#355: Marc, Josué, and Link discuss fitting in, and finding places where you can be your authentic self. We cover several examples of media that conveys the exquisite nuances of navigating real and fictional social spaces.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Good evening, everybody. This is one of your wonderful co hosts Marc Cuiriz here on Geek Therapy radio. We’re here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. Joining me today on this lovely evening is the illustrious link Keller,

Link Keller 0:33
yo,

Marc Cuiriz 0:34
and the ever inspiring Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:39
Greetings.

Marc Cuiriz 0:41
How’d you guys like the new intro today?

Link Keller 0:44
It’s good.

Josué Cardona 0:45
You’re leveling up,

Marc Cuiriz 0:46
you know, I

Link Keller 0:47
sultry, even.

Marc Cuiriz 0:49
I noticed that. And this kind of goes in fitting with today’s topic. But I noticed that for a while a lot of a lot of the times my intro would want to mimic Josué and kind of how he does the intro. And I always saw that as my way of trying to sort of blend in with everything kind of kind of fit myself into everything. But today I’m on my drive home. I was like, You know what, I kind of want to give it a Sardonyx kind of vibe, you know, just kind of be really out there and kind of stand out for myself and kind of differentiate my intros from Josué’s from Link’s, has Lara ever done an intro?

Link Keller 1:35
not if she can help it?

Josué Cardona 1:37
I don’t I can’t remember a single time

Link Keller 1:40
once and she she beat us all up afterwards. So never again. I’m just kidding. I think that’s great. You’re, you’re individuating Isn’t that lovely?

Marc Cuiriz 1:53
Exactly. So. So this kind of goes in hand with the topic that I chose for this week. And this, this topic came up. When I saw Spider Man across the spider verse a couple a couple of weeks ago, I’m not going to really get too spoilery I’m going to try and actually avoid all spoilers about it if I can, but really just kind of touch on a major theme with in the movie, which was fitting in and having to find your place in society in the world, in your own social groups and sort of going on that journey and discovering kind of where where does someone like where do you fit in, in your life and things like that? So I’m kind of curious as to sort of what you guys have experienced with when it comes to like, figuring out where you fit in with things or what sort of journeys you guys have gone on. Either in the past or currently things like that.

Josué Cardona 3:06
Link, you fit in everywhere, right? Always.

Link Keller 3:08
I’m a social chameleon, which I am learning may also be a sign of autism. But that’s another episode we’ll get into. Yeah, yeah, I’ve had you know, as a as a kid, I moved a lot. So I got really good at making myself socially open to people to make social connections and, and to fit in with groups. Very much in high school. Like I hung out with nerds, but I also hung out with the Goths. And occasionally the stoners and didn’t, you know didn’t quite make the full drift cycle into like the sports and theater side. But yeah, fitting in, it is a great topic for this because there’s so much good media, talking about those kinds of stories because it’s true is like there is skill and effort involved in learning how to connect with people to get that feeling of fitting in and there are times when you do fit in but you don’t feel it. And so that’s I think an important thing to talk about as well.

Josué Cardona 4:31
I think it’s really interesting that you used the words blending in at the beginning marc, because you’re like, oh, you know, I’m gonna do the same thing everybody else does. So I don’t stand out. And it’s like the overlap between like the blending in and the fitting in. Because it’s making me think how I did not want to do anything that would make me stand out. But I did that because I did not want to fit in I didn’t want I wanted to be invisible, I hated everybody, I didn’t want to fit in. I was like, How can I? How can I? How can I blend in the most, so that nobody tries to bring me into their group. I hadn’t hadn’t thought about it when we were that way, as we were, you know, coming up with this. With this, I do, I do have that chameleon aspect, which, which is very unconscious in many ways. Like, I adopt things from different groups, and I completely don’t do it on purpose.

Link Keller 5:40
It’s totally like a human defense mechanism is like we we rely on each other. And so it is like, beneficial to be able to read social cues and then replicate them as a way to be like, see, I’m part of the group, please don’t throw me out into the wilderness.

Josué Cardona 6:01
Again, I may be wrong, but I didn’t. I don’t want to do that. You know, like, if I’m speaking with someone who has a particular accent, my accent starts changing. If I have I started adopting words that I didn’t mean to adopt. At some point, my life changed. And I knew I was like, Oh, shit, I sound just like this other person now laughing How did what? How did that happen? That’s, I don’t know. That is that is a way to fit in. Right? Like, you have people dressing up a particular way or doing something right to fit in with that group right like, I don’t I don’t know, did you? What did you do to fit in with the goths and the stoners at your school? Or were you just yourself? And they were just so accepting.

Link Keller 6:53
I mean, we’re talking about high school. So no, the nobodies that accepting. I not not so much like the the social signifiers like clothes and things like that, mostly because I spent a significant amount of my youth and adulthood uh poor, so I, you know, I buy secondhand clothes, and I prefer comfort over fashion. And so not so much that that social signifier to other people, but you know, my go to move is I sort of I sort of circled group, make a little circle I’m observing, I’m seeing who is talking to who I’m seeing what jokes are being utilized. I’m seeing what media people are talking about. And that was the in. So talking about music with the goth kids, that was the in. I wasn’t playing Pokemon at that time. But Pokemon Pearl and diamond came out while I was in my senior year of high school, and the nerdy kids who hung out next to the library were all on their, you know, on their DSs playing. And I’m just like, tell me all about the new Pokemon. I’m interested in this. And you know, at that point, had actually made some legitimate friends who are like, Okay, I need you to actually get a DS and get Pokemon and play with me. And I’m like, Okay, now I know I’m in because you’re actually asking me to engage more than just talking about the thing. It’s like, No, I want you to play the thing with me. But yeah, I mean, you know, I, we talk all the time about how media helps us understand each other and ourselves better. And, and that has always been my go to have like, you know, Oh, I see that you’re, you know, reading a book or you’re listening to something on your headphones. What are you listening to? And using that away to engage with people or, like, you know, did you see that cool new sci fi movie everybody’s been talking about? Like, what did you think about that, and using that as a way to, if not build, like, deep meaningful friendships than at least creating that social connection where somebody feels as though I’m at least an acquaintance and therefore could potentially make the...

#354: The crew talks about learning new habits and skills, but sliding back into repeating old ones. What’s the deal with that??

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined today by Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:22
Hey,

Josué Cardona 0:23
Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:25
Yo,

Josué Cardona 0:26
And Marc Cuiriz

Marc Cuiriz 0:28
Hello.

Josué Cardona 0:29
Hello, Team. It’s my turn again, is it? is it my turn again?.

Lara Taylor 0:34
It is, because you decided to give us a topic.

Josué Cardona 0:38
Because nobody else came up with a topic. So my, my, my topic came to me when we when I was playing, small little, little indie game called Legend of Zelda tears at the kingdom. never and never heard of it. Yeah, no, it’s good. It’s good. So there will be no spoilers here. But I had to kind of what I call this not a, I had a realization. So I’m playing this game. So for context, this is the sequel to breath of the wild and I played, I played about 150 hours a Breath of the Wild through two playthroughs. I liked the game a lot. And one thing that I liked about the game was how you kind of had this very open world and you weren’t sure if you could climb that mountain, or if you could get this far and get to a particular thing. And so I’m playing tears of the kingdom. And I’m doing exactly that, again. It’s like, oh, my god, can I climb the mountain? Can I do this? Can I make it this way, I’m gonna try this. And I’m enjoying it. And after a play session, I stopped. And I thought, wait a minute. This is a sequel. There’s like 100 different ways that I could have done this. Because there there are all these new tools that weren’t available in the first game. And even though the game is teaching me to use them, and sometimes even requiring me to use them, to get from point A to point B, I’m so used to the way I used to do it, that I just did not actually use any of those things. So of course, it got me thinking how, how we do that in real life. That’s like, oh, I go to therapy, or I go to the gym, or I want to go to school, do trainings at work, and you don’t remember the things that you just learned. And you keep doing things. Like you were doing them before. Like you go back to old habits and you start like, why does that happen? What has happened to him? Why am I not using all the new features and Zelda? Why am I not using all of the amazing things that I’ve learned in therapy over the years?

Lara Taylor 2:57
Because new habits are hard to build.

Josué Cardona 3:00
get out of here

Lara Taylor 3:00
And we’d like to be in our comfort zone and do things the way we know.

Josué Cardona 3:05
Oh, explain that to me. I don’t like it. I don’t get it.

Lara Taylor 3:12
I don’t like it either. I can explain it, but I don’t like it. I also I do like some new things in games. I like new games and things like that. And I will get to the real life piece of it. But like I’m playing Jedi survivor and I keep getting new stances and new outfits and things like that. Nope, I want Cal to look the way he was on. Like the first cutscene I changed the color of his outfit to be more colors I like but like I don’t I don’t mess around with all the hair and stuff. I like the the two lightsabers and the double bladed lightsaber. I don’t use the new stances. Yeah, I like to use the things I’m used to. Partially because I know I’m more efficient at it and I know what I’m doing.

Josué Cardona 4:03
But these new tools are we’re more powerful and we can do more.

Lara Taylor 4:07
They are sometimes they are sometimes they’re not right. Like if I were to try and teach myself to type on a keyboard the way you’re supposed to at school. I would be way slower than I am right now with my master typing skills.

Josué Cardona 4:21
but wait, how do you type?

Link Keller 4:25
elaborate,

Lara Taylor 4:26
elaborate, my hands go that place where you’re the starting position you’re supposed to with your pointer finger on the little dots right on the F and the J But my fingers don’t go to the ones that exactly the way that they say whatever. Like I don’t know. I can’t tell you exactly which ones go where but I just type and it’s not the way that they teach you in school. Exactly.

Josué Cardona 4:51
Well this was backwards that this one is like if you learn the right if you the way that you do

Lara Taylor 4:57
the new way is faster.

Josué Cardona 4:58
Yeah, and then you stopped.

Lara Taylor 5:00
they stopped teaching it.

Josué Cardona 5:01
No, but then you stopped. It just started doing the old way. That’s my life.

Lara Taylor 5:07
Okay, I guess that makes sense. But yeah, we like to do the things that we are used to, because we are creatures of habit. And it is really hard to build routines and do new things. Because it’s not what we know, and not what we’re used to. And our brains fall back on those old patterns, because that’s the neural pathways that have been firing, right, and it takes a long time to switch to new pathways. I think I have to say that at least once a day, at my work sometimes five times a day

Josué Cardona 5:39
to yourself?

Lara Taylor 5:40
to clients

Link Keller 5:41
three to clients, two to yourself.

Lara Taylor 5:43
And to remind myself both that I also need, I take time to change that my habits, but also that my clients take time to change their habits, and that it is a process.

Josué Cardona 5:56
So even, like that makes sense to me. From a behavioral standpoint, right, for certain things, but what about, Does the same apply to your thoughts? Like to to thinking? Does it does the same? revolve around traumatic responses to, you know, all these things? Does the same apply?

Lara Taylor 6:23
I mean, I feel like it does. I mean, we’re talking behaviorally, but thoughts and thoughts and traumatic responses and all those like anxiety pathways, that’s all going through your brain too. So.

Josué Cardona 6:38
So but so. But what why do we so we develop the new habit?

Lara Taylor 6:47
And it takes time

Josué Cardona 6:49
why doesn’t it stick around? Why does it go away?

Lara Taylor 6:50
it doesn’t stick around because you have to keep doing it to get it to stick around. But then that means you have to keep doing it, even though you want to do the old ones

Josué Cardona 6:58
What if you don’t want to do the old one? That’s the problem. You don’t want to do the old one, you want to do the new one? Why don’t we Why don’t we go back to the old?

Lara Taylor 7:03
See, I want to do the old one.

Link Keller 7:09
It comes down to it’s like neurological resources, right? It costs more energy to do the new thing. Not necessarily because it is more difficult, but because it is new, your brain needs to pay more attention to it.

Lara Taylor 7:25
Right

Link Keller 7:26
I think a great example would be like when you are driving a route to work or school or whatever. And you’re driving the same route all the time, like there comes a point where your brain is not engaging in the drive above the very baseline bottom level, and you just appear in the parking lot where you’re going, you’re like, wow, I don’t remember actually ...

#353: The crew discusses how we got into certain interests and fandoms, who we have passed them on to, and the unique feeling of pride watching someone go farther and deeper into the hobbies and media we love.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your lovely co hosts, Marc Cuiriz and joined with me today is Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:29
Hello,

Marc Cuiriz 0:31
Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:32
Hey.

Marc Cuiriz 0:35
And the wonderful link Keller

Link Keller 0:38
ello.

Marc Cuiriz 0:41
So Oh, sway, I believe it is. Your turn this week, you so graciously volunteered

Josué Cardona 0:48
my turn.

Marc Cuiriz 0:48
So please tell us.

Josué Cardona 0:49
Yeah. So So I’ve been thinking about how there’s a story. I had a client once who, you know, with my clients, I would always start asking them, Hey, what are you into? What are your favorite hobbies? What do you what do you like to do? It was part of my intake process. And there was one client. I always remember, he was like, middle school aged. And I asked him, you know, what he enjoyed, what he enjoyed doing what is his favorite thing? And he said, shooting guns. And that kind of, you know, like, put up some red flags for me. But don’t yuck my Yum, you know, being being open, you know, GT model. I was like, oh, cool, like so. So what is it about that, that you like, and so he started telling me, and I find out that he, he loves going to shoot because that’s the only or that’s the primary activity he does with his father, who he rarely gets to see because his parents are divorced. And whatever his father comes to get him they just, like, go out to to a range somewhere and, and fire some guns. And so ever since that, I always, I’ve always thought about how, how important it is, when, like, the meaning behind the why or how we got started into some of our hobbies. My mom passed away recently, and so I I didn’t, I don’t, I don’t like procedurals, like, sure I’ll sit down and watch an episode of Law and Order anytime. No problem. But like with someone else, not not not just me when it come from, for me, but my mom love procedurals. And when she died, there was a particular one that she she just loved so much. He was really into it. And so I still, like, I still I’ll watch an episode, like I have them running. And it’s like my way of kind of like continuing what my mom like to do. But I can’t deny that like, I like it. Like I liked the show. And and I’m I’m pretty invested. And and so watching those shows now has an incredible amount of meaning that goes beyond just enjoying the show. And and like I have, you know, I play video games because of my parents. I like sci fi because of my parents. And sometimes I forget that. But but it was something that was that was passed on. And I don’t know if there’s just that that mean,

Link Keller 1:23
and anime via Astroboy which doesn’t count anime, but it does.

Josué Cardona 3:31
It’s the first anime so it does count. But my dad didn’t know it was anime. So does it count?

Lara Taylor 3:38
They cancel each other out.

Josué Cardona 3:41
Yeah, he’s like, Oh, watch this show. I like like those Japanese cartoons. You like that?

Link Keller 3:47
You gave this to me. You did this. I learned it from watching you.

Josué Cardona 3:53
Well, And this is something I want to get to later on. But like, Yeah, my dad grew up watching Astroboy and then he’s like, Oh, what’s this Japanese cartoons stuff. I’m like, Are you serious? Same with video games. Like at some point, they kind of just fell off. I used to go to the arcade with my dad every weekend. And suddenly, like oh 3d games were too much for him. And my mom didn’t want to play Tetris and Mario anymore. Now that they’re older, they play games on their phones, and it’s the whole thing. But i i There’s something weird about like, almost feel like you’re abandoned. Because you still like this, this particular this particular thing and they they don’t or they don’t as much like with my with my niece who I saw recently she she I got her into Star Wars. Like she really didn’t know what it was I got her into it. And now she has a past me in every single way like in terms of knowledge and just like she will just I don’t know how many times she has rewatched Clone Wars. And like the first time she saw Clone Wars I showed her my spreadsheet with the show in actual chronological order, and not the, not the order in which it was broadcast. And I still haven’t finished watching the show, and she’s watched it like four times. And there’s something, there’s something really, it’s like a weird sense of pride. And, and passing something down with, it’s not really a skill. It’s not, I don’t know, but I and I wonder what it will be like, like, what it means to her to be so into that, like, not just love it, but that it was something that that started with us together. Right, so I found that, you know, with, with a lot of our hobbies, it can go beyond just, I think it’s cool. Right? I think I think that’s a good way to start it. But we love these have connections to to our childhood or to our past or to and Lara, you’ve brought up, you know, your friend who passed away and kind of like, you know, the connection to some of those things. So do you all have examples of like that, you know, where your hobby like this, this passion for this thing started? And how it was connected to something or who or when? your stories?

Marc Cuiriz 6:19
Yeah. So, I mean, I’m kind of was the same way too, when it comes to when it comes to video games. My dad was one, the one that he’s the one who condemned me to this with the original Nintendo system and playing, you know, the original Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt, things like that. And then it evolved into Pac Man. So whenever we would go to an arcade, that was the game that my dad and I would take turns playing almost exclusively, we would always be at the Pac Man Machine playing that. And so that became our thing. And then obviously, over time, it, you know, I moved on to sort of the newer games, and then he sort of falling off of it. And then, you know, with the eventual conflicts that my dad and I eventually ran into, obviously, he doesn’t play video games much anymore, except for, you know, stuff on his phone. But I think one of the big things that I still have a pretty huge passion about that he and I still can kind of do together as bowling. That was something that my dad and I and my and my brother, we would do that almost every weekend. And in the town that we were living in, there used to be at a local bowling alley that we would always go to. And I loved that place. That’s also where the Pac Man Machine was. So that was also like a double whammy. But we would pull all the time, we would bowl for hours on end. And even now like, like it’s one of those things where if I could I, I would bowl every weekend. I love it. I know I’m not the best at it. But I still greatly enjoy just being at an alley and playing for a couple hours or just hanging out with people. And my dad and I don’t necessarily do that so much anymore. But when we do it’s, it’s kind of like a nice little, you know, a nice little nostalgia trip for the both of us. And it’s kind of funny, because when I was younger, I used to see how he would bowl. And I always thought it was really weird because he would like throw the ball up and it but it would have the spin o...

#352: Josué, Lara, and Link discuss choice paralysis, how we make decisions, and the anxiety around making choices.

Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to GT radio, on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that the best way to understand ourselves and others is through the media we care about, including video games, movies, comic books, TV shows, plays, loose change in a parking garage, anything, we can find it and find a way to connect it to the people we care about. I was doing so good, and I couldn’t I couldn’t handle that. So I ruined it myself. I just swerved right off the road. I’m, I’m so happy to be here with my two co hosts. I am link I am joined by Lara

Lara Taylor 0:56
hey,

Link Keller 0:57
and Josué.

Josué Cardona 0:59
Hello,

Link Keller 1:00
sweet Marc is taking a sabbatical

Lara Taylor 1:05
taking a break.

Link Keller 1:07
um, today. I’m not sure what our topic is entirely. But I think that Lara knows a little bit more about that. So I’m gonna toss it to her.

Josué Cardona 1:17
Do you not know what it is? Or are you not sure what it is? Because there’s so many options and you just have no idea which one to choose?

Link Keller 1:23
It’s probably that.

Josué Cardona 1:24
Yeah,

Lara Taylor 1:24
I mean, we face that every week coming up with a topic, right? I want to talk about decision paralysis or analysis, paralysis, whatever you want to call it. I’m not feeling it as much this week. Last week, I was definitely feeling it. This happens quite a few times where the games I am most excited about come out at exactly the same time or within a week of each other. And I think this one has been one of the the worst for me. Like okay, well, I really wanted to play horizon forbidden west burning shores. I was so excited. I got that. As soon as it came out. It was TAGGS weekend, and I still got it and did not play it till after TAGGS. And just like when horizon zero dawn came out Legend Zelda, there’s a game coming out very soon. But in between all that I have Star Wars Jedi survivor. What am I to do? Now this week, I’ve already made a decision. But last week, I was panicking because I had to choose between. There’s some queerness and queer content in horizon burning shores. I’ve been excited about a Star Wars Jedi survivor for I don’t know how long since I’ve beat fallen order. Basically. I love me some Star Wars. And also, I have played I think all of the Legend of Zelda games that I can play and still not beaten a single one. And so I need to continue that tradition. So what am I to do? What am I to do? I don’t know. What are y’all doing?

Josué Cardona 3:27
Did you did you tell us what you decided for this week?

Lara Taylor 3:30
Huh, well, for this week, I decided I’m going to play Jedi survivor because I did not beat Breath of the Wild and have not watched someone beat Breath of the Wild. Which is easy to remedy. But I feel like the way I’ve been playing games action adventure games. I could probably be Jedi survivor in a few weeks. And then I will I will probably see this is where I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Am I going to get tears to the kingdom? Or am I going to play through my Aloy queer story that I want to? I don’t that’s the decision I have I have to come up against next is a couple of weeks about it.

Josué Cardona 4:20
So so it hasn’t been easy for you to for you to make this decision.

Lara Taylor 4:24
No.

Josué Cardona 4:25
Are you sure you’re not going to play Zelda at midnight, like the rest of us and the rest of the world? We’re super hyped for all your friends are here. Want to play it?

Lara Taylor 4:35
I’m not. I’m gonna I’m gonna be playing when y’all are playing. Tears of the kingdom I’m gonna be playing Jedi survivor.

Josué Cardona 4:44
What if it’s a topic of next week’s podcast? Then you have to play it before?

Lara Taylor 4:49
No,

Josué Cardona 4:50
no? Okay. Okay, okay, so

Lara Taylor 4:52
I’m gonna play Jedi survivor because I know and I don’t want to do what I always end up doing when I switch games around and mess up the controls and forget how to do things like, I am in a groove with like throwing my dual wielding lightsabers and chopping off arms and all kinds of stuff.

Josué Cardona 5:11
What else are you chopping off? Okay, so so so the this I mean, you know, some people call it analysis, paralysis, decision paralysis, that can be a really significant source of anxiety

Lara Taylor 5:25
absolutely

Josué Cardona 5:26
for a lot of people. And it can also be, it’s in the name, paralyzing, right? Like, it just stops you in your tracks. And sometimes you don’t make a decision, either in time or at all. And that can definitely negatively affect you in a number of ways.

Lara Taylor 5:44
So here like, this is not the worst case scenario. Plenty of people have had worse, analysis paralysis. I bought. I pre ordered Jedi survivor months ago. I knew it was coming out the day it came out. And I forgot to play it until Sunday when I had access to it at 9pm on Thursday, because I was so like, what am I going to do? Which game? Do I keep playing? Forbidden, forbidden West burning shores? I didn’t play that either. So not worst case scenario, but also I do have to justify buying the game at launch for cost. So

Josué Cardona 6:27
this sounds kind of fine. Sounds kind of like watching Netflix. And by watching Netflix, I mean, you’re just watching the menu, right? Like going through, you’re not actually watching any, any show. that happens when you have too many options.

Lara Taylor 6:41
There are a lot of options out there. I was talking to a client this week. And they mentioned something about like, they would like to rewatch their comfort shows or whatever, and I don’t rewatch anything. There’s just too much.

Josué Cardona 6:54
It’s too hard. Yeah. So. Okay. Okay. So does this happen to you with everything?

Lara Taylor 7:04
I don’t know.

Josué Cardona 7:05
or just every Seven years when I when a new Zelda game comes out?

Link Keller 7:07
I have Zelda induced choice paralysis

Lara Taylor 7:13
you know, Aloy and link kind of they kind of they kind of got a beef apparently, because I mean, this is just DLC. But,

Link Keller 7:25
but still

Lara Taylor 7:26
it’s all such good content. And I just, I don’t know. I mean, I’m okay, missing out on some things like I didn’t play The Last of Us until like, a couple months ago. So I can hold out. And the hype is real. And I am sure I will try to hold out until I beaten Jedi survivor. And ya’ll be talking about how excited you are about Zelda. And I’ll buy it, but I may not play it.

Josué Cardona 7:54
So it’s interesting, everything you’re talking about your your decision is in prioritizing it. Because you, you still believe you’re going to do the other one, whether you do or you don’t. You’re planning on just do in the order that you’re going to

Lara Taylor 8:09
do buy a lot of books, and I do buy a lot of board games and games on Steam that I never play. But most AAA games that I get, I buy, I play

Josué Cardona 8:21
right, right, right. But but so I think something that makes it even harder to make a decision sometimes is when you have multiple options. And that’s your only chance to choose you may not be able to choose those other things,

Lara Taylor 8:34
right

Josué Cardona 8:35
Like a j...

#351: Josué, Marc, and Link discuss books, what makes us fall in love with them, or bounce off them completely.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your very lovely co hosts Marc Cuiriz. And I am joined by Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:27
Hello

Marc Cuiriz 0:30
And Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:31
Yo.

Marc Cuiriz 0:34
All right, Josué. It’s your turn this week, I think I think you’re the one who said this who’d like shoved Lara’s idea. You’re like, no, no, that’s next week, I want to do this.

Josué Cardona 0:44
Lara has no power here. So I’ve been reading a fiction book for the first time in a long time. I am doing the whole Goodreads reading challenge thing I, I said, I’m going to read a book a week gonna do 52 this year. And so far, I’m ahead of schedule, according to Goodreads. But that’s because I’m mostly listened to, to nonfiction, which are often shorter than then some fiction books. But I’m, I’m on my first fiction book of the year, but I wanted to read it for a while. And it just it reminded me of that one time that I said on here that Ready Player One was one of my favorite novels. And link just looked at me with such judgment and disappointment. And it just it just, it just hurt so much to be rejected so hard. And it just, ugh, the yucking of my yum was so painful.

Link Keller 1:53
I do admit to that I yucked, I yucked that yum pretty hard. Even I’m pretty sure I apologized at the time. But for the record, I apologize. It was not kind or understanding of me to yuck that yum.

Josué Cardona 2:09
It just hurts so much.

Link Keller 2:12
I still don’t like Ready Player One. But I’ve actually through you and our conversations have come to appreciate what it is, which is very valuable in our conversations. So

Josué Cardona 2:24
Right. It’s like I get the critique, I don’t disagree with the with the critique. But this is part of what I want to get to. Later on, which is, you know, like, we can like books for different reasons. And this isn’t a book, but I remember watching rewatching back to the future recently, and thinking Marty sucks as a character.

Link Keller 2:46
he’s a real stinker

Marc Cuiriz 2:47
yeah Honestly,

Josué Cardona 2:48
and there’s so many movies, I’m like, I enjoyed this movie, but when I try to look at it as like, oh, do I like these characters? So many times like No, not at all, right? And I’m all about the world building, I want to know, I want to know what the magic system is like, I want to know what the technology is I want to know, you know, the culture, how things work, that’s, that’s something that I enjoy. So like, Ready Player One is a nostalgia fest. Like, I it was, it was like a dream come true to imagine all of these things happening at one time. I don’t I like at the time, I was so excited about that I wasn’t even paying attention to the the narrative of, you know, like the tropes that this this character is going through. But going back to the rejection, and the triggering of my abandonment issues, by Link Keller i i That’s one of the reasons why we do what we do. Like the origin story of geek therapy is all about that. It’s about having people, you know, and in usual context of what we’re talking about, right? And in some kind of therapeutic relationship, some kind of intimate relationship where something that you that you like, and you really appreciate is rejected. So I want to kind of jump into a few different things. One is just overall, why is reading good for you? Right, just that, like the basic the basics on that, just so I know that it’s not happening anymore. I don’t think people are like, Oh, books, rots your brain, you know, but but that used to be a thing. I used to be a thing, you know, and I have had clients and I know people who you know that kid who’s reading books while walking down the street. You know, like you can’t get you can’t get them out of the book. Because they love it. And then if it gets to that point, some people are like, Oh, You know, why don’t you be more social? Or why don’t you put the book down and go play with a ball and it’s like uhh I’d rather read my book. So there is still that kind of, you know, rejection that can happen. So I want us to talk about how to, like, just be mindful of, of, you know, don’t yuck yums. And then the other end of that, hey, here’s some, some actual real benefits to, to just reading in general. And then also, in between there, those two we get like books for different reasons, like a book can have problematic aspects and but or just suck in certain senses, right? It’s like, oh, the writing literally typos and misspellings and the grammars, bad but like, Yeah, but like, I really enjoyed it, you know, like, you can enjoy it or it can be meaningful to you. So that’s, that’s kind of very simply explained. Topic for today. So this one’s for the book lovers out there. Do you guys do you guys read a lot?

Marc Cuiriz 6:22
You know, when, when I was younger, I used to read like all the time, it was always a thing where usually whenever the power would go out, and because the power would usually be out for a couple of days, sometimes I would just immerse myself in books. I would I would often, like stay up late and read a book. And then my mom would come in at like midnight and be yelling at me telling me to go to bed and like No, no, just one more chapter. But as I got older, I stopped reading as much, I think is just once I got introduced to the world that is a PC gaming that dominated my free time. And as I got more and more into video gaming, I just kind of turned away from books. And I think it was also just like, a bit of a burnout too. Like, you know, growing up, I had a lot of those expectations of like, well, I’m, you know, I was the smart, I was a smart child, I was the one that was always doing well. So I was doing a lot of these more academic things. And by the time I was like a junior in high school, I just kind of got burned out of it. I was like I don’t, I don’t want to read anymore. But I’m slowly starting to get back into reading. I think I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already. But my wife and I, we tend to read a book together. Right now we’re reading a book called wayward for like one of our book clubs. So we’re reading that together, which is nice. It’s I think having somebody there to share the story with and also how to have discussions with about the story is is a nice thing for me because it helps keep me engaged because I’m very picky with my books. If I if a book doesn’t catch me right away, then I get bored with it. And then it just kind of throw it off to the side and say, Yeah, I’ll finish that later. And then I never finish it. I have a plethora of books in my bookshelves that I’ve started and have never finished.

Josué Cardona 8:28
You don’t have to finish them DNF them.

Marc Cuiriz 8:32
It’s not that like I it’s not like I’ve just like said like, No, I don’t want to finish this book. No, it’s just that like, it’s like, I’ll get back to it. I’ll get back to it. And then I just don’t I don’t get back to it. I just forget about it. And then I forget where I leave off. And I don’t want to start all over again.

Josué Cardona 8:48
I know Marc, I know what you mean. How’s wayward?

Marc Cuiriz 8:54
so far, It’s pretty good. It’s, it’s kind of it’s a different thing for me because I’m very much a person that likes when it’s clearly ...

#350: Josué and Marc talk about the particular discomfort of realizing you need help, and asking for it. From My Hero Academia to Batman, we love hearing stories about team members realizing the strength and power of actively receiving support.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am one of your co hosts, Marc. And with me is my doppelganger. My older version, Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:32
I don’t like the way you said older, like, emphasized it.

Marc Cuiriz 0:35
Well see you do it to Lara. So I felt it was only fair to do it to you.

Josué Cardona 0:39
Gotcha. Just you and me today.

Marc Cuiriz 0:41
It is the two Amiga ops. Back at it again, I don’t even remember when we were talking about this before. But I seriously don’t even remember the last time it was just the two of us.

Josué Cardona 0:51
i dunno I dunno

Marc Cuiriz 0:53
Well, anyhoozels I So over the past couple of weeks, I was getting caught up, I was kind of wrapping up the sixth season of My Hero Academia. And as I was watching the sixth season, I started, started pulling up this main theme. And I thought it was kind of interesting for us to kind of talk about and that is reaching out and sort of learning and understanding when and how to sort of reach out for help, especially when you’re not quite sure how to do so. Or you have always been in an environment where you really couldn’t. And so now you’re trying to figure that out for the first time and learn until you kind of turn to others for support. So, yeah.

Josué Cardona 1:48
Yeah, that was good.

Marc Cuiriz 1:49
yeah right? You if you haven’t seen season six, right?

Josué Cardona 1:52
No, no, no. But I mean, you can, you can, yeah,

Marc Cuiriz 1:56
so I’ll I’ll do some some light spoilers for those that haven’t watched it. It’s, I’ll try to keep them very light, very brief. Obviously, the manga has been out for a little bit. But if you’re like me, and only really watch the anime, I’ll try to keep it light and breezy here. So if you’re familiar with my hero, you know that the main character Midoriya he has the quirk one for all. And over time, he starts sort of gaining a better grasp of the power. And eventually he starts unlocking the other quirks from the previous users, and he’s able to start utilizing them. So now, essentially, he can have up to seven quirks with them. And so obviously, it kind of builds up to this final battle with One for all and all for one. And at the end of the fifth season, you start seeing that it seems like Shigaraki is going to be the new all for one. And so the sixth season kind of kicks off with like a battle between the two. And Deku, who is being classic Deku realizes after the fight that just by him being around everybody, he’s putting their lives in danger. So he decides to work with the pro heroes, and becomes almost like a vigilante to lure out all for one. But also, he’s effectively trying to do this on his own. So he’s nonstop, he’s he’s barely eating, barely sleeping. He’s constantly moving, taking out villains wherever he sees them, or any bad guys, whatever, trying to protect everybody. But this obviously wears him down because he’s trying to do this all on his own. And he even turns down, it turns away from all might and starts kind of branching out on his own. And his classmates don’t, don’t take this well. They’re like, Yo, you shouldn’t try to do this all on your own. Because you’ve been teaching us that. As heroes, we need to meddling when, especially when you’re not needed, or when you don’t need to is like the essence of being a hero. So they try to go and knock some sense into him. And it’s this like them, trying to match his speed and trying to go at the same pace as him to show him that they’re not going to turn their backs on him and they’re not going to become reliant on him because they don’t want to be reliant on him. They want to work with him and overcome this issue in this fight together as a team, and as friends. And this is where Deku who’s always tried to be there for others, is now learning that he needs help himself. And there is a particular quote from Uraraka. She says to like a crowd of people, when they do bring them back to the safe spot that just because he has a special power doesn’t mean that he is special, he still just a kid, he could have this special power, he can do all these amazing things. But that doesn’t make him special. He’s not invincible. He’s just a kid who’s doing the best that he can to try to bring back the peace. And I thought that was it, it was it’s a very deep, heartfelt moment. And it just like it really resonated with me, because I know, when I was growing up, I had a lot of those same struggles of like, learning when to reach out for help. I was the one that people would come to, to talk about their problems, work through these things, whatever it is that was going on. And I didn’t know how to reach out for help myself. So that’s why I thought this would be a really cool and interesting topic to kind of explore and see what other forms of media kind of touched on this.

Josué Cardona 6:13
Yeah. Well, that that whole chat, I don’t know how light and breezy that was. But definitely the the character Midoriya slash Deku. He, he pushes himself so much in the series, right? Like he’s got. I mean, he starts with no powers and right and early on the show, he’s got scars and tons of broken bones. And he’s just, he’s always pushing himself. Way, way too hard. And it’s almost ironic that he, the only reason he’s he’s able to keep doing what he’s doing is because of that, that nurse whose quirk can can heal him constantly. And but also his power, right? Like his Quirk. The all for one is all about, like, this group of people coming together. And they’re all in a way, like, not just giving him power, but also supporting him in different ways. As the show goes on, right? It’s like you’re building off of what else these people did before you, and there’s a part of them in you. So you’re not even alone in that sense. But then you’re saying that later on, he gets to the point where he feels like he has to do everything on his own. But then, but then so so you’re saying that he gets to a point where he starts realizing that he needs help, but it doesn’t know how to go about asking for it.

Marc Cuiriz 7:39
No, he is more so like the his classmates sort of show him that it’s okay to need help. Like you like it’s they’re saying, like, you do not have to do this all on your own. Because you want to protect us. We don’t want your protection, we want to be by your side. And so this is sort of like him realizing what when he needs the help.

Josué Cardona 8:11
like they want to help him but he doesn’t want their help.

Marc Cuiriz 8:14
Yeah. Because he wants to protect them. He wants to try to be the standalone hero that like no, I’m going to protect you. And they’re like, dude, no, we don’t want that. You’re our friend. Yeah. And so it’s him sort of starting to realize like, Okay, this is the time when I need help, because I can’t do this on my own. And I mean, I’m gonna guess that, because right now the season six is over, we’re waiting for season seven, I’m going to imagine that season seven is going to be a lot more of that like, okay, like, he’s going to start learning to rely on his friends and his classmates to sort of help them out. But I don’t know too much about that. I haven’t gotten that far in the man...

#349: The crew talks about characters in media being recast, and apply the metaphor to real life relationships. (Link apologizes for forgetting to mention the extremely good example of Greg from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend until after recording)

Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. I am link Keller and I am joined by my beautiful co hosts, Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:31
Hello,

Link Keller 0:33
Marc Cuiriz.

Marc Cuiriz 0:34
Hello,

Link Keller 0:35
and Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:38
Hey.

Link Keller 0:40
Today we are talking about recasts in things, probably mostly TV and movies, but I don’t know we’ll see how it goes.

Josué Cardona 0:55
No, no, no, mostly in real life.

Link Keller 0:57
Mostly in real life, watch out for Body Snatchers. They’re everywhere. You gotta stay on your toes.

Lara Taylor 1:03
For the record. One of one of the examples I have is a video game example.

Link Keller 1:08
Look at that perfection. Yeah, so. So yeah, we’re gonna be talking about recasts and how they impact the way that we think and feel about the media or the characters and and then probably try and make some metaphors to real life. We’ll see how that part goes also. All right,

Josué Cardona 1:41
yeah. Lara, why. What what did you like? You want to talk about recast? What what is a recast or

Lara Taylor 1:46
a recast is when you have someone playing a character representing a character and then either in the middle of the series or like in the middle of the season. In between seasons, something happens, someone, someone dies, someone’s difficult to work with, they got a better offer at another show or something, something happens you have a new person representing that character. This came up because I was watching Superman and Lois and in the first episode of the new season, they recast Jonathan Kent. The one of the one of the main characters, yeah, he’s one of the two twin boys, Superman and Lois’ kids. He, I think it came up because usually in a recast, and we can talk more about this, I typically have a hard time accepting the new person in the role. And there’s many reasons for that. But in this particular situation, I actually think after only watching him he was only a handful of scenes because the he wasn’t the focus of the episode. I prefer him as Jonathan Kent.

Josué Cardona 3:00
woah

Lara Taylor 3:02
He, I think the actor tried to mimic the mannerisms of the previous actor who played the role. He looks more like his twin brother. They’re fraternal twins. But he looks more like, like the previous one was almost a blond haired kid with a family of like, dark haired people. And so he didn’t quite fit in. And I think this, this kid fits in pretty well. And it’ll be interesting to see what else he does. I may regret my decision of saying that I liked him in this role. Because I’ve only seen him in one episode, but we’ll see how it goes throughout this season.

Josué Cardona 3:40
Yeah, you may change your mind. I don’t know. To me that’s surprising. Cuz would you say that that? That’s usually the experience? Or do usually,

Lara Taylor 3:49
I usually I usually hate recasts. There’s I can probably think of some examples of ones that I don’t mind. I grew up watching soap operas and in soap operas, people are recasted all the time. In in those situations, I think I would just I wouldn’t like them at first. And then I’d get used to them in the role and be like, oh, yeah, no, I don’t miss that other person. But there are other situations where I get attached to the person. This is how I envisioned this person, this character, how they speak how they move, and in some, usually it doesn’t work very well for me. I think that’s the case for a lot of people. In general, change is hard for people but especially if you have a visual representation of a person, and it’s it’s different from recasting in like, you reboot a show or you reboot a franchise, right like we’ve had how many different Batman’s we talked about that a lot. And everybody has their favorite one, but that’s very different from this continuity. This is supposed to be the exact same Batman as the Batman in the movie before and it’s a different person that actually We

Link Keller 5:00
I actually have a Batman example. It’s not Batman. It’s Katie Holmes was in Batman Begins as Rachel and then she got recast and was played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who in my mind when you’re like talking about that set of Batman’s, you’re all like the lady I picture, Maggie Gyllenhaal not the original, but that’s a rare example

Lara Taylor 5:35
because she is very important in that second one

Link Keller 5:38
she’s crucial

Josué Cardona 5:39
I completely forgot about Katie Holmes. Yeah, yeah. Hmm.

Lara Taylor 5:50
Some things that can make it easier for me with the is when the series plays with it and makes fun of itself. And I’ve one of the recasts I absolutely hated although I also did not like the movie in general was the mummy franchise. I love the first two. Rachel Weisz is Evie. I’m just gonna say that was that was pivotal to my young queerness. I will just put that out there. And I don’t even know who it was. That was recast as her in the third movie, the third mummy movie that people were like, there was a third mummy movie? But they make the joke like, oh, it seems like you’re a whole different person. And I thought that was funny. And it went along with also the bad humor of the rest of the film. But it was I mean, it made it easier for me to I hated the movie. So it was easier for me to like her. I just hated the whole thing.

Link Keller 6:56
The actresses name is Maria Bello, she played Evelyn in the third movie

Josué Cardona 7:02
oh really? I like Maria Bello. I didn’t know I didn’t know she was.

Lara Taylor 7:06
Well, now you have to watch it.

Josué Cardona 7:07
Yeah. I didn’t remember there was a third one.

Lara Taylor 7:12
Gently isn’t that one, I think as the Emperor,

Link Keller 7:15
yes. And Michelle Yeoh, which maybe that’s the reason to watch

Lara Taylor 7:19
okay, maybe I need to rewatch it.

Josué Cardona 7:26
I’m surprised by all of this.

Lara Taylor 7:29
I like blew your minds. Yeah, I

Josué Cardona 7:30
know. Yeah. So when you brought this up, the first thing I thought of was like, how much it can bother us? Sometimes it can be like you said it, sometimes it can be better. But it reminded me of, like, when I said earlier, real life? Yeah, like sometimes we have, like Marc Cuiriz is is not playing the role of Dr. Baby Brandon Saxon, right. But but he like took over that, that that role, you know, and so that’s kind of where we’re where my mind went to, when you started looking at an analogy there. Where sometimes you have people in your life sometimes a partner, sometimes a parent. sometimes even siblings, right, like, they can take kind of that, like, they take the room from that belong to somebody else, or somebody kind of takes that role. And it can also be difficult can be better sometimes. It um, it varies. And I’m and I’m wondering how, how much that works like how, how much how similar it is or how helpful it would be to use those examples of recasts and in movies, and TV shows and video games and even animation. Where to me animation is weird. It’s like everything is...

#348: The crew talks about adaptations; how they are successful or unsuccessful, what we expect and desire from them, and how they engage new and existing fans.

Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network where we believe that media is the best way to understand ourselves, and others. I know what I’m doing. I am so excited to introduce my co hosts and myself. I am link. Hi, hello, welcome or welcome back. Joining me today, my esteemed peers. Marc Cuiriz.

Marc Cuiriz 0:43
Hello,

Marc Cuiriz 0:45
Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:49
Hi, everyone.

Link Keller 0:51
And everyone’s favoritest guy, Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:57
Hi, Link, you’re my favorite too.

Link Keller 1:02
This week, oh, you know, we have a topic, we’ll see how it goes. I’m interested in talking about adaptations. Whether that is from a book to a movie, from a movie to a limited TV series, from a video game to a TV series, all of all of the ways that you could adapt a thing from one medium to another. And what, what that process is like, because, as we say, Here, frequently, Media Matters. And also the words of the guy whose name I’m forgetting the medium is the message. And so I am in interested in talking about adaptations that we enjoy that we feel did well, I didn’t do so hot. That sort of thing. We’re in a silly goofy mood here tonight. But I think I think it’s gonna be good. We’re gonna have a good time. Obviously, it’s a one week post, the end of The Last of Us series on HBO, the finale came out. It’s gonna be several weeks later when our listeners actually hear this episode. But that’s where we are currently in physical time space. So that’s at the top of my mind. But I do have some other adaptations I would love to touch on. But let’s let’s start with The Last of Us How? How are you guys feeling about all that?

Lara Taylor 2:45
My opinion currently is it’s the best thing ever.

Josué Cardona 2:50
Best adaptation ever or just best thing?

Lara Taylor 2:53
Both. I think I’ve not watched anything adapted from a book or a video game that has kept the feeling the same. Even though there are things that have changed, I think it does need to change. There are a few moments in the show where I’m like, I know exactly what’s going to happen. And like it happened the same way it did in the game. And I was like, Okay, there’s nothing new. But there were a lot of things that did change that were so emotionally impactful and made the story even richer. I think one thing for me is I started playing the last I’ve only been an hour into the Last of Us, remastered when I couldn’t play it anymore. So I played The Last of Us Part One bought it after the first episode came out. And that’s about as far into the game I’ve gotten and then finished that game in a weekend and played part two in about two weeks. And I really think that watch it playing through those games allowed me to see some of the stuff they’re trying to do to weave the two stories together. But they couldn’t do in the game because there are things from the second game that made it into the first or into the first season of the show. That just kind of weave those together a little better than I like it. The show made me cry. It did not make me hide in terror like the game did. But it was wonderful. And I love Bella Ramsey.

Link Keller 4:37
Agreed. Agreed. They are excellent. I think the last of the show was maybe the best adaptation I’ve seen. It’s definitely up there another really great adaptation is the book stardust into the movie stardust it has some differences but I thought that the the movie was really well done If it took the best ideas from the book and realized it into a motion picture that in a way that like really utilized the strength of film. But The Last of Us was so good. Yeah.

Josué Cardona 5:19
What? What makes it a good adaptation? Or like? No Better yet? Yes. How does it feel? Yeah, let me change the question. How does it feel to have a good adaptation?

Link Keller 5:32
I think that’s pretty contextual to the original medium, what it is being translated into. And also the viewers relationship with that story, right? We’ve talked about this before is like people resonate with like different aspects of stories, there are people who are really into world building, or people who are really into plot and there are people who are really into characterization. And so having an adaptation of a piece of media that is, you know, very much focused on one of those three things. And then the adaptation doesn’t do that same kind of focus or focuses on something else. Like that can be really cool, because you’re changing mediums. And so it’s like, it’s giving you a chance to explore stuff that wasn’t in the original content. But it can also be really like polarizing where people are like, that’s not what I liked about the original. And now this new thing is I don’t like it because it doesn’t have the thing that I liked.

Marc Cuiriz 6:32
Yeah, I think, for me, what I really liked about the show, because I think I’m in agreement with everybody, I think it’s probably the greatest adaptation. And just overall it’s it’s, it’s an amazing show. What I really liked about it was how it was a HUD took something that was, you know, initially just like for people that played video games, and it made it a much more generalizable thing. So now, people who don’t necessarily play the games could experience a really great story. And what I also liked was how to kind of fill in gaps of when you’re y’know, you’re just looting and shooting things. They added things to make it even more like even more rich and ultimately grounded the characters and made them made the story just feel a lot more full, like flushed out. Like, you know, like what the whole episode were focused solely on? Oh, my goodness, what are their names again,

Link Keller 7:43
Bill and Frank,

Marc Cuiriz 7:43
Bill and Frank, there you go. There you go. Like, that whole episode was just so beautifully done. And then in the way they incorporate different flashbacks to like, even, like, right when the outbreak was happening, you know, and all this sort of stuff, like I thought it was, it was so cool. And to have this experience then with my wife, who isn’t a gamer who doesn’t play those sorts of video games, and then have her being able to enjoy this story and experience it with me. And then having her come out at the end of the season saying that was actually really good. I really enjoyed the story. I ultimately thought like, this is this is great, because now it was something that I could share something that I’ve played through and really enjoyed. And I can share that with with her and have that deeper connection with it. And now it’s a story that we can enjoy together. Especially as now she’s will sit there and watch me as I’m playing through the second game. And will inevitably do that when when season two for it drops.

Lara Taylor 8:56
Yeah, I think there are so many people on the internet that are like it’s not they did this different than the game. That’s the whole point. I think there are for me, there are plenty of times where I’ve read a book and then watched the movie and been like, Well, why didn’t they add this and why didn’t they add that? I think there’s maybe one thing the entire season that I was like I really wish they had kept this thing from the game in the show. Everything they expanded on was great. I loved, Kayla and I had a conversation about Ellie’s casting and a lot of people were complaining about Bella Ramsey and she ...

#347: Marc and Link discuss stories about ‘What if’s and alternate timelines.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Marc Cuiriz, and I am joined by link. Hello, Link.

Link Keller 0:25
hello

Marc Cuiriz 0:28
So it is just you and I, this week,

Link Keller 0:31
the Dream Team,

Marc Cuiriz 0:32
the absolute goofball Dream Team, someone decided to leave the recording doors open for us. And we just weaseled our way in here. And here we are

Link Keller 0:46
going to tear it up. Someone’s gonna come home to a bunch of stuffing strewn about the house because we ate the couch.

Marc Cuiriz 0:57
That was a weird metaphor, but I’m gonna roll with it. Okay, so I have been doing some reading, which is a shocker because I have not been doing a whole lot of reading. But this lately I’ve been doing a little bit of reading. I’ve been reading this book with my wife. It’s called the midnight library. I’m curious, have you heard about it link?

Link Keller 1:25
I have heard you mentioned it before. And I’m very intrigued.

Marc Cuiriz 1:29
Yes,

Link Keller 1:30
I’m going to add it to my, to my extremely long list of books I want to check out from the library.

Marc Cuiriz 1:38
Yeah, it’s, it’s a book that it’s got a weird writing style to it. In terms of like how the chapters are laid out, like, one chapter is like, I miss my cat. That’s literally the entirety of this one chapter in particular. And

Link Keller 2:01
like a single line of a chapter? or a chapter worth of explaining how much they miss their cat?

Marc Cuiriz 2:07
like a single line,

Link Keller 2:09
Oh, okay

Marc Cuiriz 2:09
like I’m tired. I really miss my cat and something like that. And then the title is, the title of the chapter is something I’m not quite sure. But it it scratches an itch that I’ve been I’ve been wanting to scratch for a while. And that is the philosophical stuff behind it. So um, without doing a whole, like no spoilers or anything for the book. But it in general, the basis of the book is this woman Her name is Nora, she decides that she feels that the world would be sort of better off without her life. She’s been kind of struggling. And so she attempts to take her own life. And then she finds herself in this vast library. And in this library, all these books that are in there are actually all different variations of herself. And they’re all living different points of her life. It goes into quantum, it talks about quantum physics. And the idea that all different possible realities are happening all simultaneously. They’re just obviously a little off. And some things are a little different. But ultimately, they’re the same thing. And so she’s navigating through this one book called The Book of regrets, and it’s all of her regrets that she’s had throughout her entire life, and trying to find a life that feels like it’s the right one for her. So basically, she’s almost like hijacking a different version of herself and experiences that life. And if she ultimately finds it to be disappointing, then she gets pulled back into the library. And then she can find travel and try a new life and see how that works for her. So it it scratches that itch of like existentialism. And it’s funny because Nora in her root life as she calls it, she was a philosophy major. So it talks a lot about different philosophers and different ideas of the self and of how you view your own life. And I don’t know, I just thought it was really interesting. What do you think about it? Like what do you what do you think about the idea of alternate realities or alternate versions of ourselves? And the idea that they either are happening at the same time simultaneously what along our life or the idea that maybe I I don’t know in some way, shape or form. There’s a maybe a way that we could eventually see these alternate realities kind of like string theory.

Marc Cuiriz 2:23
Well, I think that the premise is very intriguing. And I do like multiverse alternate reality stories where a character has the ability to examine their life through a different lens. And I think that that’s a fun, a fun little game to play in your life. It can, it can be beneficial, in reexamining the way that you look at things, and events and people in your life, it can also be negative in that it becomes like a rumination thing where you’re obsessing over stuff out of your control or out of the realm of possibility. It’s pretty contextual, but I do think it’s a it’s a great premise for a book.

Marc Cuiriz 6:18
Yeah, I like how this book is really doing its best to be relatively subjective in terms of how Nora is sort of viewing both herself and her route life. And these different lives of her own. Like, when she jumps into life. She has no memory of anything that happened prior to this point. She’s literally jumping in and as like, what’s happening, what’s going on, I have no idea what’s going on. So like, in one life, she decided that, at one point in her life, she thought about being a glaciologist. So she jumps into this life. And then next thing, you know, she opens her eyes, and she’s on a boat in the Arctic. And she’s like, Oh, what am I doing here?

Link Keller 7:11
I’m cold.

Marc Cuiriz 7:12
And people are like, expecting her to know things. Because in that life, that Nora knows things, she’s the she’s a glaciologist, it’s her expedition. And she has to try to play it off. Like she knows what she’s talking about. But she’ll frequently ask questions of like, what are we doing here? Again, I’m sorry, can you remind me about this thing, this thing is such a such and all these sorts of different things. And I don’t know, I just think it’s, it’s an interesting topic to kind of think about, and I know for, I know, it’s something that’s kind of been explored and other things as well, like the most recent example I could think of is dr. strange in the multiverse of madness. That takes it in a different route. Instead of it like kind of being like string theory, or in I forgot how they worded it in the book. But they basically were saying it was like the idea of quantum physics and having them all overlap with each other. In this case, it was more along the lines of like, these different universes are coexisting, but they’re not like overlapping in any way, shape, or form. And then you have America Chavez, who can punch a star in, in these in these in these universes, and just be like, and I’m gonna try this one out for size and see how it’s like. But I don’t know, if you had that opportunity to sort of examine either different universes or see different versions of link. Would you do it?

Link Keller 8:51
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think I would, I think, mostly from a curiosity standpoint, rather than wanting to escape my current existence so much, but you know, the answer would be different if you asked me when I was 16 Yeah, I think that I think that that’s very intriguing. I think the idea of being able to see the what ifs of your lifetime and getting to examine that but I do think like, there is something that I find like, terrifying about like that, that idea of like, my consciousness jumps into another version of myself, but like, they disappear and I’m in their place and being having to figure out like, Oh, God, what are the rules here like that sounds very scary, very anxiety provoking. I would still probably do it just like again, like...

#346: Link, Lara, and Marc discuss the particular excitement and anxiety of sharing a beloved piece of media with others.

Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network, where we believe that we believe that media is really important and it connects us to each other and how we understand ourselves. And I am one of your hosts, Link Keller, I am joined by Lara Taylor,

Lara Taylor 0:34
Hello

Link Keller 0:35
and Marc

Marc Cuiriz 0:37
hello

Link Keller 0:39
My friends. Let’s do this.

Lara Taylor 0:44
yeah what are we talking about Link?

Link Keller 0:46
So we we are coming into this with a very loose topic, I didn’t really know what to pick. And so I, inspired by earlier today, I have decided, okay, wait, how do I let me let me do let me paint you a whole picture here.

Lara Taylor 1:06
Close your eyes and go on a little ride with Link Keller.

Marc Cuiriz 1:10
Unless you’re like me, and you can’t visualize it, in which case just just try to conceptualize this.

Link Keller 1:19
Tik tok showed me a not a sponsored ad, but an advertisement from somebody’s personal site. These very cool transparent post it notes so that you can write on the post it note and put it in a book and you can still see the text underneath. It’s very cool. They also came with strips, so it looks like highlighter strips.

Lara Taylor 1:45
Oh, that’s cool.

Link Keller 1:46
And I was like, that’s so cool. And I realized recently I had been not missing grad school, but missing elements of the school experience, one of which being reading books, and taking notes and marking up pages to you know, pull pieces together and formulate thoughts and all that and I was like, I miss doing that. And so this advertisement was perfect timing. I was like, oh, I want those so bad. And so I ordered them. I spent too much money on post its, to to be frank. But I’m very pleased. I ended up getting three different colors with the intention of starting a book exchange with two of my friends. We’re still sort of sussing out the specifics, but basically one color for each person. And we’re each gonna pick a book and fill it up with notes and then send it to each other. And so the book I picked was Gideon the ninth by Tamsyn Muir, which has the locked tomb series has become one of my favorite series. Recently, I’ve become lowkey obsessed with it. So I went to Portland over the weekend to visit some friends and went to Powell’s. Which you guys Powell’s is amazing. fantastical. I have said this to several people at this point. But I have been into a fair amount of like beautiful churches and synagogues. And I have never felt more spiritual than when I’m in Powell’s. It’s this huge Multi Floor bookstore. They have used books and rare old books and like up it upstairs in their like, fancy old book room. They do lots of events and stuff. There’s a coffee shop inside. It’s it’s great. I, I picked up another copy of because I already owned the locked tomb books that are out. So I picked up another copy of Gideon explicitly for this book exchange thing. And I started reading and marking up pages last night and I’m having a really good time but I am a little nervous slash excited about sharing this book with my two friends. Because what if they don’t like it? Or what if they like it, but they’re just like sort of lukewarm. Like it is like I don’t know if that’s worse or not. I have recommended this book series to several people at this point. Jessica is one of them. She’s working her way through the audio books. Thankfully she is very much enjoying it.

Lara Taylor 4:47
I think Kayla has either read it or

Link Keller 4:50
Kayla has read it. We’ve talked about it before. Yeah, and my one of my housemates asked to borrow the copy that I have and he read the first chapter and he’s like it’s not for me and gave it back to me and I was like, I’m not gonna take this personally, but I’ve taken a tiny little bit personally. And so I thought that that would kind of be a fun topic to discuss as sort of the emotional impact of sharing a piece of media with people that you care about, and the piece of media that you care about, and the sort of emotions that come up from that. Honestly, like a vulnerability of being like this thing is really important to me. I hope you like it. So Have either of you two ever done anything like a book exchange? Or just like a book recommendation, other media too video games, movies, something where you’re like, look, this is really important to me, and I want to share it with you. But I do have like, a tiny bit of nervousness that is like if you don’t like it, it is gonna break part of my heart.

Lara Taylor 5:59
Definitely, definitely. Um, I think the media Okay, Marc, you look really excited. Go ahead, Marc.

Marc Cuiriz 6:07
uh no, um, Here’s here’s some tales about how my heart was shattered into a million pieces.

Lara Taylor 6:13
I’ll bring us back up with some hope you get you break us down?

Marc Cuiriz 6:18
yes, I’m gonna break it down here. Okay. So I don’t know if it might have maybe have been mentioned a couple of times here on this to your podcast, that I am a Percy Jackson’s fan for ever in my life. And so when my when my why, what the words are hard when my wife and I first started living together, I was like, I want to read these books, I want you to kind of see the reason why I like them. And so I started like reading them to her as like my way of like, hey, I want to share this really this thing that I really enjoy. And she would fall asleep to it every single time. So she just like, they’re not her type of books. That’s totally fine. I get it. And I understand that, but it’s just like, my favorite series. And just to kind of keep up the charade of it. I kept reading the books, one for myself and two in hopes that maybe someone could say something that would eventually catch her. I’m on the Heroes of Olympus series. Still nothing. So you know, I think it’s safe to say that that ship has successfully sunk. And then another thing this is this is more video game related. But I remember introducing our friend to Assassin’s Creed. And this is this is where it hurt me the most. They had I set them up to play brotherhood because like, Brotherhood’s the good one, in my opinion, like the best one. They played through it. And I was like, Oh, what do you think of it? Like, tell me all about it? And they’re like, Yeah, I didn’t really I didn’t really like it kind of sucked. Combat was weird, blah, blah, blah. And I was like,

Link Keller 8:13
oh, no,

Marc Cuiriz 8:14
my heart. And after that, it’s just when it comes to Assassin’s Creed, I really have to suss people out before I I drop a suggestion like that. Because I don’t I can’t I can’t stand my heart

Link Keller 8:27
being burned

Marc Cuiriz 8:29
too many burns, man.

Lara Taylor 8:31
So many burns, because this is a piece of media that is so close to who you know, we talked about like link, you said in the beginning, this is how we learn about ourselves, that we learn about each other. And you’re sharing this piece, you’re taking this piece of your heart, this thing you love, and you hand it over to somebody, and please treat it gently. And they drop it to the ground.

Marc Cuiriz 8:54
They’re like, Oh, wow, Gee, thanks. So then just proceed to just smash it on the floor.

Lara Taylor 8:59
And that’s why here at Geek Therapy. We don’t like to yuck people’s yums we can have criticism of things we can like have...