Latest / Fandomonium! A Fandom Comedy Game Show / Cast Interviews - Drew Shulman: A Life Through Fandom

Transcript

Cast Interviews - Drew Shulman: A Life Through Fandom · Fandomonium! A Fandom Comedy Game Show

• 0:00
  Hello, leap Frogs. Welcome to our second cast interview in our Life through
• 0:05
  Fandom Interview series. It's been four weeks already. It's where's the Time Gone?
• 0:10
  Where's It Gone? As you can probably tell from the title, this
• 0:14
  interview is with our wonderful cast member, Drew Shulman. It has been incredible
• 0:20
  getting to know Drew over the last couple of years through podcasting, through doing
• 0:24
  this podcast, meeting him through his podcast that he co hosts with Marie Vigaroo.
• 0:29
  It is a fantastic supernatural podcast called Carrying Wayward. Audra can confirm it's
• 0:34
  an absolute must listen for any supernatural fan new or if you were into it
• 0:39
  back in the day. Drew and Marie are very intelligent with their analysis.
• 0:44
  It is its top tier podcasting. It's what all media podcasting should be.
• 0:48
  But isn't they hit those heights? Drew is also a voice actor. If
• 0:53
  you head on over to Drew Shulman dot ca, you can see and listen
• 0:57
  to a lot of the work that Drew has done over the years where he's
• 1:00
  done acting work, hosting work, narration work. So you know, if
• 1:03
  you listen to Drew's beautiful voice throughout this interview, and you're in a position
• 1:08
  where you're looking for voice actors, performers, narrators for whatever project you have
• 1:14
  going on. Seriously, consider Drew the man is very professional. We have
• 1:19
  recorded so many podcasts together at this point. He is a joy to work
• 1:23
  with. Yeah, seriously, Drew deserves so much success. Drew deserves everything.
• 1:29
  That's what I'm going to say, and it was a treat to learn
• 1:32
  more about him throughout this hour of conversation. The conversation takes kind of a
• 1:37
  similar structure to the interview with Jen from last month. I think they're going
• 1:41
  to have the same questions going forward, with just some slight tweaks here and
• 1:45
  there. But it's a testament to the questions that we get different answers from
• 1:49
  from Drew. I learned a lot of things about this wonderful human being during
• 1:53
  this interview, because that's how millennials get to know each other more, isn't
• 1:57
  it, via an hour of slightly contrived conversation. So I'll be back after
• 2:04
  the interview with some admin. I'll put links in the show notes to everything
• 2:08
  Drew Shulman related, well, not everything, not social security and all that.
• 2:13
  Do they have that in Canada. I should have asked. Anyway,
• 2:15
  here's the conversation. Well, hello, Drew, how are you. I'm
• 2:23
  doing fantastic. I am sitting here in a lovely sunny afternoon where the entire
• 2:29
  town is shutdown. Were snowed in. Yes, I couldn't leave the house
• 2:31
  if I wanted to. Is that is that classic Nova Scotia stuff being snowed
• 2:37
  in? I've been told it is. Last winter was surprisingly mild my first
• 2:42
  winter here. But this literally was like the we our neighbor called a like
• 2:47
  x fling of hers to come plow the driveway now, and we like said
• 2:51
  we also have him come to our driveway. I can use of that little
• 2:54
  black book. There you go. And then now like all that work was
• 2:58
  for nothing because it's back to where it was yesterday, Like it just like
• 3:00
  reset overnight. Yeah, oh, you'll have to get another X flame to
• 3:06
  uh to clear it this morning. I mean, our entire neighborhood is so
• 3:10
  good, Like we have a neighbor who's retired who just like on like on
• 3:14
  a quieter day when he's something else to do, when you actually a reason
• 3:15
  to leave the house will just be like all ply everyone's driveway I have a
• 3:17
  tractor I like to use what yeah, just just casually has this like tractor
• 3:23
  with like a retrofitted like plow on the front and like the chain tires and
• 3:29
  just like plows the street and driveway. Nice. That's I mean, that's
• 3:32
  very neighborly. Oh yeah, this place is like to call Gilmore girls.
• 3:37
  This very stars hollow esk of just like neighborhood people doing stuff like, oh
• 3:40
  lovely, it's the most adorable place. Our neighbor brought us like Christmas gifts
• 3:45
  that were like actually really like sweet and thought out gifts and we're not just
• 3:49
  like oh I went to the dollars for ro got some candy. Mm hmm.
• 3:51
  We were like shocked. I like went home, like she's almost like
• 3:53
  actual gifts. I'm gonna go bake her something. Shit shitty neighbor and the
• 3:59
  only the only Jew in theighborhood, I don't do Christmas. It's a good
• 4:02
  excuse to be fair, an excuse to bake, which I was like,
• 4:06
  yeah, no. We moved into our little town home community right in like
• 4:12
  March of twenty twenty, so like I could not know our neighbors any less
• 4:16
  because for a ya straight, no one was interacting with anyone, and now
• 4:20
  it's just these kind of like awkward smiles and nods, and I'm thinking we're
• 4:24
  probably closer to the end of living in this area than the beginning, so
• 4:27
  I don't need to get to know you in any way. I'm just a
• 4:30
  shitty neighbor. Whereas like we made the comment that we moved here in October
• 4:36
  of last year and we had a neighbor come over her two kids came over
• 4:42
  with like hand drawn cards and like home baked goods for Christmas, and we
• 4:46
  were just like in shock. Like we lived back in Montreal for like seven
• 4:49
  years in the same house and like we knew one neighbor by name, mostly
• 4:54
  because we like their dog, and here are neighbors who we've barely met are
• 4:58
  like we're baking you treats and you cards. Welcome to the neighborhood. It's
• 5:02
  cute. It is, yeah, it really is. Like for anyone who's
• 5:06
  seen come from away, I know it's it's that's said in Newfoundland, but
• 5:11
  like that vibe, that friendliness of just like our neighbor will be like,
• 5:14
  hey, I'm having everyone over in the backyard for a fire, and like
• 5:16
  everyone shows up with like drinks and gummies and food. Oh that's so lovely.
• 5:20
  I'm gonna be the change I want to see in the world. Next
• 5:25
  time, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna bring gummies to everyone.
• 5:29
  That really helps. Well, Drew, thanks for hanging out on a
• 5:32
  Well, I was gonna say a Sunday morning, but like you said,
• 5:34
  it's an afternoon. Why you are so true Time zones? Yeah, time
• 5:39
  zones. There is a time zone more further east than Eastern Time. Yeah.
• 5:44
  Yes, that's something I've learned through our friendship. Yeah, a lot
• 5:47
  of people that we know who live not so much on the East Coast or
• 5:51
  in Canada have learned this because it's a really weird thing to consider. Yeah,
• 5:56
  you absolutely should be Eastern time. That you should hold Eastern Time.
• 5:59
  The Eastern time should be what like nearly Eastern Time or something like that.
• 6:02
  And then there's actually one further eastern US still within America. What No,
• 6:06
  don't confuse me, Drew, don't do this. Oh I know. There's
• 6:10
  so there's Eastern, then there's Atlantic, and then there's specifically Newfoundland who's an
• 6:14
  hour into half ahead of US. Oh, not even a clean hour,
• 6:16
  just an hour and they had an extra thirty. Okay, I see what
• 6:20
  you do in Newfoundland. I see. Yeah, No, they are they
• 6:25
  are even we consider them the weird spot, although I came to go visit
• 6:28
  it fantastic. Well, as you know, Drew, you probably heard Jen's
• 6:32
  interview, so you know what kind of thing we're going to get into here.
• 6:34
  I would like to know your life through pop culture. I feel like
• 6:40
  in the game shows you get across your very charming, enigmatic personality, but
• 6:45
  you get to know the real Drew. Oh yeah, you're very enigmatic,
• 6:47
  very enigmatic. Oh I do not know. I had this this aura.
• 6:50
  I love it. You're absolutely you're an enigma, which I think is what
• 6:55
  enigmatic means. I used the word without fully thinking about what it means.
• 6:58
  That so much I can't do you know, I think it's a valid term.
• 7:00
  I think I just sort of like I attributed to being people who were
• 7:01
  like you don't know anything about versus like where it's like, I feel like
• 7:05
  I talk a lot about myself maybe I mean maybe, but our show doesn't
• 7:10
  leave much grounds for it. Where true, this this little space will So
• 7:15
  first things first, Drew, I would like to know what was the first
• 7:18
  pop culture media you were obsessed with. This could be like a VHS or
• 7:24
  DVD you played constantly on repeat, or a toy you couldn't put down or
• 7:29
  had to collect all of as a as a child. What was this for
• 7:31
  you? Well, one, I can definitely say we are of the same
• 7:34
  age. It was a VHS, Yes, yes, we were. So.
• 7:39
  My family was very big on like I think both my brothers and myself
• 7:42
  I have two younger brothers. We all sort of had a phase where we
• 7:45
  had like the one movie that was like the one we kept watching over and
• 7:47
  over of course, and mine was jungle Book. Oh, nice, classic
• 7:51
  Disney jungle Book. I I feel like I like I don't remember it as
• 7:57
  much as like my parents tell me about it, but like it was the
• 8:00
  where like if I wanted to watch something, that's what I wanted ninety percent
• 8:03
  of the time. Yeah, And like I still feel like I know it
• 8:05
  so well. I don't think I've rewatched it in a good dozen years.
• 8:11
  But like the bear necessities with Blue is something I still like says like a
• 8:16
  character to fighting Strait. In myself, I am just a big relaxed bear
• 8:18
  who's happy with life looking for Mother Nature's recipes, I assume, and I
• 8:26
  do love Honey, There we go. I connect a lot with bears and
• 8:31
  animation. Winnie the Poo and I have a lot in common as well.
• 8:33
  Yeah, there's a lot of good bears in animation. Yeah. Yeah,
• 8:37
  And I think I also like I had that thing where, like I learned
• 8:41
  later on there was a connection and I don't think I realized was. I
• 8:43
  think in the Chippendale's Rescue Rangers, their pilot was like Blue's cousin or something,
• 8:48
  but it was just the same bear. Okay, it's like the Blue
• 8:52
  Cinematic Universe exactly. But that was like one of those movies I just as
• 8:58
  like as a kid, I washed over and over. I really enjoyed,
• 9:01
  like looking back at it even, like I really love some of the characters
• 9:03
  and like I've looked up some of the voice actors to see where they are
• 9:07
  now. I think it's conned. The snake, I always thought was such
• 9:11
  a brilliantly fun character where there's a like hypnotizing look definitely, and so well
• 9:16
  animated as well, like it's such it's well, it's just that classic Disney
• 9:20
  animation from them from their first boom period. Yeah, that like I'm a
• 9:24
  sucker for Disney, Like even moving forward, I have tried to see every
• 9:28
  Disney movie still, Like I think there's one or I think now two that
• 9:31
  I have not seen, Like there are two most recent releases. I think
• 9:35
  it was that Wish one that kind of got reviews. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 9:39
  yeah, I think I know that, and then there was an there
• 9:39
  was a CG one uh Riya in the Last Dragon. I still haven't gotten
• 9:43
  around to that one yet. Yes, yeah, I mean me neither.
• 9:48
  I'm quite a bit behind. I tend to keep up with Pixars. Pixars,
• 9:50
  I tend to keep up with that's it. Pixar will always put the
• 9:54
  effort into for that one. Like that is even the wife like as much
• 9:56
  as the Disney ones will like she'll usually watch with me, the Pixar ones
• 10:01
  are the ones where it's like we'll both take the time and like carb out
• 10:03
  an evening and like watch dinner, like have a drink bit. Yeah yeah.
• 10:05
  So with the with the Jungle Book VHS, was it one of those
• 10:09
  situations if you'd you'd watch it until the VHS wore out a little wit.
• 10:16
  I definitely believe I've worn that one out, Like I look back. My
• 10:20
  father is a hoarder, and clearly with my wall of junks around me and
• 10:22
  you're only seeing like a quarter of it, I'm still in that boat.
• 10:26
  In fact, there is a box of Batman to my left of just like
• 10:30
  my dad was like, here's a bunch of old Batman stuff I had.
• 10:31
  Yeah, you're right, you're a very functioning holder. I think I try.
• 10:35
  I try, at least it should look pretty and I'll just be in
• 10:37
  boxes exactly exactly. But my father being the hoarder that he is, and
• 10:41
  my mother being a bit of a collector as well, a lot of those
• 10:45
  VHS is like the boxes were captain they were organized and put away, and
• 10:48
  I think by now a lot of them may have been like donated or garage
• 10:52
  sale. But like we had like those original like you can picture those like
• 10:54
  those like hard plastic cases used to come in, yes, not just those
• 10:58
  like old paper sleeves. And I definitely I remember like I had the box,
• 11:03
  but I think the VHS was gone at some point because I think I
• 11:05
  just wore it out eventually, Yeah, and it was just not playable.
• 11:09
  The opening Disney music sting was starting to get warped and like sounding like a
• 11:13
  nightmare. Oh my god, Yes, I definitely, Like, I mean,
• 11:18
  my brother has also had their movies we did that with, Like I
• 11:20
  think our copy of Lion King from my other brother definitely had that. So
• 11:22
  like I've seen that one enough times to kill a person. Yes, yeah,
• 11:28
  Lion King was a was a big one in our house as well.
• 11:30
  For sure, it was. I think I I think I I listened to
• 11:33
  a podcast recently where they just like discussed the story of Hamlet. Yes,
• 11:37
  and like I've always noted it's really ind the Lion King, but then like
• 11:39
  seeing it now, like he making the connection of like, oh it really
• 11:43
  is just Lion King. Yeah, well the Lion King's just Hamlet. I
• 11:46
  guess it's more appropriate. Shakespeare did come first, I've been told. I
• 11:50
  think, yeah, maybe just by a couple of years, though, I
• 11:52
  reckon that's all fantastic. I mean, is there was there anything else sort
• 11:56
  of in your that early childhood time that you would just sort of couldn't bow
• 12:01
  down? Uh? Yeah, So I was so thinking about this question.
• 12:05
  I'm like, was there anything else that I did? Like, I'll watched
• 12:07
  a lot of and the other two that came to mind a little later were
• 12:09
  The Nightmare Before Christmas, I watched on like a regular monthly basis Nice not
• 12:16
  just Christmas and Halloween. Nope, I loved it all the time. I
• 12:20
  think it started my love for musicals. While I have no musical talent on
• 12:24
  my own, I very much enjoy them Nice And we used to go again
• 12:30
  pulling things out of the past Blockbuster. Yes, it was a very regular
• 12:33
  family occurrence. We would go and we'd each pick like one movie like maybe
• 12:37
  one for the family, the one for each of the kids kind of thing,
• 12:39
  or like a one or two, and the one that I remember renting
• 12:45
  the most, Like I think my father would joke sometimes that like at some
• 12:48
  point it would have been more cost effective just buy the damn movie instead of
• 12:50
  renting it, Like yeahighteene times. And I know Jason will appreciate this was
• 12:54
  my next door neighbor Totoo like lovely, yes, and like I really think,
• 12:58
  like it's kind of funny to look back at like an amazing animated like
• 13:01
  Claymation musical with great voice, another amazing like animation classic with great voice acting,
• 13:07
  and then like one of the most like instrumental like animated like Japanese films
• 13:11
  of all time. It's like have very much shaped the way I went forward,
• 13:15
  Like like listeners, Like you'll kind of see like how each of the
• 13:18
  things I talk about next will like link back to one of these almost yeah,
• 13:22
  lovely lovely yeah listeners. It's this is still a game even though it's
• 13:26
  an interview. Watch listen out for the connections that Drew's making between those early
• 13:31
  childhood obsessions. So we'll move on to the next question now because I don't
• 13:35
  know how to do seguys, let's talk a bit more about community as it
• 13:39
  relates to to fandom. I guess the question is, what was the first
• 13:43
  fandom you remember being a part of. But it doesn't necessarily have to be
• 13:46
  a full community. It could just be chatting with a friend and making a
• 13:50
  connection or even making a new friend because of a fandom. I have a
• 13:54
  few here, so preamble a few with the quicker ones before I dive into
• 13:56
  the big one. Nice, but like the first one I really remember like
• 14:00
  falling into and like realizing this wasn't just like oh I like this, It
• 14:03
  was like, oh, I like the like mystique of this was Power Rangers.
• 14:09
  Cool. I I like again I think I was again my father,
• 14:13
  bless his heart, was very much the like if he could do something to
• 14:16
  surprise me, he always tried to. So, like when Power Rangers came
• 14:20
  out in America, we didn't get the toys in Canada for like a few
• 14:22
  years. There was like a weird delay, especially Quebec because of language barriers,
• 14:26
  the transit and packaging. So like he would actively like find excuses to
• 14:31
  like drive to the US, which was again like two or three hours ish
• 14:35
  to like get me a Power Ranger's toy that I couldn't get back home.
• 14:39
  So I very much became like the cool kid in school who had Power Rangers
• 14:43
  early and like knew a lot more about it because of the toys and the
• 14:46
  information of the packaging. Yeah, was it as smuggling across the border situation
• 14:50
  of like what have you got in the car there, sir? Is it
• 14:52
  is it drugs? No? No, it's just all of the Power Rangers.
• 14:56
  I mean honestly, like I wouldn't given my father's perpen for drugs.
• 15:00
  I would not be surprised he was stopped for other reasons. Uh, but
• 15:03
  definitely, like I could imagine him crossing the border, like not mentioning like
• 15:07
  clearly unwrapped like toy. Yeah, and like again my father's propensity. Some
• 15:13
  of those toys are still in this this house here in Nova Scotia today and
• 15:16
  I have the original boxes with them. That's beautiful. Oh he was nuts
• 15:20
  for that kind of stuff. Like some of the transformers on the back of
• 15:22
  that shelf are like original like from when I was like five or six.
• 15:26
  Oh fantastic. But I feel like PARTA Renders was the first one that like
• 15:28
  I understood there was more like I joined the fan club and like got like
• 15:31
  the box with all like the merchant stuff, and it collected like the little
• 15:35
  like before trading card games where thing you had just like the stills from the
• 15:39
  show on like stickers essentially, yes, and like the books to fill out,
• 15:43
  Like I had a bunch of those all those stick of books for different
• 15:46
  fandoms really were Oh yeah. It was like it was a time where like
• 15:48
  every movie and TV show had like a collectible card set yep, and like
• 15:52
  they had the rare ones like oh you might get like a signed foil red
• 15:56
  Ranger and it was like, yeah, I never saw it doesn't exist.
• 16:02
  I remember going to like malls where they would have like two guys dressed up
• 16:04
  as the Rangers taking photos with kids, Like yeah, you know, and
• 16:08
  I got to show that photo off at school and be like the cool kid
• 16:11
  for a day. Oh Power Rangers were big. Oh yeah, Like that
• 16:17
  was like it was the first one where I really felt like there was more
• 16:19
  to the show than just like I enjoy watching this. It was I get
• 16:22
  to play it with my friends and like collect the things and like, yes,
• 16:26
  get involved, like looking back now, like the mythos and lore and
• 16:29
  like the research that people have done in it. Like I don't watch Power
• 16:33
  Rangers anymore, but I definitely keep up with like the fandoms and what's going
• 16:37
  on and like the new series and like I've started watching like essay series about
• 16:41
  like the production and like the themes. That is a big thing for fandoms
• 16:45
  that I've sort of left behind. Is I still If ever an academic thing
• 16:48
  pops up, I'll catch myself reading it and like, like, I don't
• 16:52
  know, analyzing something within. I was gonna say a lot of the rings,
• 16:56
  but I still love a lot of the Rings. But and anything like
• 16:57
  that is a good way of staying in touch with fandom. But I feel
• 17:00
  like there's definitely fandoms like I'm hard pressing of many more besides Power. I
• 17:04
  think another one too, which I also feel like it was kind of community
• 17:07
  driven. Was Digimon was very much like a oh yeah, got into it,
• 17:11
  got like really into like the lore and the deeper stuff and like looking
• 17:14
  up like the non American stuff that like wasn't translated yet or like fan translations
• 17:18
  or like learning about it before it came to America type stuff that like very
• 17:22
  much like kept me and my friends together. We would like we like would
• 17:26
  find those like toys that were like imported from Japan, so like they were
• 17:30
  like characters we hadn't seen yet, so we didn't know their names. Yes,
• 17:33
  And like while I haven't watched a new Digimon series in years, whenever
• 17:37
  one comes up, I'll still be like, oh, what's it about,
• 17:40
  or someone will do a TikTok about it and I'll be like, well,
• 17:41
  there's a rabbit hole for the night. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
• 17:45
  But uh, the biggest one, the one that like I look back on
• 17:48
  as like I want to say, life changing, literally because despite what I
• 17:52
  am now, I was pretty quiet in school, Like I found it hard
• 17:56
  to connect with people, and I was like kind of a shyer kid until
• 18:00
  I became the source of all knowledge in my school for Pokemon. Nice,
• 18:06
  Like it felt like I look back at like cartoons where like you had like
• 18:08
  kind of like the like weird recess like mechanics of things like oh, this
• 18:14
  kid does this and this kid does that. Like I literally had a spot
• 18:18
  in the schoolyard, but I would hang out in where people would literally line
• 18:21
  up to talk to me to ask about which way should they evolve their evy,
• 18:26
  which of the two fossil should they pick up? Hey, gold and
• 18:29
  silver are coming out, which one do I get? And because I had
• 18:32
  a friend at the time who's father was a businessman who would travel to Asia
• 18:37
  brought back gold and silver in Japanese early, so like we got to play
• 18:41
  like however far we can get without being able to read Japanese. Yeah,
• 18:45
  like maybe like the first rival fight if we were lucky, But like we
• 18:49
  knew things that people didn't know. And like I became this like like that
• 18:53
  guru on top of a hill answering, like you get three questions today you
• 18:59
  can ask me how to have three different Pokemon. But that's it. There's
• 19:02
  a line of fifty kids who want to know what typing is best to fight
• 19:07
  dragons? But like that was it. I That's like when I realized,
• 19:10
  like, oh, being a nerd about a thing that people are into like
• 19:15
  can make me make friends and like build a like group around me. Like
• 19:18
  we literally, uh we were a group of four guys all in school together
• 19:25
  and we had each come up with like our team, and we're like the
• 19:27
  school's literal like Elite four from the Pokemon games. It's like people would like
• 19:33
  actually like be like, oh, I think I could fight you guys,
• 19:34
  Like who can I play first? And like we were undefeated. That's that's
• 19:38
  so cool. I mean. Pokemon definitely a big one for our generation in
• 19:41
  terms of the sort of school yard fandom because and like the cards getting banned
• 19:47
  and not being able to bring them into school and then having to like meet
• 19:49
  up after school even though you brought them into school, you just hadn't taken
• 19:52
  them out of your bag in fear of them having like Shiny Gangga getting confiscated
• 19:57
  confiscated or something like that. But yeah, Pokemon is a huge one.
• 20:02
  I think as well. With Pokemon, it's like it definitely has its law,
• 20:06
  but its law is very like sort of like surface level information in terms
• 20:11
  of like almost like database information of like remembering the types of Pokemon, what
• 20:15
  they evolve into and and and all the different typings and all the different gym
• 20:19
  leaders and stuff like that. It really does feel like it should be not
• 20:25
  not everyone's entry level fandom, but it's a good entry level fandom. It's
• 20:27
  a good way to get into that like yeahom fandom space. I've had it
• 20:32
  compared to me before, and I've like i've like I've since like regurgitated it
• 20:36
  as like my favorite way to think about it. It's like the same way
• 20:38
  like you would think of like an average kid who's into sports, memorizing all
• 20:42
  the teams and their staffs and their numbers and their records. It's like I'm
• 20:47
  just doing that, but instead of being real people who do things, it's
• 20:49
  like digital sprites and numbers that were predetermined with like basic variations like yeah,
• 20:55
  yeah there, like someone there was a great skin on nine years ago.
• 20:59
  It was the idea that like sport fandom and like any other fandom, is
• 21:02
  the same thing, like you dress up as your favorite ones, you know
• 21:04
  everything about it, you like follow all the news and rumors. It's like
• 21:08
  it's the same thing. Oh definitely, Yeah, sport is nerdy as hell.
• 21:11
  They just they just won't admit it. Well some of them admit it
• 21:15
  now to be fat, that's it. But yeah, Pokemon for me was
• 21:18
  very much like a breaking out point and really like I could see the tipping
• 21:22
  point in grade school of going from like, oh, like I have my
• 21:25
  core group of friends, but like we're kind of like the outliers because we're
• 21:27
  nerds. And then suddenly like, oh, the nerdy thing is cool and
• 21:30
  everyone wants to know about it, and suddenly I'm the resource because I just
• 21:36
  absorbed it all. Yeah, and it's all still there, Like I still
• 21:38
  to this day, Pokemon is still like one of the franchises I like,
• 21:41
  I take the day off work when I'm employed to like go pick up the
• 21:47
  game and play it. Like one of the most traumatic, like jokingly traumatic
• 21:51
  things was I went for laser surgery a few days before I want to say,
• 21:56
  Sun and Moon came out, okay, so my wife lovingly when it
• 22:00
  picked up my copy for me so i'd have it, but I couldn't play
• 22:02
  for like four days. Yeah. Maybe like no audio description feature at that
• 22:07
  point, some accessibility features that could have helped back then. Oh yeah,
• 22:11
  no, I just literally that was three days of like agony in bed listening
• 22:15
  to audiobooks. Yeah yeah, like maybe listening to the opening screen music,
• 22:19
  just being like this is what this is what I can consume for now exactly.
• 22:23
  I remember like I had a pair of like those like super heavy duty
• 22:26
  sunglasses they give you because your eyes are so lie sensitive. Yeah, and
• 22:30
  like the first like they said like, after like a week, maybe you
• 22:33
  could like watch a TV with the glasses on. I was like three days
• 22:37
  and I'm like, I'm risking it. Yeah. Oh that's I mean,
• 22:40
  that's such a good answer to that question. We love Pokemon big fans here
• 22:44
  at gate Leap as all three of us. Yeah. I think that was
• 22:47
  the first episode of Yours I listened to like when you approached Mary and I
• 22:48
  to be on an episode, and I was like, well, I'm gonna
• 22:51
  go back and listen to. I know what we're getting into. I saw
• 22:53
  a Pokemon I like sold. Yeah, I think we're talking about doing another
• 22:59
  one this year. We'll have to have you on as the as the Pokemon
• 23:02
  Expurtury. For sure. I'm claiming that one now. Yes it is yours,
• 23:07
  and look this interview series is good because we've learned, the listeners have
• 23:10
  learned you've had LACEX surgery. That's the kind of information you go yeah out
• 23:14
  on this podcast. All right, we've talked about maybe more the childhood stuff,
• 23:18
  the sort of early fandom stuff. Let's move on to that awkward angsty
• 23:22
  time. Let's move on to the teenage years. What were some of your
• 23:26
  teen brain obsessions, Maybe to something you had to know everything about. That
• 23:32
  was for me that was a big teenage thing of like feeling like oh I
• 23:34
  must know everything, I must acquire all of the knowledge, and how how
• 23:40
  important was finding these these fandoms to sort of your emerging identity at the time.
• 23:45
  So I think this is where there was definitely like weird like chunk of
• 23:49
  time in high school where like Pokemon was for kids, so I had to
• 23:53
  like drop it and only picked it up when I go back to college and
• 23:56
  realize how dumb that was. Same. But I kind of kept on that
• 24:00
  same train and I got into a lot of other anime. I mean,
• 24:03
  this was again like when dragon ball Z was big our local Canadian station.
• 24:08
  YETV was kind of like picking up like every night would be like a block
• 24:11
  of like a few animes they had translated the big one at the time.
• 24:15
  I remember being like Inu Yashaka, but also like Yu Yoh is huge,
• 24:21
  And I got really into that card game as well, like legit playing it,
• 24:25
  and like again, I became a fandom. I really like I knew
• 24:27
  a lot about I knew all the cards, the rarity, like the best
• 24:30
  setups, the strategies, got into the deeper lore of the show, and
• 24:36
  just I kind of got to a point in high school where like, I
• 24:38
  want to just make as many friends as I could, so anyone who was
• 24:41
  into something, I would kind of join whatever fandom they were into and just
• 24:47
  like see them the way people saw me with Pokemons, like they were my
• 24:51
  resource for it, so I could just talk to them about it. To
• 24:53
  go back to this is where I kind of got into Lost as well,
• 24:56
  because it was very much a friend was really into it to him talk about
• 25:00
  it forever until I finally went, I'm just gonna watch it and kind of
• 25:03
  like you just sort of dove into its head first, read the theories like
• 25:07
  this is like early YouTube days. You're watching people talk about like their theory
• 25:11
  but figuring something out. Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely early YouTube stuff.
• 25:17
  Yeah, it's good that you recognized it in other people as well.
• 25:19
  I think that's like, not that it's my place to say, but I
• 25:22
  think that's super healthy because I remember doing that as well, of like,
• 25:26
  oh, I don't always have to be the super knowledgeable guru on this thing.
• 25:30
  I can I can recognize the guru in someone else and they can be
• 25:33
  my font of knowledge for this thing, and it is It is great just
• 25:37
  having one foot in a fandom. Sometimes I think of just like, oh,
• 25:40
  this isn't my main obsession, but I do like this thing. Yeah.
• 25:44
  I think it was a nice way to like connect with people because it
• 25:45
  was like there was kind of a running joke during high school and like I've
• 25:48
  seen an extent into my current like my life now where people will say I
• 25:52
  make friends very quickly. Like it even became a joke at my last job,
• 25:56
  like I'd been there for a year and they were like already, like,
• 25:59
  oh, you're you know other province, You're gonna have trouble making one
• 26:02
  hundred friends. And I'm like that already how people know me here is the
• 26:03
  guy who just makes everyone's friends. And their example was like you went to
• 26:07
  go fix a girl's computer got invited to her party and she made you brownies
• 26:11
  today, And I'm like, Okay, I think I see what you mean.
• 26:14
  Yeah, but I think it was just it's the I enjoy I so
• 26:17
  enjoy. Like I think it's the reason I love your show so much as
• 26:18
  well, and being a part of it is learning about these different fandoms and
• 26:22
  getting to hear and like just like ingest all this fandom knowledge. Even if
• 26:26
  it's a fandom, I'm not already into your planning to get into. Yeah.
• 26:30
  So high school was very much like I had a small group of friends
• 26:33
  who are really into generic thing from hot topic that was big at the time
• 26:37
  that like they were super into, so I like, let me learn about
• 26:41
  it. I think a lot of us just internet culture stuff. Like it
• 26:42
  was very much that Charlie the Unicorn and a Folmy Soho period show. Yeah,
• 26:48
  the salad fingers millennials making the mack on the internet. Yeah, fun
• 26:52
  fact, salad fingers. I actually met the guy who made the music for
• 26:55
  it. Oh nice? Did no way the guy who had the music met
• 26:59
  the music for it would not have salad for fingers. No, he was.
• 27:03
  He was a surprisingly very normal guy. He was like a friend of
• 27:06
  a friend's dad who worked for like an animation studio, and this was like
• 27:08
  a side gate he picked up like through a thing. It was always that
• 27:12
  weird, Like Montreal had a really weird like scene for like the film industry,
• 27:17
  Like I knew a bunch of people who like were in like in or
• 27:19
  worked on like modern media. Like I have a friend who animated the finale
• 27:26
  for Arthur. Oh wow, yes, he animated that. And the gay
• 27:30
  rat wedding was that? That was also an author. Yes, I had
• 27:33
  a gay rat wedding at the end of the series. That's that's beautiful.
• 27:37
  Wait, hang on, was it mister mister Ratburn, the teacher Ratburn a
• 27:41
  Ratburn came out as gay and he had a partner in the wedding. That's
• 27:44
  so beautiful. So I support gay rat weddings. Oh my goodness. It
• 27:51
  was a random Amazon find when a sticker came from but it was just the
• 27:55
  perfect thing. It is. Auth is one of those things that will be
• 27:57
  forever lodged in my man because it was on like oh God. Just the
• 28:03
  songs too, like the rare songs they did. Still my brother and I
• 28:07
  still sing them to each other. Yeah, I had the musical episode they
• 28:10
  did. I've got like the phrase I was Jackal Jackal hide Jeckyal Hyde hide
• 28:14
  Jackal just stuck in my head. That and the library card have just been
• 28:18
  burned into my mind for all of existence. Oh my god, Oh it's
• 28:22
  so good. All right, we definitely rewound their to prior to teenagers.
• 28:29
  But the answers you gave for the teenagers very good, very relatable. Let's
• 28:34
  move on to more adulthood now, although this, this one could apply and
• 28:40
  go back to be a nostalgic thing, which media, text or fandom has
• 28:44
  been your source of comfort in difficult times. And I'll say the same thing
• 28:48
  I said with Jen, where it's it's not comfort as in like fully switch
• 28:52
  your brain off in a like mindlessly doom scrolling kind of way, but comfort
• 28:57
  as in, yes, this brings me great joy, like mac and cheese
• 29:02
  or mashed potato or something like that. Mac and cheese is up there.
• 29:04
  The mac and cheese fandom is huge. There's a phantom. I want to
• 29:08
  get into the mac and cheese, yes please. I think more recently,
• 29:14
  I got into a real binge. I can't remember what really started it.
• 29:18
  I you know what I can think of. I can think of someone specific
• 29:22
  in my past, a coworker I used to work with in a summer camp
• 29:25
  who turned me onto Invaders ZIM of all shows. Oh yeah, and that
• 29:29
  led me into for years and still to this day, an animation, yes,
• 29:33
  geared to adults, but also just animation that had like more modern messaging.
• 29:40
  I think the big two being Adventure Time in Steven Universe, Yes,
• 29:42
  and that is very much like when I'm going through a tough time or I
• 29:45
  need something that I can just like put on and know is good, I
• 29:48
  will dive into one of those two shows and just like hit a random episode.
• 29:53
  Yeah, Infinity Train is up there as well, like any of those
• 29:57
  like I call kind of the like the modern like the modern better animation were
• 30:02
  like suddenly like we can explore queer identity and like growing an evolution of the
• 30:07
  characters. Actually, of all, I think it's it's animation that because modern
• 30:11
  better animation is a great way summit up, because that's that's definitely what it
• 30:15
  is. But it's it's like animators sort of late twentys early twenty tens figured
• 30:19
  out that they could make programming for those teenage years, like for the sort
• 30:25
  of like the adolescence and like start introducing you to concepts, like in a
• 30:30
  very nice and soft, gentle way, compared to say, like SpongeBob might
• 30:37
  be more like just specifically this. You could put a four year old in
• 30:40
  front of SpongeBob and they'd left their head off. You could put a fourty
• 30:42
  year old in front of SpongeBob and they'd left their head off as well.
• 30:45
  Oh yeah, but yeah, just the things like Adventure Time and Steven Universe
• 30:51
  especially, Yeah, very much like oh no, you're you're making programming for
• 30:57
  a demographic that has not been sev too previously. Yeah, Like for me,
• 31:03
  I think it's like I think I was a bit I was definitely old,
• 31:06
  old enough that like the messaging I could see it, but it wasn't
• 31:10
  like something I was like learning from, Like I was just impressed to see
• 31:11
  it. Yes, yeah, but like Adventure Time, there is an arc
• 31:15
  where the main character, Finn literally has like he's playing both women he likes
• 31:19
  against each other because he likes the power, and they find out about it
• 31:23
  and like both cut him out and he is just like and it's not just
• 31:26
  like oh they end of the episode, he learns a lesson. It's like,
• 31:29
  no, no, he has permanently damaged his relationship with these two characters.
• 31:33
  Yeah, moving forward, we see him deal with it and eventually rebuild
• 31:36
  their relations with them in very different ways, but like the potential for romance
• 31:41
  or any inkling of that is gone and he's aware of it. Yeah,
• 31:45
  It's like this is like I imagine there are kids too young to understand that,
• 31:49
  but like we'll go back and rewatch it when they're in their teens and
• 31:52
  be like, oh I get that now. Yes, definitely, for sure.
• 31:56
  I think it's comforting both because I love the show, the characters,
• 32:00
  the messages, but also knowing that like this content exists and like younger generations
• 32:04
  are absorbing it like makes me hopeful for the world. Yeah, definitely,
• 32:07
  It's about some of the only things that do make me hopeful for the world,
• 32:12
  is uh is that kind of thing? Yeah? And then like the
• 32:15
  bonus points of like the incredibly deep, like chaotic lore of adventure time,
• 32:20
  Like I have I have rabbit holed in that one hard before, Like there
• 32:23
  is some really deep interesting stuff. Yeah, I've rabbit holed occasionally with that
• 32:29
  one. I need I feel like I need to learn even more, and
• 32:31
  I didn't watch the new ones either, so I feel like I need to
• 32:35
  do that. They are, they are very good. The little like mini
• 32:37
  like four episode series they did like for mini movies essentially, and then the
• 32:40
  Fiona and cakespinoff. We're all very Yeah, I'll check it out. I'm
• 32:45
  happy. I think it's it's been a perfect amount of like here's content without
• 32:49
  like let's oversaturate and like like make it useless. Yes, so it's like
• 32:52
  I always want more, Like they've really hit a good point with that.
• 32:55
  Yeah. I love the fandoms that achieve that waiting for things. I like
• 33:00
  getting excited about stuff. It's actually because I'm into a lot of things,
• 33:04
  and therefore you want everything to to be spread out and have time exactly.
• 33:08
  Like it's like there's the parts of me where it's like there's certain fandoms like
• 33:13
  Sherlock where it's like they've said they're doing another season, but it's been what,
• 33:16
  like Shaw, how many fucking years has it been? BBC? Like
• 33:20
  give me something. Yeah, they'll do like they'll do nostalgia ones down the
• 33:23
  line when they're both much older. I think that's it. Like like Doctor
• 33:28
  Who at least is nice where it's like at least this year we got like
• 33:30
  four episodes for Christmas instead of one, and we're getting more episodes soon versus
• 33:35
  like in a year. Yes, yeah, I'm excited, like I am.
• 33:38
  Yeah, but I've definitely said like Doctor Who was one of those franchises
• 33:42
  where it's like I've definitely got like a year plus with no new content and
• 33:44
  just been like yeah, waiting, give me, come on, now,
• 33:47
  come on. I'll quickly ask you about other comfort things because we talked mainly
• 33:52
  about like the sort of TV and serialized stuff. I know you watched Jungle
• 33:57
  Buck a lot as a as a child, but is there a film that
• 34:00
  you just go back to and rewatch on a regular basis now? Yep,
• 34:05
  And I can definitely say from experience I have this was on DVD. At
• 34:07
  least we're a little more modern, but I definitely had to replace the disc
• 34:10
  at least once, if not twice. Lovely, But it is the film
• 34:15
  big Fish. Big Fish, Oh so again, Kim Burton, so my
• 34:19
  name before Christmas connection again? But big Fish is one of those films that
• 34:23
  like a teacher showed it to me in high school and I had such a
• 34:29
  visceral, emotional reaction to and it's become like my like it's the when I
• 34:32
  need a good cry movie. Yes, oh my god, there is something
• 34:37
  about it and like I identify with his father in the movie so much.
• 34:44
  Yeah, just it. It's one of it's one of those films that it's
• 34:45
  me is just like a masterpiece. Yeah, I've not seen it for ages.
• 34:51
  I could picture the when you said it, I could then picture the
• 34:53
  dbd R with the the way that they do the text in the trees there.
• 34:59
  Yeah, and it's just it's for like for myself, who is someone
• 35:02
  who is so into voice acting and storytelling and content creation. It is very
• 35:07
  much the story of a man who tells stories and his relationships and it is
• 35:12
  always it has always hit me very very close to my heart in a way
• 35:15
  that like it felt like it was made for me, almost like very vain
• 35:19
  of me, but no, tell me a very personal connection. Yeah.
• 35:22
  When when movies do that and they can sort of hit you, I was
• 35:27
  gonna say right in the fields. But it's more than that, isn't it.
• 35:29
  It's when they hit you on a deep existential level of like you said,
• 35:32
  oh was this made for me? Am? I? Am I the
• 35:35
  target audience of this. Yeah, there there is something about it, like
• 35:38
  the entire movie, just like there are so many moments where it's like every
• 35:42
  time I watch it, like something else stands out is like that's what I
• 35:45
  needed right now. Yeah, and I also love the fact that it weird.
• 35:49
  Like my favorite weird fact about it is that it has a weird crossover
• 35:52
  with the Dumbo movie. Oh yeah, the live action Dumbo. Dane de
• 35:57
  Vito plays the same ringleader in both movies, so they have why You're Connected
• 36:00
  universe Danny DeVito verse. Sign me up, Sign me up for that fandom.
• 36:06
  Hell yes, brilliant. He's is he reprising his role for the new
• 36:12
  Hercules. They're doing live action Hercules, and I think I believe he is.
• 36:15
  I think I saw somewhere that he is and I am like very excited
• 36:19
  for that. Yeah, I think it will just there'll be much more Frank
• 36:22
  Reynolds in it now that he's older. Be very fun. That's it.
• 36:25
  It's like, But I think he's one of those He's one of those actors
• 36:29
  who like very much understands what he is and like, yes, comedy that
• 36:31
  he has become. I think Nicholas Cage in the more recent years has kind
• 36:36
  of embraced that as well. Very self aware guys, for sure. That's
• 36:38
  it. Like, I think there's something to say when a celebrity understands what
• 36:42
  they are and like who they are and can kind of play into it a
• 36:45
  bit. I love that, definitely, Definitely we love self awareness. All
• 36:50
  right, Let's let's move on to some lovely positive things. Uh, what
• 36:53
  is your current favorite fandom or community to be a part of so present day?
• 36:59
  That could be multiple things, because as we know, we're very pluralized
• 37:01
  when it comes to our fandoms. I I kind of love so I got
• 37:05
  this this question so again you I'm gonna part the veil. Yeah, open
• 37:08
  the Kimona. You preempted me with these questions, so I'm able to kind
• 37:13
  of look at them and think it at least like put down like a what
• 37:15
  fandom and then I'll talk about it like my note is just like name of
• 37:19
  fandom, Like I can go from there, yes, but very specifically here
• 37:22
  when you kind of worded it as like the IRL versus like the not,
• 37:25
  and I really have one for each lovely. So I got back into Magic
• 37:30
  the Gathering. It was one of those card games that like I got into
• 37:34
  it really young. I realize now, like we did not know how to
• 37:37
  play it properly. Mm hmm. I then in college picked it back up,
• 37:40
  just using the cards I already had and a few friends who like built
• 37:44
  decks. And then I picked it up again in conjunction with my new brother
• 37:50
  in law being really into it and I wanted a way to connect with him,
• 37:52
  to get and spoken in college because we knew each other before he married.
• 37:55
  It to the family, which is kind of fun. Yeah, and
• 37:58
  then a bunch of my coworkers played. I was like, you know what,
• 38:00
  let me put a few hundred bucks into this, build like a decent
• 38:02
  deck and I can, like, you know, hang out with my coworkers
• 38:05
  and my brother in law every once in a while in play m and my
• 38:07
  cards arrived. I built the deck, I got it already, I went
• 38:09
  to we had a great night playing at work. And then I moved to
• 38:13
  a new province three days later. Yeah, so I arrive in this new
• 38:17
  place and I'm like, you know what, this is an amazing excuse to
• 38:21
  like keep playing, be social, meet people. And It's how I've really
• 38:22
  been meeting people and building my social network out here of board gamers and nerds
• 38:28
  is going out and playing Magic one or two times a week. Yeah,
• 38:30
  and it has really become a fandom that I love the game. There's a
• 38:37
  lot of lore to it, and like I've picked up on little bits of
• 38:38
  it here and there, but like it's not one that I've deep dived into
• 38:42
  the way I have like with other franchises, Like, you know, I
• 38:45
  know my cards, I know some of my opponents plays. I like know
• 38:49
  some of the names here and there, but like I couldn't tell you the
• 38:51
  story of why this guy did this and they're on this planet in this world
• 38:54
  and this guy's a villain. Like, yeah, I'm sure I could dive
• 38:58
  into it, but I haven't. But it's really become that fandom that is
• 39:00
  my my way of connecting with people in a very fun way and also my
• 39:07
  like need to collect and build and like gamify everything. Yes, yeah,
• 39:12
  it's very dangerous. You are the You're the child of a holder and a
• 39:16
  collector. Oh yeah, no, that's that's amazing that there are so many
• 39:22
  positive sort of like personal and interpersonal things that can come from from a hobby
• 39:27
  like that. I've personally never gotten into Magic, but know that I would
• 39:30
  love it because I've loved different card games, and I was like big into
• 39:34
  Heartstone for a few years and playing that online and stuff. But I've always
• 39:37
  wanted to get into Magic but not had like an entry point because it's so
• 39:42
  intimidating. Is a big thing. So one day, Drew, You're going
• 39:44
  to have to teach me how to play it. Only if only you could
• 39:46
  go right now and buy a pre built deck that has themed specifically around the
• 39:51
  Lord of the Rings, if only I have. I have bought a couple
• 39:53
  of those cards just to look at them, because they are very I picked
• 39:55
  up I pick up the sour On deck I actually played as one of my
• 39:59
  main decks, the Doctor who Wants. They're great. Nah. Yeah.
• 40:01
  The stuff they're doing is it's how they're gonna get me that. I mean,
• 40:05
  I've officially bought some Magic product. Oh yeah, so it's how that
• 40:07
  gotten me into it. I mean not it's already for next year twenty twenty
• 40:10
  five, but we're doing Final Fantasy and Marvel crossovers. Oh wow, So
• 40:15
  it's just gonna get like that's gonna be It's gonna yeah. They just like
• 40:17
  keep adding like I was showing Jason, I have I have an Optimist Prime
• 40:20
  deck. Yeah, I have a deck themed around a fucking Transformer. Like
• 40:23
  the fact that that is a thing, the fact that you can do,
• 40:27
  Like presumably you could do Optimist Prime versus sour On and that would work as
• 40:30
  a as a mode. Yeah, uh no, there is Legitimately one of
• 40:34
  the guys I play with has a deck that is themed around starscream. Okay,
• 40:37
  but like his wind condition is the ring rates. Yes, so literally
• 40:40
  it is starscream to like build up his board and then like, here's all
• 40:44
  nine ring rates, I'm gonna destroy you. It's like I love that that's
• 40:47
  a thing you can do. Like, yes, we had we had a
• 40:51
  girl come by a while ago to play. She would just like literally she
• 40:52
  was like one of those like I'm in town. I happen to be walking
• 40:55
  around the city, saw a shop that does cards. I kept one deck
• 40:59
  on me in case I ran into a store and we need to have like
• 41:01
  a what we call rule zero conversations. My deck isn't officially legal. My
• 41:06
  commander is a joke card they printed that doesn't really do anything over the top,
• 41:08
  but it's just it's the joke card. And it was a mile little
• 41:12
  pony. She then just she then stormed all her asses with a bunch of
• 41:16
  Pegasi and un records. It was amazing, fantastic. It's a it's very
• 41:21
  gate Sleepers in the spirit of gate Leapers of just like very moving between fandoms
• 41:24
  and uh, sort of smashing fandom ideas together. Yeah, I'd love to.
• 41:30
  I now am feeling inspired to create more games that involve people sort of
• 41:36
  say building an army and being like, okay, and now now I put
• 41:39
  sour On on the front line with the Ring Raiths, but they are backed
• 41:44
  up by stormtroopers. I could see a very fun game. We'll talk after
• 41:47
  this, We'll make something happen. So was that the that was the in
• 41:52
  real life? That was the more like making connections fandom? Is there is
• 41:54
  there more online one? The other one that is more my online one though
• 42:00
  it is it brought one of me and my best friends closer. It's been
• 42:02
  like our biggest connection point because I got him into it is Destiny, Yes,
• 42:06
  which I feel like is one of those ones where I need to like
• 42:07
  preamble that it's a video game from the makers of Halo after they left the
• 42:12
  Halo franchise. It's we're going into our tenth year of this franchise existing.
• 42:15
  Wow. Uh, And it is just like it is like that kind of
• 42:20
  deep lore where like they have like that really nice thing where they've like gone
• 42:23
  back to reference things from like six or seven years ago that you kind of
• 42:27
  thought were a dead end or like there wasn't really an answer to and like,
• 42:31
  yes, some of it has been retconed. Some of it's like people
• 42:34
  have come out and been like, oh, yeah, we wrote this.
• 42:35
  We didn't know we were doing because constraints, but like they now have like
• 42:39
  they've roped in community members who are heavy in the lore and do like the
• 42:43
  YouTube videos to like help them collect the lore to make sure they're not like
• 42:45
  breaking like k fabe anywhere. Yeah. Yeah, they're like they've published like
• 42:52
  full on books of like the lore from the games where it's been like cross
• 42:55
  checked by fans to make sure they're not like making mistakes or like conflict information
• 43:00
  or like where things have been fixed. That's good. It's good that they're
• 43:02
  doing that. It feels like they should be the ones who are doing it
• 43:07
  and making sure, but it's good that they allow the fans to so it
• 43:10
  be like hold them to account and be like yeah, No, that doesn't
• 43:14
  actually line up with what you said seven years ago exactly. And it's been
• 43:16
  very nice because it's been able to build this like amazing world and like something
• 43:21
  that might be like such an off comment once has now circled back and we've
• 43:24
  realized the ramifications of this thing mm hm, and they've built a very I
• 43:30
  think. I think the thing I like the most is as I do the
• 43:32
  Supernatural podcast with Mary and we talk about the queer coding of characters and how
• 43:37
  there's like debate and controversy. Recently, there was one in the news that
• 43:43
  was kind of big in the Anime Circles, another anime for my childhood that
• 43:45
  I was really into, like I tried to get into, but like there
• 43:47
  was too much more to figure out with Gundam and in the most recent series
• 43:52
  they basically had a queer couple as the main characters, and like it was
• 43:57
  very clear in the show that like the result was day marriage, even though
• 44:00
  it was never shown on screen. Yeah, and then like when people talked
• 44:04
  about in interviews afterwards, they were like, ah, we don't want to
• 44:06
  say for sure, we want to leave it to interpretation. And the backlash
• 44:08
  was so bad that when the DVDs came out, they like fix some of
• 44:12
  the animation to like very clearly indicate like look their wedding rings and like wedding
• 44:16
  photos in the background. Like no, no, no, there was a
• 44:19
  confusion. We've decided there is no confusion. They are a queer couple.
• 44:22
  Deal with it. Good. Good. So to be in a fandom that
• 44:25
  is like so open, so inclusive has included so many queer relationships and so
• 44:30
  many like just again, we're in a universe, but there's different species and
• 44:34
  different types of creatures and like yeah, there's like there's no like ick factor
• 44:37
  to any of it. Everything has opened. The cultures are like they've tackled
• 44:40
  racism and amazing ways and like been able to like build these amazing stories around
• 44:45
  it. And again, it's one of those fandoms that I love, Like
• 44:49
  when a new dungeon comes out and there's like this one quick cut scene and
• 44:52
  like that opens up like all beyond Wikipedia for seven hours reading about old like
• 44:58
  notes from the game to see like what connections this actually has to Yeah,
• 45:00
  this specific piece of lore. Oh that's yeah, that's fantastic. I must
• 45:05
  say I'm not super familiar with Destiny as a as a fandom, but it
• 45:10
  sounds very rich, and I love the fact that it's like an accepting community
• 45:15
  as well, and that there are many issues with representing Quia characters and stuff
• 45:19
  like that. No, it's it's been very nice seeing them like build these
• 45:22
  characters. It's been nice seeing them kind of like I think one of my
• 45:25
  favorite things they did. I think this is like one of those like I've
• 45:28
  held up is like the if your lore can do this, you are winning
• 45:30
  it lower and like storytelling without getting too nerdy. There is a story like
• 45:36
  a lore entry within the universe of like a very like you know, classic
• 45:40
  like the villain comes to town and the good guy like fights back and saves
• 45:44
  the town. Mm hm. This villain is like held in infamy. He's
• 45:47
  like a well known like character. And then you go through a mission in
• 45:51
  the game like years and years later where you realize that the entire story was
• 45:54
  fictional and the actual story is very different, and you get to like learn
• 45:59
  about these characters and like like dig into their past and like eventually figure it
• 46:02
  out to like, oh, maybe the good guy wasn't as good as we
• 46:06
  thought he was, and there was some osterior motives to the villain and like
• 46:08
  it turned like it almost does the cliche of like, oh, the good
• 46:12
  guy was the bad guy the whole time, but like without getting into it,
• 46:15
  like it goes even deeper than that. Yeah, but it's in a
• 46:17
  very sort of real modern relate exactly like analyzing our own histories and uh,
• 46:24
  maybe the myth the myths that we've been told were actually just that, and
• 46:29
  we're just myths and and don't line up with the realities, and it's important
• 46:32
  to learn the realities. It very much feels like that. I just watched
• 46:37
  something recently with like you know, talking about Christopher Columbus and how like in
• 46:39
  America there's a holiday for him, but like he never made it to America
• 46:43
  and he was wrong on all these things and he like just like but he
• 46:46
  gets a holiday. It's like, you know, we have this story of
• 46:49
  him, and now we're in a world where people are like, well,
• 46:51
  let's talk about the actual history. Yes, yes, Like well it's fiction.
• 46:54
  It's amazing that a fictional universe can have those layers of like fiction within
• 47:00
  fiction. Almost. Yeah, definitely, definitely, And we do have those
• 47:04
  that we've got those same info drops in real life. It's called peerless journalism
• 47:08
  and black history. So yep, fantastic. Do you think we covered I
• 47:13
  think we covered most of the stuff there with community, I think we can
• 47:15
  move on to the negative stuff, and I think we're gould to move on
• 47:16
  next one. Yeah, I rambled a lot about Destiny. I was like,
• 47:19
  I know, I got my little Destiny bubble and me throw it up.
• 47:21
  We'll hopefully it's Moole involved. It's good because I want to learn more
• 47:22
  eventually to do a gate Leapers episode. And the only thing I knew about
• 47:27
  Destiny I might not leave this in, but the only thing I knew about
• 47:30
  Destiny before you spoke about it, Drew, was there was just this ww
• 47:34
  backstage documentary where they were just like looking at the what the wrestlers were doing,
• 47:37
  like while other matches were happening and stuff, and the big show a
• 47:43
  big, big wrestler from the attitude around that kind of thing. He was
• 47:45
  just like taking long rips off the biggest vape I've ever seen and just playing
• 47:52
  Destiny on like a pop like a foldable, like the kind of laptop you
• 47:57
  can put in a in a scraw Maybe it was even an Xbox in side
• 48:00
  like a Carrie bag or whatever, and he was just like, yeah,
• 48:02
  this is pretty much what I do all day. It's just play Destiny.
• 48:06
  There's a there's a few I always I always loved we can leave the citings.
• 48:08
  I wanted to say that I love the like when you see celebrities playing
• 48:12
  things like I forget who it was from The Fast and the Furious whenever they
• 48:17
  were filming, like he was playing Destiny in his off time and he was
• 48:21
  like, so we're all like so it was like a big thing of like
• 48:23
  if you ever see him in the game, and it was like just shouting
• 48:24
  him out. Yeah, you know, like a lot of the voice actors,
• 48:29
  unfortunately, Lance Redd aggress in Peace, who was one of the major
• 48:31
  voice actors for Destiny, you know, he would like so often like share
• 48:36
  content of him like actually playing in the game and enjoying it. And you
• 48:38
  know, I look back to as much as it's not ww it's it's whatever
• 48:43
  the other aw not even not even wrestling, no UFC. Ronda Rousey who
• 48:49
  like played Pokemon before her games. Yes, yeah, like that was the
• 48:52
  thing she was into. I always liked seeing like that, Like these nerdy
• 48:55
  fandoms extend beyond just like us people, but like into like the larger like
• 49:00
  collective. Yeah, and especially with the sports people, that's good as well.
• 49:02
  They're finally accepting that they're nerds exactly. I love that. All right.
• 49:07
  Well, for a brief pocket in this podcast will be negative, even
• 49:10
  though most of the time, you know, we like to be positive and
• 49:13
  make jokes and everything. But I'm going to ask the question, what fandom
• 49:15
  or community are you conflicted over being a part of but you can't quite quit
• 49:22
  Or this could also be one that you were a part of and you left
• 49:25
  because of toxicity. I can't think of any that I was a part of.
• 49:29
  There were two toxic that I've since left, Like I know, I
• 49:31
  think, like again, like using kind of the very wide umbrella of like
• 49:35
  anime in general, there are a lot that kind of get a little cringey
• 49:38
  or a little bit like there's like an era like you think of like people
• 49:43
  in an anime convention, and like even now you still see them made fun
• 49:45
  of and stuff, and like, I think it's unfair. But the reality
• 49:50
  is there are some people in those levels of like fandom that are a little
• 49:52
  bit like much and they unfortunately become the outliers who like the image is painted
• 49:58
  of Yeah, but I like how that has been getting better over years,
• 50:00
  Like I feel like comic cons and events have become a little less like that's
• 50:05
  a nerd convention versus like that's a fandom event. Yes, and even like
• 50:08
  I would say, Doctor Who is one that I'm like, I'm very embedded
• 50:10
  in the Doctor Who fandom. I love Doctor Who. I the specials were
• 50:14
  great, and I am lucky enough that I feel like I'm not in enough
• 50:19
  of like I'm not I'm in the fandom, but not in the like social
• 50:22
  spaces forward enough that like I'll hear about it here and there, but never
• 50:27
  see too much of the like backlash of like Doctor Who's getting too woke?
• 50:31
  Yeah, and like actually to leap on that for a second. Sure,
• 50:36
  I think it was in the second year of doing gate leapers, we were
• 50:37
  like, oh, we should do a Doctor Who episode. We should like
• 50:40
  look for some Doctor Who podcasters because Doctor Who fans loved to podcast, so
• 50:45
  there's going to be loads out there, and that definitely there were definitely lots
• 50:49
  of like lovely uh inclusive podcasts who were very much happy with the I think
• 50:53
  at the time it was like female doctor that kind of thing. But they
• 50:58
  didn't respond to my emails. The only people who responded were people who once
• 51:00
  they responded, I found out, Oh you hate Doctor Who. Oh you
• 51:05
  hate everything. It's become I And then they'd be like, yeah, well,
• 51:09
  we'd love to be on your podcast, and then, having consumed an
• 51:12
  episode of their content, which would just be an hour of complaining about wokeness,
• 51:16
  I was just like, h No, I actually don't think you're a
• 51:19
  good fit for our podcast because of the views you expressed on your podcast.
• 51:23
  And it was good to be able to say that. And I'm going to
• 51:27
  say I'm very impressed we're able to do that. Good for you. Oh
• 51:29
  I love confrontation, Drew, I just can't do interviews. Yeah, But
• 51:35
  it was just interesting how that clicked. That was my first time finding out
• 51:37
  that there was this sort of space within the Doctor Who fandom, and I
• 51:40
  think it's it's a very British thing. I think it's like the the Brexit
• 51:45
  right wing kind of people then just attached all that ideology to the to the
• 51:50
  only thing they love. But yeah, I'm looking forward to doing a Doctor
• 51:54
  Who episode in the future. That is yeah. One. I definitely again
• 51:59
  again like I feel like aways feel black. I always feel like I want
• 52:00
  to like give space for other people to be on the show, but like
• 52:02
  there's so many fantoms. I definitely want to be No Climate Now, Climate
• 52:06
  Now, Drew, Doctor Who, the Pokemon Redo Adventure Times on there for
• 52:08
  sure. Yes, sorry, I was gonna say, if ever I get
• 52:13
  to host an episode, I'll I'll do the Destiny one for you, yes,
• 52:16
  but uh yeah, No. I think Doctor Who. I think one
• 52:20
  of the issues and I think it's it's interesting because like I have an idea
• 52:23
  of why I think the issue is there, and it's the age of the
• 52:25
  franchise, sure, because I think and I'm not blaming like boomers or the
• 52:30
  reason for this, but like I think people who grew up with it,
• 52:32
  there's an older audience for it. It's not as like like as concise an
• 52:37
  age group. It's into it that like there are different generational views. But
• 52:42
  then like the irony is like Star Trek, I feel like has that also,
• 52:45
  but I don't. And I get I'm not a big Star Trek guy.
• 52:46
  I've only seen like a handful of episodes here and there in the new
• 52:50
  movies. But like I feel like with the exception of people who are bitching
• 52:52
  about the new movies being too like them bumbastic. I don't think I ever
• 52:58
  really saw any major complaints about this series. And Star Trek is famously like
• 53:01
  such a diverse and open franchise. Yeah, from the from the stop,
• 53:05
  from the original series. Yeah, yeah, Well blessed Lucille Ball for bringing
• 53:08
  a Star Trek and inclusivity. Yes, thank you Ball. Yeah. And
• 53:15
  I just think like that's another one of those franchises that, like, you
• 53:17
  know, I think the other like the Big One again kind of going Umbrella
• 53:21
  is like just gaming in general. Like one, it's I have my niche
• 53:24
  gaming, like the Destiny side of things, the Pokemon side of things.
• 53:29
  I love a good indie game here and there, so I'll like get like
• 53:31
  fall into their fandoms for a little bit speed running. I don't take part
• 53:35
  in, but I love watching Yeah. Same same. Oh god, the
• 53:37
  GDQ stuff, Like I literally have been binging GDQ for the last like three
• 53:40
  weeks on my down time. Yeah, I've been doing the same. Some
• 53:44
  of the Balder's Gate one was just so impressive to watch. I need to.
• 53:47
  So I was gonna say one of the things with gaming, like I
• 53:49
  always say, it's like one of those fandoms like I want, like I'm
• 53:52
  a gamer. I definitely self identify as like another podcast as coined this,
• 53:57
  it's gamer with a lowercase G. Okay, because gamer or the capital G
• 54:00
  are those like, you know, the ones who are like, oh,
• 54:04
  women shouldn't be in my video games, like those like Game of Gate,
• 54:07
  Movement and every exactly, so like gamer the lower G. I love video
• 54:09
  games. I play the ones I enjoy. Yes, I've realized my spectrumist
• 54:15
  has prevented me playing certain games anything too big, and as soon as you
• 54:20
  give me like an open world map like think Siren anymore, I can't do
• 54:22
  that anymore. Yeah, that's fair. That that's massive. Like I'm literally
• 54:28
  as we speak, I have Elden Ring installing for the first time, and
• 54:30
  I'm like so nervous, but like I'm gonna do it. Yes, yeah,
• 54:35
  yeah, I feel the same way about Elton Ring. I'll get to
• 54:37
  it eventually, maybe yeah, tenth Dinniversary Edition or something. There you go.
• 54:40
  But the gaming industry, like I said, the industry, like I
• 54:44
  I've been lucky enough to work in the industry a little bit. I was
• 54:46
  an IT for a games company. I'm in the credits for two video games
• 54:50
  now nice and I love the industry. I love, I love, like
• 54:53
  like, but I so dislike the toxicity around these companies, Like you hear
• 54:57
  these horrible stories coming out. Yeah, and I think just for outsiders,
• 55:01
  it paints this picture of this terrible industry in people who are a fan of
• 55:05
  it and part of it. Yeah, and it just it It makes me
• 55:08
  feel like I need to defend it, which I just feel it makes me
• 55:10
  part of the problem, but like I genuinely feel like there's worth defending.
• 55:15
  Yeah, I know what you mean. It's it's tough because it's an entire
• 55:19
  it's an entire medium. I mean, I suppose it's similar to anime in
• 55:22
  the sense where it's it's people saying like, oh, there's specific people within
• 55:24
  the anime fandom and community you have a bad rap. But it's like sort
• 55:28
  of saying the TV community or the film community. It's not all. It's
• 55:32
  so wide and varied that it feels weird to be a The idea of being
• 55:37
  a capital G gamer is like saying I'm a filmer, I'm a TV It's
• 55:43
  like, I get it. It's like it's a it's a mode. But
• 55:45
  there are then specific fandoms and subgroups within that that are much more comfortable than
• 55:50
  just the broad I'm into video games, I feel like I think it's what's
• 55:54
  happened recently. We're seeing more and more is like, because gaming is becoming
• 55:59
  more stream or mainstream, that divisiveness the way we do with like TV and
• 56:04
  film is finally starting to happen a little bit. Yes, I still think
• 56:07
  there's like too many, Like there isn't anyone outside of TV and film who
• 56:12
  is like, doesn't absorb TV film that can look at TV and film as
• 56:15
  like their own unique fandoms. But gaming still has a lot of that.
• 56:19
  Yeah, definitely. And I think part of the problem is the gaming community
• 56:22
  because you hear these stories of like and again they're the outliers of like,
• 56:25
  oh, you're not a real gamer. You only play insert game title here.
• 56:30
  So this person puts an eighty hours into Animal Crossing and has a perfect
• 56:35
  save file and every single thing unlocked and has put in like time and streams
• 56:37
  it. Yeah, they're a bigger gamer than you are because you played Halo
• 56:40
  once. Fuck off. Yeah exactly, exactly. Couldn't agree more. Yeah,
• 56:45
  they're just the they're the biggest gatekeepers in the and that's that's unfortunately,
• 56:50
  yeah, yeah, which is a shame because it's such a it's a good
• 56:52
  mode of storytelling that will continue to develop and be there. Like it's like
• 56:59
  people's mind being blown by like the PHBO Last of Us series, who are
• 57:02
  consuming that story for the first time and being like, I didn't know that
• 57:06
  video games could tell these kinds of stories, And it's because they're only just
• 57:08
  starting to. In terms of yeah, I assume over the next few decades
• 57:13
  we're gonna have many mole games like that. Yeah, And I think,
• 57:15
  unfortunately too, is a lot of the like Again, I think what becomes
• 57:20
  mainstream are the games that, like the ones you hear about, like the
• 57:22
  Call of Duties, which like have really dropped the story side of things.
• 57:25
  Yes, just fine, that's your market, that's your franchise, you know.
• 57:30
  I think the games people who are outside of the industry here about the
• 57:34
  most are the Minecraft and like the fighting games, where it's like, yes,
• 57:37
  we know there's law and story to those, but on the outside you're
• 57:39
  not seeing it. But then you have the Last of Us. I think
• 57:44
  another great example. I'm really like, as much as it got like at
• 57:46
  reviews, I think the Five Nights at Freddy Movie did a huge thing that
• 57:51
  we're going to see a huge shift in the way movies are made and consumed
• 57:53
  in the next few years. Yeah, I'm excited for that. Yeah,
• 57:58
  same, same, It's at least I always feel bad saying bad things about
• 58:00
  superhero things because it's my least favorite genre. But it's been a lot of
• 58:06
  it, so I wouldn't mind if we have a decade of video game adaptations
• 58:09
  done well, like we had a decade of superhero adaptations done well kind of
• 58:14
  thing. Yeah, I think that's the best way to put it, is,
• 58:16
  like, let let this be a good way in like I feel like
• 58:20
  the way superhero movies kind of legitimize comics for more people. Yes, I
• 58:23
  hope to see video games get that same treatment over the next few years,
• 58:28
  and hopefully we get some other great adaptations. Like there's so many games I
• 58:32
  think would make great series and movies versus the ones that have like really not
• 58:37
  done well. Like did you watch the Halos TV show? I didn't.
• 58:43
  I refused what they did a Twisted Metal recently on Paramount. Yes, Yeah,
• 58:50
  which, to be fair, a few friends did say was like stupid
• 58:52
  but fun so and you know what, that's maybe we can have those.
• 58:57
  Yeah, but I feel like, what's like so the same the finances Freddie
• 59:00
  did is the it's that like I did film back when I did film study,
• 59:04
  so I have that really stupid mentality of like when you're making a film,
• 59:07
  you're trying to hit those four quadrants of like old, young, male,
• 59:09
  female. Sure. Yeah, but like five minutes of Freddy's is very
• 59:13
  much like the No, we're going for the fans, like the quadrants whatever,
• 59:15
  it's not our audience. Yeah, yeah, like that I want to
• 59:19
  see, like you know, we've always sort of said in the community that
• 59:22
  we want to see like a Destiny TV series or movie. But like the
• 59:25
  fear is it would become too like, Okay, you're just doing this to
• 59:29
  bring in new fans versus like catering to your fans. Yeah, I suppose
• 59:32
  it would be like because fan service gets a bad rap sometimes, but it's
• 59:37
  more like well thought out fan service is the ideal thing of like not just
• 59:42
  getting the sort of like often quite dumb vocal online opinions, because then you'd
• 59:46
  end up with a really bad product, but sort of people who've educated themselves
• 59:52
  and sort of like understand what actually makes a good movie, what makes a
• 59:53
  good story, and what fits and works, then those people doing fan service
• 59:59
  can re work. So yeah, look at that, like we span a
• 1:00:02
  negative question into a into a positive Like I think the best example of that,
• 1:00:06
  and it's gonna be super weird is the Simpsons. Yeah, Okay,
• 1:00:09
  we've reached a point now where the people who grew up watching the Simpsons that
• 1:00:14
  hit this like oh everything past season twelve is garbage era are now the ones
• 1:00:19
  employed making the show. And while I don't think the most recent seasons of
• 1:00:24
  the Simpsons have been like the Golden era again, they've definitely improved. Yeah,
• 1:00:30
  because we're now seeing people who like, go, oh, I remember
• 1:00:31
  what I like from the Simpons when I was a kid, versus what they
• 1:00:35
  tried to do that didn't really work, And like we're it's like the cycles
• 1:00:38
  resetting almost, so like I'm excited to start watching the Simpsons again now yeah,
• 1:00:43
  yeah, you know the first person who's mentioned that to me. Of
• 1:00:45
  like the last few years have been much more inspired than the previous Tensionally,
• 1:00:49
  it's like they've done away with the like let's just make a celebrity cameo joke
• 1:00:53
  to more of the which they still do a lot of unfortunately. Yeah,
• 1:00:55
  like it's been more of the like we can make Like there was an episode
• 1:01:00
  in the last like year or two where like the joke was like, oh,
• 1:01:02
  there's this like golf course in town. How do we break in?
• 1:01:06
  And Bart's like I know how, and he just leans up against the bush
• 1:01:07
  and like sinks through like Homer does. Yeah, like they're referencing the meme
• 1:01:12
  of the Simpsons in a way that was like that's funny. Like it's we
• 1:01:15
  get that we're Simpsons fans. It makes sense to us. Oh, internalized
• 1:01:19
  law is always going to be better than just random pop culture reference, he
• 1:01:23
  says, while being host of a podcast largely based off of random pop culture
• 1:01:28
  references. All right, let's let's move on's Yeah, final proper question.
• 1:01:35
  This one's sort of like, I guess, looking to the future, looking
• 1:01:37
  to you as a fan in the future, We're always going to be fans
• 1:01:40
  of things. That's just our nature. So what's a fandom or media property
• 1:01:45
  that you want to get into but you haven't maybe had the time, or
• 1:01:50
  maybe you feel kind of blocked out of that fandom for whatever reason by various
• 1:01:53
  gatekeepers or barriers of entry. Oh, it's interesting. I don't think there's
• 1:01:59
  any that I really feel like blocked out of. There's definitely like so I
• 1:02:02
  think I've alluded to like the three on my plate right now that are like
• 1:02:06
  I've always kind of wanted to get into but either felt intimidated or just didn't
• 1:02:10
  have the time for big one Right now, I'm actually I'm actually tackling now
• 1:02:15
  is the X Files. It was a series I always liked the idea of
• 1:02:17
  I wanted to watch. I started when I was young, and I just
• 1:02:21
  I don't know why I fell off. I was like renting the VHS's the
• 1:02:22
  community of how long ago this was? Yeah, I just I fell off
• 1:02:27
  at the same it's that same Blockbuster. It's a it's a dollar it's a
• 1:02:30
  dollar store now in my old hometown. Nice. I'm sure that all supplies
• 1:02:34
  there for Christmas. Yeah, But like I'm now going through it and watching
• 1:02:39
  it. And because I have again the Monster of the Week boys from another
• 1:02:45
  podcast, hopefully we'll be hearing on the gately per soon. I've connected with
• 1:02:49
  them. We've become very friendly and my co host Mary is watching it.
• 1:02:52
  And so it was a lot of our community now because of this, So
• 1:02:54
  I have like a mini community of fans to like talk to it about it
• 1:02:58
  as I'm watching it, and it's made it a much more enjoyable experience than
• 1:03:01
  just watching it in quiet. Yes, so that's the one you're making your
• 1:03:06
  way through at the moment, which for a host of a Supernatural podcast and
• 1:03:08
  a Supernatural fan, I feel like it's a you must be loving it,
• 1:03:12
  Like it's just it's also the natural. It's also weird, like how many
• 1:03:16
  like actors I'm recognizing both from Supernatural but just from like other franchises. Yes,
• 1:03:22
  but even more so, it's the number of like oh produced by it,
• 1:03:23
  and I'm like I know that name. It's like the Supernatural crossover in
• 1:03:28
  the production side is huge. That's a yeah. I suppose once you've learned
• 1:03:32
  how to make one Supernatural show, you like sign me up for the next
• 1:03:36
  one. That's it, Like I'm I'm and again like it's a it's a
• 1:03:38
  series of Like there's other I feel like horror movies is another one, like
• 1:03:43
  where like I love horror movies, but I just haven't had that like I'm
• 1:03:45
  not gonna be one of people was like, oh, I can watch a
• 1:03:46
  horror movie and not be scared like I got scared. So I don't watch
• 1:03:50
  too many of them, but every time I watch when I end up loving
• 1:03:53
  it. Yeah. So like I have like a backlog of horror movies I
• 1:03:58
  want to go through because it's a fandom I really enjoy. I've got a
• 1:04:00
  few friends who are big horror movie buffs, so whenever I do, I
• 1:04:01
  haven't talked to And I hope you know when I'm done X Files. As
• 1:04:06
  I've alluded to several times, your phone's gonna blow up as I watch Twin
• 1:04:11
  Peaks. Yes, you and all drew about it. Please let my phone
• 1:04:14
  blow up with Twin Peaks stuff. I love talking Twin Peaks. You've talked
• 1:04:17
  throughout this hour about uh sort of going into a black hole of information and
• 1:04:21
  sort of like law sucks. Twin Peaks is so good for that. But
• 1:04:26
  that's like the and I feel like it's one of those franchises where like there's
• 1:04:29
  probably so much I know tangentially, Like I know there are Simpsons references that
• 1:04:33
  are references to Twin Peaks, but I don't know why yet. So I'm
• 1:04:36
  looking forward to getting there and being like, ah, I can now draw
• 1:04:40
  these dots together. Yes. Uh? Why was Lisa speaking backwards in that
• 1:04:45
  way with the friggin burning card? Is exactly? Yes, I love you
• 1:04:50
  exactly what references gonna be? Uh? And then I think the last one
• 1:04:55
  too, and I think you you brought it up naturally too before this,
• 1:04:57
  because we're so good at this, the two of us. Oh yeah,
• 1:04:59
  we'll pro is speed gaming. I like speed running games. I've always wanted
• 1:05:04
  to like find a really niche, like shitty game boy game that know speed
• 1:05:09
  runs and become the guy for it. I mean to I sort of did
• 1:05:13
  that probably about a decade ago at this point, now that I say it.
• 1:05:16
  Which game it was? Do you remember Crash Bash the party Crash Bandicoot
• 1:05:21
  game that was like a yes of Mario Party? Yeah? Yeah, okay,
• 1:05:26
  so we really My friend, my good friend Graham from back in the
• 1:05:29
  UK. He's been on this podcast a couple of times. He was really
• 1:05:32
  into speed running and was like, I want to set a record. But
• 1:05:36
  all of the single player stuff is just really competitive, but the multiplayer stuff
• 1:05:41
  isn't because only so many people have friends. He's like, if we just
• 1:05:45
  dedicate a day to doing this, we can, I guarantee we can be
• 1:05:50
  in the top five for this in the world because only like eleven people have
• 1:05:55
  attempted it, and so we did it and we got third, and I
• 1:05:59
  imagine other people have beaten it since then. But it felt good to get
• 1:06:01
  like a bronze medal on a speed running website. Oh yeah, and like
• 1:06:06
  you know, I feel like I watched so many and you hear about the
• 1:06:09
  communities that exist. I recently watched for this year's GDQ there was a speed
• 1:06:14
  run of a game called Tunic. If you haven't watched, I recommend it's
• 1:06:17
  a very fun like they break the game in a horrible way to check it
• 1:06:19
  out. But like the creator of the game is there with them as they're
• 1:06:24
  doing this, doing the commentary, and he's like laughing at like you know,
• 1:06:28
  like we knew, like there was a point where they like skipped through
• 1:06:30
  a door without opening it, and it's like and he's like, remember,
• 1:06:33
  I remember we discovered this, and we were saying, like, should we
• 1:06:35
  like auto open the door afterwards so they can then leave, And he's like,
• 1:06:39
  no, they found their way and they can find their way out.
• 1:06:42
  But like also how he like there was at some point they packed something that
• 1:06:45
  was like an actual bug, and it was like, oh, we were
• 1:06:46
  really relying on that for the speed run, so it really screw things up.
• 1:06:49
  And he's like he put in a cheat code that enables the old version
• 1:06:53
  of that spell to work for like eighty seconds. Yeah, so like in
• 1:06:57
  this one encounter where you need it, you could just put in this quick
• 1:06:59
  button call and do it. That's to make like what a weird like just
• 1:07:03
  like oh and also just tooting the whore Halifax native game was all made here
• 1:07:09
  locally with me Oh lovely? Yeah, is that one of our local local
• 1:07:12
  legends? Nice? Nice? I can't remember. I feel like there was
• 1:07:15
  a time where I knew which game I wanted to speed run. It was
• 1:07:17
  like some old game Boy game I played as a kid that like I've never
• 1:07:20
  seen anyone talk about, and I like Cameral game. It wasn't how it
• 1:07:24
  kills me that would be the one to go for whatever that might be.
• 1:07:28
  That's it. With very few entries, you'll you'll get a gold mat.
• 1:07:30
  That's it. Like, I think my favorite thing to watch in the speed
• 1:07:32
  runs are like the here's some random game you've never heard of that like six
• 1:07:36
  people in the world have like speed run and like I'm the third best because
• 1:07:41
  of like all six of us are in this room right now. Yeah,
• 1:07:44
  and the person playing it is going to speak more sort of passionately and better
• 1:07:48
  than I am right now on this podcast. And I'm not even playing a
• 1:07:53
  video game at the same time. Oh yeah, that is. That's another
• 1:07:55
  thing I've wanted to get into but it cannot do, is streaming. I
• 1:07:58
  don't know. I like, I tried such a can't talking game at the
• 1:08:00
  same time. Yeah, me, neither. It's it's such a skill.
• 1:08:03
  Yeah, yeah, well that's it. I mean, that's that is a
• 1:08:08
  big sort of like white whale of a fandom in terms of just getting into
• 1:08:12
  speed running in that I love to do it, but it clearly takes so
• 1:08:15
  much skill. But it's so fun to watch. It's it's it is.
• 1:08:18
  It's it's watching. It's I've always said, and I think it's why I
• 1:08:21
  think I show like yours and these kind of interviews work so well. Is
• 1:08:25
  the it's listening to somebody or watching someone like just be passionate about something.
• 1:08:30
  Yes, I can. I've sat down at bars and had conversation with people
• 1:08:33
  I've met like in college, where it's just like, tell me about this
• 1:08:36
  thing you're into. I want to know everything about it. I want you
• 1:08:40
  to info dump on me the way you've never been able to infot up on
• 1:08:43
  something. Yeah, it's addictive, isn't it. It's when people are in
• 1:08:45
  that mode and being passionate about something like that. Yeah, it's it's magic.
• 1:08:48
  Yeah. I rabbit Like one of my bigger rabbit hole was the bionical
• 1:08:51
  lore. I rabbit hole a guy on TikTok who did, like, over
• 1:08:55
  the course of three years, the entire story and it was just like I
• 1:08:58
  knew some of this as a kid because I was into it, but like
• 1:09:00
  this, like the books, and like the guy who created it. It
• 1:09:03
  was originally way of him dealing with his cancer. It's all a metaphor for
• 1:09:06
  cancer. Oh wow. Nuts. Weirdly, we're closer to doing a bionical
• 1:09:12
  episode than a Destiny episode. Jason was into it, My sibling Aid is
• 1:09:16
  into it, like, oh like I We're like honestly, and then you
• 1:09:20
  just add Audra as the Dunce and we have a bionical episode that can happen.
• 1:09:26
  Sold that would be again, Oh fantastic. This has been incredible,
• 1:09:30
  Drew. Thank you for your time this morning. Slash this afternoon. Thank
• 1:09:33
  you for having me. This has been great. Let's let's undercut our entire
• 1:09:38
  hour of conversation now by sort of summing everything up in a simple flow chart
• 1:09:43
  of your life through fandom. As the episode title suggests, So I'd like
• 1:09:47
  you to sort of give your flow chart of fandoms that you were into,
• 1:09:50
  sort of like your childhood, your teenage yers, your twenties, and now,
• 1:09:56
  if you were to summer your life through fandom, I think so.
• 1:09:59
  I think childhood the first. The big one was Power Rangers. That was
• 1:10:01
  when I learned fandom was a thing and I could like connect with people over
• 1:10:05
  a thing. Yes, then teenage years, even though high school had a
• 1:10:10
  bit of a dip out of it for other anime, it really is Pokemon.
• 1:10:13
  Pokemon was the thing that like brought me all of my friends, made
• 1:10:15
  me all my connections, taught me that I could be a fan of things
• 1:10:18
  and like have my niche knowledge and use it as a way to connect with
• 1:10:21
  people. Into my twenties and adulthood is when destiny started up and it became
• 1:10:26
  a great way to meet people. I have it. I run a clan
• 1:10:30
  with a friend. We play together and while we don't all time up because
• 1:10:33
  of time zones and just amount of playtime. We have that discord over we
• 1:10:38
  all connect and we have a social group because of it. Yeah, and
• 1:10:41
  it is my ultimate like stress relief game to just go chill and play like
• 1:10:44
  that's my afternoon when I have nothing to do on a Sunday. And then
• 1:10:46
  now it feels weird not to have mentioned Supernatural this whole time. It's just
• 1:10:50
  Supernatural has become so like it's such a big part of my life. Is
• 1:10:56
  much as it was a franchise I tried to get into, it didn't really
• 1:10:59
  stick with, and now it is such this huge part of my life.
• 1:11:01
  So I really want to kind of do like she'd have been, do the
• 1:11:04
  whole super Who Locked thing, because I think all three have kind of like
• 1:11:09
  culminated into where I am today and who I am now. Yeah, No,
• 1:11:12
  that's that's fair. You can include you can, Super Who Locked?
• 1:11:14
  Tumblr did Tumbler included all the thing exactly? You can. And I was
• 1:11:17
  never a big Tumbler guy too, which is the craziest thing. Yeah,
• 1:11:19
  despite all those fandoms, Hey you are a super lou super who locker.
• 1:11:24
  I was about to say super Lou Hawker, which sounds rude but isn't a
• 1:11:29
  thing when you're really into Lou King from a Mortal Kombat. He's years the
• 1:11:32
  third one in the middle there getting a one extra fandom reference in at the
• 1:11:36
  end. Lovely stuff. Thank you so much, Drew. I'm really looking
• 1:11:42
  forward to all of the fandom episodes we've we've scheduled during this conversation and having
• 1:11:47
  you back on for so many more episodes of gate Leapers. The word I
• 1:11:50
  think I was looking for when I said enigmatic at the top was maybe engaging.
• 1:11:55
  Is how I think if you, Drew, You're a very engaging person.
• 1:11:58
  You're such a people person, as I think people will be able to
• 1:12:02
  tell from this this conversation. And I really appreciate you man, Thank you.
• 1:12:06
  I appreciate you letting me into this world, this this new series of
• 1:12:11
  connections and people I've gotten to meet again. I every every episode it's like
• 1:12:15
  I've been on a losing streak, but I've been having so much fun I
• 1:12:18
  don't mind. Yeah, we'll see how my my my horn changes when we
• 1:12:21
  when I start winning some hopefully, yes, But genuinely like getting to meet
• 1:12:26
  you, Audra, Jason, Jen Chris Ben, everyone I've got to like
• 1:12:31
  compete with, has like built these connections and relationships. And I think podcasting
• 1:12:36
  is the next fandom we need to see, like the way gaming is moving
• 1:12:40
  into TV and like yes, movie Land of being its own thing and podcasting
• 1:12:44
  to get their next Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll ride it out this next
• 1:12:46
  decade or two until it gets there. Yeah, separate us from the you
• 1:12:51
  know, four white in cells bitching about things because they're terrible. Yes,
• 1:12:55
  exactly, we are. We are not that we are five in so out.
• 1:13:03
  So there you go. Drew Shulman a life through fandom. What a
• 1:13:09
  charming guy. It is a honor and a privilege to have him as part
• 1:13:12
  of the Gatesleepers cast. And as you heard throughout that interview, we've got
• 1:13:15
  many more fandoms and many more game shows that even just Drew and I are
• 1:13:19
  cooking up. That's without thinking of all the different permutations of cast members,
• 1:13:25
  all the different fandoms we have on the way, both new and old.
• 1:13:28
  Yeah, there's a lot of fun planned here at Gateleapers over the next few
• 1:13:31
  months. So one last time you can hear Drew on carrying waywards. They
• 1:13:35
  are at Carrying Wayward on most social media platforms, and you can follow Drew
• 1:13:41
  at Boxless Thought on most social media platforms as well. Oh and Boxless Pins
• 1:13:46
  as well. Drew also makes enamel pins that you can buy on his Etsy
• 1:13:51
  store, which again i'll put a link to that. He's a busy,
• 1:13:54
  talented guy. He's got a lot going on. Okay, now some admin
• 1:13:58
  for gate Sleepers. If you've made it this far, do consider supporting Gateleepers
• 1:14:01
  over at patreon dot com forward slash Gatesleepers. This show is ads and listeners
• 1:14:06
  supported, but the ads they don't support us that much, so we really
• 1:14:12
  appreciate all the support from our listeners, including our brand new supporter at the
• 1:14:17
  games Master Tea making him an executive producer of this show, the author Aaron
• 1:14:23
  Randolph. So thank you so much for that, Aaron helping keeping the show
• 1:14:28
  on the road, not that we're touring yet, putting that out into the
• 1:14:32
  universe. For twenty twenty seven, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok
• 1:14:39
  at gateleapers pod on both we've started posting video clips from our recordings and it's
• 1:14:45
  really cool to see new listeners come in from sharing those clips across social media,
• 1:14:49
  and if you want to see more than just those short clips, Patreon
• 1:14:54
  dot com forward slash Gateleapers really is the place for you. We post our
• 1:14:58
  full unedited video recording for each of our regular episodes, where there's extra content,
• 1:15:04
  stuff that gets cut out of the audio feed and just it's a more
• 1:15:10
  relaxed and hilarious atmosphere in the video version. And we also myself, Audra
• 1:15:15
  and Jason. We make a bonus monthly episode called Fandom Flashback, which looks
• 1:15:20
  back at the past month in pop culture, geek and nerd releases while playing
• 1:15:26
  some games along the way. Because this is Gateleapers of course. In fact,
• 1:15:30
  one of our lovely patrons, Kristen, she very much loved the last
• 1:15:34
  cast interview with Jen. Kristen said it was a fantastic interview and a nice
• 1:15:39
  surprise for the week. So thank you, Thank you Kristen for saying that.
• 1:15:43
  That means a lot. But if you're just enjoying everything that's available here
• 1:15:45
  on the free feed, that is awesome. We really appreciate you listening.
• 1:15:50
  Why not share one of our episodes with a friend, maybe a friend who
• 1:15:54
  needs a bit of cheering up, a good laugh about a fandom they love.
• 1:15:57
  At this point, we have over fifty fandom that we've covered, so
• 1:16:00
  I'm sure there's something there for your hypothetical friend that needs cheering up that I
• 1:16:05
  just invented, but that's a realistic thing that happens to people in life.
• 1:16:10
  People need cheering up and our podcast can do that. If you've not already,
• 1:16:14
  please give us a rate or a review on apps like Spotify and Apple
• 1:16:18
  Podcasts or whatever your chosen podcast player is. We're rocking a five star rating
• 1:16:24
  across all apps and I'd quite like to keep that. So if you could
• 1:16:27
  give us a cheeky five stars and a little thumbs up leave a comment,
• 1:16:31
  that would be absolutely fantastic and helps more people listen to this weird podcast that's
• 1:16:38
  happening that I'm literally making right now. It's incredible. It's a privilege.
• 1:16:43
  Hope you enjoyed our recent Scott Pilgrim episode. It was such a laugh to
• 1:16:48
  record with the cast. We have a few great recordings lined up and some
• 1:16:54
  fandoms that I'm really excited to leap into and share with you. So so
• 1:16:59
  yeah, eyes on this feed. New game show available next Thursday. And
• 1:17:01
  because you've made it to the end of this interview, I'll reveal that fandom
• 1:17:05
  to you. Right now, we are looking at Greek mythology through the lens
• 1:17:10
  of Percy Jackson, a ya, fandom that is very close to Audra's heart.
• 1:17:15
  But we'll also be playing a lot of Greek mythology games. For all
• 1:17:17
  of you Greek myth fans out there, I know Greek mythology was a hyperfixation
• 1:17:23
  for a lot of you, So yeah, very much looking forward to that.
• 1:17:26
  Thank you so much for listening. Leap On, leap Frogs. I'll
• 1:17:30
  have a catchy sign off by the end of the year, I promise.