just keep that up. Let's just keep
Speaker 1: it small and tight and inner circle and people I
Speaker 1: know that are clean and places that haven't had hundreds
Speaker 1: of people through them. So that kind of left us
Speaker 1: without a topic for the week. And then we were
Speaker 1: talking about it a little bit, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: let's do an nostalgia trip. Since everyone's probably going to
Speaker 1: be at home talking about their favorite things, we're rewatching
Speaker 1: their favorite shows. Yeah, all of my friends. I've been
Speaker 1: watching a lot of Disney Plus like all the like
Speaker 1: Hercules and Jungle Books. Yes, I've been getting up on
Speaker 1: the new season of Clone Wars this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: Encore is so good if you haven't watched it, have
Speaker 1: you watched it? Joel n Core? What is this what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about? Okay? So, so Kristen Bell is the host,
Speaker 1: and they brought back you would love it because you
Speaker 1: love theater. So high schools their senior year. Uh, they
Speaker 1: bring them back some of them from ten years ago,
Speaker 1: some of them from twenty years ago. It's a reunion.
Speaker 1: It's reunion where they had one week to put back
Speaker 1: up their senior high school musical. Okay, okay, okay. And
Speaker 1: so it's all these people that now they either haven't spoke.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of drama. You would be surprised because
Speaker 1: it's high school theater groups just high school Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: high school drama is wild. There is this lady who
Speaker 1: is married, like, she's married with kids. Did you think
Speaker 1: about risking at all? Well, no, it's just that she
Speaker 1: really still holds a grudge about her boyfriend that broke
Speaker 1: up with her when he was a senior. I'm like, ma'am,
Speaker 1: he was seventeen when you broke my heart. Kevin. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. And it was so like, this is
Speaker 1: so awkward. And then, um, so most of them get
Speaker 1: recast in their in their traditional role. So like if
Speaker 1: someone played Bell and Beauty and the Beast and someone
Speaker 1: played the Beast or Cogsworts or whatever, it's so cool.
Speaker 1: So now they're in their forties and fifties and they
Speaker 1: get real they um, you know, some of them, most
Speaker 1: of them get cast some of them get recast though
Speaker 1: spicy if they're like not really bring in the game
Speaker 1: as much, and they're you know, and again they have
Speaker 1: like five days to put this together. It's okay. So
Speaker 1: they bring on they bring on directors and it's like
Speaker 1: directors that have directed um like The Lion Key by Broadway.
Speaker 1: So they bring them on in a composer and a
Speaker 1: choreographer to help them and uh, they kind of have
Speaker 1: to audition some of the time and other times they
Speaker 1: just let them have it. Since we're getting a good show.
Speaker 1: We don't care if their amateurs or not. They It's
Speaker 1: so if you were a theater but I wasn't in
Speaker 1: theater necessarily I did some, but I also was on
Speaker 1: my drill team, so my dance team, and we had
Speaker 1: to do like competitions and spring show and it was
Speaker 1: just like it brings all of that back of like
Speaker 1: having you know, two minutes to change costume change and
Speaker 1: and and like racing and memorizing and all of that.
Speaker 1: It's just so great. All of this energy is really
Speaker 1: making me want to call my high school and be like, yo,
Speaker 1: so how do we do because my so my senior
Speaker 1: show was a play, not a musical because we would
Speaker 1: do a musical every other spring semester. Um no, every
Speaker 1: other fall semester. So we did The Lion, the Witch
Speaker 1: and the Wardrobe senior year, but junior year we did
Speaker 1: Cinderella and it was awesome because I was evil step
Speaker 1: mom and so I had really great numbers but I
Speaker 1: didn't have to carry the show. And my best friend
Speaker 1: played um my daughter and they were like evil step
Speaker 1: sisters and they were amazing. Listen. I would do it
Speaker 1: in a heartbeat. I know all of these ladies. We
Speaker 1: still talk. All the guys still hang around. Most of
Speaker 1: them are out east, but they would come home to
Speaker 1: do a cool show. Like most of them were like
Speaker 1: childhood friends and are still buddies and talk. Disney hit
Speaker 1: me up. I'm ready, I have. They're going to do
Speaker 1: another season of it, so you have to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they've done, like Pippin, they've done. They did high school
Speaker 1: musical and I was so old, Oh my gosh, because
Speaker 1: it's already like old. Yeah, they did that the year
Speaker 1: after I left. They did high school musical. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there was a high school you know that graduated ten
Speaker 1: tennis years ago and they did high school musical. So
Speaker 1: they brought them back for that. They did Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast. They did um like every big high school
Speaker 1: you know, every big musical that people do in high school,
Speaker 1: they did that. Okay, that's definitely gonna bebinge. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. Yes. Yeah. So so moving on to some
Speaker 1: of the fandoms and things that have really affected us,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, like off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: uh DBZ Sailor Moon. Honestly all Sailor Moon wasn't in
Speaker 1: the UM two Nami block, but to Nami itself is
Speaker 1: what introduced me to anime. Oh same Rooney Kitchen. With
Speaker 1: the first anime Love, I was like obsessively watching it
Speaker 1: it um that and then um oh Cowboy Bebop and
Speaker 1: with a kid in the green suit Vali his friends
Speaker 1: and It's got the cool theme song. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Those three were like really it in those early like
Speaker 1: early years, late nineties, UM and it kind of a
Speaker 1: wokeet like the next level nerd in me because I
Speaker 1: was very casually watching like the superhero animated shows mostly.
Speaker 1: That was very much my introduction to nerd. Um other
Speaker 1: than video games, which oh man, all like DC's entire
Speaker 1: Sleate was absolutely my Jamma started with Batman, the animated series,
Speaker 1: which I watched with my dad as a kid because
Speaker 1: their master works of art and we like obsessively watch
Speaker 1: over and over again. I got really into Batman. I like,
Speaker 1: deep down, truly love a disturbed character. Like after Batman,
Speaker 1: Withering Heights was like my favorite. But it's a kid.
Speaker 1: I was like into like dark, angry men, it's a problem,
Speaker 1: which girls, please tell me, it's so brand the Count
Speaker 1: of Monty Cristo, the hero with the like difficult journey,
Speaker 1: but also that movie you know, a little cousin or
Speaker 1: something so cute it's adorable, and I was like, who
Speaker 1: is this hot man? But he was. He was like
Speaker 1: you know, I was like in middle school or something.
Speaker 1: He was like in high school and maybe college. And
Speaker 1: so it was so funny that then see him re emerge,
Speaker 1: because in my mind he disappeared for like a decade
Speaker 1: he was in that, and then to see him like
Speaker 1: bust out and be Superman, I was like, of course
Speaker 1: he did not tutors, okay. So that was where I
Speaker 1: got like my like, I kind of noticed Henry in
Speaker 1: the background of that. He's great in it. But I
Speaker 1: was very distracted by our leads Holy like it's very gay.
Speaker 1: It's not gay, but it's very gay. And so I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, look at these game mal lovers.
Speaker 1: I love it. Um. But then he popped up in
Speaker 1: the Tutors and he plays the King's I think again
Speaker 1: cousin or brother or something like that, and I was like,
Speaker 1: who is this stunning chiseled featured man, my god and
Speaker 1: the Tutors. If you're like a history nerd, it's pretty great. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was like watching Batman and like really
Speaker 1: into Justice League and justly Unlimited. I watched some X
Speaker 1: Men sometimes Storm was dope and they had a great
Speaker 1: theme song based off of Whitney Houston songs. I was there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, then it wasn't until two Nami where was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's like a whole another level of nerd that you
Speaker 1: can enter, and there are so many shows and sometimes
Speaker 1: you can listen to them in their original Japanese and
Speaker 1: I really liked that. Yeah, we had to do that illegal,
Speaker 1: of course, not I'm watching a lot of stuff online
Speaker 1: or looking for the VHS s or my cousins taped
Speaker 1: it off of something. I don't know if anyone out
Speaker 1: there remembers the Black Goku. But that's how I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of my stuff. There was a site that
Speaker 1: they had like they would upload like the margin saga
Speaker 1: and I was like, what is this? We would be
Speaker 1: back on like the saying saga. Um. So that was
Speaker 1: like a really big one where I'd watch it, and
Speaker 1: I think my parents thought I was watching porn straight up,
Speaker 1: my parents because I was like I was, so I
Speaker 1: was being so weird about it, you know, and like
Speaker 1: this was a time of like Napster and lime Wire,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, we're weird about it because it was illegal
Speaker 1: and you didn't want your parents to question that or
Speaker 1: were you weird about it because some of the content
Speaker 1: gets weird. And I think your parents were like weird
Speaker 1: about anime. They probably saw it as like the same
Speaker 1: um that people sometimes when you tell older people about anime,
Speaker 1: they think a tent i because they just think of
Speaker 1: tentacles and stuff, or like anime girls um, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, if you look at nineties comic book covers
Speaker 1: truly equally the same. Like a lot of women without
Speaker 1: actual bone structure, they would fall over. They would fall
Speaker 1: over if your boobs are that big and your feet
Speaker 1: are that tiny you have Faro waste. Yeah, that's Barbie.
Speaker 1: The the idea that unobtainable, like not even unobtainable, but
Speaker 1: like non realism, there's there's suddenly like in the nineties
Speaker 1: there was a lack of realism in any way that
Speaker 1: we shaped the body. And Stanley has like told I
Speaker 1: think we talk about this on the show last week
Speaker 1: because a total slam dunk when he's talking to Todd
Speaker 1: McFarland about like the way he draws feet, which often
Speaker 1: Todd would be like, here's like an arrow and some
Speaker 1: lines pointing at the like a shoe. Sure, why not.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I missed this phase of comics. I didn't
Speaker 1: get into comics until two thousand and eight, and I
Speaker 1: started with reading the early two thousands comics, so like
Speaker 1: Cassandra Caine's Run Its Back Girl was one of the
Speaker 1: first books I ever read. Then I got really into
Speaker 1: like some of them where DC was doing the recanonizing
Speaker 1: of a lot of comics and they would kill off
Speaker 1: all their characters. I'm having such a brain fart with
Speaker 1: the name of this series. It'll come to me later.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you get into DVZ, you're watching anime
Speaker 1: you're sort of hiding it from your parents. What do
Speaker 1: you say from like a casual watch to like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is part of my identity because you
Speaker 1: have DVZ tattoos. Yeah, it's so weird. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I was diagnosed last year with o c D,
Speaker 1: and a part of me feels I mean, the way
Speaker 1: that my understanding is that you've actually had it. Evil
Speaker 1: has had it. It's just now you have a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: And so I and I've talked to people in our
Speaker 1: discord honestly, in our gutificent discord about this like last year,
Speaker 1: is that I literally, probably for protective measures, lived slash
Speaker 1: live in a fantasy land. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are like me. And it's probably why I'm
Speaker 1: a writer and write the stuff that I do and
Speaker 1: work in the field that I do. Is that when
Speaker 1: I was I would so if you saw a playground,
Speaker 1: I would see like a space battleship, which is normal
Speaker 1: for kids write a lot of kids. I never grew
Speaker 1: out of that, and so well, yeah, it can be
Speaker 1: a little it can be a little like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: problematic at times because you don't want to live in
Speaker 1: a fantasy world. And I don't, but I definitely fantasize
Speaker 1: a lot. I fantasize a lot like I if you
Speaker 1: ever whenever I'm walking similar with headphones in, I'm like
Speaker 1: listening to the Halloween soundtrack and like envisioning what it
Speaker 1: feels like to be like you know. For me, I
Speaker 1: literally do think of that, like not that, but like
Speaker 1: what it's like to live in a horror movie, because
Speaker 1: then I can write that it's just like you know,
Speaker 1: or living in a sci fi movie. So for DVZ,
Speaker 1: for me was so different because, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: at the time, I was watching snick at night, I
Speaker 1: was watching Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Hey
Speaker 1: Arnold and and Angry Beavers and those are all great
Speaker 1: and awesome, but they're not anime. Anime was adult theme. Well,
Speaker 1: Hey Arnold did deal with adult themes and like had
Speaker 1: dealt with immigrants and like it was such a great show.
Speaker 1: But then you have these like buff dudes and spandex
Speaker 1: and these you know, hot women, and it was just like,
Speaker 1: who are brilliant? And like opened a new world for me,
Speaker 1: and so I became I would say, obsessive, and I
Speaker 1: think that that's not in a bad way. It was
Speaker 1: just something that when I was in middle school, my
Speaker 1: body was changing a ton. I was bullied a lot.
Speaker 1: I was bullied for liking anime. I went to middle
Speaker 1: school in Orange County. I think I've said this before,
Speaker 1: but like everyone was watching like Laguna Beach and I
Speaker 1: was watching Tensio and and Gundam Wing and it was weird,
Speaker 1: Like that was weird that I had a bunch of
Speaker 1: um DBZ holographic cards on my binder, and it was
Speaker 1: just it was just different. And I would be in
Speaker 1: role playing chat rooms um as a saying Princess when
Speaker 1: I was like twelve, and now I'm like, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you had to be a certain age to
Speaker 1: be in them. I was definitely not that age. There's
Speaker 1: certainly a bubble for our generation where there was just
Speaker 1: no internet protection and our parents were like, sure, she's
Speaker 1: just on that internet computer thing over there. And I
Speaker 1: was pretty aware of like stranger danger and like don't
Speaker 1: give someone your adjest or like meet up, and I
Speaker 1: had never like went on with those intentions. But it
Speaker 1: was just so fun, as you say, to sort of
Speaker 1: continue that fantasy world that had spawned from books and cartoons,
Speaker 1: which I wasn't ready to let go of and clearly
Speaker 1: still not ready to let go of. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: it was an extension of that, and it became like
Speaker 1: a nice sort of safety net and a way to
Speaker 1: sort of play with a lot of adult things that
Speaker 1: weren't happening in my life yet that I was ready
Speaker 1: to explore. But safe environment, Yeah that's for me. Like
Speaker 1: my sexuality was such you know, when you're bullied a lot,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what you you wish that you had
Speaker 1: that you lean And so fan fiction for me, I
Speaker 1: stumbled onto to fan fiction dot net, which I always read,
Speaker 1: but like on there it was you know, these cool
Speaker 1: high school kids and college kids that I would keep
Speaker 1: up with because they would have um one is be Chan,
Speaker 1: who I love. She still has her side up. This
Speaker 1: is like so for people from like the two thousands,
Speaker 1: but um, I would read her she was in college
Speaker 1: and I would read she was a great writer, but
Speaker 1: I would read her erotic fan fiction. And it was
Speaker 1: so like a time for me to like explore that,
Speaker 1: like you said, in a safe place when I was
Speaker 1: being shunned for my body, and it was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was something that I needed, And that's how he
Speaker 1: became obsessed with it, right, So it was like something
Speaker 1: when I would come home from school, it was like
Speaker 1: this was my safe place. These are my friends in
Speaker 1: this chat room, and this is like the art that
Speaker 1: I'm taking in UM And yeah, I just remember too,
Speaker 1: like all of the girls on Tensimlio, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to look like them so much, and I'm glad that
Speaker 1: I came. Like I would draw them and I would
Speaker 1: just think like, oh that was This is also the
Speaker 1: time of like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I just want to have like a waste
Speaker 1: that that that's that's small, you know. And m One
Speaker 1: of my favorite things too about DBZ is Boma. In
Speaker 1: the very famous episode where they are going to Namic
Speaker 1: with her Krillan and go Han, she's in Calvin Klein's
Speaker 1: like the whole time, and she's thick, and that was
Speaker 1: so great to see. You know, she has a big
Speaker 1: chest and like thighs to go along with it, and
Speaker 1: I just in her brain obviously, but like it was
Speaker 1: so nice to see that represented as opposed to just
Speaker 1: like something that wasn't my size. That was sort of
Speaker 1: what turned me onto Batman was like, Wow, Batman is
Speaker 1: out here being awesome and slaying And there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like as I was learning about my depression
Speaker 1: and becoming two terms with and understanding it, and I
Speaker 1: would say it was about eight or o eleven. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a diagnosis because good therapy is hard to
Speaker 1: find in the middle of nowhere, but I understood that.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm just not happy and thinking about
Speaker 1: death a lot. What does that mean? And people would
Speaker 1: be like, no, you're fine, like think about other things,
Speaker 1: Like it's really not fine. And Batman was just like
Speaker 1: always sad angry in a way that and he was
Speaker 1: like able to get mad in a way that I
Speaker 1: still can't. I can't get angry, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: how to be angry. I don't like if I start
Speaker 1: feeling those emotions and like tap it down. But I
Speaker 1: can watch Batman be angry and like punch out Joker's
Speaker 1: lights and like find the bad guy and get to
Speaker 1: a solution and a resolution, which is something I was
Speaker 1: death really searching for, and so I really liked that.
Speaker 1: But then these like awesome women would come in and
Speaker 1: like here's Harley Quinn, like running amok and like falling.
Speaker 1: She's falling in love in a way that is absolutely toxic.
Speaker 1: And I want to say it all is an ideation,
Speaker 1: but at the time, as a ten year old, you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, like to be that madly
Speaker 1: in love, to like swoon and fall and like, I
Speaker 1: feel a connection to somebody. There's something that you could
Speaker 1: easily identify, you know, as your body is like raging
Speaker 1: with hormones and you're feeling overwhelmed all the time. Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn was. And then she had Poison Ivy, which even
Speaker 1: as a kid, I was reading the lesbian energy between them,
Speaker 1: and that was the first fan fiction I stumbled upon,
Speaker 1: like Harley Quinn slash Poison Ivy smartness, just like yes,
Speaker 1: you're my ladies, finally like living out the dream that
Speaker 1: I sort of wanted to see them in Cannon And
Speaker 1: that was sort of my connection to the online nerd community.
Speaker 1: What I was going to say when you were talking
Speaker 1: about comics, I didn't really pick up comics until later,
Speaker 1: like you, but I did technically read comics because I
Speaker 1: had all the Calvin and Hobbes books. Like that is
Speaker 1: Calvin and I were the same. We lived in a
Speaker 1: fantasy world. We lived in like a world that wasn't
Speaker 1: hours and we could just play with our imagination uh
Speaker 1: and be alone. Um. I also read far side. I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with the Sunday Funnies, like well just in general.
Speaker 1: I started to move from just Sunday to like I
Speaker 1: would read them every day. Um. So that's probably also
Speaker 1: why I have a love of art. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm like not an illustrator, and so Joel has been
Speaker 1: in my place. I have a ton of art, which beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love independent art. I always buy art from from
Speaker 1: artists and people that take commissions and like at cons
Speaker 1: because it's like the thing I can't do. I do
Speaker 1: a bunch of things, but like, I'm sure if I
Speaker 1: could have, you know, it wouldn't be as beautiful. But
Speaker 1: that is what started me into that world. The appreciation
Speaker 1: of art was comics, like that in the comics I
Speaker 1: saw in the newspaper, because they were just so um,
Speaker 1: quick and funny and it was like that you could
Speaker 1: show you know, sometimes they didn't even really need to
Speaker 1: say anything. Um. And I found that fascinating, especially my
Speaker 1: writer side, because so much of what I do is
Speaker 1: in writing that it's like, oh, they're able to tell
Speaker 1: a story. Sometimes they have one word in the comic.
Speaker 1: As a writer gets really frustrating when you mean artists
Speaker 1: who can also write, and you're like, why do all
Speaker 1: the talent? They're like, I put a lot of work
Speaker 1: into learning how to draw, and you're like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I hear you. If I probably put in the work,
Speaker 1: maybe I could have been like a tenth of the
Speaker 1: artist you are. When you look at people that are
Speaker 1: like Jorge Gautiers who did Book of Life, who's doing
Speaker 1: My in the three on Netflix? And that's same thing.
Speaker 1: Like most of those directors are animators, you know they
Speaker 1: they but they also write all of their own scripts.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so impressive to be able to do both.
Speaker 1: And then that way you're sort of both giving that
Speaker 1: narration to the story and driving the eye through the story,
Speaker 1: which is such a hard thing to do and film
Speaker 1: me with twenty four frames in a second a comic behage,
Speaker 1: you have twenty two pages, and however many panels feasibly
Speaker 1: fits and you can read easily in those pages. So
Speaker 1: it's like such a challenge to be like that exact
Speaker 1: perfect moment that will explain to readers like what a
Speaker 1: character is thinking. When you get to that, when you're
Speaker 1: there's no thought bubble and you're like, I know what's happening,
Speaker 1: Like that's magic. It transcends, And I think I too
Speaker 1: would have once I got into the after fan fiction,
Speaker 1: I got into a site called Comics Alliance, which I
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever familiar listen Comics allianswering. I
Speaker 1: think I want to say, like a ram, it was
Speaker 1: helmed by a woman. I want to say it's definitely
Speaker 1: Laura maybe Patterson Um, who was maybe the best editor
Speaker 1: of all time. She came in and with this team
Speaker 1: of like really talented writers into an organized force of
Speaker 1: comic book goodness, like they were on top of nailing
Speaker 1: like any kind of scandal that was happening in the community.
Speaker 1: They were the first ones interviews Um. But they also
Speaker 1: had such a love is it Laura Hudson, Laura Hudson,
Speaker 1: thank you. And what I really like enjoyed about Laura's
Speaker 1: time as editor in chief of Comics Alliance was that
Speaker 1: she preached how to get into comics and that became
Speaker 1: such an important aspect of going to the site for
Speaker 1: somebody who is a new and actively maxing out a
Speaker 1: credit card on purchasing comics, like figuring out like not
Speaker 1: just how to read them, but how to appreciate the art.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned earlier, because I used to speed read comics,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, great done, great done. She's like, maybe
Speaker 1: go back and like examine the art and like see
Speaker 1: how the panels are touching you. And then they would
Speaker 1: turn you on to work like um Mind Management, which
Speaker 1: would have stories within stories. They would print in sometimes
Speaker 1: in three D so that you had to have three
Speaker 1: D glasses. It was like the blue and red ink
Speaker 1: over each other in the margins of the comic book.
Speaker 1: Little like Notes is a detective novel and a mystery,
Speaker 1: and so you're trying to solve the mystery before the
Speaker 1: end of the series. And they had stuff on the
Speaker 1: back and on the front covers, and if you lined
Speaker 1: up the front covers sometimes they would have stuff. It
Speaker 1: was the most immersive time in comics that I've ever had,
Speaker 1: and I miss set site every day with every fiber
Speaker 1: of my being. It was this I like most wanted
Speaker 1: to write for It got suttle to Yahoo and totally tanked.
Speaker 1: It was so unfortunate. But there's like I think, if
Speaker 1: you can find those online communities. For a minute, Tumbler
Speaker 1: had spaces like that that we're just art. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: pre Tumbler, Devian Art, I mean one you can find
Speaker 1: Rule thirty four. You could find anything on there. Um.
Speaker 1: But they also a lot of photographers started to come
Speaker 1: into that space, which was really cool. But I just
Speaker 1: adored Devian Art. I mean it was just getting to
Speaker 1: have your favorite characters seen them in alternate universes and
Speaker 1: alternate roles and it just I was, I just am
Speaker 1: in awe of everything on there. And then Tumbler came along,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the kids that were like really
Speaker 1: into Tumbler and really big on Tumbler. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they knew of the Devan Art community, you know,
Speaker 1: that was there probably a decade before. Yeah it's still up,
Speaker 1: but it's still up. Yeah you can still you can
Speaker 1: still visit dvm R. You still post your art on DVN, right.
Speaker 1: But something that was really cool about it back when
Speaker 1: day was like watching artists improve because like I was
Speaker 1: in college, like high school, in college, watching my friends
Speaker 1: put it on there and then they were like essentially
Speaker 1: have an entire entire bio of work. And for some
Speaker 1: people it was like a decade, fifteen years, and so
Speaker 1: you're seeing the growth from like those first posts today.
Speaker 1: It really impressive, and it's sort of I think it's
Speaker 1: artists were often on the internet looking for support and
Speaker 1: encouragement to keep going, like making money in our is
Speaker 1: next to impossible, and then like you have to work
Speaker 1: even when you're not inspired, and that's really hard. You
Speaker 1: have to work even when the work is not good
Speaker 1: and you're like, god, I hate what I'm working on.
Speaker 1: It sucks. So like Davian aren't really created a space
Speaker 1: where you could get like excited about somebody else's work,
Speaker 1: which hopefully, you know, would turn into excitement for your
Speaker 1: own work. We have to take a really quick break
Speaker 1: and they're gonna hop back more into the impact that
Speaker 1: our fandoms have had on us right after this and
Speaker 1: we are back, and since Joel and I are horror babies,
Speaker 1: that was another huge influence in our lives. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the first horror movie that you saw? I think
Speaker 1: we talked about this a little bit in our last episode,
Speaker 1: which Hancy, Yeah, so uh, the first horror movie I
Speaker 1: remember seeing is Okay. First of all, I remember seeing
Speaker 1: theaters is Drastic Park, which is technically not a horror movie.
Speaker 1: It's terrifying. I was five, so it was a lot
Speaker 1: my so, my dad and my house picked the movies
Speaker 1: and he has no concept of what is acceptable for children.
Speaker 1: He would show us what do we see when we
Speaker 1: were young? That really scared me? Uh, Spirit which is
Speaker 1: an Alec Baldwin film that's not at all that's scary,
Speaker 1: but as a kid, there's like a talking dagger that
Speaker 1: flies around and it really got under my skin. And
Speaker 1: then super Troopers not super Troopers, um uh aliena is
Speaker 1: the one with Tim Allen. No no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: it's an alien movie. Something troopers. Oh si Starship Troopers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw this movie when it came out. I want
Speaker 1: to say that's somewhere. I'm like nine or ten years
Speaker 1: old when this movie hits and there's a scene where
Speaker 1: a guy gets whipped that like destroyed me. And my
Speaker 1: father was like, look at the screen. It looks like
Speaker 1: a crayon, Like it's nothing, it's so cheap. And I'm like, Dad,
Speaker 1: I'm scared, and he was like, I don't care. Just
Speaker 1: watch the movie. He did not. He was like, really
Speaker 1: just wanted us to be a movie. It was the
Speaker 1: one place where we could like connect. He was not
Speaker 1: it's like a big lovable teddy beer. But also mostly
Speaker 1: he was into like sports and old school music, which
Speaker 1: that okay for me. So so my family here are
Speaker 1: oldie station is care with one on one, and that's
Speaker 1: what I had to listen to. My family would not listen.
Speaker 1: My family is so super Catholic and we so I
Speaker 1: grew up listening to the oldies like a d and
Speaker 1: I still listened to those two when I'm like cleaning
Speaker 1: and it just makes me feel like morning, you know.
Speaker 1: But like it was so funny because there was a
Speaker 1: certain point in time, probably by the time my parents
Speaker 1: had their third kid. They were like screw it, I
Speaker 1: mean whatever, Like we were not allowed to watch the
Speaker 1: Simpsons and stuff when I was growing up. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there was like some age we hit.
Speaker 1: They were like whatever, just watch whatever please. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: then we came in with King of the Hill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was great, And then we could listen to Kiss FM,
Speaker 1: and it was like we could listen to like Nellie
Speaker 1: and got all his albums. It was like everything was
Speaker 1: switched on for us. But it was funny. And then
Speaker 1: of course anime and uh, which I don't think they
Speaker 1: have paid attention to some of the stuff we were watching.
Speaker 1: I think they thought it was too bloody, even though
Speaker 1: Cartoon Network did censor a ton of it. I think
Speaker 1: to them it was still it's still pretty violent, um
Speaker 1: compared to again, like angry Beavers or kablem or something
Speaker 1: right right or God forbid of Rent and Stimpy. But
Speaker 1: that's the thing. My parents were so weird. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's Catholic families in general. But my dad would
Speaker 1: buy us Rent and Stimpy comics when he Yeah, the
Speaker 1: comics were so dope. Um. When he would go on
Speaker 1: like a business trip, he would bring us all back
Speaker 1: like a Rent and Stumpy comic. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he got it like at the airport or whatever, um,
Speaker 1: but he'd always pick one up for us. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is also another funny element of animation, like
Speaker 1: the close ups you know, which if y'all I have
Speaker 1: never watched the show, but you have probably watched SpongeBob.
Speaker 1: SpongeBob does a lot of those gross close ups of
Speaker 1: like a pimple or him all dried out. It looks disgusting.
Speaker 1: Ren and Stumpy really did a ton of that. Um. First, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of really gross toenail, but but Boogers, it
Speaker 1: was foul and yet so damn entertaining. Uh, there was
Speaker 1: like truly a lot to enjoy. And I think the
Speaker 1: horror movie that had the most sort of impact in
Speaker 1: my childhood it was Alien. As we watched that movie
Speaker 1: a lot, like a lot a lot. I mostly sci
Speaker 1: fi horror growing up. We watched like some Slashers here
Speaker 1: and there, um, But my dad was really into Alien.
Speaker 1: He was it was like it's a movie theater experience
Speaker 1: that has stayed with him. He can recount detail for
Speaker 1: detail what it was like botching that movie for the
Speaker 1: first time time. And so I got into it and
Speaker 1: of course here's Ellen Ripley in her giant machine taken
Speaker 1: down Aliens. It like really spoke to me, uh, not
Speaker 1: just as a lady, but sort of from a filmmaker standpoint.
Speaker 1: It's one of the first movies where I was like
Speaker 1: could I could I be a part of this? Like
Speaker 1: this film is magical. There's so much energy going in
Speaker 1: that movie starts out so unassuming, and my dad would
Speaker 1: never tell me when a movie was about He just
Speaker 1: put it in and be like just watch it and enjoy,
Speaker 1: and so I would. Um, and there's something I think
Speaker 1: about horror that really bonded us because we both like
Speaker 1: to be scared, and neither my brother or my mother
Speaker 1: are truly in this Like horror movies. I think, if
Speaker 1: you can scare me, that you it's impressive. So little
Speaker 1: things with horror, because I've seen so many horror movies
Speaker 1: and just love and adorn and ben like we've talked
Speaker 1: about on here in real haunted places, including spending the
Speaker 1: night in some of them for investigative shows, and so
Speaker 1: a few things scare me and um Blair which I
Speaker 1: remember changed the game, changed the game. It was just
Speaker 1: so oh my gosh it the fact that you could
Speaker 1: do that on such a low budget. I love also
Speaker 1: paranormal activity, same thing, those like found footage, type of
Speaker 1: found footage in general, just like changed the game, I
Speaker 1: feel like. And so because because in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, we had a lot of those
Speaker 1: slasher uh movies, which were great, but then the fact
Speaker 1: that it was like this thing that you couldn't even
Speaker 1: reason with or talk to or you know, that was
Speaker 1: just like that to me was terrifying and Um, it
Speaker 1: was another one. I didn't know The Ring, The Ring
Speaker 1: same thing, Like I don't know, Like I was just
Speaker 1: so used to scary movies that were like The Haunting
Speaker 1: and House on Haunted Hill and like just great, but
Speaker 1: they were just different, you know. Um. And then when
Speaker 1: The Ring came out, even though it was you know,
Speaker 1: an American remake, Um, it just changed the game. I
Speaker 1: was terrified. I was terrified for like weeks watts. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something really intriguing about that film, and it comes
Speaker 1: to such like an interesting time because it's just post
Speaker 1: the VHS, so you're like really getting into DVDs at
Speaker 1: this point, and so there's something like a throwback like
Speaker 1: I had a US player in my room because I
Speaker 1: had the like downgrade TV, and I would absolutely if
Speaker 1: somebody just handed me a VHS, pop it in and
Speaker 1: be like, well let's see what's on it. The idea
Speaker 1: that then you could be haunted unendingly by something that
Speaker 1: for me again, as we were talking about like sort
Speaker 1: of being a nerd in the me in our fantasy,
Speaker 1: my TV and I were real good friends. I watched
Speaker 1: a lot of television coming up. Uh, And it was
Speaker 1: maybe the first horror movie that felt very much designed
Speaker 1: for me to be scared, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like everything else, Like I'm not going to go to
Speaker 1: a random mansion in the middle of nowhere some strangers
Speaker 1: and maybe carrot it. Like I'm not going to uh
Speaker 1: a secret island and discovering unearthed dinosaurs, but I might
Speaker 1: find VHS and a little girl may haunt me out
Speaker 1: of the TV. Super Scary, the first horror movie. I
Speaker 1: think that really got me as like you know that
Speaker 1: sort of teenage years and I was like going through
Speaker 1: the year by myself, I'm gonna go Saw had such
Speaker 1: a huge and perfect that was also changing. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: many of those were like James on, Yes, But what
Speaker 1: I was going to say just they were game changing.
Speaker 1: They were different. They were just so different than you know,
Speaker 1: and that's hard to do. Horror has been around, you know,
Speaker 1: since we've been able to tell stories and like to
Speaker 1: be surprised to have a concept be you know, uh
Speaker 1: turned on its head essentially. But um, what I was
Speaker 1: going to say. One other point I was going to
Speaker 1: say about the Ring before we move on, is that
Speaker 1: it was just uncomfortable, like the video that they showed
Speaker 1: that is I think what got me. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: like here's this goes blah blah blah. It was like
Speaker 1: here's this horse, here's this mirror, here's this weird spinning chair,
Speaker 1: here's this and it like tapped into a part of
Speaker 1: my brain that just I don't know, other other things
Speaker 1: have tried to like copy that since then, where it's
Speaker 1: just like it doesn't make sense and that's what's scary. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was just Also side note, I saw
Speaker 1: it in the mall in Texas with a bunch of
Speaker 1: when I was in Dallas with a when I went
Speaker 1: to high school there, and that was back when you
Speaker 1: used polaroid cameras and or the disposable cameras. I had
Speaker 1: a disposable camera and a bunch of my friends, Like
Speaker 1: that's what you would do when you went out, is
Speaker 1: take your disposable camera. And my mom picked me up
Speaker 1: from the mall and gave me my my developed film
Speaker 1: and I had these white sneakers on that reflected oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and so my face and my sneakers were smeared, and
Speaker 1: I freaked out, and my mom thought it was the
Speaker 1: funniest thing. Like she didn't do it, she just thought
Speaker 1: it was so funny that I was like having a
Speaker 1: meltdown as a teenage girl because my face and all
Speaker 1: of the photos was smeared. Coming out of that movie
Speaker 1: and having that surprise, you'd be like, oh, I watched
Speaker 1: the video, technically, what do we do now? I totally
Speaker 1: see that like being unnerving and I couldn't really sleep
Speaker 1: after seeing Saw. There was something so eerie about not
Speaker 1: just a serial killer, but a guy who sets up
Speaker 1: a trap specifically for you listen and then just to
Speaker 1: like mentally f with a person like I'm gonna spoil
Speaker 1: the ending of Saw, guys, but him clothed like it
Speaker 1: has such a perfect like American cinematic final ending with
Speaker 1: the closing of the door and the shadow and the
Speaker 1: way they use light to sort of isolate both of
Speaker 1: those men in that moment. It's a shot that stays
Speaker 1: with you and lingers for a long time. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's cliche for the the young inns now.
Speaker 1: I know, you know, as things age and become part
Speaker 1: of the zeitgeist culture, there's uh less of an impact.
Speaker 1: For example, if you were to watch Star Wars and
Speaker 1: Luca I Am Your Father, it doesn't hit as hard
Speaker 1: as it does for those original people who were like,
Speaker 1: what is going on? You remember the ending of blair Witch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just in the basement. He's just standing in the corner. Yes, No,
Speaker 1: I don't like it. That is what's days with me
Speaker 1: and blair Witch. People like I know, people that love
Speaker 1: the thing that when you think of it, like you
Speaker 1: think of that final scene and it just haunts the
Speaker 1: heck out of you because the thing that fades into
Speaker 1: black is like the back of the Witch creature, like
Speaker 1: coming across the lens. Right. Yeah, See that's a that's
Speaker 1: a no no for me. And I wonder too, has
Speaker 1: in your work You're like, love of the blair Witch
Speaker 1: shown up anywhere? Has it popped up yet? Well? Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, so we so I work in drama and comedy,
Speaker 1: but comedy, comedy and horror overlap so much. We've talked
Speaker 1: about this, but essentially, you know, you have the punchline,
Speaker 1: you have the build up. That's why a lot of horror,
Speaker 1: a lot of comedy people are in horror um and
Speaker 1: you need you. It has like a cadence and a
Speaker 1: rhythm to it. And so my favorite thing about what
Speaker 1: I do in comedy is md X and horror, you
Speaker 1: need a lot of m directs. You never want the
Speaker 1: audience to know what's com mean, Um, you want to
Speaker 1: catch them off guard or they're so safe in they're
Speaker 1: they're like, I know what's going to happen. I know
Speaker 1: he's a killer, and I feel good about it, and
Speaker 1: they can feel safe, and then you pull the rug
Speaker 1: out from them. That's what you want to do. And
Speaker 1: the same thing with comedy. You never want them to like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what joke they're about to make here, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you do a misdirect. And so I I
Speaker 1: those are very similar things. Um, I don't know necessarily.
Speaker 1: I think the way that I paint so a lot
Speaker 1: of my Ben Blacker, who was on our Hitchcock episode,
Speaker 1: another person that I've watched a lot of, but he's
Speaker 1: also a comedy person. And he read the pilot, the
Speaker 1: one that I sold. I think, did I send it
Speaker 1: to you yet? I will? I will, I will say
Speaker 1: that I will say he read it, and it was
Speaker 1: so funny because when he was doing the w G
Speaker 1: A staffing boost, he said, you know Danny's um. He
Speaker 1: tweeted and said something like Danny's direction. Her stage directions
Speaker 1: are like equally as interesting as the actual dialogue. And
Speaker 1: that is something from having a horror background. I love
Speaker 1: to paint the picture of the setting that you're about
Speaker 1: to walk into, and not everyone does that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of just like joke, joke, joke, ke joke,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I want you to be in
Speaker 1: the room. I want you to feel how this person
Speaker 1: feels or the weight of just what they just said. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like horror and sci fi, to
Speaker 1: be honest, has really affected that. Yeah, I feel that
Speaker 1: way too, in that like, horror and sci fi are
Speaker 1: definitely the biggest genres in throughout my life. Like there
Speaker 1: are things that I watched the most. If I'm usually
Speaker 1: looking for a movie to watch, it's one of those two.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a historical drama will enter the picture because I
Speaker 1: love opulence and um, a good bitch slap or water toss.
Speaker 1: It really fills my soul to watch women just tear
Speaker 1: each other down simply with words like amazing, the confidence,
Speaker 1: the power, because people have to believe what you're saying
Speaker 1: in order for to hit and work. It's that's really
Speaker 1: I think what's come up. It's like I like, I
Speaker 1: like horror movies with serial killers that are like very dynamic.
Speaker 1: So of course Silence of the Lambs became like a
Speaker 1: very early obsession where I was like, what kind of
Speaker 1: person stays calm while killing? That freaked me the hell out.
Speaker 1: Usually it's rage or that person is a psycho, but
Speaker 1: this guy was just like, No, I just like to kill,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty good at it. You can keep me
Speaker 1: in this cage for as long as you want, but
Speaker 1: only really until I'm done being here. There's something about
Speaker 1: the meticulousness and personal connection that really drives my stories.
Speaker 1: Like I don't like stories about here are some strangers
Speaker 1: I just met up. No, they're always teams who've met
Speaker 1: or have been together for a long time. Um, people
Speaker 1: dealing Like a lot of times in comments that get
Speaker 1: frustrated because as soon as people get together, they're like,
Speaker 1: now they're divorced or separated, the same thing in TV shows.
Speaker 1: If you've been pining for a ritual ross, I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but maybe you did that. Uh. Then they
Speaker 1: got together and then they fell apart, and there's something
Speaker 1: about keeping them apart that's supposed to keep the drama fresh.
Speaker 1: But being in a relationship any kind of relationship. It's
Speaker 1: going to cause drama, it's too trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to cohabitate or operate together. Those are much more
Speaker 1: interesting to me, and I think horror gives you that opportunity,
Speaker 1: particularly when you have like a very fanciful villain whose
Speaker 1: intimate has intimate knowledge of the person they're praying on
Speaker 1: or the person that um they're trying to get back at.
Speaker 1: I like those aspects and I try to keep those
Speaker 1: in the forefront of my writing because I think it's
Speaker 1: much more interesting to watch than just strangers are a
Speaker 1: meet up. We know what an introduction sounds like. There's
Speaker 1: only so many but relationships, anything can happen. It's hey,
Speaker 1: while you're in there. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: was going to say is God bless goose bumps, because
Speaker 1: they got me tod but goose bumps and scary stories
Speaker 1: to tell. And that I jam is I love the
Speaker 1: fact that they treated kids like adults and we're not
Speaker 1: afraid of murdering us. So we come back now to
Speaker 1: this thing you were saying about anime, which really resonated
Speaker 1: with me. This idea of like, I understand that you
Speaker 1: have very adult thoughts and feelings and you're trying to understand,
Speaker 1: like being a child so frustrating. And it's the thing
Speaker 1: that I tried to really like remember as I was
Speaker 1: becoming an adult, and a thing I don't ever want
Speaker 1: to forget about childhood because there are adults who are
Speaker 1: like I hate children, Like that's just a little person,
Speaker 1: Like I don't understand why there's animosity towards children. I
Speaker 1: guess that they can be frustrating. They have a lot
Speaker 1: of questions. Sometimes questions feel like accusations when you don't
Speaker 1: know the answer. You're like, why are you asking me this?
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer, and I can't help you,
Speaker 1: and now I'm frustrated by my lack of knowledge. I
Speaker 1: get that the kids are trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to be who they are, which seems simple, but it's
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most complex things we are literally
Speaker 1: all tasked with. And I think finding things that had
Speaker 1: adult themes for me. Avatar the Last Airbender was a
Speaker 1: huge impact because it's like, man, here are kids who
Speaker 1: are going to war, not because it's cool, not because
Speaker 1: they have fancy machines, but because they're literally fighting for
Speaker 1: their liberation. Uh here, And and the art style was
Speaker 1: beautiful and they're falling in love in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't feel trivialized or silly. Um. I like things to
Speaker 1: tell kids your big emotions are valid, lid and have
Speaker 1: an impact, because I think too many of the things
Speaker 1: that we get, especially we got as kids, was just
Speaker 1: like here's like some action and like some filler and
Speaker 1: it's fun and it's flashy. Uh. And I needed more
Speaker 1: to connect to you. I was a big reader as
Speaker 1: a child, and as I was adjusting from reading to watching,
Speaker 1: or as my reading was emerging with my watching, I
Speaker 1: wanted to feel that same kind of connection. I also
Speaker 1: wanted to say that it was really progressive at the
Speaker 1: time for the Disney movies that came out for Sorry
Speaker 1: I'm Switching Gears, But I was thinking of it when
Speaker 1: you were talking about adults and being treated like an
Speaker 1: adult and like the progressive themes, and it was just
Speaker 1: like the women, yes some of them were still going
Speaker 1: after men, because again it was a product of its time,
Speaker 1: but still relatively progressive. To have someone like Bellby who like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to marry you? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: In town? And then yeah, and then to have um
Speaker 1: Meg from Hercules be like men are an actual disease.
Speaker 1: She was like, I am not going to fall for this. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I love Meg maybe the most as an
Speaker 1: adult because there's this such a wonderful aspect of like,
Speaker 1: you know, Meg fell in love and did the whole
Speaker 1: like young and fancy, free sort of lifestyle, and then
Speaker 1: she got hurt and so it took a lot for
Speaker 1: her to be like, oh, I couldn't love again. And
Speaker 1: Meg also had to get herself out of her bad situation.
Speaker 1: She made a bad deal but was like genuinely a
Speaker 1: good person but just so hurt and like as a
Speaker 1: kid who was bullied, like the idea of being able
Speaker 1: to move past that was Oh my god. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just funny. That line is like no man
Speaker 1: is worth the aggravation is something you would hear now
Speaker 1: in today like that would be and people would be like,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, because we're on this track, and
Speaker 1: it was like it was kind of fascinating that they
Speaker 1: said that stuff. You know, Yeah, Jasmine, I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: to be one. Well, listen, I'm four and really connecting
Speaker 1: with the fact that this is like a big deal. Uh,
Speaker 1: and there's something sometimes again it's I'd be interested to
Speaker 1: hear how like young kids, because I feel like Disney
Speaker 1: is one of those entities that doesn't grow up. You're
Speaker 1: being introduced at the same age, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So like I'm the same age as my mom when
Speaker 1: she was introduced to say, like a Robin Hood or
Speaker 1: Pinocchio or whatever, and so we have the same emotional
Speaker 1: parallels because even though we're living in different times, we're
Speaker 1: at the same mental state. And so I wonder if
Speaker 1: kids are getting you know that a ladin at the
Speaker 1: same time and feeling the same and if it's concurrent
Speaker 1: with like a Frozen which has very similar messages, or
Speaker 1: if they're distinguishing that it's separate times. I never as
Speaker 1: a you know, their animation that doesn't necessarily feel out
Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, I don't know, kids tell us if
Speaker 1: kids listen to this. We have to take another quick
Speaker 1: break and then we're gonna geek out just a little
Speaker 1: bit more, and then we're gonna read some of the
Speaker 1: things that y'all wrote it about your favorite fandoms and
Speaker 1: how they impacted you right after this and we are back. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of media, we've covered a lot of things comic books,
Speaker 1: sci fi, horror animation, um anime, same thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: um what about music? Oh man, music is like a
Speaker 1: very present part of my life through Was there someone
Speaker 1: that broke on the scene that you were like felt
Speaker 1: more represented. I was really into Destiny's Child and Usher,
Speaker 1: Like you couldn't tell me anything about those like two
Speaker 1: into Teaser that wasn't like I just loved them. They
Speaker 1: were all over my walls, Like I had pictures of
Speaker 1: Usher on my ceiling, which my mother found very disturbing.
Speaker 1: She's like why And I was like I could reach
Speaker 1: there and my health that is covered. Don't think too
Speaker 1: much into it. Um every Destiny's Child album ever, And
Speaker 1: I cut up the CD like inserts and I put
Speaker 1: them all over my walls. Uh. Aaliyah when she passed
Speaker 1: was like he huge. But I think for me as
Speaker 1: a black girl, I didn't really know that I was
Speaker 1: light skinned because I was the only black kid in
Speaker 1: my class, and so Brandy was like it for me
Speaker 1: for a hot second, I was like, look at this
Speaker 1: black girl, Like she has braids, she has like a
Speaker 1: name that's sort of different and maybe nobody ever has
Speaker 1: heard of and like nobody had heard the name Joel
Speaker 1: from the town I was in and like she was trendy.
Speaker 1: It's like so cool, Like she went to Problem with
Speaker 1: umh Kobe Bryant and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like wow, So I every time she was doing something,
Speaker 1: I was trying to imitate it. And then also she
Speaker 1: was an alto and like being a young girl, especially
Speaker 1: in the nineties, like that deep soulful voice was great
Speaker 1: on older women, but women that we're sort of geared
Speaker 1: towards our demographic were like sopranos and princesses and very light.
Speaker 1: There was something very cool about a girl who wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily a fighter but wasn't afraid to scrap and who
Speaker 1: had down deep vocals where I was just like this
Speaker 1: girl and me are the same, and I love her.
Speaker 1: How about you? Well, I was going to say on
Speaker 1: top of that, when I was listening to you talk,
Speaker 1: I was thinking of Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott was so
Speaker 1: different for her, Like I was watching her interview with
Speaker 1: Jesus and Marrow and she wasn't even like she was
Speaker 1: like it was weird the music video she was doing.
Speaker 1: People were like, she said, people were messaging her like
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like wild? Yeah, where like her
Speaker 1: head would come off and you know that whole like
Speaker 1: snake thing she did and like get hurt. Yes, everything
Speaker 1: was just wild, like she just did not care. And again,
Speaker 1: it was a time when even the women of color
Speaker 1: in our lives were tiny. They were still tiny, We're
Speaker 1: not yet. Their noses were little and and you know
Speaker 1: they had very petite features. And you had, yes, you
Speaker 1: had Missy come out and just not care and like
Speaker 1: just make the best music. We did multiple dances to
Speaker 1: her at my high school of it. And yeah, of
Speaker 1: course it was the funnest thing to choreograph. And that
Speaker 1: is just so I can't imagine how many people's childhoods
Speaker 1: and lives she affected just by being like in the
Speaker 1: top spot on TRL. It is not her body, her
Speaker 1: the way she was not, like she has a chronic
Speaker 1: illness too, which I was always like she's And the
Speaker 1: idea that she was able to like manage this thing
Speaker 1: that was so challenging and still put out this wild music.
Speaker 1: The fact that she was doing music that was yes
Speaker 1: for women, but again had like a lot of power
Speaker 1: and strength behind it. The fact that she was collaborating
Speaker 1: with these guys, the fact that she was making her
Speaker 1: own beats, was like wild to me, because that's such
Speaker 1: a dud's game. Uh, And she succeeded and thrived and
Speaker 1: recreated and has people aspiring. And I think to your
Speaker 1: point that doing dances to her music was so fun,
Speaker 1: Like she's one of the few artists, like maybe with
Speaker 1: the Janet Jackson type of Madonna type, who really puts
Speaker 1: the dancer front and center frequently in their music. And
Speaker 1: I think that there's something to be said about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, missy who has this like bigger body keeping
Speaker 1: up with all these dancers and like rocking it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seeing her it was always a joy for me. It
Speaker 1: was also Selena was such a both being from Texas
Speaker 1: and southern California. I mean she was big everywhere, but
Speaker 1: of course she was huge there and she just represented
Speaker 1: like so many So I was younger at the time
Speaker 1: right when she came out, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: look like her. I just wanted to look like my
Speaker 1: cousins were gorgeous like her. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just want like it was just so funny. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to grow up so quickly. And I have
Speaker 1: a picture of her framed in my bedroom and it's
Speaker 1: her holding her Grammy, and it's just because it was like,
Speaker 1: we can you know, she was aside from being you know, uh,
Speaker 1: pop culture icon, she was a business owner, she was
Speaker 1: a fashion designer, and it was just so I think, unexpected,
Speaker 1: and so I try to remind myself that we can
Speaker 1: be unexpected, but she, uh, she represented such a neat
Speaker 1: It was interesting listening to talk about being light skinned
Speaker 1: because for me, in the communities I grew up in,
Speaker 1: I was Mexican a percent. Like there was no question
Speaker 1: about it. You know, when you're in when you're in
Speaker 1: uh An, Orange County, or you're in Dallas or wherever.
Speaker 1: A lot of my family is also in San Antonio,
Speaker 1: and there's actually a very and so I always thought
Speaker 1: that until I would say, honestly, like five years ago
Speaker 1: when I realized there's such a difference between Mexican Americans
Speaker 1: from Chicanos and Mexicans and that is really a subject
Speaker 1: of a lot of debate in my community, and it
Speaker 1: never dawned on me. And so her being Chicana, her
Speaker 1: having this you know, they tackle it in the Salina movie,
Speaker 1: but essentially feeling like you have to be you know,
Speaker 1: more Mexican, the Mexicans and more American than the Americans.
Speaker 1: You're kind of tugged. You don't really fit in in anywhere. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was my experience growing up. But it was
Speaker 1: so fascinating to me because I never questioned it. It It
Speaker 1: was like I was, it was actually already bubbled in
Speaker 1: on my scantron, Like I couldn't even bubble it in
Speaker 1: because my last name, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was just very it was very clear my family and
Speaker 1: I weren't white and so uh. And so I never
Speaker 1: I never thought anything of it until I really had
Speaker 1: to look back at, like, Okay, these are very actually
Speaker 1: different experiences. And so Selina represented that of like having
Speaker 1: to toggle between these two worlds uh and how can
Speaker 1: you do honor to your heritage but also except where
Speaker 1: you live and that that experience is different. Um. And
Speaker 1: so it's only something that I've really tackled, honestly being
Speaker 1: here in l A, where it was very much like
Speaker 1: a topic of debate where I had to like reflect
Speaker 1: on that and and I just started calling myself Chiconic
Speaker 1: because that's what I am. Um. I didn't come you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't born in Mexico like other members of my family,
Speaker 1: and so just very fascinating. So she represented so much
Speaker 1: to me of that toggle limbo space. Uh and what
Speaker 1: when you're a child of of immigrant parents or your
Speaker 1: first or second generation, like what that looks like and
Speaker 1: you want to take care of your family and do
Speaker 1: right by your family and also trying to fit in here.
Speaker 1: So she was definitely a huge impact. And I it's
Speaker 1: wild to me because you know, she passed away so
Speaker 1: many years ago for people that are just discovering her music,
Speaker 1: for people that are like that, we have the Selena
Speaker 1: Show on Netflix coming out. For someone that was so
Speaker 1: young to have such an impact to this day, to
Speaker 1: this day, you know she is. It's so funny like
Speaker 1: growing up, like every brown girl was like an immediate
Speaker 1: icon to me, like of any level of success. I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, look at her out there doing it.
Speaker 1: Because again, I like Princess Jasmine was like my brown princess,
Speaker 1: Like like who'd be princess? It was Jasmine and then
Speaker 1: Pocahonas and then it really didn't matter who they were,
Speaker 1: Like watching them became sort of an obsession. And when
Speaker 1: I caught onto Selena, which was later I'm very midwestern. Um,
Speaker 1: when the movie came out, I was like Oh my god,
Speaker 1: who is this queen? And look at her outfits and
Speaker 1: the fact that she was like into fashion and making
Speaker 1: her own clothes reminds me of Beyonce and like her mom.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you start out, you're like making
Speaker 1: all your bedazzling your own g yes, cutting up your bras,
Speaker 1: making it work. You're making think Dad that this is appropriate,
Speaker 1: so funny, it's amazing. Um yeah, shout up. Shout out
Speaker 1: to the brown girls of the late nineties early two
Speaker 1: thousand's who were holding it down for all of us.
Speaker 1: They needed representation. Yeah, so let's go ahead and read
Speaker 1: some of these. I'm gonna try and I've got one.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna read some of your guys early loves,
Speaker 1: the things that got you into nerdom. So this is
Speaker 1: from Token Superhero on Twitter. That's my friend Marcus Marcus Hey,
Speaker 1: he says. After the First Adventures came out, a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys and I started talking via Twitter and Facebook,
Speaker 1: and eventually we all met up. We would pick a
Speaker 1: place of where we lived Arizona, Texas, New York and
Speaker 1: fly to each other's homes. Years later, we still do it.
Speaker 1: We've all become a family. We've attended each other's weddings.
Speaker 1: All three a funeral all and our families are forever entwined.
Speaker 1: All because of our love for comics, which is all
Speaker 1: we typically text to talk about besides our family. Marcus,
Speaker 1: that is so charming. I love that. It's so great.
Speaker 1: I have one from Ryan at Ryan Film Lover. He said,
Speaker 1: dragon ball Z, if it was for this glorious show
Speaker 1: dragon ball Z, if it was for this glorious show,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'd care about anime. I probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: love kung fu movies or sci fi movies. It's something
Speaker 1: I will always hold close to my heart. And he
Speaker 1: has a cabinet actually that has like Scheanron and Goku
Speaker 1: Wow in it. I love a pure fandom. This one's
Speaker 1: from Hi king Fen. I met my husband through a
Speaker 1: Hunger Games role play on Tumbler and if I'm oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, see there you go Tumbler yeah, and then
Speaker 1: if I'm alive right now, it's because the Magicians and
Speaker 1: its fandom uh from one person to another. The Magicians
Speaker 1: as a queer um magic loving graduate obsessed fandom is
Speaker 1: so beautiful and loving. Um I'm I can't believe this
Speaker 1: show is ending. It breaks my heart. I'm looking everywhere
Speaker 1: for a sign of somebody picking it up. I totally
Speaker 1: get how that show could connect and save your life,
Speaker 1: because it lifts my spirits a lot. I have one
Speaker 1: from Michael Smith. It is. My first two loves are
Speaker 1: Star Wars and film. One led to the other. My
Speaker 1: dad always tells me the first movie I ever watched
Speaker 1: was Jaws, when I was two years old, sitting of
Speaker 1: the TV, giggling away, demanding again and again whenever it
Speaker 1: would end. No memory of that, although it totally tracks.
Speaker 1: I don't really remember anything before Star Wars. I have
Speaker 1: loved for all three trilogies. Much of the expanded Universe
Speaker 1: is planned on doing a deep dive this year, and
Speaker 1: those pieces of film magic opened the gates of my
Speaker 1: exploration into so many other films, many of which I
Speaker 1: probably saw a little too young. I'm sure we all did. Sure, Um,
Speaker 1: I watched Starship Troopers. There you go, Joel, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you and you're the same person in the theater with
Speaker 1: my dad. I was seven and I had already seen
Speaker 1: all the alien films. Will you guys really are our
Speaker 1: dads have to meet? Not the best filters, but we're
Speaker 1: better or worse. Film, particularly Star Wars, has shaped my
Speaker 1: life and you have a lot of ways, and my
Speaker 1: flame for both continues to burn brighter every day. Listen,
Speaker 1: I don't know how do not best friends yet, but
Speaker 1: let's get on that. This one's from Samir underscore Tea
Speaker 1: on Twitter. After the Matrix blew all our minds in
Speaker 1: ninety nine, I joined a Matrix movie board online called
Speaker 1: The Last Free City or TLFC. I mean friends from
Speaker 1: all of the world, and even met a couple of
Speaker 1: them I r L. After many years passed, the website
Speaker 1: closed down, but we have a Facebook group of about
Speaker 1: twenty of us keeping in touch and excitedly waiting for
Speaker 1: Matrix four. Other than Star which it's my favorite fandom.
Speaker 1: A lot less toxic btw. I can imagine Trinity does
Speaker 1: not allow for your toxicity to exist in the Matrix fandom.
Speaker 1: It's true, Rachel Cushing. Her friend Rachel Cushing said, I
Speaker 1: can't remember time when I didn't know who Frodo, Gandoff
Speaker 1: and Golem were because my parents were telling us Tolken
Speaker 1: stories since my sister and I were toddlers. That's so cool,
Speaker 1: it is beautiful. We bonded over those books and it's
Speaker 1: always something we can love together. We saw every film
Speaker 1: together on opening night. I flew home from l A
Speaker 1: to do that in O two and oh three, and
Speaker 1: the four of us even have matching Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings tattoos. The stories represent Escapism as its most magical
Speaker 1: for me, but I also always think of my family
Speaker 1: whenever I revisit Middle Earth. Uh. This one's from our
Speaker 1: fan and person we love, Bruce Rockency. One of mine
Speaker 1: was Stargate SG one. The cast and the writing were
Speaker 1: really good, but it was also one of the shows
Speaker 1: me and mom used to really connect as fans. It
Speaker 1: definitely has a soft spot on my heart because of
Speaker 1: this bond. I also watched Star Trek with my mama.
Speaker 1: She was very much into Um Star Trek and musicals
Speaker 1: and that's where our Nerdum live And oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's so cute. I love it. Well. Thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening to a stroll down memory lane about the
Speaker 1: fandoms that kind of shaped us and made us the
Speaker 1: women that we are. And thank you for sharing your
Speaker 1: own fandoms and how they connected you and your family. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: keep following the Nerdifficent on the twitters, and I g
Speaker 1: s and we'll try to keep you guys posted about
Speaker 1: what's happening, uh coming up, and please stay safe out there,
Speaker 1: wash your hands and you know where you can as
Speaker 1: you can. And we know it's a privilege to stay home,
Speaker 1: but if you can't, you know, try to stay home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm at miss Danny Fernandez and all the things. What
Speaker 1: about you, Joel? You can find me all over the
Speaker 1: internet at Joel Monique. That's j O E l E
Speaker 1: E m O n i q u e yea. And
Speaker 1: like we always say, stay nerdy.