Episode 101: Favorite Fandoms

With the pandemic in full effect and Ify out of town, Dani sits down with show producer, Joelle, to take a trip down memory lane. They revisit the horror movies, cartoons, and musicians who impacted their world view.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to another edition of Nerdificence. I am one half
of your host, Danny Fernandez if he is out of
town this week, but joining me we have our producer
Joel Monique. Hey so excited to be bad coming a
regular voice on here. I was gonna say, so the
next couple of weeks, we're going to be figuring out, uh,
you know, be patient with us just what's going on.

(00:31):
We want to make sure that everyone is really safe,
absolutely with the virus going around and um some of
you know, I have lime disease and hashimoto so I
just try to be extra careful when it comes to
my health, as I hope that you all are. Uh. So,
today we don't have a guest, but instead Joel and
I are going to be geeking out about fandoms that
really impacted us, impacted our youth, and kind of the

(00:54):
things that we want to see in the future. Absolutely,
I'm so excited to do this because we were trying
to figure out, you know, what do we talk about.
We were going to do Bloodshot, and then the CDC
was like stay away from crowds, and I was like,
so maybe not movie theaters. That's no good. I get
pushed back to They had the screening at a small
theater at Live Nation. Um, but I wasn't going to

(01:16):
do it. I haven't done a room of more than
ten people since the announcement of COVID, and I thought,
you know, let's just keep that up. Let's just keep
it small and tight and inner circle and people I
know that are clean and places that haven't had hundreds
of people through them. So that kind of left us
without a topic for the week. And then we were
talking about it a little bit, and I thought, well,

(01:36):
let's do an nostalgia trip. Since everyone's probably going to
be at home talking about their favorite things, we're rewatching
their favorite shows. Yeah, all of my friends. I've been
watching a lot of Disney Plus like all the like
Hercules and Jungle Books. Yes, I've been getting up on
the new season of Clone Wars this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Also,
Encore is so good if you haven't watched it, have

(01:57):
you watched it? Joel n Core? What is this what
I'm talking about? Okay? So, so Kristen Bell is the host,
and they brought back you would love it because you
love theater. So high schools their senior year. Uh, they
bring them back some of them from ten years ago,
some of them from twenty years ago. It's a reunion.

(02:20):
It's reunion where they had one week to put back
up their senior high school musical. Okay, okay, okay. And
so it's all these people that now they either haven't spoke.
There's a lot of drama. You would be surprised because
it's high school theater groups just high school Okay, listen,
high school drama is wild. There is this lady who

(02:43):
is married, like, she's married with kids. Did you think
about risking at all? Well, no, it's just that she
really still holds a grudge about her boyfriend that broke
up with her when he was a senior. I'm like, ma'am,
he was seventeen when you broke my heart. Kevin. Yes,
that's exactly it. And it was so like, this is
so awkward. And then, um, so most of them get

(03:03):
recast in their in their traditional role. So like if
someone played Bell and Beauty and the Beast and someone
played the Beast or Cogsworts or whatever, it's so cool.
So now they're in their forties and fifties and they
get real they um, you know, some of them, most
of them get cast some of them get recast though
spicy if they're like not really bring in the game
as much, and they're you know, and again they have

(03:23):
like five days to put this together. It's okay. So
they bring on they bring on directors and it's like
directors that have directed um like The Lion Key by Broadway.
So they bring them on in a composer and a
choreographer to help them and uh, they kind of have

(03:43):
to audition some of the time and other times they
just let them have it. Since we're getting a good show.
We don't care if their amateurs or not. They It's
so if you were a theater but I wasn't in
theater necessarily I did some, but I also was on
my drill team, so my dance team, and we had
to do like competitions and spring show and it was
just like it brings all of that back of like

(04:04):
having you know, two minutes to change costume change and
and and like racing and memorizing and all of that.
It's just so great. All of this energy is really
making me want to call my high school and be like, yo,
so how do we do because my so my senior
show was a play, not a musical because we would
do a musical every other spring semester. Um no, every

(04:25):
other fall semester. So we did The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe senior year, but junior year we did
Cinderella and it was awesome because I was evil step
mom and so I had really great numbers but I
didn't have to carry the show. And my best friend
played um my daughter and they were like evil step
sisters and they were amazing. Listen. I would do it
in a heartbeat. I know all of these ladies. We

(04:45):
still talk. All the guys still hang around. Most of
them are out east, but they would come home to
do a cool show. Like most of them were like
childhood friends and are still buddies and talk. Disney hit
me up. I'm ready, I have. They're going to do
another season of it, so you have to. But yeah,
they've done, like Pippin, they've done. They did high school
musical and I was so old, Oh my gosh, because

(05:07):
it's already like old. Yeah, they did that the year
after I left. They did high school musical. Yeah, so
there was a high school you know that graduated ten
tennis years ago and they did high school musical. So
they brought them back for that. They did Beauty and
the Beast. They did um like every big high school
you know, every big musical that people do in high school,
they did that. Okay, that's definitely gonna bebinge. Yeah, I

(05:30):
love it. Yes. Yeah. So so moving on to some
of the fandoms and things that have really affected us,
you know, for me, like off the top of my head,
uh DBZ Sailor Moon. Honestly all Sailor Moon wasn't in
the UM two Nami block, but to Nami itself is

(05:53):
what introduced me to anime. Oh same Rooney Kitchen. With
the first anime Love, I was like obsessively watching it
it um that and then um oh Cowboy Bebop and
with a kid in the green suit Vali his friends
and It's got the cool theme song. Oh my god.
Those three were like really it in those early like

(06:15):
early years, late nineties, UM and it kind of a
wokeet like the next level nerd in me because I
was very casually watching like the superhero animated shows mostly.
That was very much my introduction to nerd. Um other
than video games, which oh man, all like DC's entire
Sleate was absolutely my Jamma started with Batman, the animated series,

(06:39):
which I watched with my dad as a kid because
their master works of art and we like obsessively watch
over and over again. I got really into Batman. I like,
deep down, truly love a disturbed character. Like after Batman,
Withering Heights was like my favorite. But it's a kid.
I was like into like dark, angry men, it's a problem,
which girls, please tell me, it's so brand the Count

(07:00):
of Monty Cristo, the hero with the like difficult journey,
but also that movie you know, a little cousin or
something so cute it's adorable, and I was like, who
is this hot man? But he was. He was like
you know, I was like in middle school or something.
He was like in high school and maybe college. And
so it was so funny that then see him re emerge,

(07:23):
because in my mind he disappeared for like a decade
he was in that, and then to see him like
bust out and be Superman, I was like, of course
he did not tutors, okay. So that was where I
got like my like, I kind of noticed Henry in
the background of that. He's great in it. But I
was very distracted by our leads Holy like it's very gay.

(07:45):
It's not gay, but it's very gay. And so I
was like, oh my gosh, look at these game mal lovers.
I love it. Um. But then he popped up in
the Tutors and he plays the King's I think again
cousin or brother or something like that, and I was like,
who is this stunning chiseled featured man, my god and
the Tutors. If you're like a history nerd, it's pretty great. Um.

(08:07):
But yeah, I was like watching Batman and like really
into Justice League and justly Unlimited. I watched some X
Men sometimes Storm was dope and they had a great
theme song based off of Whitney Houston songs. I was there,
but yeah, then it wasn't until two Nami where was like, well,
there's like a whole another level of nerd that you
can enter, and there are so many shows and sometimes
you can listen to them in their original Japanese and

(08:27):
I really liked that. Yeah, we had to do that illegal,
of course, not I'm watching a lot of stuff online
or looking for the VHS s or my cousins taped
it off of something. I don't know if anyone out
there remembers the Black Goku. But that's how I saw
a lot of my stuff. There was a site that
they had like they would upload like the margin saga
and I was like, what is this? We would be
back on like the saying saga. Um. So that was

(08:51):
like a really big one where I'd watch it, and
I think my parents thought I was watching porn straight up,
my parents because I was like I was, so I
was being so weird about it, you know, and like
this was a time of like Napster and lime Wire,
Like yeah, we're weird about it because it was illegal
and you didn't want your parents to question that or
were you weird about it because some of the content

(09:11):
gets weird. And I think your parents were like weird
about anime. They probably saw it as like the same
um that people sometimes when you tell older people about anime,
they think a tent i because they just think of
tentacles and stuff, or like anime girls um, which, by
the way, if you look at nineties comic book covers

(09:32):
truly equally the same. Like a lot of women without
actual bone structure, they would fall over. They would fall
over if your boobs are that big and your feet
are that tiny you have Faro waste. Yeah, that's Barbie.
The the idea that unobtainable, like not even unobtainable, but
like non realism, there's there's suddenly like in the nineties

(09:55):
there was a lack of realism in any way that
we shaped the body. And Stanley has like told I
think we talk about this on the show last week
because a total slam dunk when he's talking to Todd
McFarland about like the way he draws feet, which often
Todd would be like, here's like an arrow and some
lines pointing at the like a shoe. Sure, why not.
I'm glad I missed this phase of comics. I didn't
get into comics until two thousand and eight, and I

(10:17):
started with reading the early two thousands comics, so like
Cassandra Caine's Run Its Back Girl was one of the
first books I ever read. Then I got really into
like some of them where DC was doing the recanonizing
of a lot of comics and they would kill off
all their characters. I'm having such a brain fart with
the name of this series. It'll come to me later.

(10:39):
But yeah, so you get into DVZ, you're watching anime
you're sort of hiding it from your parents. What do
you say from like a casual watch to like, oh
my god, this is part of my identity because you
have DVZ tattoos. Yeah, it's so weird. I don't know,
because I was diagnosed last year with o c D,
and a part of me feels I mean, the way
that my understanding is that you've actually had it. Evil

(11:00):
has had it. It's just now you have a diagnosis.
And so I and I've talked to people in our
discord honestly, in our gutificent discord about this like last year,
is that I literally, probably for protective measures, lived slash
live in a fantasy land. And there's a lot of
people that are like me. And it's probably why I'm
a writer and write the stuff that I do and

(11:23):
work in the field that I do. Is that when
I was I would so if you saw a playground,
I would see like a space battleship, which is normal
for kids write a lot of kids. I never grew
out of that, and so well, yeah, it can be
a little it can be a little like you know, uh,
problematic at times because you don't want to live in
a fantasy world. And I don't, but I definitely fantasize

(11:45):
a lot. I fantasize a lot like I if you
ever whenever I'm walking similar with headphones in, I'm like
listening to the Halloween soundtrack and like envisioning what it
feels like to be like you know. For me, I
literally do think of that, like not that, but like
what it's like to live in a horror movie, because

(12:05):
then I can write that it's just like you know,
or living in a sci fi movie. So for DVZ,
for me was so different because, like you were saying,
at the time, I was watching snick at night, I
was watching Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Hey
Arnold and and Angry Beavers and those are all great
and awesome, but they're not anime. Anime was adult theme. Well,

(12:26):
Hey Arnold did deal with adult themes and like had
dealt with immigrants and like it was such a great show.
But then you have these like buff dudes and spandex
and these you know, hot women, and it was just like,
who are brilliant? And like opened a new world for me,
and so I became I would say, obsessive, and I
think that that's not in a bad way. It was

(12:47):
just something that when I was in middle school, my
body was changing a ton. I was bullied a lot.
I was bullied for liking anime. I went to middle
school in Orange County. I think I've said this before,
but like everyone was watching like Laguna Beach and I
was watching Tensio and and Gundam Wing and it was weird,
Like that was weird that I had a bunch of
um DBZ holographic cards on my binder, and it was

(13:10):
just it was just different. And I would be in
role playing chat rooms um as a saying Princess when
I was like twelve, and now I'm like, I think,
you know, you had to be a certain age to
be in them. I was definitely not that age. There's
certainly a bubble for our generation where there was just
no internet protection and our parents were like, sure, she's

(13:32):
just on that internet computer thing over there. And I
was pretty aware of like stranger danger and like don't
give someone your adjest or like meet up, and I
had never like went on with those intentions. But it
was just so fun, as you say, to sort of
continue that fantasy world that had spawned from books and cartoons,
which I wasn't ready to let go of and clearly
still not ready to let go of. Uh. It was

(13:53):
it was an extension of that, and it became like
a nice sort of safety net and a way to
sort of play with a lot of adult things that
weren't happening in my life yet that I was ready
to explore. But safe environment, Yeah that's for me. Like
my sexuality was such you know, when you're bullied a lot,
that's kind of what you you wish that you had

(14:14):
that you lean And so fan fiction for me, I
stumbled onto to fan fiction dot net, which I always read,
but like on there it was you know, these cool
high school kids and college kids that I would keep
up with because they would have um one is be Chan,
who I love. She still has her side up. This
is like so for people from like the two thousands,

(14:36):
but um, I would read her she was in college
and I would read she was a great writer, but
I would read her erotic fan fiction. And it was
so like a time for me to like explore that,
like you said, in a safe place when I was
being shunned for my body, and it was just like, yeah,
it was something that I needed, And that's how he
became obsessed with it, right, So it was like something

(15:00):
when I would come home from school, it was like
this was my safe place. These are my friends in
this chat room, and this is like the art that
I'm taking in UM And yeah, I just remember too,
like all of the girls on Tensimlio, I just wanted
to look like them so much, and I'm glad that
I came. Like I would draw them and I would
just think like, oh that was This is also the

(15:21):
time of like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and I
was like, I just want to have like a waste
that that that's that's small, you know. And m One
of my favorite things too about DBZ is Boma. In
the very famous episode where they are going to Namic
with her Krillan and go Han, she's in Calvin Klein's

(15:42):
like the whole time, and she's thick, and that was
so great to see. You know, she has a big
chest and like thighs to go along with it, and
I just in her brain obviously, but like it was
so nice to see that represented as opposed to just
like something that wasn't my size. That was sort of
what turned me onto Batman was like, Wow, Batman is
out here being awesome and slaying And there was a

(16:03):
lot of like as I was learning about my depression
and becoming two terms with and understanding it, and I
would say it was about eight or o eleven. I
didn't have a diagnosis because good therapy is hard to
find in the middle of nowhere, but I understood that.
I was like, I'm just not happy and thinking about
death a lot. What does that mean? And people would
be like, no, you're fine, like think about other things,

(16:24):
Like it's really not fine. And Batman was just like
always sad angry in a way that and he was
like able to get mad in a way that I
still can't. I can't get angry, Like I don't know
how to be angry. I don't like if I start
feeling those emotions and like tap it down. But I
can watch Batman be angry and like punch out Joker's
lights and like find the bad guy and get to
a solution and a resolution, which is something I was

(16:47):
death really searching for, and so I really liked that.
But then these like awesome women would come in and
like here's Harley Quinn, like running amok and like falling.
She's falling in love in a way that is absolutely toxic.
And I want to say it all is an ideation,
but at the time, as a ten year old, you're
just like, oh my god, like to be that madly

(17:07):
in love, to like swoon and fall and like, I
feel a connection to somebody. There's something that you could
easily identify, you know, as your body is like raging
with hormones and you're feeling overwhelmed all the time. Harley
Quinn was. And then she had Poison Ivy, which even
as a kid, I was reading the lesbian energy between them,
and that was the first fan fiction I stumbled upon,
like Harley Quinn slash Poison Ivy smartness, just like yes,

(17:33):
you're my ladies, finally like living out the dream that
I sort of wanted to see them in Cannon And
that was sort of my connection to the online nerd community.
What I was going to say when you were talking
about comics, I didn't really pick up comics until later,
like you, but I did technically read comics because I
had all the Calvin and Hobbes books. Like that is

(17:54):
Calvin and I were the same. We lived in a
fantasy world. We lived in like a world that wasn't
hours and we could just play with our imagination uh
and be alone. Um. I also read far side. I
was obsessed with the Sunday Funnies, like well just in general.
I started to move from just Sunday to like I
would read them every day. Um. So that's probably also

(18:15):
why I have a love of art. I can't do it.
I'm like not an illustrator, and so Joel has been
in my place. I have a ton of art, which beautiful. Yeah,
I love independent art. I always buy art from from
artists and people that take commissions and like at cons
because it's like the thing I can't do. I do
a bunch of things, but like, I'm sure if I

(18:35):
could have, you know, it wouldn't be as beautiful. But
that is what started me into that world. The appreciation
of art was comics, like that in the comics I
saw in the newspaper, because they were just so um,
quick and funny and it was like that you could
show you know, sometimes they didn't even really need to
say anything. Um. And I found that fascinating, especially my

(18:57):
writer side, because so much of what I do is
in writing that it's like, oh, they're able to tell
a story. Sometimes they have one word in the comic.
As a writer gets really frustrating when you mean artists
who can also write, and you're like, why do all
the talent? They're like, I put a lot of work
into learning how to draw, and you're like, yeah, okay,
I hear you. If I probably put in the work,
maybe I could have been like a tenth of the
artist you are. When you look at people that are
like Jorge Gautiers who did Book of Life, who's doing

(19:19):
My in the three on Netflix? And that's same thing.
Like most of those directors are animators, you know they
they but they also write all of their own scripts.
It's so it's so impressive to be able to do both.
And then that way you're sort of both giving that
narration to the story and driving the eye through the story,
which is such a hard thing to do and film
me with twenty four frames in a second a comic behage,

(19:40):
you have twenty two pages, and however many panels feasibly
fits and you can read easily in those pages. So
it's like such a challenge to be like that exact
perfect moment that will explain to readers like what a
character is thinking. When you get to that, when you're
there's no thought bubble and you're like, I know what's happening,
Like that's magic. It transcends, And I think I too
would have once I got into the after fan fiction,

(20:03):
I got into a site called Comics Alliance, which I
don't know if you ever familiar listen Comics allianswering. I
think I want to say, like a ram, it was
helmed by a woman. I want to say it's definitely
Laura maybe Patterson Um, who was maybe the best editor
of all time. She came in and with this team
of like really talented writers into an organized force of

(20:28):
comic book goodness, like they were on top of nailing
like any kind of scandal that was happening in the community.
They were the first ones interviews Um. But they also
had such a love is it Laura Hudson, Laura Hudson,
thank you. And what I really like enjoyed about Laura's
time as editor in chief of Comics Alliance was that
she preached how to get into comics and that became

(20:52):
such an important aspect of going to the site for
somebody who is a new and actively maxing out a
credit card on purchasing comics, like figuring out like not
just how to read them, but how to appreciate the art.
As you mentioned earlier, because I used to speed read comics,
I'd be like, great done, great done. She's like, maybe
go back and like examine the art and like see
how the panels are touching you. And then they would
turn you on to work like um Mind Management, which

(21:14):
would have stories within stories. They would print in sometimes
in three D so that you had to have three
D glasses. It was like the blue and red ink
over each other in the margins of the comic book.
Little like Notes is a detective novel and a mystery,
and so you're trying to solve the mystery before the
end of the series. And they had stuff on the
back and on the front covers, and if you lined
up the front covers sometimes they would have stuff. It

(21:36):
was the most immersive time in comics that I've ever had,
and I miss set site every day with every fiber
of my being. It was this I like most wanted
to write for It got suttle to Yahoo and totally tanked.
It was so unfortunate. But there's like I think, if
you can find those online communities. For a minute, Tumbler
had spaces like that that we're just art. Oh yeah,

(22:00):
pre Tumbler, Devian Art, I mean one you can find
Rule thirty four. You could find anything on there. Um.
But they also a lot of photographers started to come
into that space, which was really cool. But I just
adored Devian Art. I mean it was just getting to
have your favorite characters seen them in alternate universes and
alternate roles and it just I was, I just am

(22:22):
in awe of everything on there. And then Tumbler came along,
and a lot of the kids that were like really
into Tumbler and really big on Tumbler. I don't know
if they knew of the Devan Art community, you know,
that was there probably a decade before. Yeah it's still up,
but it's still up. Yeah you can still you can
still visit dvm R. You still post your art on DVN, right.
But something that was really cool about it back when
day was like watching artists improve because like I was

(22:44):
in college, like high school, in college, watching my friends
put it on there and then they were like essentially
have an entire entire bio of work. And for some
people it was like a decade, fifteen years, and so
you're seeing the growth from like those first posts today.
It really impressive, and it's sort of I think it's
artists were often on the internet looking for support and

(23:05):
encouragement to keep going, like making money in our is
next to impossible, and then like you have to work
even when you're not inspired, and that's really hard. You
have to work even when the work is not good
and you're like, god, I hate what I'm working on.
It sucks. So like Davian aren't really created a space
where you could get like excited about somebody else's work,
which hopefully, you know, would turn into excitement for your

(23:26):
own work. We have to take a really quick break
and they're gonna hop back more into the impact that
our fandoms have had on us right after this and
we are back, and since Joel and I are horror babies,
that was another huge influence in our lives. Do you

(23:48):
remember the first horror movie that you saw? I think
we talked about this a little bit in our last episode,
which Hancy, Yeah, so uh, the first horror movie I
remember seeing is Okay. First of all, I remember seeing
theaters is Drastic Park, which is technically not a horror movie.
It's terrifying. I was five, so it was a lot

(24:11):
my so, my dad and my house picked the movies
and he has no concept of what is acceptable for children.
He would show us what do we see when we
were young? That really scared me? Uh, Spirit which is
an Alec Baldwin film that's not at all that's scary,
but as a kid, there's like a talking dagger that
flies around and it really got under my skin. And

(24:33):
then super Troopers not super Troopers, um uh aliena is
the one with Tim Allen. No no, no, no, no no,
it's an alien movie. Something troopers. Oh si Starship Troopers. Yeah.
I saw this movie when it came out. I want
to say that's somewhere. I'm like nine or ten years

(24:55):
old when this movie hits and there's a scene where
a guy gets whipped that like destroyed me. And my
father was like, look at the screen. It looks like
a crayon, Like it's nothing, it's so cheap. And I'm like, Dad,
I'm scared, and he was like, I don't care. Just
watch the movie. He did not. He was like, really
just wanted us to be a movie. It was the
one place where we could like connect. He was not

(25:16):
it's like a big lovable teddy beer. But also mostly
he was into like sports and old school music, which
that okay for me. So so my family here are
oldie station is care with one on one, and that's
what I had to listen to. My family would not listen.
My family is so super Catholic and we so I

(25:36):
grew up listening to the oldies like a d and
I still listened to those two when I'm like cleaning
and it just makes me feel like morning, you know.
But like it was so funny because there was a
certain point in time, probably by the time my parents
had their third kid. They were like screw it, I
mean whatever, Like we were not allowed to watch the
Simpsons and stuff when I was growing up. And then
all of a sudden, there was like some age we hit.

(25:58):
They were like whatever, just watch whatever please. Yeah. So
then we came in with King of the Hill. Yeah,
that was great, And then we could listen to Kiss FM,
and it was like we could listen to like Nellie
and got all his albums. It was like everything was
switched on for us. But it was funny. And then

(26:19):
of course anime and uh, which I don't think they
have paid attention to some of the stuff we were watching.
I think they thought it was too bloody, even though
Cartoon Network did censor a ton of it. I think
to them it was still it's still pretty violent, um
compared to again, like angry Beavers or kablem or something
right right or God forbid of Rent and Stimpy. But

(26:40):
that's the thing. My parents were so weird. I feel
like that's Catholic families in general. But my dad would
buy us Rent and Stimpy comics when he Yeah, the
comics were so dope. Um. When he would go on
like a business trip, he would bring us all back
like a Rent and Stumpy comic. I don't know if
he got it like at the airport or whatever, um,
but he'd always pick one up for us. And yeah,

(27:00):
that that is also another funny element of animation, like
the close ups you know, which if y'all I have
never watched the show, but you have probably watched SpongeBob.
SpongeBob does a lot of those gross close ups of
like a pimple or him all dried out. It looks disgusting.
Ren and Stumpy really did a ton of that. Um. First, yeah,

(27:22):
a lot of really gross toenail, but but Boogers, it
was foul and yet so damn entertaining. Uh, there was
like truly a lot to enjoy. And I think the
horror movie that had the most sort of impact in
my childhood it was Alien. As we watched that movie

(27:43):
a lot, like a lot a lot. I mostly sci
fi horror growing up. We watched like some Slashers here
and there, um, But my dad was really into Alien.
He was it was like it's a movie theater experience
that has stayed with him. He can recount detail for
detail what it was like botching that movie for the
first time time. And so I got into it and
of course here's Ellen Ripley in her giant machine taken

(28:05):
down Aliens. It like really spoke to me, uh, not
just as a lady, but sort of from a filmmaker standpoint.
It's one of the first movies where I was like
could I could I be a part of this? Like
this film is magical. There's so much energy going in
that movie starts out so unassuming, and my dad would
never tell me when a movie was about He just
put it in and be like just watch it and enjoy,

(28:25):
and so I would. Um, and there's something I think
about horror that really bonded us because we both like
to be scared, and neither my brother or my mother
are truly in this Like horror movies. I think, if
you can scare me, that you it's impressive. So little
things with horror, because I've seen so many horror movies
and just love and adorn and ben like we've talked
about on here in real haunted places, including spending the

(28:48):
night in some of them for investigative shows, and so
a few things scare me and um Blair which I
remember changed the game, changed the game. It was just
so oh my gosh it the fact that you could
do that on such a low budget. I love also
paranormal activity, same thing, those like found footage, type of

(29:11):
found footage in general, just like changed the game, I
feel like. And so because because in the eighties, you know,
the seventies and eighties, we had a lot of those
slasher uh movies, which were great, but then the fact
that it was like this thing that you couldn't even
reason with or talk to or you know, that was
just like that to me was terrifying and Um, it

(29:33):
was another one. I didn't know The Ring, The Ring
same thing, Like I don't know, Like I was just
so used to scary movies that were like The Haunting
and House on Haunted Hill and like just great, but
they were just different, you know. Um. And then when
The Ring came out, even though it was you know,
an American remake, Um, it just changed the game. I

(29:55):
was terrified. I was terrified for like weeks watts. Right, Yeah,
there's something really intriguing about that film, and it comes
to such like an interesting time because it's just post
the VHS, so you're like really getting into DVDs at
this point, and so there's something like a throwback like
I had a US player in my room because I
had the like downgrade TV, and I would absolutely if

(30:17):
somebody just handed me a VHS, pop it in and
be like, well let's see what's on it. The idea
that then you could be haunted unendingly by something that
for me again, as we were talking about like sort
of being a nerd in the me in our fantasy,
my TV and I were real good friends. I watched
a lot of television coming up. Uh, And it was
maybe the first horror movie that felt very much designed

(30:39):
for me to be scared, you know what I mean,
like everything else, Like I'm not going to go to
a random mansion in the middle of nowhere some strangers
and maybe carrot it. Like I'm not going to uh
a secret island and discovering unearthed dinosaurs, but I might
find VHS and a little girl may haunt me out
of the TV. Super Scary, the first horror movie. I

(30:59):
think that really got me as like you know that
sort of teenage years and I was like going through
the year by myself, I'm gonna go Saw had such
a huge and perfect that was also changing. Yeah, so
many of those were like James on, Yes, But what
I was going to say just they were game changing.
They were different. They were just so different than you know,
and that's hard to do. Horror has been around, you know,

(31:21):
since we've been able to tell stories and like to
be surprised to have a concept be you know, uh
turned on its head essentially. But um, what I was
going to say. One other point I was going to
say about the Ring before we move on, is that
it was just uncomfortable, like the video that they showed

(31:42):
that is I think what got me. It wasn't just
like here's this goes blah blah blah. It was like
here's this horse, here's this mirror, here's this weird spinning chair,
here's this and it like tapped into a part of
my brain that just I don't know, other other things
have tried to like copy that since then, where it's
just like it doesn't make sense and that's what's scary. Um.
But yeah, it was just Also side note, I saw

(32:04):
it in the mall in Texas with a bunch of
when I was in Dallas with a when I went
to high school there, and that was back when you
used polaroid cameras and or the disposable cameras. I had
a disposable camera and a bunch of my friends, Like
that's what you would do when you went out, is
take your disposable camera. And my mom picked me up
from the mall and gave me my my developed film

(32:28):
and I had these white sneakers on that reflected oh yeah,
and so my face and my sneakers were smeared, and
I freaked out, and my mom thought it was the
funniest thing. Like she didn't do it, she just thought
it was so funny that I was like having a
meltdown as a teenage girl because my face and all
of the photos was smeared. Coming out of that movie

(32:50):
and having that surprise, you'd be like, oh, I watched
the video, technically, what do we do now? I totally
see that like being unnerving and I couldn't really sleep
after seeing Saw. There was something so eerie about not
just a serial killer, but a guy who sets up
a trap specifically for you listen and then just to

(33:12):
like mentally f with a person like I'm gonna spoil
the ending of Saw, guys, but him clothed like it
has such a perfect like American cinematic final ending with
the closing of the door and the shadow and the
way they use light to sort of isolate both of
those men in that moment. It's a shot that stays
with you and lingers for a long time. I don't

(33:34):
know if it's cliche for the the young inns now.
I know, you know, as things age and become part
of the zeitgeist culture, there's uh less of an impact.
For example, if you were to watch Star Wars and
Luca I Am Your Father, it doesn't hit as hard
as it does for those original people who were like,
what is going on? You remember the ending of blair Witch. Yeah,
they're just in the basement. He's just standing in the corner. Yes, No,

(33:58):
I don't like it. That is what's days with me
and blair Witch. People like I know, people that love
the thing that when you think of it, like you
think of that final scene and it just haunts the
heck out of you because the thing that fades into
black is like the back of the Witch creature, like
coming across the lens. Right. Yeah, See that's a that's

(34:18):
a no no for me. And I wonder too, has
in your work You're like, love of the blair Witch
shown up anywhere? Has it popped up yet? Well? Here's
the thing, so we so I work in drama and comedy,
but comedy, comedy and horror overlap so much. We've talked
about this, but essentially, you know, you have the punchline,

(34:40):
you have the build up. That's why a lot of horror,
a lot of comedy people are in horror um and
you need you. It has like a cadence and a
rhythm to it. And so my favorite thing about what
I do in comedy is md X and horror, you
need a lot of m directs. You never want the
audience to know what's com mean, Um, you want to

(35:01):
catch them off guard or they're so safe in they're
they're like, I know what's going to happen. I know
he's a killer, and I feel good about it, and
they can feel safe, and then you pull the rug
out from them. That's what you want to do. And
the same thing with comedy. You never want them to like, oh, yeah,
I know what joke they're about to make here, you know,
and then you do a misdirect. And so I I
those are very similar things. Um, I don't know necessarily.

(35:24):
I think the way that I paint so a lot
of my Ben Blacker, who was on our Hitchcock episode,
another person that I've watched a lot of, but he's
also a comedy person. And he read the pilot, the
one that I sold. I think, did I send it
to you yet? I will? I will, I will say
that I will say he read it, and it was
so funny because when he was doing the w G

(35:46):
A staffing boost, he said, you know Danny's um. He
tweeted and said something like Danny's direction. Her stage directions
are like equally as interesting as the actual dialogue. And
that is something from having a horror background. I love
to paint the picture of the setting that you're about
to walk into, and not everyone does that, you know,
it's kind of just like joke, joke, joke, ke joke,

(36:07):
and I'm like, well, I want you to be in
the room. I want you to feel how this person
feels or the weight of just what they just said. Um.
And so I feel like horror and sci fi, to
be honest, has really affected that. Yeah, I feel that
way too, in that like, horror and sci fi are
definitely the biggest genres in throughout my life. Like there

(36:28):
are things that I watched the most. If I'm usually
looking for a movie to watch, it's one of those two.
Sometimes a historical drama will enter the picture because I
love opulence and um, a good bitch slap or water toss.
It really fills my soul to watch women just tear
each other down simply with words like amazing, the confidence,

(36:49):
the power, because people have to believe what you're saying
in order for to hit and work. It's that's really
I think what's come up. It's like I like, I
like horror movies with serial killers that are like very dynamic.
So of course Silence of the Lambs became like a
very early obsession where I was like, what kind of
person stays calm while killing? That freaked me the hell out.

(37:12):
Usually it's rage or that person is a psycho, but
this guy was just like, No, I just like to kill,
and I'm pretty good at it. You can keep me
in this cage for as long as you want, but
only really until I'm done being here. There's something about
the meticulousness and personal connection that really drives my stories.
Like I don't like stories about here are some strangers

(37:32):
I just met up. No, they're always teams who've met
or have been together for a long time. Um, people
dealing Like a lot of times in comments that get
frustrated because as soon as people get together, they're like,
now they're divorced or separated, the same thing in TV shows.
If you've been pining for a ritual ross, I don't
know why, but maybe you did that. Uh. Then they
got together and then they fell apart, and there's something

(37:53):
about keeping them apart that's supposed to keep the drama fresh.
But being in a relationship any kind of relationship. It's
going to cause drama, it's too trying to figure out
how to cohabitate or operate together. Those are much more
interesting to me, and I think horror gives you that opportunity,
particularly when you have like a very fanciful villain whose
intimate has intimate knowledge of the person they're praying on

(38:15):
or the person that um they're trying to get back at.
I like those aspects and I try to keep those
in the forefront of my writing because I think it's
much more interesting to watch than just strangers are a
meet up. We know what an introduction sounds like. There's
only so many but relationships, anything can happen. It's hey,
while you're in there. One of the things that I

(38:35):
was going to say is God bless goose bumps, because
they got me tod but goose bumps and scary stories
to tell. And that I jam is I love the
fact that they treated kids like adults and we're not
afraid of murdering us. So we come back now to
this thing you were saying about anime, which really resonated
with me. This idea of like, I understand that you

(38:55):
have very adult thoughts and feelings and you're trying to understand,
like being a child so frustrating. And it's the thing
that I tried to really like remember as I was
becoming an adult, and a thing I don't ever want
to forget about childhood because there are adults who are
like I hate children, Like that's just a little person,
Like I don't understand why there's animosity towards children. I
guess that they can be frustrating. They have a lot

(39:16):
of questions. Sometimes questions feel like accusations when you don't
know the answer. You're like, why are you asking me this?
I don't know the answer, and I can't help you,
and now I'm frustrated by my lack of knowledge. I
get that the kids are trying to figure out how
to be who they are, which seems simple, but it's
maybe one of the most complex things we are literally
all tasked with. And I think finding things that had

(39:37):
adult themes for me. Avatar the Last Airbender was a
huge impact because it's like, man, here are kids who
are going to war, not because it's cool, not because
they have fancy machines, but because they're literally fighting for
their liberation. Uh here, And and the art style was
beautiful and they're falling in love in a way that
doesn't feel trivialized or silly. Um. I like things to

(39:57):
tell kids your big emotions are valid, lid and have
an impact, because I think too many of the things
that we get, especially we got as kids, was just
like here's like some action and like some filler and
it's fun and it's flashy. Uh. And I needed more
to connect to you. I was a big reader as
a child, and as I was adjusting from reading to watching,
or as my reading was emerging with my watching, I

(40:19):
wanted to feel that same kind of connection. I also
wanted to say that it was really progressive at the
time for the Disney movies that came out for Sorry
I'm Switching Gears, But I was thinking of it when
you were talking about adults and being treated like an
adult and like the progressive themes, and it was just
like the women, yes some of them were still going

(40:40):
after men, because again it was a product of its time,
but still relatively progressive. To have someone like Bellby who like,
I don't want to marry you? Are you kidding me?
In town? And then yeah, and then to have um
Meg from Hercules be like men are an actual disease.
She was like, I am not going to fall for this. Um.
You know, I love Meg maybe the most as an

(41:02):
adult because there's this such a wonderful aspect of like,
you know, Meg fell in love and did the whole
like young and fancy, free sort of lifestyle, and then
she got hurt and so it took a lot for
her to be like, oh, I couldn't love again. And
Meg also had to get herself out of her bad situation.
She made a bad deal but was like genuinely a

(41:23):
good person but just so hurt and like as a
kid who was bullied, like the idea of being able
to move past that was Oh my god. I mean,
it was just funny. That line is like no man
is worth the aggravation is something you would hear now
in today like that would be and people would be like,
of course, you know, because we're on this track, and
it was like it was kind of fascinating that they

(41:44):
said that stuff. You know, Yeah, Jasmine, I'm not surprised
to be one. Well, listen, I'm four and really connecting
with the fact that this is like a big deal. Uh,
and there's something sometimes again it's I'd be interested to
hear how like young kids, because I feel like Disney
is one of those entities that doesn't grow up. You're

(42:05):
being introduced at the same age, you know what I mean.
So like I'm the same age as my mom when
she was introduced to say, like a Robin Hood or
Pinocchio or whatever, and so we have the same emotional
parallels because even though we're living in different times, we're
at the same mental state. And so I wonder if
kids are getting you know that a ladin at the

(42:27):
same time and feeling the same and if it's concurrent
with like a Frozen which has very similar messages, or
if they're distinguishing that it's separate times. I never as
a you know, their animation that doesn't necessarily feel out
of time. Yeah, I don't know, kids tell us if
kids listen to this. We have to take another quick

(42:48):
break and then we're gonna geek out just a little
bit more, and then we're gonna read some of the
things that y'all wrote it about your favorite fandoms and
how they impacted you right after this and we are back. So,
speaking of media, we've covered a lot of things comic books,

(43:09):
sci fi, horror animation, um anime, same thing. But yeah,
um what about music? Oh man, music is like a
very present part of my life through Was there someone
that broke on the scene that you were like felt
more represented. I was really into Destiny's Child and Usher,

(43:34):
Like you couldn't tell me anything about those like two
into Teaser that wasn't like I just loved them. They
were all over my walls, Like I had pictures of
Usher on my ceiling, which my mother found very disturbing.
She's like why And I was like I could reach
there and my health that is covered. Don't think too
much into it. Um every Destiny's Child album ever, And
I cut up the CD like inserts and I put

(43:55):
them all over my walls. Uh. Aaliyah when she passed
was like he huge. But I think for me as
a black girl, I didn't really know that I was
light skinned because I was the only black kid in
my class, and so Brandy was like it for me
for a hot second, I was like, look at this
black girl, Like she has braids, she has like a

(44:17):
name that's sort of different and maybe nobody ever has
heard of and like nobody had heard the name Joel
from the town I was in and like she was trendy.
It's like so cool, Like she went to Problem with
umh Kobe Bryant and I was like, oh my god,
like wow, So I every time she was doing something,
I was trying to imitate it. And then also she

(44:39):
was an alto and like being a young girl, especially
in the nineties, like that deep soulful voice was great
on older women, but women that we're sort of geared
towards our demographic were like sopranos and princesses and very light.
There was something very cool about a girl who wasn't
necessarily a fighter but wasn't afraid to scrap and who

(44:59):
had down deep vocals where I was just like this
girl and me are the same, and I love her.
How about you? Well, I was going to say on
top of that, when I was listening to you talk,
I was thinking of Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott was so
different for her, Like I was watching her interview with
Jesus and Marrow and she wasn't even like she was
like it was weird the music video she was doing.

(45:20):
People were like, she said, people were messaging her like
what are you doing? Like wild? Yeah, where like her
head would come off and you know that whole like
snake thing she did and like get hurt. Yes, everything
was just wild, like she just did not care. And again,
it was a time when even the women of color
in our lives were tiny. They were still tiny, We're

(45:43):
not yet. Their noses were little and and you know
they had very petite features. And you had, yes, you
had Missy come out and just not care and like
just make the best music. We did multiple dances to
her at my high school of it. And yeah, of
course it was the funnest thing to choreograph. And that

(46:06):
is just so I can't imagine how many people's childhoods
and lives she affected just by being like in the
top spot on TRL. It is not her body, her
the way she was not, like she has a chronic
illness too, which I was always like she's And the
idea that she was able to like manage this thing

(46:26):
that was so challenging and still put out this wild music.
The fact that she was doing music that was yes
for women, but again had like a lot of power
and strength behind it. The fact that she was collaborating
with these guys, the fact that she was making her
own beats, was like wild to me, because that's such
a dud's game. Uh, And she succeeded and thrived and
recreated and has people aspiring. And I think to your

(46:49):
point that doing dances to her music was so fun,
Like she's one of the few artists, like maybe with
the Janet Jackson type of Madonna type, who really puts
the dancer front and center frequently in their music. And
I think that there's something to be said about, like,
you know, missy who has this like bigger body keeping
up with all these dancers and like rocking it out. Yeah,

(47:11):
seeing her it was always a joy for me. It
was also Selena was such a both being from Texas
and southern California. I mean she was big everywhere, but
of course she was huge there and she just represented
like so many So I was younger at the time
right when she came out, and I just wanted to
look like her. I just wanted to look like my

(47:31):
cousins were gorgeous like her. And I was like, oh,
I just want like it was just so funny. I
just wanted to grow up so quickly. And I have
a picture of her framed in my bedroom and it's
her holding her Grammy, and it's just because it was like,
we can you know, she was aside from being you know, uh,

(47:53):
pop culture icon, she was a business owner, she was
a fashion designer, and it was just so I think, unexpected,
and so I try to remind myself that we can
be unexpected, but she, uh, she represented such a neat
It was interesting listening to talk about being light skinned
because for me, in the communities I grew up in,
I was Mexican a percent. Like there was no question

(48:17):
about it. You know, when you're in when you're in
uh An, Orange County, or you're in Dallas or wherever.
A lot of my family is also in San Antonio,
and there's actually a very and so I always thought
that until I would say, honestly, like five years ago
when I realized there's such a difference between Mexican Americans
from Chicanos and Mexicans and that is really a subject

(48:40):
of a lot of debate in my community, and it
never dawned on me. And so her being Chicana, her
having this you know, they tackle it in the Salina movie,
but essentially feeling like you have to be you know,
more Mexican, the Mexicans and more American than the Americans.
You're kind of tugged. You don't really fit in in anywhere. Um.

(49:02):
And that was my experience growing up. But it was
so fascinating to me because I never questioned it. It It
was like I was, it was actually already bubbled in
on my scantron, Like I couldn't even bubble it in
because my last name, you know what I mean. It
was just very it was very clear my family and
I weren't white and so uh. And so I never
I never thought anything of it until I really had

(49:22):
to look back at, like, Okay, these are very actually
different experiences. And so Selina represented that of like having
to toggle between these two worlds uh and how can
you do honor to your heritage but also except where
you live and that that experience is different. Um. And
so it's only something that I've really tackled, honestly being

(49:45):
here in l A, where it was very much like
a topic of debate where I had to like reflect
on that and and I just started calling myself Chiconic
because that's what I am. Um. I didn't come you know,
I wasn't born in Mexico like other members of my family,
and so just very fascinating. So she represented so much

(50:05):
to me of that toggle limbo space. Uh and what
when you're a child of of immigrant parents or your
first or second generation, like what that looks like and
you want to take care of your family and do
right by your family and also trying to fit in here.
So she was definitely a huge impact. And I it's

(50:25):
wild to me because you know, she passed away so
many years ago for people that are just discovering her music,
for people that are like that, we have the Selena
Show on Netflix coming out. For someone that was so
young to have such an impact to this day, to
this day, you know she is. It's so funny like

(50:46):
growing up, like every brown girl was like an immediate
icon to me, like of any level of success. I
was like, wow, look at her out there doing it.
Because again, I like Princess Jasmine was like my brown princess,
Like like who'd be princess? It was Jasmine and then
Pocahonas and then it really didn't matter who they were,
Like watching them became sort of an obsession. And when

(51:07):
I caught onto Selena, which was later I'm very midwestern. Um,
when the movie came out, I was like Oh my god,
who is this queen? And look at her outfits and
the fact that she was like into fashion and making
her own clothes reminds me of Beyonce and like her mom.
You know, it's like you start out, you're like making
all your bedazzling your own g yes, cutting up your bras,

(51:28):
making it work. You're making think Dad that this is appropriate,
so funny, it's amazing. Um yeah, shout up. Shout out
to the brown girls of the late nineties early two
thousand's who were holding it down for all of us.
They needed representation. Yeah, so let's go ahead and read
some of these. I'm gonna try and I've got one.

(51:48):
So we're gonna read some of your guys early loves,
the things that got you into nerdom. So this is
from Token Superhero on Twitter. That's my friend Marcus Marcus Hey,
he says. After the First Adventures came out, a bunch
of guys and I started talking via Twitter and Facebook,
and eventually we all met up. We would pick a
place of where we lived Arizona, Texas, New York and

(52:10):
fly to each other's homes. Years later, we still do it.
We've all become a family. We've attended each other's weddings.
All three a funeral all and our families are forever entwined.
All because of our love for comics, which is all
we typically text to talk about besides our family. Marcus,
that is so charming. I love that. It's so great.

(52:32):
I have one from Ryan at Ryan Film Lover. He said,
dragon ball Z, if it was for this glorious show
dragon ball Z, if it was for this glorious show,
I don't think I'd care about anime. I probably wouldn't
love kung fu movies or sci fi movies. It's something
I will always hold close to my heart. And he
has a cabinet actually that has like Scheanron and Goku
Wow in it. I love a pure fandom. This one's

(52:55):
from Hi king Fen. I met my husband through a
Hunger Games role play on Tumbler and if I'm oh
my gosh, see there you go Tumbler yeah, and then
if I'm alive right now, it's because the Magicians and
its fandom uh from one person to another. The Magicians
as a queer um magic loving graduate obsessed fandom is

(53:19):
so beautiful and loving. Um I'm I can't believe this
show is ending. It breaks my heart. I'm looking everywhere
for a sign of somebody picking it up. I totally
get how that show could connect and save your life,
because it lifts my spirits a lot. I have one
from Michael Smith. It is. My first two loves are
Star Wars and film. One led to the other. My

(53:41):
dad always tells me the first movie I ever watched
was Jaws, when I was two years old, sitting of
the TV, giggling away, demanding again and again whenever it
would end. No memory of that, although it totally tracks.
I don't really remember anything before Star Wars. I have
loved for all three trilogies. Much of the expanded Universe
is planned on doing a deep dive this year, and

(54:02):
those pieces of film magic opened the gates of my
exploration into so many other films, many of which I
probably saw a little too young. I'm sure we all did. Sure, Um,
I watched Starship Troopers. There you go, Joel, Oh my god,
you and you're the same person in the theater with
my dad. I was seven and I had already seen
all the alien films. Will you guys really are our
dads have to meet? Not the best filters, but we're

(54:23):
better or worse. Film, particularly Star Wars, has shaped my
life and you have a lot of ways, and my
flame for both continues to burn brighter every day. Listen,
I don't know how do not best friends yet, but
let's get on that. This one's from Samir underscore Tea
on Twitter. After the Matrix blew all our minds in
ninety nine, I joined a Matrix movie board online called
The Last Free City or TLFC. I mean friends from

(54:44):
all of the world, and even met a couple of
them I r L. After many years passed, the website
closed down, but we have a Facebook group of about
twenty of us keeping in touch and excitedly waiting for
Matrix four. Other than Star which it's my favorite fandom.
A lot less toxic btw. I can imagine Trinity does
not allow for your toxicity to exist in the Matrix fandom.
It's true, Rachel Cushing. Her friend Rachel Cushing said, I

(55:06):
can't remember time when I didn't know who Frodo, Gandoff
and Golem were because my parents were telling us Tolken
stories since my sister and I were toddlers. That's so cool,
it is beautiful. We bonded over those books and it's
always something we can love together. We saw every film
together on opening night. I flew home from l A
to do that in O two and oh three, and
the four of us even have matching Lord of the
Rings tattoos. The stories represent Escapism as its most magical

(55:29):
for me, but I also always think of my family
whenever I revisit Middle Earth. Uh. This one's from our
fan and person we love, Bruce Rockency. One of mine
was Stargate SG one. The cast and the writing were
really good, but it was also one of the shows
me and mom used to really connect as fans. It
definitely has a soft spot on my heart because of

(55:50):
this bond. I also watched Star Trek with my mama.
She was very much into Um Star Trek and musicals
and that's where our Nerdum live And oh my god,
that's so cute. I love it. Well. Thank you all
for listening to a stroll down memory lane about the
fandoms that kind of shaped us and made us the
women that we are. And thank you for sharing your

(56:12):
own fandoms and how they connected you and your family. Yes, um,
keep following the Nerdifficent on the twitters, and I g
s and we'll try to keep you guys posted about
what's happening, uh coming up, and please stay safe out there,
wash your hands and you know where you can as
you can. And we know it's a privilege to stay home,

(56:33):
but if you can't, you know, try to stay home. Yeah,
I'm at miss Danny Fernandez and all the things. What
about you, Joel? You can find me all over the
internet at Joel Monique. That's j O E l E
E m O n i q u e yea. And
like we always say, stay nerdy.