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Talking Game Changers, BookTok, and Our Favorite Fruity Content
268 Plays2 months ago
This week, Lau & Amanda discuss differences between the Skip Episode and their book as a whole. Featuring voice memos from Lauren & Haley, and pros and cons of BookTok. Thanks for listening!
Follow our socials!
Threads & IG: @sincerookieseasonpod
Email: srspod@protonmail.com
References & Sources
social media links:
artist and writer that amanda mentions
butterfly effect 9/11 to 50 shades
scholarly:
the divine comedy by Dante Alighieri
the divine comedy isn't fan fiction
How TikTok Disrupts Publishing and Fuels the #Romantasy Boom
How Social Media Algorithms Shape Recommendations in Online Reading Communities
young adult reading communities across an international, sociotechnical landscape
How BookTok Makes Literature More Accessible
Is BookTok ruining literature?
booktok, brainrot, and why it’s okay to be a hater
lauren’s book recs:
the rest of the story and gravity by tal bauer
free from falling by e.l. massey (trans main character)
from coast to coast j.j. mulder
the trade deadline by a.l. heard
role model and the long game by rachel reid
rookie mistake by anna zhao
you could make a life and thrown off the ice by taylor fitzpatrick
scoring chances series by avon gale (ECHL; in depth hockey)
pucking around by emily rath (mmmf, reverse harem, swords cross! if you're gonna read a book for the smut, do this one)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Since Rookie Season'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Since Rookie Season. Well, the summer before, a heated rivalry fan companion podcast where your hosts, Amanda, Lau, and Lauren, break down the episodes from the Crave Canada television series, the Game Changers novels, and various various media surrounding this fan phenomenon. Today, we are looking into Game Changers the novel.
00:00:22
Speaker
Stay with us as we dissect this romance that started it all.
00:00:33
Speaker
Okay, so Lauren is not here today as you might have noticed. They are taking a well-deserved week off. We miss them so dearly. We hope they're having so much fun and having a
Main Question: What Makes Rivalry Addictive?
00:00:44
Speaker
relaxing evening. Miss them terribly, but we will see them quite soon. In fact, we have a voice memo from them coming up here in a minute.
00:00:51
Speaker
But first, I wanted to remind us of our season question, which is what makes heated rivalry so addictive? like what is in this story and this universe and the way that it was given to us that allows for this amount of obsession and rewatching. And also, we're going to be exploring here in some of these book episodes, is the book as addictive as
Analyzing 'Game Changers' as Literature
00:01:10
Speaker
the series? So today we're going to just be covering the first book in the Game Changers universe, Game Changer itself, which if you know is the skip book basically it is what episode three of the heated rivalry series is kind of what like was connected to a nutshell but this is the whole expanded book that we're going to be talking about yeah great so i just wanted us to do first like an overview as you all know i am a literature scholar i teach literature So I did structure our episode today a bit as I would do if my students were studying this
Is 'Game Changers' Rooted in Fanfiction?
00:01:45
Speaker
book. So I always like us to start with the general stuff and then we go to the particulars. So Amanda, are you aware of like the rumors around the origin of this novel? Because I know it's not like it's nothing. Nothing is confirmed. And actually Rachel Reed has said that it's not quite what people are saying. But do you know something about that? Yeah, yeah, I think we might have mentioned it once before on the podcast, but you're talking about how heated rivalry or like the Game Changers universe kind of started as a Stucky fanfiction.
00:02:18
Speaker
right? yeah Yeah. So apparently she said it was not it, but there seems to be a lot of evidence that it was. And this was first, like, this was first
Fanfiction's Evolution to Published Works
00:02:30
Speaker
fanfiction. That is like the lore that we are going with. And this is gonna be great because Lauren sent us a voice memo that touches on fanfiction versus romance novels, genres, and, um,
00:02:46
Speaker
Also because in a few weeks we're gonna have maybe a discussion around fanfiction as a genre as well. So just think, like keep in mind that this is becoming very common. That a lot of fanfictions are then developed into published work outside of like fanfiction websites and platforms.
00:03:07
Speaker
And whether this is true or not, it does give that vibe at first, right? Okay, so let's talk about the title. So it's Game Changers and we we did mention this when we covered episode 3 of the series.
Queer Revolution in 'Game Changers'
00:03:21
Speaker
It's because they are the couple that changed changes the game, right? This love story is what starts some sort of like revolution in this universe for hockey players that are queer. So yeah that's why the title is what it is. Yeah, which I feel like you don't realize that they are the game changers until later. Like once you get later into the series and you start realizing that everyone is referencing them about Scott Hunter coming out. Like the big moment that everyone realized. I feel like you don't realize that until later because at first you're like, oh, game changers. Like, sure. Yeah, whatever you like. You think it's overall like maybe it's the characters as a whole, but I think really it is just Scott and Kip that are.
00:04:01
Speaker
I mean, and of course, the rest of them are changing the narrative and are trying to change the and NHL and the culture and or the major hockey, whatever. They're trying to change the league. But I think really the domino that starts it all is Scott and Kip. Yeah, Scott and Kip are like the queer elders of this beautiful gay community that Ilya Rosanoff starts to
Cultural Commentary: Religious Epiphanies and Social Media Dynamics
00:04:23
Speaker
build.
00:04:23
Speaker
ah So it's like the ancient text is this couple that we're going to talk about today. And then you have the prophet. That is Ilya Rosanoff.
00:04:34
Speaker
Wait, I like this framework. Because he's going everywhere and telling everyone like, the gay messiah. Yeah, he's the gay messiah. I love it. That's why his gaydar is so good for every single queer player except for Scott Hunter. Because yeah Scott Hunter is the ancient text. So that's why. Which I did see and I want to shout it out. I've seen so many people have been like, Ilya doesn't actually have gaydar. He just catches a whiff of someone being queer and he wants to keep them away from Shane. And so he's like, oh, let me yeah me set you up with a social media person. Let me set you up with this ah hot bartender. Like he's just getting them away from Shane.
00:05:14
Speaker
um Which cracks me up. So shout out to that. That's so funny. I saw another one that was like, Ilia was so frustrated that he didn't clock Scott Hunter as gay, that he promised himself that would never happen to him again. And that's why he now clocks everyone.
00:05:29
Speaker
That's so funny. Also, while we're talking about the like a religious aspect, which is an entirely separate tangent that could be a podcast on its own, of I wanted to mention that I was driving, it doesn't matter why, but I was driving for seven hours round trip this past weekend.
00:05:45
Speaker
i went i went to Miami and back, which I'm not telling you which direction I'm going for Miami, but it took me it took me a hot minute to get to Miami. And I had ah this thought dawned on me as I'm just crossing this like aching nothingness, this vastness, It just dawned on me that Joshler is Halinaw variant and I need to put this out there. I can talk about it more later, but if you know Joshler, like Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn, I think they're a Halinaw variant and I can't expand on this, but I just needed, it I tweeted it.
00:06:13
Speaker
No one liked it because I have like negative Twitter followers, but shout out the- Everyone go follow Amanda on Twitter. oh If you could find don't if you can find me, but Joshler in like 21 Pilots has religious undertones and that's like a whole separate discussion. But I wanted to throw that out there that if we're talking about Holonov as, or at least religion framework for game changer stuff, I wanted to throw Joshler in there.
Book Consumption and Accessibility
00:06:36
Speaker
if you If that makes sense, it makes sense. If it doesn't, oh well. I love how we have shower thoughts and then you have driving in US highways thoughts. Because, yeah, you're just like there, commuting with vastness. And then you have... Epiphanies of a religious nature, apparently, this time. Makes sense for Florida. Okay.
00:07:02
Speaker
Okay, so the title, very straightforward. just Just a reminder, our main characters are Skip. So Kip and Scott, right? So they're the two like main characters that are fall in love with each other. But we also have Kip's family, Kip's friends and Scott people from Hockey.
00:07:22
Speaker
So that's like a very cute micro universe that we're gonna explore with these two lovebirds. And this novel, and we're going to discuss this later with what Lauren offered us in their voice memo. It's a very traditional romance with a meet-cute, a honeymoon face, conflict, and resolution of that conflict. And maybe that's why I personally don't enjoy it as much.
00:07:54
Speaker
Like, I was entertained by the book when I read it I audio read it ah also. And please let us know. Amanda, Lauren and I want to know, how do you consume these books? Yeah. Especially if you're not in the US or Canada. How are you accessing them? How are you consuming them? In which format? Are you annoyed by weird accents and voices in audiobooks? Yeah, yeah, that's what started this discussion is I was allowed to mention that she listens to audio book. And I was like, man, how do you put up with that? narrator Because sometimes I prefer audio books for like, ah quote, unquote, quicker things like this are really easier reads, um like on my commutes and stuff in between podcasts. And i could not do the the narrator, unfortunately, I mean, the other books just fine. But this one, I couldn't do it. So I was curious how else everyone consumes them? Was this one different because of that? Or are you was it an accessibility thing? You could only get audiobook or could only get a paper or e-reader. Let us know how you consumed each book, if they were different, maybe.
00:09:00
Speaker
Just to clarify, I'm a very resilient person, so that's maybe the answer of how I put up with it. But also, I was listening at like 1.5 speed or even 2.0 speed at some point. Yeah, that's true. Because it made the voice and the accent less... Yeah, yeah, usually I get the paperback, but... Books are very expensive in Colombia. Yeah, can imagine.
Translation Challenges in Media
00:09:26
Speaker
And especially books in foreign languages. So if it's not the translation in Spanish, it's going to be like way, way more expensive. So I usually have to wait for my husband to come visit or some friend from the US to come visit if I want like a nice paperback of a book reading in English. Yeah, though I am curious if the Spanish version would be different, you know? That's a great question. And I know have... I don't know if anyone from my group of friends who is listening to us has read them in Spanish, I don't think, because most of them speak English, but if any listener here is from the Hispanic universe of this planet, why did I phrase it like that? I don't know. Please let us know.
00:10:11
Speaker
Have you read the translations? I am super interested. Maybe my students know. I'm gonna ask Yeah, DM us or send us a ah voice memo with your thoughts or or email us or something. just Just let us know if you read the translated version and what you think. Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
I'm also curious about how they translate titles specifically because i yeah notice I noticed that the translation for the series in HBO sucks big time.
Formulaic Nature of Romance Novels
00:10:36
Speaker
Like, Brazilians, that they did great. The Portuguese translation of Heated Rivalry, the title is Rivalidade Ardiente, which makes sense. Una rivalidad ardiente, rivalidad ardiente in Spanish would have made sense. We decided, someone decided that más que rivales, more than rivals, was the choice.
00:10:57
Speaker
And interesting I always hate when we miss the point when translating titles. It's something that I teach, so it bothers me. But yeah, I wasn't like super into this book. I didn't start with this book. I think it if I had started with this book instead of the series and heated rivalry, the book, I would have dropped it because it's really not my thing. And I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. But i I really like to be stimulated intellectually. And when books are very formulaic,
00:11:31
Speaker
I get bored easily. So it's not that I don't love the characters. I was just like, I know exactly what's going to happen in the next few pages. And that is not the entertaining. Yeah, it's Yeah, I think it gets better with the other books that
Reading Order and Experience in 'Game Changers'
00:11:47
Speaker
I've read. Yeah, yeah. And about the order of the books, I think it's really interesting to people who read out of order, because I feel like you kind of do that. And sure, you might miss out on some things, or you might pick up on other things, or it might be like cool foreshadowing. I think it's really interesting. Kaylee, as we've mentioned before, she was one of the first people that I knew that had read all of the books. And so I kind asked them
00:12:07
Speaker
wait What did you read them in? What do you recommend? Like, do you have suggestions? And I ended up reading them just all in order, which, you know, worked out great because the timeline more or less matches up. Though I do think starting with Heated Rivalry straight to long game also works or Heated Rivalry book ending with Heated Rivalry and long game um also works out. But I feel like when you get into the book six and seven or five and six, when you get into... Towards the end, like the long game and the one before it, when you get into those, I feel like it's more important to have all of that context leading up to it, because then also you have the Kingfisher as a hub and this little collection of queer people that have been gathered. But I do think that this one to newer people, if they're a bit more skeptical, I think they can throw it in a bit later. and they ah Well...
00:12:47
Speaker
Also, but we did say that these are the game changers, so it might be important to start here. I don' i think it also depends on the show. i you know i think I followed Kaylee, and Kaylee told me to start with Hit The Rivalry and then go back to Game Changers as like the spin-off. you know ah A bit like Jacob Turney. And I think Jacob Turney is a genius for doing it the way he did it. And it does work. like right
Book Ratings and Perceptions
00:13:13
Speaker
it might spoil the whole kiss yeah thing kiss after the stanley cup win but as i've said before uh spoilers mean mean nothing to me i'm an anxious person i like to know what's gonna happen so i i just did that and i'm glad i was just checking on my story graph amanda do you do you remember how you rated this book
00:13:33
Speaker
I am really bad at keeping up with my story graph and reading and rating books like I'm so I will log that I read books and I don't super read because also depending on the day I might feel more strongly about it or I think like the second half is better than the first half and it's it's hard for me to read stuff I would say i was thinking about it because I saw it in our notes I would say somewhere between a three and a half to four for sure. like I'm usually really fantasy at heart. like the only Some of the only reason I can keep up with romance is if it has like that fantasy aspect, like you were saying, I get bored. like I want something else to attach to or keep myself stimulated with or like another element to throw in there. and so For me, when it's just like normal world stuff, I get i can get a little lost. and then Also, as you were saying, it's a bit predictive. But I thought it was still compelling. I thought it was still interesting and fun. and i i knew that it was going to trigger this whole thing with the rest of the characters. And I wanted to see how that unfolded and the rest of the challenges they faced. But Scott and Kip is two cis gay men. i was like, and white. I was like, I can, I would prefer something just different than Two white gay men, you know? So that's why it got ranked a little bit lower in my head, but definitely higher than a three, but definitely not quite a four. So what shocked me is that just now I was checking and I give it a four. And right now I'm like, I want to go back and reframe that because I don't feel that's what... and and And you're right. Some days you're like, just like, oh, this is just like a romance novel. So I'm just going to rate it accordingly to the genre. But then you have the long game, then you have hated rivalry, then you have like the beauty that is Casey McQuiston and other authors of romance. And I'm like, what's the story before?
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, like, i'm like, where are the stakes at? Like, how serious is it? Like, what are the implications for the challenges in their lives? Like, are they the material concept like what how does it kind of unfold and some days i do like i don't know if you get this like itch with books or like fanfic i know i get it a lot with fanfic but that's how i know if it's a really highly rated book is if i'm like constantly thinking about it and like craving to read it like i will be like i'll be like at work and i'm like man i just want to read my book right now or i'm like cleaning and i'm like okay i need to hurry up and finish this book fucking dishes so I can read my stupid fanfic like it's and I don't know that I felt that with this I definitely felt it with a couple of the others in the books but this one I was just like yeah oh yeah like i I finished my other stuff I'm gonna read this now and have some some on-screen time so yeah to me it felt like I was doing research for context on a universe that I was interested in whereas the other two that I have read that are the two Shane and Ilia books I couldn't stop and every single day I had to go to a meeting at work or teach a class I was like, I'm itching to know what happens next. So yeah, with that. Yeah, I still thought it was good though, to be clear though. It it was not just a slog, it was good. I never finish a book that I don't like, right?
00:16:21
Speaker
Unless I have to for work. And this podcast was not a reality then, so I didn't have to do it but back then when I first read it. So if I finished it, it's because I was entertained. I just, if it wasn't for the other books themselves, this is one book that I could easily forget that had, like, I don't feel like it had any impact in my life. If it was a standalone book.
00:16:45
Speaker
For sure. If it was standalone, it would be way lower. Yeah, exactly. i think that what gives it the power in my, like, consumption experience, it's how it relates to the rest of the universe and how it relates to this beautiful series that we have been analyzing. Mm-hmm.
Critique on Formulaic Plots and Fanfiction
00:17:05
Speaker
With that, I got us like Amanda and then I worked on this chart that we have here and it's a chart of similarities and differences and we want to like go through the idea of adaptation, how you adapt this book, especially for a series that is focusing mostly in another couple and it's not like this skip series, it's the Holanov series. but has skipped because they're the they're the game changers. But before that, we are going to listen to what our beautiful absent third person sent. So we have a voice memo that they crafted for us very generously. And we're going to listen to it. And then Amanda and I are going to give you our own thoughts.
00:17:57
Speaker
Hi, my loves, I am so sorry that I wasn't able to record with you all today. but I wanted to send in a voice memo about some of my thoughts, and just kind of in general, that I've been like dealing with when thinking about books like Game Changers and heated rivalry that exists the romance genre or are even like within fiction or YA and kind of are using very like formulaic like plot lines. I was talking about this with my mom the other day and she was like, I don't know, I just feel like the sex scenes in the books are very like this happens and then this happens and they're over and over again. And she's reading all of the Game Changers novels kind of in a row. And so she's like, you know, seeing them all like she's got some of a maybe recency bias with it. But i think she's, you know,
00:18:52
Speaker
pretty like I think she's kind of spot on with some of this because something that I've been you know thinking about as a reader and as an academic is the way that book talk is like not creating like intellectual readers like I feel like book talk is doing more harm than good and that we are no longer creating art that is like substantial and challenges our thinking and makes better intellectuals and like i
00:19:31
Speaker
have read so many hockey romance novels myself. And so like after a while, i would just like see the same things kind of over and over again. And a lot of like authors in the romance genre are even adopting like fan fiction conventions. And so I guess kind of my question my like my thought percolation is like, do you see this in the books that you read? Do you see this in Game Changers? Do you see kind of these like very formulaic like plot lines harming like intellectualism around books?
00:20:08
Speaker
And do you see platforms like BookTok as being more harm than good? Like, do you think that the like drive to have book hauls and like big consumerist bookshelves full of different titles as something that is harmful for our society? Do you see these like plot lines that don't really challenge us as readers?
00:20:35
Speaker
to be harmful or do you see them as kind of a convention of the romance genre and something that we shouldn't delve into yeah I think those are kind of all of my thoughts there are some really great YouTube video essays on this that would always i will link in the show notes I'm thinking about this especially since like Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel, like she used fans in some way, shape or form to help her like write and publish the book. Supposedly she had written Stucky fan fiction. um
00:21:10
Speaker
Maybe this is an AU, maybe it is not. I've seen conflicting information. on social media and on the internet about this, but like fan fiction, and this is something we'll talk about, I'm sure in the future, has very different conventions than normal books do, especially when you think about like how fan fiction is set up with tags and warnings. And fan fiction is set to riff on like the content that is already created, the canon that has already been created. and so it makes sense that fan fiction can in some ways be a little formulaic because you're taking these characters that you know and love and just putting them into a coffee shop au or into a college au but then when you encounter romance novels that are basically fan fiction that's just replace characters or whatever and really have like no like substance and even sometimes the smut really has no substance and it's just very formulaic like what do we do with this and this is not to like say that fan fiction is bad or anything like i have read fan fiction that's changed my life clearly we've talked about it on this podcast before But I, yeah, I just, I, I'm having like these thoughts and these, you know, ideas about this. And I'm especially thinking about it as, as like the rise in like spicy, which I hate that word, but in the rise of like smuts, in mainstream and how like people will be like, Oh, this book is so good because of the smut. Like, y'all know, like, that's not like, like you, 100% believe that you can like a book because of smut. But like, I don't think that's what makes a book good. I think what makes a book good is, you know, interesting plot lines, the way that characters are developed. And I'm just kind of sick of reading these like, very formulaic things because people think they can get away with it.
Media Literacy and Critical Engagement
00:23:13
Speaker
because it's the romance genre where like when i encounter novels that i love in the romance genre like they deeply like change and affect some part of me and i i don't want us to lose that because of platforms like booktok because they're trying to conform themselves to these fan conventions that like are not supposed to exist with kind of in this genre so yeah i miss you both dearly have the greatest time recording today and i will talk to you all soon bye
00:23:54
Speaker
First of all, thank you so much for sending that in, Lauren. We miss you so much. We are having the greatest time recording without you, but of course there's a piece of us missing. We are having so much fun without you. We miss you so much. I have a lot of thoughts, and this is a very nuanced thing, I would say. I i agree and disagree on on a couple of this. First of all, one of the first things that comes to mind is I do really appreciate that media, like books and shows can, which also, first of all, I want to go over a couple of vocab things. AU means alternate universe, if you didn't know that. So if we say like when Lauren said college AU, it's like putting you know the characters in an an alternate universe that they're in college or something. And then Stucky was, um it's like Steve and Bucky. i don't know. It's something Marvel, I think. I haven't seen it.
00:24:39
Speaker
Like Captain America. Me neither. I don't watch superhero stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then Smut and Spicy is like the sexual stuff um and more intimate things. So I do want to say my first thought, I do really appreciate that media can inspire people to write fan fiction and such. And I do think that it is fantastic that it can even encourage people to publish it.
00:25:01
Speaker
I was really ah deep into the Our Flag Means Death fandom and the Social Media Alternate Universes or SMAUs. I was really into that scene. um i was in a Discord for it that had like hundreds and hundreds of fics that were updating all the time. And and I followed a few of them. And there was this, my favorite author, which now they're doing art for some heated rivalry stuff. And I'm like, hey, Ayo, Loki. i don't know if they're writing stuff, but all of that was to say that this AU was nuts. So our flag means death. I won't get the nitty-gritty. It was like pirates, 1700s. This AU put them in the 1970s to 80s, and then they like broke up when one of them like got married to a woman. And then then they reconnected later on in the And so it was a very different universe, it was a very different AU, almost to the point that like it was its own separate story, it was just using some of the like hints and nods to the to the show that we loved. And I believe, i don't know if they ever pursued it but the word on the street was that they were going to try to get that published as like a real story. ah Not with the social media aspect, but with flesh it out more, essentially. And for me, I was like, wow, it is so awesome that something like that can help someone inspire this story, this completely so separate story. It's not even just a coffee shop AU. It is like a fully separate, like different plot lines and the characters are developed a bit differently. It's kind of canon compliant in that the characters behaved in in somewhat of a similar way, but other than that, there was almost no reference to the canon. And so that I found to be really, really cool and inspirational. But when people are just like making fanfic and then like search and replacing the characters names with like a different name, I find that to be a bit kind of like what Lauren's saying where it's like formulaic and not fully like it it it doesn't feel inspired. you know when it's like it feels like I'm reading fanfiction and I know how it's going to end. like Yes, I think it's great that you can understand these characters so well to know. Because I so i wanted to write fanfiction when I was way younger. I was a young teen, like 12 or 13. But it was hard for me to come up with my own stories. Now, if you ask me how a character would work, and I'm really good with the Percy Jackson universe, ah
00:27:05
Speaker
Obviously, but like if you asked me like how Percy and Annabeth would feel about XYZ, I would absolutely be able to concoct something for you that I think would fit fit in that canon. But I think trying to publish something off of that feels a bit inauthentic. And I think the rise of media like BookTok or like stay on Twitter or or these fandom spaces, I think it is good to incorporate people and like have it influence them and bring on new people, like an influx of people in a certain way. But I do think there can be a lack of critical thinking skills and it brings in a lot of like quote unquote normies where it's babies first fandom, like they don't really know the etiquette or the rules and they don't understand. And I i do like that they want to explore fanfiction because I think that it it is great. But I have seen some of those such toxic sides of that where they get like real people involved where they
00:27:52
Speaker
cross boundaries, and I think it can become a problem and they just don't have that literacy awareness or or like perception of ah how weird or toxic or too forward they they can be. And so this definitely happened a bit over the pandemic. I think that is a big influence because my experience in fandom before the pandemic was very was it was vastly different to this. like It was confined to Tumblr or like you had to work very hard to get it onto your algorithm. And then of course algorithms change, especially in spaces like Twitter. And then we have the like new one with Blue Sky and then Threads, which is such it's a very different culture and sphere.
00:28:29
Speaker
i would say like what Lauren experiences on Threads is very different than my experience on Twitter, and that could be personal algorithms, but also just cultural shifts across platforms, which so of course, tick tock, you know, people were on it for hours and hours and hours a day, that's going to lead them to different places they hadn't explored yet, it's going to lead them to new medias. um And so I think that it's great to add people to this to give them, I think, the best thing for anyone is to learn and to be educated. That is how we are empathetic and sympathetic to other people's struggles. It's how we are aware of marginalized people. um Even looking at Holonov with like mental illness and and immigration and different stuff like that, think is really interesting and in like a queer struggle. And yet I still think people are stupid and don't understand. like They don't understand that's the takeaway. Like Lauren was saying, they're kind of in it for the smut. And I think if you're only in it for the smut, just go read Erotica. like to get out of there. I think smut and whatever spiciness, however you want to frame it, I think should be used to drive the characters and drive the plot and shouldn't just be there for whatever. I mean, if you want it to be, I guess it can be. But I think, in my opinion, it's best served in purpose of the plot. And we get that with Holonov of like that, like we didn't even kiss like that kind of intimacy drives their character development and drives a bit of the plot. And that's why it's relevant. And it's not just there for the spice. I think i think if you take out the spiciness or take out the smut, see how that impacts the plot, impacts the characters and vice versa. If there isn't any, try to put it in. What would it impact? you know I think those were some my thoughts. i I think they were a bit jumbled, but yeah, I think book talk and and related spheres can be both beneficial and harmful. But also people can get published. That doesn't mean they're good. Oh, I did see this is relevant. I don't know if you all saw that scandal that was on BookTok.
00:30:13
Speaker
Someone put their book on the TikTok shop. And that's a whole separate conversation about the TikTok shop. But it could be rated before people received a copy. So like they could like rate and review whatever book. And people were rating books they hadn't received yet. So they're rating it five stars and being like, oh my god, I'm so excited to read this. And then once they read it, it was bad. and they're like, you can't undo.
00:30:37
Speaker
that kind of and it was a whole scandal where this person i don't even remember all of the details I just remember that that happened of like someone got a bunch of positive reviews because they were a great content creator and they were a great TikToker that does not correlate to being a good writer and so someone can be a good writer but that's they're not necessarily inclusive of each other and I think that that's a relevant conversation here is that you can market a book really well and you can try to talk about it a certain way but that doesn't make the content of the book good and so I think yeah I think fandom spaces are important to have for culture and community and also we need to, we don't need to police, but we need to recognize and be aware and maybe guide politely guide people when they are either pushing boundaries or just not reading. I saw someone, it was it was about Bridgerton, but it's a a related idea. Someone was saying, which this is a Bridgerton season 4 part 2 spoilers, I know this comes out a couple weeks after, but skip ahead 15 seconds or 30 seconds if you don't want spoilers for Bridgerton season 4 part 2. Benedict tells Sophie that he's bisexual, or here he like says, like I've been with men as well in intimate ways. And i saw someone on Twitter who was like, Benedict doesn't tell Sophie that he's bi, and all of the replies were like, did you fucking watch it? He literally does. Like, were you scrolling? Were you even in the room when it play People are not paying attention. Yeah, and so I think that's relevant in some of these fandom spaces is like you need to be intentional about writing, you need to be intentional about what you are consuming. And so these fandom spaces, like I said, they're so important. But if you're not paying attention, or you don't have media literacy skills, it's not necessarily a place for you, because things are going to go awry you're going to start fights and you're going to, it's going be so confusing because yeah, that could have been a shit stir just being like Oh, he didn't say that when like, bro, did you even watch it? He literally said that verbatim that he had been with men. So I think there's stuff like that involved as well, where people are stupid, but I want to, I personally, I want to still include them in media. You know, I so i would, I'll sit there and explain it to you. I'll point the, I mean, that's part of what this podcast is, is here, wait, I noticed this thing. Can I show you this cool thing about this, these characters we both love? And that's how I feel about it.
Historical Perspective on Publishing and Fanfiction
00:32:46
Speaker
Lauren i know you can get a bit more i don't want say violent la can it more
00:32:49
Speaker
ellen confrontational with some of the stuff about like did you even see it, bro? But I think those are are some of my thoughts. I've been rambling so long, Lau. What are your thoughts? Don't worry, worry I was fascinated by hearing like listening to Lauren and then listening to you. I i have thoughts, I'm gonna organize it in in themes. So first of all, just a disclaimer, I don't have TikTok, right? i am I was actually bragging to Amanda that I got my phone screen time down to one hour and a half daily in in my last two weeks. So I'm really proud of that. So I'm trying to do other stuff and...
00:33:24
Speaker
in the last year I learned how to draw because I was avoiding scrolling so I haven't downloaded TikTok and all the TikTok content that I consume is thanks to my friends that curate an algorithm for me and my beautiful amazing husband who does like this TikTok moments during our FaceTimes every couple of weeks like I saved a couple of things for you that I know you would like So I am less familiar with how BookTok works, but I do want to, first of all, start with, let's start with the market, the idea of a market, right? So we must not be oblivious to the fact that publishing is an industry and they work with capitalistic interests. So they're going to publish what the numbers are saying you should publish. right and i although late state capitalism social media tick tock have perhaps changed the rules and the criteria this is not new right a lot of if if you look at the history of literature you're gonna find that publishing has always like even though that the invention of printing was a way to democratize Yes. Texts, right? Because before that, you needed to have a very specific education and be... like that That was held specifically in Europe like by religious organizations, specifically the Catholic Church. So all the books were spiritual and were like serving the interests of the powerful, right? Yes. And then we get... the invention of printing, we get like the birth of protestantism and you do get at democratization, but that doesn't mean a whoring to like it doesn't mean that everyone can publish and that's it.
00:35:22
Speaker
And then with the rise of the Internet, And with social media and with blogging specifically, Tumblr, blogs, MySpace, all the like ancient texts that generation used. I remember I read all the fan fiction I read about Harry Potter. Harry Potter was housed in like a Harry Potter platform. Right. And blogging was very important to express he yourself, learn how to write. But it was still limited to people who had access to a certain type of technology. And I know of some people that develop this muscle much more because they had more access to the Internet. My Internet access was limited because my mom knows about child development. So I had as one hour per day for any type of screen. Even then.
00:36:13
Speaker
But I just want to to like remind people, like even when we say like printing was but invented and suddenly more people can write and publish and get read, then we get the internet, same thing. Like you get the radio, more people are listening to you. Now everyone can do a podcast. It doesn't mean that there's not some powers deciding who gets more platform, right?
00:36:36
Speaker
And that is something important to keep in mind for the purists that say like, oh, now everything is about what TikTok, the algorithm wants. Yes. But there was always an algorithm. Yeah. And sometimes we like it more. Sometimes i agree more with the algorithm.
00:36:54
Speaker
And in other points of history, I really hate it. So that's very important to keep in mind. Because there's really good work, as you were saying, really good work out there that is not published by any publishing
Creative Engagement with Literary Formulas
00:37:07
Speaker
house. That is just there in AO3 or in a blog somewhere. or you know, like...
00:37:14
Speaker
People are just getting their work out there and three, four people are reading it and it might be like the best piece of art that you have in Kanter, but they don't have the platform to make it real and popular, right? That in regards of like BookTok as a platform that makes content viral,
00:37:35
Speaker
literature content viral which is like sounds like a crazy idea but you can track it in history as well with other devices and other technologies that are not TikTok now in in in what um in about fanfiction I've read beautiful texts in AO3 you know like i am I am very picky, I don't like alternative universe, I just like canon compliant stuff. I can get like a mix of two fandoms of two universes together as long as there were canon compliant. I am a bit strict about it. I really don't like like Percy and Annabeth. in college and they're just normal humans that's not my thing if it's your thing I get it but in what in in regards to quality of text and I don't want to hold like my academic diplomas as like the gatekeepers of what good literature is but just as someone who reads a lot and who has read a lot and who has like studied literature for a long time
00:38:41
Speaker
I can tell you there's good stuff out there published as fanfiction on platforms like AO3, right? Even in erotica sites, you're gonna find beautiful pieces of art, right? Same with fanart, right? And I just want to remind everyone that what we now call fanart and fanfiction was previously not very different of, like, it was not a genre in itself. Most of the art in Europe that we now recognize as prestigious was fan art of the Bible. Yeah.
00:39:15
Speaker
Or fan art of the Greek. myths and roman myths same thing with very very good pieces of literature like the comedy by dante alivieri a lot of my students like to joke and i understand why that it is fan fiction of the bible and it makes sense to me And if you look at the comedy of Dante and you compare it to a lot of fan fiction work out there, you're going to see similar mechanisms of like you're bringing famous people or people or characters from important books to the to your universe. You're taking like the logics of that universe, but you're and it feels it's it's it's a self insertion text where the author is the main character. and his friends are there but also famous people so it's read it it's magnificent but don't like i i just want people to remember that we as humans have been doing fan fiction and fan art forever like we have been doing this because it's in our our nature to tell stories Right? And to make sense of life, we make stories. And that might sometimes draw from existing work. There is nothing original. And like originality was never the point. If you look at medieval text texts in Europe and the Middle East, you're going to see a lot of repetition in different works. You're going to find the same stories a bit different. Maybe yeah it's a different animal. maybe the ending is different and it's fascinating as a phenomenon.
00:40:52
Speaker
So to discard fanfiction just because it's fanfiction, that is something I would not support. And I've seen a lot of people do it. So I just wanted to like, I'm doing a lot of disclaimers here.
00:41:05
Speaker
Now, The formulaic part. I fully, like, I started this episode saying, like, this follows a very traditional structure. And I think that a lot of genres in literature are very formulaic. If you look at the thriller... you you kind of know what the structure must be, right? If you look at an epic poems, you kind of like knew what people needed to do for it to be like a successful epic poem, right? Formulas are not bad in themselves. What really bores me is to me, a good text is like a item of clothing that is not showing the stitches. I don't want to know what you're doing there. I want to be so convinced by your work that I don't see the formula, even though I know it exists, right? And sometimes we're drawn to rom-coms and we're drawn to romance novels and we're drawn to thrillers because we know what's going to happen and it gives us comfort to enter something that is familiar to us. And that's completely valid. Now, do I think that some authors do it better?
00:42:16
Speaker
Of course. And i there's like I don't read a lot of romance novels because I get bored. I get bored because I know what is going to happen at a level that it's not stimulating anymore. But if I am very anxious, I'm probably going to just start a romance novel because I don't want anything to change around me and I want to be in control.
00:42:38
Speaker
But you do have authors like a we were talking about Casey McQuinson and they and I know everyone knows about Red, White and Royal Blue. And I do like that book. But I think One Last Stop and the pairing are the two most beautiful love stories I've read in that genre, you know, like and Red, White and Royal Blue was just like the gateway for me to this other work. And I think that they they respect the formula, they know the formula, they know that you need a happy ending. But they play with you to the point that you have no idea how they're gonna get all the steps checked. Like, you are kept on your toes.
00:43:19
Speaker
You have no idea what's gonna happen. how, what the conflict is gonna be because they don't use like the traditional very overused formulas on how to respect the structure so I do agree with Lauren that the formulaic and with you like the formulaic gets boring and it's most, it's not it's not as much like don't follow the formula it's how you follow that formula that is important to me like how are you writing this? and how formulaic it feels to the reader even though if you like analyze it you can see it clearly to me this book does not like make the mark of this did not feel formulaic I said it before in this episode And one thing that I have discussed with Lauren in the past is, and and with a lot of people, it's like, it's not that I want to be pretentious because I am a scholar of literature. It's not that I want to enforce the politics of the elite that keep a lot of people outside of the bubble of the intellectuals. You know, like, if this is the gateway for you to read, I'm really happy that you're reading, right? If this is what you read, you're reading. For me, that it's already like a step. But I do want us to ask ourselves that question of who benefits from me not being challenged intellectually when I read a book?
00:44:47
Speaker
Who benefits from formulas that are not challenged or play with creatively. What happens when my brain is not stimulated? Which is something I tell my students all the time. Like, if you stay in a comfort zone all the time with what you consume, who is benefiting from that? And i I just want to, like, More than say like what is wrong and what is right, I just want to put that out there. Like there is someone benefiting from us being able to produce text and art in a very easy, quick and industrial way. So who is that person? And do we want to play that game? Besides that, if this is your genre, there's peak literature in romance. I won't say that that is in the case. So I do think there's a lot of nuance and there's a lot of space for discussion regarding this.
Role of Smut in Storytelling
00:45:42
Speaker
And I really appreciate what Lauren is bringing to the table with her voice memo, specifically with that like idea of formulaic. When we're talking about smut, when we're talking about sex scenes, I have been very insistent in the previous episodes while... analyzing the series, the TV series, that it's not like just using a lot of cliches to describe sex. Because sex is... If if sex is part of the story, even if you're writing just smut and erotica, the way you write sex
00:46:11
Speaker
should have an objective, right? And ah like some goal that you're trying to achieve, some effect that you're trying to create for your readers or listeners or consumers. So if your smut is boring, and I'm not saying this is the case, but ah Lauren was mentioning that their mom was finding it a bit tedious. I do think that if you're writing romance and your smut is not interesting and it's not driving the plot,
00:46:41
Speaker
What are you doing? That is like my thoughts. And finally, around like you were talking about like fan fiction getting published. We have like one of the biggest examples of this is Fifty Shades of Grey. Oh my gosh, the historical domino. Yeah, the fan fiction of Twilight. Which Twilight started off as MCR, My Chemical Romance fan fiction as well. So it's fan fiction, a fan fiction that got published, which is hilarious to me. Which it started with 9-11, which is less hilarious. but Yeah. It's really funny how how texts are born every single time. That formula, like fanfiction of fanfiction, that could have given us like great works of literature and it gave us Twilight and Fifty Shades. Sorry if you like those. I just don't support abuse. and I've heard that Twilight's good. I have not read Twilight. I've heard it's good. I heard the movie dialogue was just bad.
00:47:34
Speaker
i I was a teenager when it came out. like you know i was part of the fandom for like three months. and then it died like then i was like my my way to know if a book was good was to read it to my brother afterwards and if i could reread it and not be killed by boredom then it was good so i had i don't support harry potter okay i have gone come a long way and i don't support turfs and i do think that harry potter is a very problematic text in many ways but it was entertaining And I read it to my brother and we had a fun time. But then I was like, I'm going to read you Twilight. And he fell with asleep. And I was bored.
00:48:17
Speaker
And I was like, now that I revisit this that I read six months ago, it's not that good. yeah And I didn't have like the framework that I have now to think about abusive relationships and stalking and a lot of stuff. And I do blame Twilight for one of my teenage relationships that didn't go that well. yeah um But I do like to watch Twilight with my friends and just laugh. It's very good for like sleepovers. yeah Fifty Shades of Grey, I haven't been able to finish neither the first movie nor the first book. And I really respect the BDSM community and their way of doing things. And it sucks that the way we popular popularize the idea of bondage and like kinks, it's through abuse. um It really bothers me. So I am against it. But it could have done... like It could have worked well.
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah. It's not it's not the fact that it's a fanfiction from a fanfiction that makes it bad. It's who is writing this stuff and what are their moral compasses around relationships. That's what's bothered bothering me. Yeah. So yeah, I rambled a lot as well. So... That's okay, that's okay. But I did want to add that if I didn't make it clear, and especially from what Lau was saying, like, I think reading and finding texts to consume that you enjoy that do help you think or do help you see new perspectives, I think that can lead to resistance and revolution. I think education and reading is one of the top ways to bring down fascism and our oppressors. Like absolutely, without a doubt, like if you look at like, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, like as cliche as those might be and as how much we kind of laugh at them now post high school, I do think there is something be said about. They're very good. yeah Yeah, they're good when you're not reading them as like 14 year old and you have no concept of
Exploring Diverse Literature for Intellectual Growth
00:50:11
Speaker
how the world is. but when you're in your 20s and you're like, oh my god, you're seeing brain rot happen in real life. Like, Holonov brain rot is very different from the like, chat GPT brain rot. And I'm so serious. yeah Because like, if you and this is a very related thing about AI is like, which I first of all, AI has no place in AO3 or fanfiction at all, which is, I can't believe it's something that we have to talk about. But if you, like, fanfiction is a place to rate what you, like, enjoy it or something. And if you feel like you need to use AI for that, that's fucking disgusting. And I will stand by that. Anyhow, with more of what I was getting at is, like, using your brain and reading and engaging with different points of views. And even if they're people who don't like look like you or sound like you or even if they are if they're just if it's something that gets you to think and if it gets you to some like gets you to do something that uses your brain i think that is so important and can be so powerful because then if you if someone gets into heated rivalry because of how popular it is and then they say oh well these people should have rights because i want shane and illia to have rights you know as a queer person i'll kind of take that and i know that we we're talking a bit more nuanced here, but I want to say that like reading and having access to education in any form that you can get it is so imperative, especially when there are times when the government wants to like look at banned books and stuff. If the government wants to control what you're reading, read it. Why don't they want you to read that? What is in there that they don't want you to know and don't want you to read? And not in a conspiracy way, and but in a way that's like, these are important stories. they're they're saying it out loud it's not it's not like a conspiracy they have acknowledged that that's what they're doing right that's why they're banning the books because they find them dangerous and i fully agree with you my advice as someone who teaches young people how to read sometimes it's when my students ask me like hu how do you like get into books like I had a student last week, and this is not to say like, oh, I know so many things, but for for some of my students, I know a lot. And it's just that I have more experience, right? I'm older, and I've experienced more. But I had a student that asked me, how do you get to the point where you know all of this? And I was like, the only way I can answer that question is always seek outside your comfort zone. Always explore. be open to what is different because if you stay and i say this as a neurodivergent person who read who who had like a time where the only thing i was reading was harry potter over and over and over and over and over again and everyone in my family was trying to get me to read something else reading something else is very important if if your only way to access
00:52:50
Speaker
TV is Netflix. Be aware that you're inside a single algorithm and everything is defined by that algorithm. So try to explore, go beyond that, which is why I'm i'm not fully against piracy because I know access is an issue. Just I try as a rule for me to diversify the languages and origins of the books, movies, texts understood as like ah a vast thing.
00:53:19
Speaker
thing, not only like written printed texts. I try to explore beyond what a single industry is giving me. And if you are in college, explore what Canopy has for you. If your library is, has Canopy, or if you're, if you have a public library library card, they sometimes have Canopy and Canopy has a great catalog. of movies and like audio, video audio stuff that you can explore. Go beyond what is familiar and that's when your brain is gonna start making connections that your own bubble was not letting you do. So for me, it's more about exploring and going beyond the boundaries of your own personal algorithm that if you are a very privileged person can really blind blindside you to the realities of other people who have experiences that are harder than what you get every day. And knowing that your experience is not the norm might help you understand why we need to fight for right? And why we need empathy. So that that is that's what that will be the principle that I want to live by, is to always go somewhere that I don't feel super comfortable in, not in the way like put yourself, make yourself face your triggers. I'm not saying that. I'm saying comfortable in the sense of the familiar, like, oh, I know everything about this, so I'm going to stay here because I want to be the smarter person in the room.
Recommendations and Creative Storytelling
00:54:48
Speaker
I want to feel stupid. That's yeah my that's my driving principle. I i want to feel stupid.
00:54:53
Speaker
I want to learn. Yeah. And that's something I love about fantasy is that it can be so rooted in reality sometimes because sometimes the only way to frame certain things is through a fantastical lens like I'm talking about like revolution and oppression and seeing new lenses of things and like like even Bridgerton for example of like having different peoples of color in their thing even though like that would absolutely not be allowed at the time in certain ways like to me that is very fantastical but it helps to understand and helps to put in an in frame of mind like how some of these things are how it looks how it happens um Even if it's like one of the books I'm reading right now, it's just an easy like, oh, you have to like fight the king's army and go kill the king. But it's like, okay, what do tyrants look like? How how do their systems work? How are they impacting people on a day-to-day basis and and rumors and and all that good stuff? And also before we transition, I want to shout out the the user I was talking about earlier that wrote something so beautiful. I looked on their page and what what they had said a few years ago, they said they weren't going to try to go to a publishing house because they fear rejection, which is so valid. They might self-publish one day, but as i as far as I know, they they might not. ah They might not publish, but if you were ever interested in checking it out, they are writing writing heated rivalry stuff. I have not read it, so I can't tell you anything about it, but I know this is a very, very talented writer. They were new to writing a few years ago. am probably going to read what they wrote. It's a Holonov social media actor AU. Their user... Well, they're on Twitter right now. They might be on other media. They might be on AO3. Their Twitter user is faebae, F-A-E-E-E-B-A-E-E-E. So that's faebae with three E's on each side. So six total. I'll link it in the show notes as well. Their name's Lottie. Super, super cool. like And fantastic artists as well. They've done some some writing and drawing as well, some artistic stuff. I recommend checking out their stuff. They took a bit of a hiatus in 2025, so their Our Flag Means Death stuff isn't that far back. But I'm going to read their Holonov AU and I will let y'all know if it is ah good. I'm assuming it's good. I will let you know what I think of it later. But it's been an hour and we've barely talked about Skip, so maybe we should do that. Just one thing I want to recommend personally is The Scamverse. Scam was a Norwegian series, web series that was dropped on YouTube and the characters had like real social media so they had like real Instagram accounts and stuff. It has four seasons is great but then different iterations from different countries that were in Norway.
00:57:22
Speaker
started to pop up and some of them followed the story to the letter and some of them diverged from it. I think the most the two most like successful versions are the France one, so Scam France and Druk from Germany that like so are still having like new content out and new seasons and new generations.
00:57:46
Speaker
And it was a a bit like fanfiction and it it I think it's a great way to like explore how you take one story and revisit it and adapt it and rewrite it from different contexts and perspectives. And it's a great series and it's always super fun to also visit the like either so Instagram profiles of the characters and get like extra content from it.
00:58:10
Speaker
So if you're interested in all of these that we're talking about, that is a universe that i highly recommend because it's still growing. We're just getting like the Zram that I think is from Romania.
00:58:23
Speaker
I don't remember because I haven't
Differences Between Book and TV Adaptation
00:58:25
Speaker
watched it. And they have like beautiful queer characters and it's just a beautiful work of art in most of its iterations. So yeah. Very awesome. And we will link that in our show notes or at least references to it or like places you can find it. Exactly. So Lau built this beautiful table for us in our notes for the episode that we're going over. Maybe it's divided into items, TV show and book. So just different frames of reference between like certain characters or the timeline or certain family differences. So maybe we should go down the line by item and then talk about the differences between TV show and book. Yeah, sure. So the first item of the of the table is timeline. We have talked about how the timeline for Skip in the show is like a big wobbly. We have no idea. I put here impossible to understand and longer. So in the show, the Skip story lasts forever. a couple of years if we are doing our math correctly whereas the book is like a single season right a hockey season yeah a hockey season so it's like super short in comparison and in the book it's easy to understand like because it's it's also very linear we're not playing here again this is very formulaic we're not playing with time in the way we narrate we start at point A and point B is further up in the future so we're not like jumping maybe in the book it's even shorter than a hockey season because they start off with like yeah he's been having a bad season so I think it I don't think it's fully into the new year like the second half of the hockey season but it's definitely it starts in like the end of the calendar year um sometime around then because we do get like Christmas mentions and stuff so yeah I think it I forget the exact dates but it's It's at least less than years, which is the show's years. Yeah. Uh-huh. And it's really easy to follow. As I was saying, like, super linear. This is not a work of literature that is using flashbacks or jumps in time. We're just, like, following the characters from date A to date B. And everything that is in between is very organized. So the book is easier to follow in that regard. Our next item is info about how Scott is doing during the season.
01:00:46
Speaker
So we have this device that is used in this TV series that is the podcast Man in the Crease. And it's a very, like, I've said this before, I hate them. But I find i find it, like, to be a very clever device. Thank you, whoever decided. It's a big podcast, I know, but... and they get in my nerves okay i hit them i hit them and i'm sure they're they are the podcast of unrivaled that is my theory for the future see we'll see if i'm very wrong maybe probably but it's it's a device that is used to give us information that we usually get get one either through like internal monologue of the characters or through conversations that will get like way too tedious because there are a lot of exposition there. Yeah. So that it makes sense in the written format, but for TV, it doesn't work as well. So in the book, how do how do we know that Scott is doing like badly and then very good and all of that is is through characters. So we get customers at the straw plus berry saying like, oh yeah, that's Scott Hunter. He's not doing that well this season, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah blah blah We get conversations between Kip and Maria or Kip and his father. We get newspapers, but mostly like conversations between characters and conversations that are overheard by Kip when he's like working or going out. So yeah, all of that, like Man in the Crease does not exist in the books. Right. Which is why it's so fascinating. Yeah, it's very creative. I think it's a very useful tool. I really like it as a framing device. I think there's ah ah a few different ways to go about like showing, not telling. And that is a very yeah interesting one. and And because there are hockey podcasts and I mean, as we know, podcasts are so popular. But even back then, there are podcasts that are in the mid twenty ten s
01:02:45
Speaker
that I've covered. I mean, I'm so okay. So LOL side, little mini side note while Lau goes to pee I'm getting into the PWHL or the professional women's hockey league or the P dub. And I meant to say this at the top of the pod, or maybe we'll talk about it next time Lauren's here. So we can kind of talk hockey a little bit. But there are a few hockey podcasts out there that I am poking about seeing about. There's one for specifically the P-Dub that started a couple years ago, but there are other hockey podcasts that go back not decades because I don't think podcasts have been around that long, but definitely the mid 2010s. There are plenty of podcasts. So I think Man in the Crease is a really cool way to show, show, not tell for that before with like Percy Jackson as well of showing, not telling. yeah
01:03:26
Speaker
Then we get Maria making fun of Kip's name, which this I believe happens at the Straw Plansbury. don't know if it happens at the Kingfisher. No, it does happen at the Kingfisher. This is something I appreciate across multiple episodes, but they ah the writers for the show pull a lot of lines straight out of book. Some things are are are not as exact, but some verbatim are pulled out of the book, which makes me want to go back and highlight it, but LOL. But they're making fun of Kip's name, and God, I'll bet when he says it it doesn't even sound dumb. talking about scott saying kip yeah and i um i just love it like i appreciate how we kept this in its essence like yeah we're adapting it's not exactly how it happens in the book but it is ver bad verbatim the exact same dialogue So I enjoy it because I found it to be fun. I love when we make fun of both. Banter is a love language. Then we have this, we have talked about this, Kip's family in the show because this was made with two dollars and a dream. We only have Kip's dad or as Amanda and I like to call him thanks to Danny Mota. Mr. Kip.
01:04:35
Speaker
Mr. Kip, yeah. But in the book, we have a dad, a mom, and a sister. And they're all super involved in the whole drama. Yeah, this is something that, it does I don't know that it annoys me, but it's definitely something that I feel took away from the show a little bit because Kip... His character is very reliant on community and those surrounding him like and as we talked about before about how he does, you know, his friends are very important to him and his father is important to him in the show. But in the book, like even his mom and even though he's not as close with his sister, she's still really important to him. um And I want to bring it up later, the specific scene with the the dinner that Scott comes to. But I think even if they could have found any sort of extra, even if they didn't even say any lines, and it's just kept talking to them, I think it would have gone a bit further to show how close he is with his family and how important it is for him to be able to share that to share Scott with his family, I think could have been a good move. But I mean, Mr. Kip did phenomenal. I think he was a great actor. And he they he did do a great job of demonstrating a tight relationship as well.
01:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, he did a great job to like perform the emotional force of three characters from the book. And I want to applaud everyone who worked on making it work with the limitations that they had. But this is something I do enjoy a lot in the book, is the whole community that Kip has. And that's it. I prefer Kip's that in the series than in the book. So my dream universe is we have... show Mr. Kip with mom and sister from the book you know like because I i i find him to be a bit more like he's great in the book but he is like a better version in the series is what I mean he's like yeah lovable he is very loable i yeah lovable. I think he has more more depth in the in the show for sure, which I really appreciate. and And like I said, goes to show just how important it is for Kip to share his life with his family. Because he doesn't want to lie to his dad, but he he has Yeah, I think of it even if we did lose the size of the community, we do still get the importance of family forget. So I think that was done cleverly because... it was a challenge when you have to reduce a family from four members to and you still want to say like family is very important for this then this is something you have talked about amanda we get a different professional discipline for kip yeah absolutely yeah in the show it's art history but in the book it's just history and i i again i won't belabor the the point from before but i do think that this was them putting a bit more of kyle who we we do get in the show, we do get him in the show, but we we may or may not get him as a more fleshed out character later with his story, which I would be curious what they would change then. In the book, it was a point for him and Kyle to get along, ah which we'll talk about Kyle here in a minute as well. It was a point for Kyle and Kip to get along about Kip being into history and Kyle being into art history. So they were like similar in that way. So I don't i don't know understand full and understand the point of this change from the book to the show. Maybe it was so that way they could go to the art gallery together and have that scene instead, or maybe it's just something that's not history. But I did love that in the book, I think it's part of the epilogue maybe, that they go around traveling to different countries and able to be together as a couple publicly and Kip's able to travel and see all of these like ancient places and is able to tell Scott about it. So this was a part from the book that I was like, aww, these are distinct disciplines. You don't just get to mix them up. But as we said before, Jacob's journey doesn't do anything as an accident or without purpose. So I'm sure that there's something that'll be explored in the future with it but to me I was I was a bit like huh I wonder what that changes about yeah I agree with you that it seems to be in order to be like to give some sort of easter eggs for Kyle fans who are not getting a more fleshed out Kyle but at least they're getting a character that is into art history and they feel seen and it's like we wake we are not forgetting about that Next item in our list is the is is Skip first date after the this event where Kip is being a server and Scott is like a guest. In the show Scott waits for Kip in a dark alley on his suit and they try to go to this Mexican restaurant but they see spacked so Scott says like let's do takeout or like order in in my place and that's how they end at his apartment. In the book we go slower So Scott, while while Kip is finishing his shift, Scott goes to a bodega because apparently bodegas are the main like shopping place for these characters. like
01:09:25
Speaker
They're buying everything in bodegas from socks too. Yeah. Anyway, he gets a change of clothes and he gets like ah what I like to call like famous people incognito outfit. So like the cap and glasses, hoodie, you know, and they go to this burger place. They eat and while they're eating, Scott suggests that they go to his. Yeah. So then they go to his apartment. But they do eat before. And the issue of being recognized is solved by Scott getting his outfit.
01:09:58
Speaker
That brings him like the power of invisibility. And we don't have that on the show. Because we need to move quicker. Because we only have one episode to explore. this so yeah ah Yeah, I agree. This was definitely done for speed for them to change the pace. to Instead of just a whole scene of them eating and chit-chatting. Because I do believe they made some small talk in the book during that scene. They just go right to the, okay.
01:10:19
Speaker
now that Which I do wish they kind of they ate. Because Loki, that was like a long thing. And Kip just worked a long shift. and i was hungry for him. yeah I was so hungry for this man. I also think it was to highlight, and we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna get to this item later, but I'm gonna just announce it. We're gonna highlight the source of conflict. And in the show, it is very focused on Scott not wanting to be seen and recognized in a date with a man because he's in the closet. And in the book, he's more chill about it when he feels like he can be invisible. And in the show, we have limited time, so we need to make this more acute and urgent. And if we had, like, Scott being like, okay, we can go to a restaurant, then it wouldn't make sense what happens after. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I see that it makes sense.
01:11:11
Speaker
I think it's a fine change. I'm not too impressed about it. i do wish that he got to eat, but then he he ate, if you know what i mean, when they gave it. he He chose or from the menu. He chose or. And he left or. I, oh my god, if I can go on a small tangent for two seconds. Today we were talking about fonts in the lab. It doesn't matter why. I was explaining serif versus sans serif. And he was like, my lab tech was like, what? And I was like, um you know, I don't like dichotomies. Because he was like, what if there's like a a middle? And I was like, what even would a middle be? Like, would you do like some letters have serif and some don't? And then I looked it up and the third is script, which I'm like, there's always a sneaky third thing. There's never, it's never just two. It's never either or. There is either both neither or a secret third thing that makes it five. Like there's always something else. It's a third thing and it's or Kip's choice. It was or today for me, it was not serif or sans serif. It was script. Although I am a serif kind of guy. I do love a good serif font, but whatever. That's a discussion for another time.
01:12:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. i i love that line in the show. I was like, okay, I'm gonna just ignore the fact that this man is starving and let's move into sex, which is a perfect segue for our next item. That is the first time having sex. And this actually bothers me. And I really need understand because I admire Jacob Tierney as like, he's a genius of adaptation in my opinion, but I,
01:12:39
Speaker
To me, it was so powerful to have the narrative, like the horizon of expectation that everyone has about who tops and who bottoms flipped in this first sex scene. And the book has kept up this first encounter. Then we realize that they're both verse and they like switch it up. depending and And that also gives you a lot of information about what is going on in the relationship and in their like own emotional realities. In the show, Scott tops. And even though we do get a hint later on that they do switch it up, eventually it does follow the narrative of the strong hockey player, famous man. tops and the queer out of the closet into art history boy is the bottom you know even though afterwards we do get like once kip saying to scott can i fuck you but in the book kip is like mesmerized by the fact that scott fucking hunter a hockey player is asking him keep the smoothie barista to fuck him and yeah he himself is surprised because he wasn't expecting that because we all have this internalized idea of top equating to macho identity and masculinity and bottoming being more ah a more feminized activity You know? Right. So to me, it's a shame. And I don't understand why. Why are we doing that? Like, why aren't we? Like, I don't. i I have thought about it more than I would want to confess. And I still don't see why. But I am completely open to be schooled on why. So anyone who has a theory, hit me up and explain to me why the top
01:14:37
Speaker
in this first encounter because it really bothers me. I mean, i think it might be because we're at Scott's place and Scott's the one kind of initiating where they they go to eat and they're like, oh, it's busy. And Scott's the one that's like, you want to get out of here? And then they're at his place and he's like, do you want a tour?
01:14:56
Speaker
or very much applying what or is and so that's kind of why I think that happens but no absolutely I think it it kind of plays into the macho thing which then Scott later is like can I fuck you he like picks him up when he's like making movie you or like whatever the whole can I fuck you thing yeah and even if it's not the macho thing with what you're saying i still I'm like why do we assume and I know why media is why Yeah. And gender norms are white. But why do we assume that the person in is initiating is top? That's true. That is very true. You know, because we have bossy bottoms. We have bossy bottoms.
01:15:36
Speaker
ah That's the thing. Yeah, I know. Right? Like, it's not like you have to be the peg in order to be the one who initiates. No, and you're right and reflecting upon my lived experiences, I know this to be true as well. wo This is not to say that Kip is not macho because I think both of them are very macho. They are very mask for mask. Yep. But really, I think the point of this first sex scene was to kind at least in the show was to show them being at night and hidden and it was to just show them being intimate in general, because it's very dark. And I don't remember all of the full details of that episode, but they do kind of flip around a bit and it it is known in the relationship throughout the book that it that they do take turns like who is topping it's just kind of like whatever the vibe is whereas Shane and Ilya is a very like Shane is like definite bottom and Ilya is definite top with like here and there like the very occasional like the one time in the long game as opposed to like dozens of other times in the other books that Shane bottoms which even then it wasn't even like a full didn't even fully top Ilya that was like No, no, it's just ass play, but it's never full penis to ass penetration. Because Ilya is not interested in that. Absolutely, whereas Scott and Kip are very, you know, either or. And Jane is not interested in that, as he famously said to Roe. Exactly, and we but we know that Scott and Kip don't align in that way at all, but with that they would rather do either or both or whatever. So I would love to know if people do have other theories about this as well, but to me I think it was just a way to demonstrate their their intimacy as well. And then do you want to tell us about the the root of conflict between these two? Yeah, so we got Anna's fan mail when we covered episode 3 and she covered this a bit because she was comparing The book to the show.
01:17:20
Speaker
The main conflict here in the show is Scott is in the closet, Kip is out. And Scott being in the closet is isolating Kip. And that's not cool.
01:17:30
Speaker
That's the main conflict. The book has this very complex, very insecure Kip. Yeah. Because like having issues like the closet is like the surface of the conflict but we have money, we have discusses, Scott offers to pay for Kip's student loans and Kip feels like affronted by it. Kip has a very low self-esteem.
01:17:53
Speaker
He's constantly berating himself, believing that Scott is going to notice that he's not good enough for him and leave him. And the root of the conflict, like the closet is just one of the so of the symptoms that keep things he sees that prove that Scott doesn't love him. So he's like, if he loved me, he would come out.
01:18:16
Speaker
That's kind of like the logic behind it. But the closet is not the main issue. It's more, keep self-esteem and his whole self-deprecating narrative around his lack of money, his lack of fame, his lack of looks even, because in his mind he's not handsome. So, yeah I understand why Going through all of this is challenging in the format that we're getting in the series because we need a lot of internal monologue for this, which works better in a book.
01:18:49
Speaker
And also we need time and we didn't have time. So I think they did a beautiful work with the whole, the closet is the center of the conflict. I think I am, i' ah I'm okay with it.
01:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I totally agree with you. The closet is the root of it. It's like the tip of the iceberg. like It is what is shown, and and oh which is funny because closet and doors, and it's like the kind of the outside of it all. But I agree. It's also the money, but the money is tied to the esteem in general because Kip is very like, he's going to see that I can't hold up to his standards. We've talked before about how Kip wouldn't be able to afford. like whatever car service Scott has, which to Scott, like, money doesn't mean anything because he's like, I've had this for so long and I have literally nothing else to do with it. i already donate so much. and I have too much. Yeah, like, it's wiping ass with dollar bills, basically. Yeah. Which I don't think he would do. But also in the book, his school situation is that he's applying to the school and then the struggle is paying for it. Which, wait, no.
01:19:51
Speaker
In the book, it's he gets into school, it's applying for the full ride. But I think in the in the show, it's applying in general and then he gets the full ride attached to it. So it's it's a slightly different thing, but that slight difference takes away a bit of the money aspect. of Because like we said, Scott wants to pay for his his debt.
01:20:08
Speaker
And so there's there's a bit of a difference there with how some of those technicalities work out, which I don't think make a whole structural difference, but I think it plays into their self-esteem. Yeah, it does.
Portraying Internal Feelings in Visual Formats
01:20:17
Speaker
and and And the whole applying to schools in the show is just like, background context in the books is like part of the root of the self-esteem issues is like every rejection every day that I don't get accepted is a confirmation of me not being good enough And as someone who has done the applying for grad school twice, for my master's and then for PhD, and has dealt with a lot of rejection, it does play with your self-esteem in a very awful way. And no matter how much you remind yourself how this is not entirely about your value as a scholar, it does make you a question.
01:21:03
Speaker
If you should pursue your dreams. So i I really love that in the book, but I didn't miss it in the show. Yeah, yeah. we It's very hard to get the internal feelings without, I mean, and unless they had time to do a monologue like Ilya did in the Russian Tunnel. It's a bit harder to understand what each of them is feeling inside. And so I think that would have been hard to show with the limited time that he felt... He felt his lack of response or any sort of rejection was a reflection upon himself, which I agree, I don't miss it.
01:21:38
Speaker
I think it just added a bit more depth and context to him as ah a character and him as a person. But I think the going back to the closet, it it was fine for the show. But in the book, it was definitely not the only thing it was like, I completely agree. It's just a symptom where he's like, I'm not good enough for my famous, hockey talented boyfriend who has all of the money in the world and I can barely keep a job at the straw and bury to pay off my student loans. like it does He feels that that dissonance very hard and then that goes back into their personalities of in order to help you know find himself again and root himself and ground himself back into who he is, Kip goes to his community, which he's then cut off from it by Scott, which he finds a different sort of solace in Scott, but Scott doesn't have that sort of community aspect, hence the conflict And i yeah I think it was an okay change from the show. if they had more airtime, they could have gone into more detail. But I was i was kind of satisfied with it. you know like no Not fully, as we said before in that episode, but it was it was enough to know that things are not ideal and perfect. yeah
01:22:39
Speaker
Next item is Kyle. We already mentioned this just a few minutes before, but in the show, he's just a nice bartender of the gay bar that we all go to, right? And there's like the ongoing gag of, thank you, Kyle. Fuck you, Kyle. Blah, blah, blah. In the book, he's fully flirting with Kip. He kisses him one night when they're both not working. Kip is drunk and then apologizes for it. So he has like a full crush on this man. Yeah, especially Kyle's book later on, he is so... He has the big... It is a bit more than a crush, if I'm honest. He has... i don't know if that's a spoiler or not, but he it's a bit more deeper rooted than that. And of course, we only get Kip's perspective in this, but Kip...
01:23:25
Speaker
he's it's He's in one of the like bouts with Scott where he they are kind of because they're never like formally together, but in one of the times they're kind of separated, at the we were on a break kind of vibe. They had just had a fight and Kip was like, I can't do this with you if we're not out because I am so isolated and alone. Kip is is just kind of, I think it's after that. It's either know after that or after I won't take your fucking money because I'm not some charity case kind of thing. It's one of those. That he goes, he's trying to study with Kyle because they're both in and similar things and whatever, they've been hanging out, body doubling, studying together, just chit-chatting and becoming friends. And Kip gets really, really drunk and Kyle kisses him outside the... I think Kip might actually kiss him. He's definitely giving off the vibes. Like at first Kip is into it, But once Kyle kisses him, he's like, oh shit, this is wrong.
01:24:12
Speaker
I belong to Scott. Like my heart it belongs to Scott, basically. And so that's when he's like, actually, I can't. And Kyle is like, yo, what the fuck, bro? I thought you were into me. I thought you wanted me because he doesn't know about Scott. but Kind of. Yeah. Then next item is Kip's dad finding out about Scott. We don't really know how it happens in the show, ah but it's a beautiful, and I'm not gonna ramble too much about this because it's on our highlights later, but we do get, in the book, like, we get a clear conversation about Kip telling his family he's dating Scott and his father saying, like, I knew
01:24:49
Speaker
yeah And how I knew we're going to discover that later when we go through highlights. yeah I did miss that, but I, again, understand why it's not included. Air time is limited.
01:25:00
Speaker
I think it's a little insinuated. Like in the show, there's throwaway line that he thinks I'm hooking up with some married man. And so yeah we know Mr. Kip knows that something is up, though he doesn't quite know what. I don't know if he knows it's hockey related, but yeah, it is it is definitely a bit more vague about what Mr. Kip knows and doesn't know. And finally, we have the chirping instant.
01:25:22
Speaker
So in the show, we have our angry kitten moment between Shane and Scott. And Scott just tells Shane, like, you're starting to sound like him. And Shane loses it. But in the book, it's actually Ilya and Scott. And we don't know what they said to each other. We just know that before the game starts, Scott is like, he admires a lot. But he is on a bad mood that day. So he's like, if Rosanoff... I'm just gonna lose my shit. And he does.
01:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was one of those kind of framings of the like, oh, if he says this, and then it cuts to later where he's like icing his knuckles or something. I don't think we get details, but we know that something happened and gloves were dropped.
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, so. Which I love. I will still forever love the, you're starting to sound like him, and then the, you're old, go home, you're 45 years old. i I think that's probably one of my favorite changes. And then the, has has Shane Hollander ever fought anyone before. I think that is one of my highlights from the show ever, probably one of the best changes ah from, and especially this episode, one of the best changes.
Emotional Highlights and Ratings
01:26:32
Speaker
That plays in my head, rentf free, all the time on a loop. I agree.
01:26:36
Speaker
I think that is for our beautiful table of similarities and differences. Yes, thank you for making that out. That was very helpful. I wish I could have thought of more, but I think you really covered a lot of the the bigger similarities and differences, like the ones that I definitely would immediately immediately draw. Listeners, just let us know if anyone thinks of anything else. I know we didn't talk about Maria or Elena, but I think we'll we'll probably talk about them later in a separate episode. In the future, yeah.
01:27:03
Speaker
Now we have like our highlights. like what do we We already have like Lauren's perspective of what they liked and what they didn't about the book. And we were talking about the formulaic part and we have like delve a bit into how we feel about it. I did bring us two moments of the book that for me, I think this is this is the two moments that make it make that four star review. You know, like I think this could explain why I gave it two stars.
01:27:33
Speaker
Although I am very unsure about it right now. Like, I'm like, I don't agree with myself. So my first moment is like the two highlights that I show chose are connected, right? And I already like hinted at them conversation. like a few minutes ago but the first moment is when Scott gets injured so Kip invites his dad to watch the game because Scott got him tickets again his dad is like a huge fan of hockey and of like the what's the name of the team again?
01:28:08
Speaker
the admirals? the new york admirals yeah So he's super hyped about being there and Scott gets injured very similarly to what happens to Shane in the show and in the book I'm gonna just read the quote so Kip didn't spend nearly enough time with his dad. They lived in the same house, sure But they never did stuff together anymore.
01:28:31
Speaker
Kip left work for work most mornings before his parents were awake and he tended to go to bed early. The dumb smoothie job really took a lot of out of him. Kip watched his dad as he cheered on his beloved scouts. Oh, he's a fan of the scouts. They were both drinking beer and eating Nathan's crinkled cut fries from the concession start. It was a good afternoon. Scott had come through with the tickets.
01:28:54
Speaker
His dad has had been thrilled that morning when Kip had suggested they go to the game. Kip had lied about where the tickets had come from, saying that he bought them cheap off a friend who couldn't go. So that's the excuse he's giving. He wasn't sure if dad believed him, but if he didn't, he wasn't saying anything about it. The crowd was loud, they roared for every hit, every shot and every save. It was getting late in the season and these games matter. By the third period it was three to two for the Admirals and Scott had scored one of the goals. The building was tense as the game entered the final minutes.
01:29:32
Speaker
With just under 6 minutes left on the clock, the armed admirals got a penalty. They would be short-handed for 2 minutes. Kip leaned forward and chewed on his tongue. You got this, Scott, he said under his breath. The scouts weren't going down without a fight. They kept the action in the admiral's tone and gave the goalie Bennett a workout.
01:29:52
Speaker
After one save, Scott shot the puck at the blue line to clear it out of the zone, but but of the line. He fired it at the admiral's net, and Kip could see what he what was going to happen before it happened. No, Scott. Fuck. Don't. As the puck rocketed toward the net, Kip could only watch, horrified, as Scott threw his body in front of it. He dove through the air and caught the puck somewhere in his midst midsection when his padding was light. He went down hard. so that's how he gets injured and kip is with his dad watching the game at the ring then we get kips that says how he figured out that they were an item kip and scott i just and kip now had tears in his eyes things haven't been great that i know that hugged him and ah him again i didn't want to intrude but Are you boys fighting? Boys? Who are you? Dad smiled at him knowing then his face sobered. I know he must be busy right now with the playoffs, but it seems like maybe something worse than that is going on. What the hell?
01:30:56
Speaker
What are you? Scott Hunter? His dad said ken calmly, you've been seeing him. Dad, come on. There's no way that Scott would ever. I mean, Scott Hunter isn't... I don't know anything about Scott scott Hunter, but I know you. and I like to think I'll be able to tell when my son is in love. I'm not God, fuck it. Does it even matter anymore? How did you know? Remember when I broke my wrist sleeping on the ice in our walkway? Sure, yeah. Kip had no idea what he was going with. The look on your mother's face was the same as the look on yours when Hunter got hurt at that game we were at.
01:31:32
Speaker
Kip blushed, maybe I am just a big fan? Maybe, but I don't think so. You also bolted out of the house that night after making a phone call that included the words X-ray and ice pack. I'm good at picking up on subtle clues like that. So maybe Kip hadn't been as careful as his he thought he'd been. He's not, no one knows.
01:31:52
Speaker
And it might not be anything, so please, of course. Kip's own words filled him with a fresh wave of despair. It might not be anything. Oh god, it can't really be over, can it? So I love this. And I love how it dialogues with Shane and Ilya's own story. How true love is becomes visible when one of them is like hurt. And you can do anything about it. I don't know if anyone here has watched someone you love get hurt.
01:32:23
Speaker
but there's like a visceral reaction to it. like You can feel it in your own body. so I love that this is how his dad noticed. it was like, your mom had that same face. I recognize that face. And I love to see fathers being emotionally attuned to his to their sons. Thank you.
01:32:44
Speaker
Yeah. No, that's what you said, hit because like I have done some... questionable stuff for people when they're injured. Not questionable, but like, I've got maybe a bit farther than the average friend would. And I think that it's just like, man, you love someone so much and you want to fix everything for them. And you want to, oh man, like when my mom was in the hospital or my best friend was on crutches, like you just,
01:33:07
Speaker
I don't know if it's just like the type of person that I am or there's specific type of people out there that would do this, but I stop everything in my life for for the people that I love when they're hurting like that. And so I feel for Kip so bad, like to be, cause they're not out. to So to like watch that go down and to not be able to do anything, it's Shane and Ilya all over again of the like, they can see us and uh like if yuna and david were there or i don't know if something were different and i don't know if anyone were able to like more closely see what happened between holanov at that time they would have figured it out which i still don't know how they didn't i guess maybe we suspect i think my head canon is that mr keep noticed that watching the game and he was like yulia rosanov and shane hollander
01:33:50
Speaker
That was the same fate Kip's mom had the day. I also think that maybe Mr. Kip is more attuned to Kip than David and Yuna are attuned to Shane. Yeah, definitely. Or more would be more attuned to Ilya. Well, first of all, Kip is out. He keeps very open about his feelings, his sexuality. They have a really close relationship. This is a family that talks about things. So in the way he is picking up ah like the hints that my son is not okay is because he's hiding something. Whereas Shane has always been very private. and he never talks about feelings, even with his parents. So I get why we get this difference. It's it's lucky even the day that you had a cold, a very bad cold, and I sent you a smoothie recipe and you were like, I have none of these ingredients. And i was like, ah what?
01:34:44
Speaker
I was so frustrated. i'm so sorry. Yeah, I had a different country. I can't do anything about this! Well, i don't I already don't eat, like, citrus and stuff myself, so you had, like, a bunch of ing- Like, I just don't eat oranges. I don't like oranges. Yeah, so- You said a bunch of these things, and I was like, Lao, I love you so dearly, and I appreciate this so much, but I would have to, like, like- Uber eats it or so or however people deliver their things and I just can't so I'll just suffer for it. It wasn't a bad cold. um I'm really sorry. I'm i'm still stuck and I don't eat oranges. I don't like them.
01:35:22
Speaker
I don't. that's That's because you have never had Colombian orange. They taste so different. I know. I'm a bad favorite. They're green. They're green outside. oh yeah. They're green outside and orange inside but they're more acidic than sweet.
01:35:39
Speaker
And i I like them much more than the US one. I would try them, but yeah, it's it's not my go-to fruit. It's really unfortunate. I it's i don't know. It's just some of my autism stuff of like some fruits that just, we're not friends and that's all right. I have other friends I'll eat i'll have birds i'll eat for days. I'm friends with all the fruits except guava because of the texture. So I get it. I like guava flavor. I don't love the actual fruit itself. Like a a guava Danish, it's pretty solid. How did we get here? what were we talking about? we were talking about when people we love are hurting. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking you sent me those ingredients. And also that was like ah what a week after i had come or like three or four days after I'd come back from seeing Lauren. So I was already on like my bare bones groceries, just like frozen chicken nuggets. I was like, yeah, I'll like get to the grocery store this weekend. And then boom, sick.
01:36:27
Speaker
And it didn't happen. was really confused. I was like, is this the normal things that you have on your pantry? Or is this like, I just got from a trip and I'm sick? Because I was like, is this cultural? Is this generational? It's because I'm adult. I think it was an example of all of it, of the, like, already I am figuring out how to have a full-time job and still take care of myself and my life while living alone, while being a young, early to mid-20-something, while coming back from retirement. It was just, like, all of that. Like, I don't have raw ginger. The ginger tea I have is already in, like, a... I have loose-leaf tea, but it's, like, I just don't have a ginger root. Like, I don't. The fun thing is that was grocery shopping when I was texting you.
01:37:08
Speaker
So I was like, what the fuck is going on? But yeah, it was not a bad cold at all. If it was worse, I would have like door dashed something, whatever. What is the, whatever shopping thing. I would have done that if it was worse, but it was a normal cold or it was less than normal. It was fine. But I appreciated the thought. I was like, yes, I will save this for the future. But yes, when i this measure we we feel so terrible, well, i maybe we'll share it. You know, maybe we'll just send a screenshot of the notes app. Yeah. I don't remember what I got it from because this is like my husband sent it to me and I think a friend recommended it and it's a screenshot. So i it's it's a recipe from somewhere on Instagram, but I don't i don't know how to access that the original one. You know, like this is just a screenshot that has been like rotated in this group of friends for like three years to this point. So...
01:37:56
Speaker
Awesome. well we We will share it with our listeners. but Just like Scott wants to share his money stuff. I think that was the only other highlight
01:38:07
Speaker
Listeners, please don't get upset that we want to share our recipe with you. Yeah, don't get upset like Kip did. I, yeah, this, there were two other highlights because I was like, drop two highlights and i was like, I do not have time to just comb through the book and find the points that I want. But it was, again, the money stuff and like being hidden away that I said before, but I'll touch on it again of like a The highlights that were both good and bad, they were good in a way of like, I think conflict is important and especially in a novel I think you have to have conflict in order to have the resolution and happily ever after. But bad in the way that like, yeah they could have definitely talked more about like the isolation because I feel like Kip's problem was way more rooted and in isolation. And it was, I think it was valid for him to feel a little offended about the money, but also we said a million times before, take the freaking money. Take the money. Like, it's, yeah, I definitely feel like being hidden away was more of the highlight for me and the loneliness because I,
01:39:08
Speaker
Again, community is so important. um And for me, that was a highlight of the book. That was like a big takeaway for me from the book was about being hidden and hiding your loved ones and not being who you are and being true to yourself. um I took that a lot more than the money. Maybe the for Kip, the money was like a culmination of everything of the like already harboring him at his apartment. Yeah.
01:39:29
Speaker
Already paying for everything, already doing whatever, now he felt like his life was being bought, like this was the one thing he could work hard for himself. like If he can work so hard and be so worth it as to get into school, he's going to work hard to pay for it himself. And the fact that Scott wants to just pay for it all for him, it might not feel as worth it, even though degree is worth more than just the money put in. and the grades that you get and etc and the stuff that you learn but yeah for me that was really important but the the being hidden in away it was like the peak aspect of of the the of the highlight and of the book for me yeah i always think about two quotes of other media the one one of them already
01:40:08
Speaker
mentioned when we covered skip on the tv show is young royals simon telling v villa i won't be anyone's secret it was super powerful for me i had it saved in my camera roll i really like it and the other one is uh from the series cancelled series rip a league of their own amazon prime there's this character and he and his sister are arguing about his sister is like why do you have to like be loud about your identity and i just want everyone like to be safe and he says like for some of us safe isn't safe and we have discussed like how complex it is to be To go out of a closet to get out of the closet, to be in the closet, to negotiate those tensions that are created by the the concept of the closet. But I really like that idea of like for some of us, what is considered safe isn't safe because it affects our mental health. So staying hidden can actually kill us. While for some other people, not being hidden is the death sentence. So every queer experience is different. And I really like that quote.
Significant Relationship Milestones
01:41:31
Speaker
Shame on you, Amazon pride Prime, for canceling that show. I mean, shame on um Amazon for a lot of things, but one of them is definitely canceling the show and not sending it to another outlet. yeah but The other what highlight I wanted to mention while we're talking about specific moments in this book is, I think I've alluded to it before. i don't know if I've gone into detail about it, but Scott going to Kip's house as a gesture. And because Lauren has explained before a bit of like grand romantic gestures. And I think the biggest romantic or the the biggest grand gesture is obviously the kiss at the end of the the cup win. Yeah.
01:42:03
Speaker
But I think that Scott going to Kip's house is a another gesture that is really crucial to them of demonstrating, of first of all highlighting to Scott, like demonstrating like just how far their ah wealth gap goes or their socioeconomic bracket goes because Scott did come from not a lot, but has been living in a lot for a long time and Scott or Kip has been in not a lot for his whole life. And so I think it was important for Scott to see that. But I do think it was good for Scott to meet Kip's family to understand where Kip comes from to understand the people closest to him, even if he couldn't for a while, like go to the Kingfisher and meet like Elena and Maria and the rest of them. um Getting to meet Kip's family, I think was really important. similar to how in one of, I think, role model, like getting to understand where Harris comes from um was was really, really crucial and was very like important to that relationship and that dynamic. and
01:42:56
Speaker
I mean, they they love each other outside of each of the other's families, but it's still, I think i think it's still relationship building and important to each other. And Kip, you know, Kip is totally surprised and taken aback by Scott showing up. And for me, that was a really big highlight. And well, one, we don't get in the show, but for me, it was, again, like first,
01:43:14
Speaker
trying to figure out where Kip lives and then going there to apologize and to like sit and like realize that Kip is a person too and has a life outside of Scott's penthouse and that he lives in this childhood bedroom with like the cute whatever i don't remember the details but I know that they're admiring the stuff in there yeah and they have meatloaf and whatever and then Kip's parents Kip's parents are so chill and are like oh oh you can are you're like doing whatever and it's like totally fine um but they're also like really starstruck and amazed that this giant star is in their house and loves their son but of course i don't think they're surprised that he loves their son but all of that is to say that this was a big highlight and a big gesture to show that like it is important like they can start telling people like kind of how like holonov start telling like Rose and and Shane's parents and and Hayden that like we can start telling a couple people and then it it gets a little less scary. I think that was important. And then for them to just telling tell other people that they love each other, that they're in love. I talked about this in our cottage episode, but admitting to someone else's parents or even your own parents, admitting your feelings and your passions for another human is so, so um personal. and intimate and getting to express that um that's what I think is is a pivotal moment here is that Kip accepts the apology they amend and it was really big for Scott to come to his house so for me like said don't have any quotes from it that like what Lau has but time those those were the ideas and the themes and the feelings that I got from that section and that is again another that's why when we were talking about highlights that is one that comes to my mind because to me that is one of one of the most important parts of the second half of the book I agree with you I fully agree.
Reflections on Book Highlights and Storytelling Value
01:44:52
Speaker
I love that. Okay, so we're going to change gears here. But before we do, we wanted to, you know, wrap up our Game Changers thoughts. I know we weren't going in like a play-by-play or like your classical recount of a book. But these were some of our thoughts and, and you know, like Lauren's like related thoughts about BookTok and publishing and how kind of this whole universe started. um I don't know if you have any other ways you would kind of go over this with your students. Do you want to inform us? Yeah, I was just...
01:45:18
Speaker
Let's recapitulate what like the highlights of what we said. First of all, read. read Audio read, read, printed text, just read and try to expose yourself to stories of people that are not you. That's always good, healthy, ah exciting. And also even a very formulaic and not as entertaining novel can have these highlights that we found. Like, it could be worse. like we We still have found like stuff that we are passionate about. and Every single highlight that we brought today, for me, is powerful and proves that um Rachel Reid has potential to do stuff and and has shown it in later books. So, also, if your writing and your first thing isn't as magical, you can always get better. So, yeah, let us know if you don't agree with that as well. like Let us know in in our social media what do you think about this book, how you rate it why, what are your highlights.
01:46:18
Speaker
If you prefer the TV version of this story or the book version. I personally have stuff that I love about both. Yeah. But i'm I'm really... into Jacob Turner's vision like generally so yeah yeah I think if you send us your either your highlights or like your favorite changes or your least favorite changes and and why in a little like discussion um or a little split couple of sentences about like why you like or don't like or why this was your highlight or main takeaway from the book we'll feature them we'll either post them on our socials or we'll talk about them on the pod and and um analyze them in a similar way or shout them out But I think that that's really important to talking about why we find this so compelling. like Did you reread this book? Have you done a Game Changers reread? Or are you just heated rivalry in long game? um Or did you reread this as well and why? Because again, this follows our central idea of why is this media so compelling to rewatch and not consume in different ways. from you and did we miss anything or were we wrong about anything because didn't read it yesterday i read it ah a little while not like forever or ago but a little while so yeah let us know your thoughts and even leave us a fan mail which our fan mail will span different episodes of different content so you can send us a fan mail from whatever episode either from the show or the book or whatever and we'll get to it kind of when we get to it like Today, our fan mail is not from the Game Changer book. It is from episode six, The Cottage, just because that is how timing works out. But if you want to send us your fan mail or even just notes, a couple paragraphs about your thoughts that you want us to read for you, either anonymous or your first name or however you want to be known online and hear, Either DM it to us on Instagram threads or Twitter or email it to us at srspod at proton.com.
01:48:05
Speaker
I think it's in the show notes. It's all listed in the show notes. Please look at the show notes. i spent Lauren and I spend so much time with the show notes in Laos. We spend so much time. Please look at the show notes. But our socials are there if you would like to send us your thoughts. So with that, our our second fan mail from our non-host, but from a really, really dear friend of ours, Haley. Lau and I know her from the seaweed brain, Percy Jackson sphere of the world, but she is on our heated rivalry server as well. This is separate because Lauren has another Haley in their life. Lauren's Haley that lives in Chicago. This is our online friend Haley that does not live in Chicago that we also love dearly. And I hope she's doing really well.
Listener Feedback and Technical Elements
01:48:41
Speaker
And I'm going to let her take it away.
01:48:51
Speaker
Hello, since Ricky season pod, I am sending in some fan mail about episode six, and it's going to be a little bit of a ramble. So apologies in advance, but some of my favorite parts of this episode, the first two really connect to each other. And it's some technical choices and some acting choices that were made. Firstly, the acting choices. I love, love, love the eye lines. the sight lines when Shane and Ilya meet each other's eyes when they have eye contact in this episode, especially in the car ride from the airport to the cottage at the beginning. I think it's one of my favorite scenes to just replay and pay attention to when each of them are looking over at each other when the other is looking at the road ahead, and then when they finally make eye contact. in the car I think it's fantastic storytelling throughout the whole episode where you see where they do and don't make eye contact as they're moving through the cottage and moving forward in their relationship. This this episode, they really move like leaps and bounds ahead in their relationship over this two week period.
01:49:41
Speaker
And then connected to that, I also really, really love the use of natural light. some natural light sources in this episode, whether that is sunlight or firelight and how grounded in nature and not hiding those light sources are. They're connected to being grounded and being outdoors. They're not hiding anymore compared to earlier in the season when they're mostly meeting inside of rinks or inside of hotel rooms. All of that light is very clearly artificial light, like light bulb light. And in this episode, we see them step into the sunlight. um literally and then metaphorically in their relationship like elena says to scott in episode three how he and kit both deserve sunshine so do shane and ilia and we see that come to fruition in this episode with it being set so much more in nature in the sunlight in the firelight in their little oasis and then to connect those points i love watching when their faces get specifically lit with rays of sunshine throughout the episode it evokes this religious imagery for me as they are quite literally the center of each other's worlds here at this moment
01:50:36
Speaker
And then thirdly, I'm obsessed with the song that the episode ends on. I would love for anybody to do a deep dive into the lyrics. If you're listening to this, go listen to that song, pull the lyric video up, um and just listen to the song and think of the two of them. It is perfect. um And if you all on Since We're Geezy's and Pot want to do a little deep dive into the lyrics of that song, I would not be mad. Thank you all. Love the podcast.
01:51:05
Speaker
Thank you so much, Hayley, for sending that in We appreciate that so much. This is something that's been lurking in the back of my mind, and and I know I i brought up some of it when I was talking about how Shane and Ilya are framed, either together or separate, framed in whatever third of the shot that it is, but I think the lighting here is so important and so critical, and that's why I like Ilya and Tampa so much and why I like Ilya at the on the back patio with shane talking about david and yuna and like do they know like that kind of conversation i think that's partly why im i'm attracted to that so much is the lighting and because of the way it frames his face makes him look so open and like so engaged because normally i feel like ilia is dark and a little broody and it's meant to be a little mysterious and he's got all of these like not the mental illness part, but like the dark and the past and the shadows. He's got all of this kind of haunting him and that's reflected in how he's lit a lot of the time. like Even on the ice sometimes, I feel like he's really shadowed in his helmet. And so for him in these conversations with Shane to just have pure light, like his eyes are so gorgeous um because he's he's lit and he's... lit up from the inside as well looking at his mans um and i think that the lighting tech i don't know who it is maybe we could look into getting them on the pod but whoever did the lighting for this i would love to talk to them and see if that was the vision that they were going for i also want to shout out the lighting uh and this is again a percy jackson related note but seaweed brain talked to the cinematographer for both seasons one and two james mc mclaughlin mclaugh whatever um from Percy Jackson and he said, and I've been thinking about this a lot in other shows, about how difficult it is to get outside scenes in the light. It's either really, it's better to get a sunrise or a sunset than an overhead light and then like a harsh like midday sun. And so I've been thinking about some of these shots in Heated Rivalry about the sunrise sunset and like thematically, they are really important, but also just from a
01:52:59
Speaker
ah a technical standpoint of ah how important it was to get these shots and how crucial and how beautiful they turned out to be. i think it's really impressive. And for them to be able to shoot outside like that, I thought was amazing and really cool. And it turned out really well. So I would love to talk to them about that. But the religious imagery did not clock to me. It did not say that I didn't notice that until you said it. And I do think that it's really true that it is very it is very it brings It brings that to mind. It brings a lot of religious imagery to mind and how Ilya is a bit saved by Shane in this, in in their relationship. but I mean, we were saying before the religious aspects, but like of about the Messiah and stuff. But no, I think that Shane is a bit of salvation Ilya. um whether he knows it or not i think that i think it's a bit more known in the long game or maybe that's like the fan fiction fanficification of holonov coming out in my thoughts but i do think that shane is a bit of salvation for ilia but what were some of your thoughts on what hate we said
01:53:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think Hailey and I are kind of in sync because I was saying when we, like this episode, our episode on the cottage is coming out in a few days and in there I so i talk about the cottage as a space that connects very well with the song that we hear at the beginning, like when when they're going to the cottage.
01:54:16
Speaker
after the airport and how we have a lot of light minimalism like there's not a lot of clutter there's a lot of like windows and i love how hayley is bringing it to ilia being illuminated by this light we have talked a lot about how they progressively stopped just hooking up at night and in the dark but i do think that this is the culmination i was talking about the comedy dante's comedy before and for those who haven't read it he starts in hell and goes through hell then purgatory and then paradise and paradise is like even this is gonna sound weird if you don't study literature i know this is a written text but it's very luminous like it it is It's kind of blinding when when he gets to paradise. Everything in the language is like, oh wow, this is so shiny. I need my sunglasses. And it's kind of similar to what we got here. ah This is a very illuminated cottage. And I think the other thing that Hayley is mentioning is the acting. Again, the acting is so good quality. The whole series, the quality of the series, even if we're we don't have like a huge budget,
01:55:28
Speaker
We are doing stuff with rigor and artistry. And I really appreciate And I think that is the answer to our question. What makes this so addictive? In part is the quality of it. Everyone is taking this so seriously.
01:55:43
Speaker
And they're doing
Production Quality and Emotional Impact
01:55:44
Speaker
an amazing job. with every single detail and these two actors are amazing amazing amazing at portraying emotions at taking this character seriously yuna and david's actors as well same thing so i i do think that the quality is part of why you can reheat this over and over and over again Like, this is not just the job that everyone took because they didn't have another option and they needed a paycheck. Everyone is really passionate about it and that passion translates into how good the series is. And this episode, I know what's gonna happen. I ah have watched it multiple times every single time.
01:56:26
Speaker
I'm just caught by the emotional complexity of it. And I end up feeling a lot of things at the same time. And I know that after it's done, I need some time to like ground myself because I'm still in that universe.
01:56:41
Speaker
So I think Hayley is doing like a marvelous reading of it. So yeah thank you for that. Definitely every time I rewatch, I try to pick something different to focus on or a specific thread line or framework in which to look at it. And every time this episode, I am like i just get so caught up in it all that I am like, it's almost like i I don't tune them out. But at some point I'm like, I don't even know what they're saying because I'm just trying to absorb everything happening on screen instead of following like one of them or something. I just get so distracted by it all and caught up in the feelings and it's I feel like it goes so fast sometimes but I want to go back to the music and I do I did not have a chance to look into the lyrics or the song but I do think that the soundtrack they chose for this show is beyond amazing it is beyond phenomenal we've talked about it before i believe there's a couple spotify playlists that have all of it together um and it's really this whole idea of and i mean as we're recording this my discord status is wanting sunshine and that's a reference to this of not even my my my natural tendencies to want to be outside and and and be outdoors but wanting to
01:57:49
Speaker
that kind of that kind of like what skip has of the like in your eyes sunshine and wanting to be seen and loved and known by everyone you know and i think the cottage i think is a good step because i think we talked about it last episode as like them progressing and like taking all of these like baby steps or at some point we've mentioned it but i think the cottage is the natural light used in the and ah and like the bay windows and everything are a step to getting more public. like Yuna and David do find out about them in this episode, and so I think some of that natural light is a step outside of the fluorescence of hotel rooms, but it's also a nod to getting more of this metaphorical sunshine. And I don't know if I'm too crazy for saying that. It feels like if there's a little tinfoil hat-y because they're literally just outside in a cottage.
01:58:37
Speaker
No, to me it makes sense. Okay, that's Because I feel like it's a little bit of the like, well duh, they're at a cottage in the middle of nowhere. They're going to be outside in the sunshine. But I feel like they still could easily just tried to stay inside close all the curtains. There was a previous Holonov that would, or like Ilya just would have bailed a certain point. I feel like there'd be a parallel universe where that could happened. And so I think they were ready enough to take that next step and to be bit more open Even if they weren't willing to, they eventually got the courage and bravery to wake up from that nightmare, to step into the sunshine a little bit and be open. Because they could have denied it. They could have said it was some sick joke or that they were getting pranked. They didn't. So yeah, I think the lyrics in each song are really important. Like the Moon and My Man that we discussed before as well. well. But I do want to take this moment to say that any listeners, if you have done any deep dives into some of the lyrics, or even the song that Haley's referencing, if you want to, you know, do an analysis of it and come up with a couple points and send it to our two professors here and have them grade you or something, or even if you wanted to say if you have any analysis of this final song as they drive into the sunset, which, you know, may is a happy for now. It's not a happily ever after it's happy for now. If you want drum up any of your points, we will discuss them and analyze them. So it's not just us doing all the analyzing. It's that listeners have chance to talk about it as well because we can do it, but we want to hear from y'all as well.
Fandom's Role in Community and Intellectual Growth
02:00:05
Speaker
But I think that those were most of my thoughts. But really this, God, the cottage is just such peak. I still think Loki, I still think episode five might be my favorite because episode six just stresses me out with the parents of it and the parents. The coming out and the stuff with Yuna, for me it just hits too close to home. I haven't watched it enough to have all the lines memorized and so I'm still a little blindsided by it even though I've seen it five or six times now. Maybe the first half is my favorite episode, but I think in full episodes I think it's episode five. But I still think that the lighting in the show is genius and that episode six really illuminates, pun intended, the
02:00:49
Speaker
cinematography of it all the cinematography is genius the soundtrack perfect the dialogues amazing the acting great makeup hair outfit everything is just like it's a beautiful product of a lot of artistic people coming together and doing something they believe in and i'm so glad we get to experience it as um a society we really need it so thank you hayley It's always nice to hear your voice. We love you.
02:01:18
Speaker
And thank you for being so clever and sending us amazing. Yeah, Hayley is so smart. You're very generous. Yeah, every time she's in book club, she has such great thoughts. And I can't wait to have her on the pod as a guest more formally, which I think I believe we have in the works. We have a couple of things in the works, but Hayley has a lot of great thoughts. A lot of our friends are really smart. I always i feel so blessed. I realize it every once in while, but especially with you two, Lau and Lauren, I feel especially blessed to have like such intelligent friends where like you just always are so above and beyond what I'm thinking because like sometimes I think I have good thoughts, but then you all just take it a step further, and I'm so impressed. I'm so thankful. You do have good thoughts. I love your thoughts. Your thoughts sometimes create thoughts for me. Like I'm listening to you. I'm like, uh-huh. Keep rambling. I love it. I'm so glad. I just, I just like to, to, to meet with friends and just talk about stuff and analyze. I love it. That's why i love book club and yeah one of my best friends in undergrad smartest person i know they're getting their phd right now in physics uh at a school a very prestigious school they're they're so smart and they're so silly and the goofiest person i know and it's so funny but when we were in undergrad together we our rooms were next to each other when we lived on campus and we shared a bathroom and so we would have what we call vanity talks where we would stand at the vanity like just not quite like sitting on the couch and not quite in our each other's rooms like We'd be at the vanity for hours just talking about so many different things. I love that. They would like explain to me parts of the – because they studied like the Big Bang and everything, and they would tell me about how all of these different like neutrinos and shit worked. and i Because I never took a physics class a day in my life. But it's stuff like that where I have friends that we can talk about our different ideas and like different like knowledge spheres and perceptions of the world. Lauren and I did that a lot, too, over the past couple years. we were building our friendship, we'd stay up to 4, 5, 6 in the morning. after after the club, be actually after the club, just talking about stuff.
02:03:17
Speaker
and but it was It was really cool and it was really fun and I think those are some of my favorite friendships and the memories I hold dear is the stuff that i do like that kind of stuff.
Conclusion and Gratitude
02:03:24
Speaker
with cool so and I hold that with my like my book club friends and my fandom friends. and Again, this circles back to our earlier discussion about why fandom is important, it iss because you can have those critical deep thoughts and you can engage in these ideas and you can connect with them over media points. And I think that that's why it's important and why I'm so thankful for y'all every day. Wow. How did we get here? That was so funny.
02:03:45
Speaker
Because Hayley did this to us. Amazing. Thank you, Hayley. Thank you, Hayley. didn't mean to ramble. it's but It's been a couple hours, but we need to wrap up because I need to edit our cottage episode. I've barely started and that's due in like four days. So I've got to get on that.
02:03:59
Speaker
And I need to eat. Yes, you need to go eat. And we will see you all next week when we cover Heated Rivalry, the book. We are back in Montreal and Boston and Moscow and all of the places. And we will be back for Heated Rivalry with Lauren's return as well. We look really forward to talking with y'all. Again, send us your voice memos or your paragraphs or whatever you want to talk to us about. Please do. Please check out our show notes. Check out our socials. And i think that's everything. Anything else, Laura?
02:04:30
Speaker
That's it. i See you next week at the cottage again. Bye. Since Rookie Season is created by Lauren, Lau, and Amanda. The cover art is by Lauren and Lau, and Amanda is our editor. Thanks for listening.