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Author, Game Developer, Animal Advocate: Chloe Spencer
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TW for discussions of an active shooter situation and frank anti-fash talk.
Find more from Chloe Spencer here.
Chloe Spencer is an author, advocate, and game developer in the great state of Minnesota. We talk MAGAboys, PTSD and treatments that help, what makes a good game, and dating via text and app. We also discuss why victim-blaming is for cowards, which horror character resonates with Wednes the most, a Mad Lib, and I choke on my own rage for a hot second. We end with Chloe absolutely nailing an unedited reading from her most recent book. It's a fab episode that would have been perfection if my mic hadn't switched to my desktop.
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Transcript
Introduction & Themes of the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:24
Speaker
Music
00:00:35
Speaker
You are listening to the Medjly
Introducing Chloe Spencer
00:00:36
Speaker
Outcast. My name is Wednesday, leave Friday, and we are on coffee. If you want to come by and support us, which you totally should.
00:00:45
Speaker
this week we are speaking with Chloe Spencer, a Minnesota to native. hi A okay. Minnesota native Chloe Spencer is an award-winning writer, indie game developer. and filmmaker.
00:01:01
Speaker
She is the author of multiple sapphic horror novellas, novels, and short stories. She enjoys video games, trying her best at Pilates, ew, and cuddling with her cats.
00:01:13
Speaker
She holds v a BA in journalism from University of Oregon and an MFA in film and television. My goodness, that's impressive. Welcome, Chloe. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. It's great to be on, and I'm very excited.
00:01:28
Speaker
You know, it's funny, I wrote this intro and then while I was reading it, I'm like, oh, hey, I have a PA in journalism too. How fascinating. We should cover that. Because I'm one of those ADHD people who forgets moments in their life like the second that they end.
00:01:44
Speaker
So that's kind of a main thing.
Chloe's Childhood & Horror Movies
00:01:49
Speaker
So regular listeners know we always start by asking the guests to tell us the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing. so Yes, so I can't remember if it's the actual like first official horror film that I remember seeing, but it is the first horror film um that traumatized me. I don't think it's even technically horror. I think it's like a science fiction. It's called The Forgotten. It's Julianne Moore. It came out in 2004.
00:02:20
Speaker
I was the youngest in my family, so a lot of times when there was a movie night, my parents were often watching PG-13 or R-rated movies with my brothers. And so The Forgotten, which came out in 2004, I remember I was very little and I had wanted to see the movie. And they were like, oh, well, it's PG-13. We're not sure you can really watch it. And I pouted. And then I pouted. I was just, I was like, not another movie that you guys are telling me that you can't watch. Like, it's not, I mean, kind of mom and dad's fault that I'm so much younger than the, like my brothers were. But remember nothing about this movie, literally nothing. Apparently it's about, it's kind of similar, I think, to like Jodie Foster's movie with the flight, the kid that's kidnapped on a plane or whatever. I forget what the idea is. Right, they set up a mystery, and then that's the whole movie is they're trying to figure out what the hell happened. And at the end, it's like, oh, yeah, this is what happened, and then that's it.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yes, and so but there's this one part in the movie where I swear to God, like this guy's face opened, his whole face opened. So like his eyes just go black, and then they droop down his face, and his jaw descends. And it's such like it's such a far cry. from like the rest of the film i had to sleep with the lights on at that time oh wow that's right yeah you know it's it's funny because i remember watching that with my husband and we kind of turned to each other at that part and said
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, i guess they only had the budget for one special effect, so they saved it. Right? but Yeah, that was that was definitely traumatizing for me, but then I watched clips of this as an adult, and I was like, this is fine. This is whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:04:19
Speaker
So it sounds like horror was not necessarily encouraged at your house. Yeah, you know, that's a great question. I think it was kind of hit or miss. I think that my dad definitely liked horror films that were, you know, maybe along the lines of like The Shining or something. um Not that like horror isn't inherently cerebral, but I think like the Stanley Kubrick things where it was like,
00:04:44
Speaker
i don't I don't know how to, I don't know how necessarily to describe it, but there's certain horror films that my parents thought I think were acceptable. And then there are others, which less so like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they wouldn't be into, but maybe the shining they would be into um or things like misery would be something. um My parents never really limited us from accessing like information. Like we were allowed to check out like whatever books that we wanted from the library. we were allowed, we were pretty,
00:05:13
Speaker
I would say that we had really ample access to to television. I mean, we had cable TV when I was a kid um and nothing was really banned. Like my brother, Mike, ended up watching a lot of stuff on sci-fi and he was responsible for babysitting me a lot of the time. So whenever he was at home, like, um you know, babysitting or folding laundry or something, he'd often turn on the sci-fi channel. And that's how I got a lot of my education on horror films as well as sci-fi films.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. A lot of B movies on sci-fi, especially back in the day. Because, you know, once Sharknado happened, they realized they were on to something with that. And it just all really took off at that point, I think.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Yes. what I mean, that's that's just, I can't imagine, like, being a kid while all that was going on. thats That's pretty neat. Because I'm i'm a teensy bit older than you, I think. Cause, cause you know, I was in my thirties in 2004. So, so yeah.
Chloe's PTSD Experience
00:06:13
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um Okay. So I actually want to get kind of serious if I can. Usually we'd save this till later in the interview, but I want to talk about um PTSD and I'm aware that you have PTSD and that it stems from an active shooter situation.
00:06:30
Speaker
So I really, i don't wanna say, oh, I'd love to hear about it, but I am very interested in hearing about that experience. And I think that that listeners are too. What would you like to say about that?
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, um that's that's a great that's a great question. I think that there are a lot of things that happen when it comes to um shootings or or mass shootings or kind of misconceptions that we have about them that um I think it can make it like a very isolating experience, like of course triggering, but isolating.
00:07:03
Speaker
um The shooting that I went through happened, I actually had to look this up because it happened, it has happened so long ago now that I couldn't actually remember the date, but it was back on um April 10th, 2022. So it's been about, we're approaching like the four year anniversary, but what had happened was um i was at home ah in my neighborhood. I was just in my apartment at the time down in Atlanta, Georgia. and um Man, I every time I think about that apartment, um it's really sad. But I think about how it was like the first apartment that I lived in in my adult life where it felt like it was truly mine, um where it was something that I like I chose this apartment. I picked it out. i decorated it from start to finish. I you know spent all my days in that apartment. I worked from home in that apartment. um
00:07:54
Speaker
Like there were there were so many things that I loved about that neighborhood, but unfortunately it was plagued by violence and this this this incident that caused the PTSD. It wasn't the only like shooting incident that i experienced there. But on April 10th, 2022, my little cat Kiwi, he had just gone through his neutering surgery. So he we had been up.
00:08:18
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the entire night before I remember because the painkillers had worn off and he was quite pissed off at me. So we had been up virtually like the entire night before um that the day that this occurred. And I was talking to my friends about something. I was sending them like voice messages on my phone. I'm just trying to take care of my little cat that, you know, has all these stitches.
00:08:41
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um And I hear this popping noise and it sounds like firecrackers like are being thrown against the ground. And I was like, that's so I'm like, maybe the kids are out playing today and they have fireworks. But I was like, April is really early for kids to have fireworks.
00:09:02
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yeah And it was it was like three at first, and then you know I was interrupted um but with my friends, and then I heard more, and I was like, what the hell was like going on? um And then I keep hearing them, and I'm like, wait a minute. I think those are gunshots. And the sad thing is is that if you like listen to like my Facebook rest messages like with my friends, you can actually hear the gunshots going off in the background when I'm um on the line with them. Oh, my God. I go over to the window and there's this man. um i thought I thought he was like a teenager. He was so small and short and he had like a black sweatshirt on, like a hoodie covering him. And he's got to this massive a assault rifle strapped to his back and he's staggering up the hill.
00:09:52
Speaker
And the first thing that kind of goes through my mind is this can't be real. I just, I'm i'm like, nope, i I must be extremely delirious. I was up pretty much all of last night. I'm like, I cannot, the the thing the thing that made me think that it wasn't real was that I couldn't hear screaming. I could, there was no one screaming, um no one like running, no other kind of pandemonium.
00:10:17
Speaker
um that I just had come to associate with, like, incidents of mass violence. that The things that I expected ah were just not happening. um And it wasn't... So it was about maybe, like... I saw him, like, run up the hill. I saw him... but i don't know where he had gone after that. um But I got on the phone with, like, my folks because... The the thing is, is that...
00:10:44
Speaker
I only, when when the incident was over, I only learned afterwards, like, how many shooters there were, what kind of gun it was, what, um like, what the motive was, which all of those things i I didn't know in the moment. So it was like four hours that I was sitting my apartment with the blinds drawn in darkness. And I did end up making calls to my friends and my family and just telling them, hey, there is an active shooter situation.
00:11:13
Speaker
I don't know if I'm gonna make it out. um If anything happens, I love you. um Yeah, that was that was just, it was a surreal kind of situation. And I remember sitting there sitting there with Kiwi, um who again, like he's, I'm like, how am I supposed to, like, how am I supposed to protect my cat from, an assault rifle. How am I supposed to protect us? How am I supposed to get out What are we supposed to do? So um my friend lived at the opposite end of the complex as well.
00:11:43
Speaker
um And the thing is, is that you probably would have heard about this incident on the news had he entered at the other end of the apartment complex, because one of the things that I loved about my neighborhood was that there was this gorgeous like soccer field where all the kids would play.
00:11:58
Speaker
um And she had said i was she said that she had seen the cops, but like they weren't telling the kids to go home. There's like an active shooter. Yeah, no, that that I think is the thing that like pisses me off um a lot in retrospect. There are so many kids that lived at that apartment complex. And I mean, like at any any given point, you'd see like 20 teenage boys like running around on that soccer field um or like, you know, like kids climbing all over the playground and they did not tell those kids to go home. um So after that day had passed, I learned that this this guy, he was a stranger. He was from Stone Mountain, Georgia. He knew no one um in our complex. He literally just decided to pick up a gun and go fire it at some people. So he ended up shooting three people, one of which was a guy that was just driving home from work.
00:12:50
Speaker
um That was the first round of shots that I heard. And then he ended up trying to break into someone else's apartment. um And he, when he couldn't break into the apartment, he ended up firing multiple rounds into the apartment, um again, of these people that he did not know, and he struck a couple people in the arms. So there was a couple that was at home with their baby,
00:13:14
Speaker
And i think about this baby like every day. i I have not stopped thinking about this baby because what happened was that the that the guy shot these people through the walls and through the doors.
00:13:29
Speaker
And that baby watched his parents like bleed on the floor until the cops showed up to help. um And so it thankful, like, I hate to say thankfully, like no, no actual deaths occurred, but it was certainly an extremely traumatic situation, especially because You know, when it's happening to you in the moment, you don't know why it's happening. You don't know what the plan is. You don't know.
00:13:56
Speaker
You don't know anything. You're just operating off of like assumptions and like this this high level, like just you don't have all the information that you need to know.
00:14:08
Speaker
um And so that was one of the incidents that contributed to the onset of the PTSD. And it's still like four years on, I'm like, it still sticks with me. I still um struggle sometimes with like popping sounds or or sounds that loud banging noises and things like that that I cannot place. Like it's still quite upsetting to me.
00:14:27
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. My God. you know, and I want to touch on something that you said, because I think it really illustrates how gun culture itself has changed in in recent years because um it used to be if you saw someone with you know what what we would commonly call an assault rifle like a gun that's bigger than a hunting rifle you know anything that looks more powerful than that like it shoots more than that That was a villain and you knew to get the fuck out of there because something bad was going to happen.
00:15:00
Speaker
People didn't just walk around with big old guns for fun or just show people they're exercising their rights or whatever the hell. So, and it it has changed the culture because now a guy can walk around an apartment complex or towards a park where kids are playing and no one will say, Hey, you guys need to leave.
00:15:19
Speaker
they'll say oh there's a guy uh respecting his rights let's all say the pledge of allegiance um and it's i mean that increases the danger for for everybody you know for everybody um yeah so in between like when when did you first seek treatment for ptsd or seek a diagnosis i should say I would say that I believe that that process started sometime in June of that year or July because there was another issue. um Yeah, that that contributed to that. So it was about like two months before I actually sought out help.
00:15:54
Speaker
um It was getting to a point where I was like afraid to leave my house and where I was very jumpy. um PTSD is very disorienting in ways that I don't think is really talked about enough. um It just like impacts the way it impacts so much of the ways in which you navigate the world. um You know, having flashbacks, I mean, it felt like my brain was literally split in two and that I was just navigating the like the world as like two people, the first person that was still living through the incidents and then just the other person that was in the present.
00:16:26
Speaker
um And so it took ah it took time for me to seek out help um after that that incident occurred. Okay. And then did you, do you think you got and a correct diagnosis right away?
00:16:41
Speaker
That's a good question. um I think that it took her a little bit of time. My therapist, I think it took her a little bit of time to evaluate because I was in such a crisis mode at that at that time um that I think it took her a few weeks to come to that conclusion. She had me do a bunch of um worksheets, I remember at that time, that helped kind of narrow down the diagnosis. And that's when she was like, yeah, you meet yeah like you're firing in all cylinders on all these pieces of criteria girl like this is bad um and i think that that's when it really set in how bad things had gotten for me well and it's it's such a difficult thing because most things that happen to you if if you're shot for example you know that you've been shot and you need to go to an yeah er and you know that people need to help you and they know pretty much what they need to do when the damage is mental and emotional
00:17:33
Speaker
Pretty much, first of all, people are going to be telling you to get over it, especially if you're an adult when whatever it is happens. Say, oh, it's over now. You weren't hurt. Nobody died. It wasn't that big of a deal.
00:17:43
Speaker
Why aren't you over it yet? Well, because it doesn't frigging work that way. It just doesn't. Right. And um and as you you pointed out, I mean, it's very articulate just that you're not yourself anymore.
00:17:57
Speaker
everything feels different. You're reacting differently than you used to because things things are just different now. Like, things change you. And so, so what happened next? I think I interrupted you.
00:18:11
Speaker
Oh, no. I was just saying, like, unfortunately, like, that was the only incident of gun violence that occurred even, in fact, after starting, um after starting ah like,
00:18:22
Speaker
you know, therapy, I remember that one of the things, one of the early things that my therapist worked, my first therapist worked with me on was catastrophizing um because I have a tendency and I still do, I would say I still do have the tendency, but it's not as bad um where I just imagine the worst thing that's going to possibly happen. And I'm like, that is what is going to happen.
00:18:44
Speaker
um And I remember hearing again like popping sounds one night and I was like, nope, that is not a gunshot. I'm not mentally going to go there. Like that's catastrophizing. And like a day or two later, I received an email from like the apartment complex talking about a homicide that occurred like at the building right next to me.
00:19:03
Speaker
um So unfortunately, like this neighborhood that I really loved, you know, I think I still think to this day it was one of the most beautiful places I ever lived. It was so like, I mean, I can't even describe the way that like that dappled sunlight kind of came down um on the through the trees and.
00:19:21
Speaker
I just, I loved it there. And yet it was marred by so much violence, so much like death that just occurred there because management, I think management at that particular complex was particularly incompetent when it came to protecting us.
00:19:37
Speaker
Well, and that's really the tragedy of low income neighborhoods, because there are so many really beautiful neighborhoods that started out with all these great houses and and and nice complexes for people to live in And then over time, when the you know the the economic situation changes and everybody's in poverty and people are increasingly desperate,
00:20:03
Speaker
then that's when you get more crime and more people. There's like less community because people keep to themselves. And it's it's really sad because it it ruins but so many just nice opportunities for people. I'm so sorry did that that happened. That's wow.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah. that was That's just such a, especially when you're you're first getting out on your own because it feels like that's what the world is. Like I used to be with my parents and protected and now I'm here and there's gun crazed maniacs.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, yeah PTSD is such a normal expected reaction to being confronted with that. Yeah. Yeah. what and i think yeah What kind of therapy did you have?
00:20:48
Speaker
Did you have EMDR? I can't shut up about EMDR. It changed my life. So I asked everybody with PTSD about it. I wish that I had had access to um e EDMR at the time. I think that the unfortunate thing is that like through insurance and all of that. And at the time, I think that ah back in 2022, I think that EDMR was just kind of starting to really like come around as a more um like prominent, I guess i guess like,
00:21:15
Speaker
um I guess like therapeutic method. um My first therapist was actually um a CBT trained trained in CBT, which I know is actually kind of like controversial controversial sometimes um when it comes to treating PTSD. I know that a lot of people either say nowadays, like,
00:21:34
Speaker
um ah what what is it? it's it's the It's the dialectal behavior therapy, so DBT, um or it's EDMR. but So there's aspects of CBT which I think have worked really well for me. I do want to try in the future maybe like the dialectal behavioral therapy workbook. um But I think at the time, like the CBT really helped me in in terms of um being able to kind of challenge assumptions that I had about the world, because that's what a lot of it focuses on and what like a lot of the worksheets focus on.
00:22:06
Speaker
um So I think it really helped with catastrophizing, but...
Therapy & Personal Growth
00:22:10
Speaker
um one of the things that i also struggled with after you know the diagnosis is just that like you're retreating into yourself because the world feels unsafe and it feels like your support system has kind of collapsed underneath you because i used to have like so many friends that i was hanging out with um down in that area and then it just seems like they drifted apart and maybe they were afraid of like the violence that was occurring but all I knew from my perspective was I felt very alone and I felt like I had done something to drive these people away or that perhaps like it was, I was, I was too much to deal with.
00:22:47
Speaker
um And one of the things that like my therapist would say when I would, when I would talk about like my friends and how much I was like, wow, I i really like miss my friends. I wish that they would do something. I wish that they would reach out. I feel like Every time I reach out, they shoot me down. I feel like they don't want to be friends anymore. She often would ask, um so have you talked to them about that? And my answer would always be no, I haven't talked to them about that.
00:23:14
Speaker
um And so... While the CBT didn't improve, I think, my existing relationships, I think it made me reevaluate what criteria and, like, qualities I needed to look for in friends in order to have a more supportive and, like, healthy life where I felt like I was loved. it I think it taught me how to find love without feeling like I was begging for it.
00:23:40
Speaker
And I think at that particular in Yep, that's relatable. Yep, yeah. Find love without begging for it. Yep.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, we had a cognitive behavioral therapist on the show a while back. And I think one of the things that we had talked about is that for people with PTSD in particular, there is a lot of thinking that part of what you're going through is because of what happened to you.
00:24:08
Speaker
And part of it is because of your response to it. So even though you're not responsible for what happened to you, there are usually things that are within your power to do to make the situation better. And it sounds like that's what you were able to discover through therapy. Am I understanding that right? Yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Like there were a lot of things that I thought that I was just kind of powerless to and like I had to endure and then i realized that I didn't have to do it. So I like, I didn't have to sit around and worry that I was like missing out on,
00:24:41
Speaker
like certain experiences or feel like I was unloved because I could just find things that I enjoyed doing. I could kind of break out of my shell a little bit. um It helped me to not catastrophize. And I think it helped me really learn to put myself first versus like the thoughts and feelings of others. I think if there's one thing that CBT really helped me with, it it was about putting my own thoughts thoughts and feelings first versus getting trapped in the cycle of endlessly thinking about you know, what do other people think is if it, am I being too much? And that's why they they're responding in this way or not responding at all. Is that, and it's like, no, there's there's none of that. Like you just have to find the people that I think are going to support and love you in like the way that you need them to. And sometimes that means leaving certain friendships behind um and that's okay.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. And you know, the older you get, the more that, that does tend to happen because you have this, I mean, there's a sunken cost fallacy with some friendships, but overall this idea of like, wait a minute, I would never treat someone that way. Why on earth am I tolerating that?
00:25:54
Speaker
And like one little mind trick that I always encourage with people is, uh, pretend it's not you pretend that your best friend just came to you and said,
00:26:05
Speaker
this is what just happened to me what should I do? Because sometimes it is just more difficult to advocate for yourself because we second guess ourselves often much more than than we do our friends.
00:26:20
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that is so brilliant. i need I honestly, like, I need to use that myself, pretend it's not you. Yeah, yeah, because there's a lot of things that we accept for ourselves that we we shouldn't be accepting.
00:26:36
Speaker
um Especially when it comes to and especially like i think when it comes to trauma or that that that's brought on as a result of other people's actions. I think one of the ways that like, you know, pre-therapy that you try to explain it away is that it's it's something, it's because of something that you did. And it's like, no, sometimes bad things just happen to people.
00:26:57
Speaker
Sometimes a guy gets an AR-15 and he decides to come shoot up an apartment complex. And there's nothing that you can do to stop that, you know, in the moment for from happening. There's nothing that you, you know, there's nothing that you can do.
00:27:11
Speaker
Right, um right. But there's other choices that you can make um that, you know, it's not going to take away what's happened to you, but it is going to make your life better and make you less afraid of the world.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yes. So what would you say to someone who is not does not have a ptsd diagnosis but thinks that they may like what would you tell them to do i would say um to try to get in touch with a therapist because at least in onset i'm i'm doing pretty well for myself now mentally um i still see a therapist um about every two weeks but i've dropped down i'm dropping down to once every three weeks so she's she's very half of the progress i've made which is nice
00:28:01
Speaker
um But I would say if you can get in touch with somebody to start like that process of um to start that process of therapy, that would be great. And I would say to just keep your mind open to things, because sometimes um depending on the level of crisis that you're in, my first therapist was like, hey, girl, like we got to put you to work. Here's a bunch of worksheets. i'm gonna And then she was like, oh my gosh, you're like one of the best patients. Like you do all your homework. That's great. I was like, thank you. I really don't want to be mentally ill anymore. um still am. But like I would like it to not be as bad. um So I would just say to be open to the work that you might need to invest because
00:28:42
Speaker
um you know, we we tend to think of like mental health almost as this this passive thing that needs to be worked on or addressed, like just kind of, um i don't I don't know how to describe it, but it's like, we kind of think of it in a way where it's it's just passive, it's just something that needs to be, needs to be just done like maybe you show up to a therapy therapy appointment every once in a while but you really have to get in there and apply those concepts that you're learning to your life so that you can like make your life better and so that you can improve things because you might always have ptsd but at least you're going to be able to manage it better but you can't do that without doing the work yes absolutely and that's it that's huge and it's it's a real misunderstanding of uh
00:29:32
Speaker
of what therapy is, what mental health is, what emotional care looks like. um And this is something I could go on about all day because for one thing, if you're in, if you know people that have been through rehab, which I know a bunch because I met him in rehab. And um one of the things that happens is if if you feel like there's a drug that's been messing up your life or a person, you know, that you have a codependency with, and then you get rid of them,
00:30:02
Speaker
Your life isn't instantly better. All the problems that brought you into that situation. Don't just evaporate. You know, you get medication and it it helps your brain chemistry. But again, you're not better. You're not cured. You're not, you don't quote unquote, get your life back without doing the work.
00:30:21
Speaker
And people that have never been through it and don't even know like what the work entails. The people that have made fun of me for having therapy are some of the people who most need therapy and won't get it because you have to be brave to say, i need help. And I am going to a complete stranger to get it because I understand that they have training that can help me.
00:30:45
Speaker
And then as you pointed out, You have to be open-minded. You have to listen to things you may not want to hear and talk about things that you have already put in your little box and stamped down and forgotten about or not forgotten about. But, you know, you you don't want to think about it.
00:31:02
Speaker
And then you got to dredge it all back up and work through it because that's the only way you get better. And it's hard. You know, it's a lot of hard work. And if you're not willing to do it, then you get stuck.
00:31:15
Speaker
And it seems like every episode i will talk to someone. I think everybody goes through at least a short period where they're resistive to get help because they feel like they should just tough it out.
00:31:30
Speaker
That's what a grownup would do. They, they tough it out. They get over it and And that's actually going to lead me into a political discussion because team tough it out who are also coincidentally some of the whiniest, most ridiculous drug addled people in the history of anything are running the country and fucking up the whole world.
00:31:53
Speaker
And you, you live in Minnesota, which at the time that I wrote up your questions was still infested with mass kidnappers, wiping their asses with the bill of rights. We've been told that they've left, have, have ice left.
00:32:07
Speaker
No, um no, they have just spread out to different parts of the state. the The only thing that I can say is that we're getting a level of relief here in the Metro. um For a while, there was a break from the helicopters, um but there's, I mean,
00:32:23
Speaker
The helicopters, by the way, um just incessant. Like, there were so... there Sometimes i've I've seen, like, four in the sky at a time, like, side by side. Like, the number of helicopters that these guys have brought in and flown through the skies, I mean, it just feels like...
00:32:40
Speaker
I feel like it almost feels like the sky is falling. That's how loud it is. And that's how it's supposed to feel. You're supposed to feel intimidation for not kissing a rapist's ass.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah, it works. to read desperately It's triggering as hell. um Yeah, so they have not left. They've only spread out to different parts of the state. um The metro where i I reside in like the Twin Cities metro area and so like things have been getting a little bit better here. But I think now the big challenge is that they have caused so much damage and disruption.
Community Support & Activism
00:33:13
Speaker
that there are people that haven't been able to work. And so there's like there's so many people that are asking for rental relief and rental assistance. And the mayor of Minneapolis is kind of a jackass. I will say that on record that he's a jackass and he voted against extending time for eviction notices, which I think was supposed to be from 30 days to 60 days to give people little bit more time. We're still pretending being a landlord is a job. I'm so sick of that. Yeah. I've been a wrencher for a long, long time and being a landlord is not a job. It's a scam.
00:33:48
Speaker
It's yes. Yes. And so, I mean, like we're still there's a lot of organizations and businesses that are still doing a lot of on the ground work to try to help people stay in their homes, because I mean, when people are homeless, it's it's a it's a free for all.
00:34:03
Speaker
You know, you can just be snatched up off the street at any time. So we're trying very hard to keep that from happening to as many people as possible here. Well, and as someone who is from Michigan, i very much appreciate that community mindset that Minnesota is showing. It is just, it's, it's so impressive. Like I want to applaud every time I see it, because every time you see another online video of some vice jackass in a mask pretending he's going after the worst of the worst, but it's a nurse or a school child, or they're ripping somebody away from their job. I mean, it's never.
00:34:40
Speaker
I think that's that's kind of one of the shittiest things about it is that they pretend to be these big old tough guys, but then they're like kneeling on pregnant women and using kids as bait. I mean, they're all such you fucking cowards.
00:34:54
Speaker
You know? Yep. and And so with that in mind, the fact that, because I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that what the fascists want is for us to riot.
00:35:06
Speaker
They want us to open fire back and people are not taking the bait. And that's pretty impressive because I'm on the internet a lot and people be taking the bait, but in real life, you know, it's just, you guys are just so, so impressive.
00:35:22
Speaker
in in how you and how many ICE agents you haven't kicked the shit out of. I mean, really? Yeah. well and you know i have ah My husband is a black guy and he's over six feet. So if you're a cop, that's the scariest kind of person there is.
00:35:39
Speaker
So i have to have, I have the same conversation with him all the time. Like, you know, you have to keep your hands out of your pockets, right? Make sure they can see your hands all the time. Don't reach it for anything unless you're pulling your mask down. Like all these things, because as citizens, for some reason, the people that are supposed to be trained in law enforcement and de-escalation, if you startle them, they'll kill you.
00:36:04
Speaker
And then they go to a jury and cry and they fucking get away with it. I mean, and then with, but with ice, it's even worse. You know, Jonathan Ross, the guy that that killed Renee good.
00:36:17
Speaker
I'm sorry, the murderer who killed Renee good. i mean, first of all, people said, oh, he was run over. It was so sad, but we all saw the video. He wasn't run over. He walked away swearing at a woman he just killed, got into his car and drove away, not to a hospital.
00:36:33
Speaker
And yet the fash that be are still trying to make that point that, oh, he was assaulted. Like, yeah, I'm really sorry that the the mommy hurt your fee-fees and everything, but you don't get to kill people for that.
00:36:47
Speaker
Right. That's not, you're not, you don't get to kill people for that. And yeah, I mean, going back to what you're saying about like the, the, the, they want people to riot. I remember that there was like a protest that was going on somewhere in Minnesota. um I think it was in Minneapolis actually. And some guy walked up to the front of like the protest and he lit an American flag on fire and people just made fun of him and like booed him until he walked away. They were like, are you a cop?
00:37:17
Speaker
They're like, why are you doing that? They just that it's like, oh, my God, that's so mortifying. That's so mortifying. Yeah, I mean, they just haven't been taking the bait. I think that one of the things that Minnesotans have been doing really well is just putting the community first and just trying to um not, I mean, like think of ways to protect each other.
00:37:39
Speaker
um and is in as non-destructive a way as possible. There are so many people that are getting trained on um constitutional observing, which is where you know you're just you're just trained on how to observe ICE agents, record, document their behavior. um You're technically not supposed to um post those recordings online, actually, or like on social media. You're supposed to kind of like There's certain organizations that are collecting the information, um which then, like, the lawyers will choose to disperse or share with, like, news organizations and things like that. It better help serve the cases of those that are impacted.
00:38:12
Speaker
um But, like, there's there's so many food drives that are going on, um laundry organization programs. There's... different kind of like care package programs that are being put together and I think that that's something that really captures the Minnesotan spirit. um ah The Minnesotans are just, we we do our best to help our community. We can, i will admit, um i know a lot of people say that like there's a thing called Minnesota Nice. I think that this is the best kind of version of Minnesota Nice.
00:38:43
Speaker
Um, so, well, you know, yeah it is well studied that, um, lower middle class to poor people are much more likely to help others and to be engaged in their community than rich people.
00:38:58
Speaker
Um, And I think that it's it's similarly true that anti-fascists, anti-fa for you haters out there, anti-fa, are more likely to step in for their communities than the fascists are to step up for other fascists.
00:39:15
Speaker
And you can kind of tell that with when if you watch the MAGA boys, that every time one of them like you know suddenly does anything compassionate or defends someone who is vulnerable, they they turn on them. you know Anybody that says, hey, you know what? President Trump might be a racist a rapist. Maybe we should do something about that. That's it. They're done. They're gone. Yeah. You know?
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah. And it's... I think one of the things that's so offensive about it is that they don't even believe their own hype. They just say these awful things over and over and over again that hurt people.
00:39:52
Speaker
And then they think it should end because the workday is over at five and they just want to go to a nice restaurant. And why is everyone so upset with them? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's hard to know. Like,
00:40:05
Speaker
what but but the the overarching point is that decent people tend to be a little less wealthy like yeah the richer you are i think the worse it makes you you know bezos even he didn't always seem to be like this just like cartoonishly evil mr burn style shit he used to just be a regular jackassie businessman and so yeah Yeah, which which is bad enough. But you know, but that's the thing, like, people are allowed to have businesses and be successful.
00:40:37
Speaker
And, you know, like, because that's, that's always the line, you know, oh, you hate success. And that's why you're, you're jealous of successful people. I have a business, I pay when I have someone working for me, they make $15 an hour.
00:40:51
Speaker
if they get need a day off, I don't make them go to the doctor and get a note telling me that they are too sick to come in. I say, I'm so sorry. i hope you feel better soon. You know, and the richer people are the less they want to, you know, it's like they're, they're just hyper focused on like, what if I'm being taken advantage of? What if someone's trying to take something for me? And I think the reason that they think that is because they take advantage of me.
00:41:18
Speaker
and they're thieves and they're mean and they you know they cheat people so they think everyone is like that so yeah that's a little tangenty though I think I went off on a tangent um so you you volunteer with the Minnesota Humane Society and the Walk for Animals I want to hear more about that Yeah, yeah. So um every single year with the Animal Humane Society, I participate in the, or at least for, I think like three years running now. um I did it also, before I moved to Atlanta, I did it for a couple of years then as well. And so it's, but I think ongoing, like consecutively, it's been about maybe three years. um And so the Animal Humane Society Walk for Animals, it's basically the largest fundraising opportunity for um the Animal Humane Society of Minnesota, which is one of the largest just um animal um kind of rights organizations that it's in the state. They run a lot of shelters in the state. They do a lot of food donation programs for um pet food and things like that. Low cost veterinary clinics. They help. they I mean,
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, they help with like so many different things under the sun. um My family was fortunate enough to get um my childhood dog. of We were able to adopt him from one of the Animal Humane Society. And so um every year what I like to do kind of in honor of that dog and also just um in celebration of all the wonderful like lives and that that that are yet to come out of the shelter and like, you know, be united with their families, their forever homes, I should say, is participate in the
Chloe's Creative Projects
00:42:54
Speaker
Walk for Animals. And so what it is, is it's basically just a fundraising campaign. um So I have a little page that is on my, um just on my Instagram. um And people can donate to that campaign. They're trying to raise, i forget how much it is, but I think it's maybe like $600,000 that they're trying to raise. And, um
00:43:15
Speaker
I think I've set my goal at about $1,200. And if people were to ah participate and donate at least $5, they could potentially enter a drawing to win a copy of Code Skull and a copy of Haunting Melody. So it's like...
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, like two books, um which are normally, i think normally they would retail at about $35, but I would cover like shipping and handling. It would be $5 for the donation. um And actually, um as of today, no one has taken me up on that as of yet. I think I posted about that like maybe a week ago and I'm still trying to like raise as much money as I can. so so wait a minute. So what you're saying is that you can give a little bit of money and it helps animals and then you also get free books.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yes, yes, you enter a drawing. So one person can win, one person will win, I will say, but yes. Wow, I mean, that's that's like win-win. How are people even resisting that seriously?
00:44:16
Speaker
I don't know. um I think it's just, I don't know if it's because it's like tax season and so people are really like holding on to their money, like really like clenching Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's rough out there, you know, it's it's rough. um Yeah. But...
00:44:31
Speaker
The thing about animals is that they enriched all of us. Like anyone I know, I don't know a pet owner who would not say that their pets make them better people.
00:44:41
Speaker
Like I can't have cats right now and it makes me sad. i have a tank full of lizards. come Yeah, they're, they're lesbian lizards, which I love. it's their they' Well, they're morning geckos and a morning morning geckos, the species itself is 99% female.
00:44:57
Speaker
There are occasionally a male born, but they're sterile. They're just like, Oh, hi, i of whatever dude over there. Food's over there. Um, but they, uh, they reproduce through parthenogenesis, but they also have sex.
00:45:10
Speaker
The researchers, the site scientists call it pseudo copulation and, uh, Yeah, they just get it on with each other and then after they spend a little time like stroking and rubbing up against each other, both of the females become gravid with eggs and the eggs are direct clones of the females.
00:45:29
Speaker
That's, oh my, how have I not heard of this before? That's wild! Well, you know why you haven't heard of it? Because it kind of debunks the the basic premise of Jurassic Park.
00:45:41
Speaker
Oh, I see. That's the problem with that. Well, remember when ah when Dr. Wu in Jurassic Park turns to, I think, Malcolm and says, you're suggesting that a group of all-female lizards will somehow breed? And he says it like such a smug jackass. And he's that he's one of the dinosaur scientists. How did you not know that?
00:46:08
Speaker
gosh. So, yeah. but But even little lizards make me a better person because, you know, would cool anything that you have to care for, it's like, I'm gonna give part of my day towards supporting the life of something that does not make me money, does not, you know, raise my standing in the community. It doesn't advance my career. It's just a thing I'm doing because as a human on this earth, I wanna make life slightly better for something or someone else.
00:46:39
Speaker
and that's the beginning of it but then once you get into the unconditional love of an animal we're trying to get a house and once we do i'm getting puppy because i've never had a puppy before and i've always wanted one and i didn't have kids so a puppy is basically going to be like a child for for that is basically just myself so Yes, as someone who raised, in my teens, I raised two puppies at the same time. And my parents were like, it's like you're a teen mom. And I was like, that's funny.
00:47:09
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's funny. I actually did say that to my friend once with a puppy. I said, it's like you're a teen mom. And she's like, don't give me that shit. I haven't had any sleep. Like, wow, that's exactly what they say on that teen mom show. Oh my gosh.
00:47:25
Speaker
Even like having a kitten. like kiwi like kiwi was Kiwi I rescued from the garbage. And so Kiwi was... like he has been i don't know why I had this assumption that kittens were kind of like a chill like baby pet to have. They're not. like Kiwi is all of the birds. That's regular cats and even then it's a crapshoot.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yes. Kittens are hell with claws. Oh my god. He was just such a rambunctious baby. Like he, he, I mean, like the biting, the bunny kicking, the biting and the bunny kicking. Just ridiculous.
00:47:58
Speaker
I mean, he is very sweet and loving, but like he has also just, he's a very aggressive when it comes to play. And he, I don't think has ever outgrown that. Yeah. I get it. I get had a Bombay, which, you know, a Bombay cat is kind of like a cross between a cat and a dog.
00:48:13
Speaker
And he used to stress me out so bad because he could keep to himself, find things to do, like if I was working or sleeping or whatever, and he wasn't sleeping with me. But at the same time, he loved to chew on wires. He loved to dig things up. And I was just so terrified that I would wake up one day and find him electrocuting because he had chewed through a wire.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yes. So I basically became a master gaffer around here and was just gaff taping everything. And we had wires that were like taped directly to the walls. And my landlord came in and was like, what what are you doing? Why is this happening?
00:48:48
Speaker
And we explained and they were like, well, just remember your security deposit. blow I'm like, dude, it's fucking it's tape. It's painter's tape. It's literally made to go on walls. Calm down.
00:49:00
Speaker
Right, exactly. No, like that reminds me so much of Kiwi though. Cause like Kiwi, he also loved to chew on wires. It got to the point where like, I would just take him with me whenever I went to the bathroom. I was like, no, we're not playing that game. I'm not playing the dead kicking game where you are coming with me. And now, now I can't keep him out of the bathroom. Now, every time I'm in there, he thinks it's a party. He wants to play in the sink. He wants to play in the bathtub. Like, oh my gosh. It's like, dude. Wow.
00:49:30
Speaker
Okay, yeah so I want to get into your work because there's so much of it and it just seems so amazing. So um your work is informed by your experiences with PTSD and ableism.
00:49:44
Speaker
So let's first talk about Haunting Melody. Yes, so Haunting Melody came out in October 2024. So that was a book that was directly inspired by my experiences with PTSD and the recovery. um My debut YA novel, Monster Sona, which also released with Tiny Ghost Press, that one kind of focused more on the onset, but I realized that when I was reading and doing like a lot of research of other YA books,
00:50:14
Speaker
that there's a lot of books that focus maybe on the onset of PTSD, but they don't necessarily talk as much about the aftermath and how to navigate it. Because ah but as you mentioned earlier, um it's one of the PTSD is like one of those things where people just assume that you should just be over it.
00:50:29
Speaker
Um, yeah and that makes things very difficult to navigate because it's like, yes, like for the most part, I am quote unquote over it. That doesn't mean I don't deal with like residual issues and trauma that I have to manage, like on an ongoing basis. Like I have to take care of myself. I have to take care of my mental health.
00:50:46
Speaker
Um, it's impacted the way that I navigate relationships and things like that. And so, um And especially like after the PTSD and after feeling like I was abandoned by most of my friends, um I wanted to write a book about a girl that felt like she was abandoned um by her friends and she's like dealing with PTSD. So Haunting Melody centers on this teenage ghost hunter that is supposed she's basically like the daughter of some very prominent ghost hunters. um And she basically does what is considered like her first hunt so that she can hunt a ghost and be officially considered a ghost hunter. And she fails miserably, but she also fails in a way that is so um horrific that it leaves her with PTSD. It leaves her with all these body scars. So there's like a visual representation of the trauma that she's been through.
00:51:38
Speaker
um and then it also kind of ostracizes her in her community because people tend to blame her for what happened or they think that she wasn't better impaired and um there are a lot of ways in which I think that that can tie into traumatic situations where I think um psych I think like psych there's been some studies on this and I wish I was more informed on like what those studies specifically were but um there's something that happens psychologically sometimes when folks have gone through tragedy or maybe they're enduring like a chronic illness like um someone, for example, has cancer and then they send a lot of cancer patients say that like they suddenly feel abandoned by their friend group. And it's because people want to distance themselves from like what is happening to them because they don't want that to happen to them. So they just kind of cut them off.
00:52:24
Speaker
And I wonder if it's like kind of the same way when it comes to somebody that's struggling with mental health or like PTSD. Oh, it absolutely is. Because here's the here's the thing. That's the root of victim blaming.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. Root of victim blaming is to say well, you did a thing that I would never do. And that's why this happened to you and why it won't happen to me. And they have to hang on to that. That's a coping skill for them because it's hard to watch your friends or loved ones suffer.
00:52:54
Speaker
And it's, it's harder to, I mean, I think at the, at a baseline, at least in my circles, humanity, like people in general would rather help people if they could.
00:53:07
Speaker
Like we all want to help each other, but we don't always know how. And some of the things like our internal fears of fear of like awkwardness, embarrassment, you know, making someone feel bad, having people talk about you behind your back, like all of those things can come up in situations like that.
00:53:26
Speaker
And so it can be paralyzing for people that haven't even experienced it. They don't want to make it worse and they don't want to, You know, they they don't want there to be like awkwardness. So avoidance seems better than getting in there and doing the wrong thing.
00:53:45
Speaker
And I think that's where a lot of that comes from. Yeah, yeah. And I think that that avoidance, like it it it is so isolating because it just, you know, it was so interesting to me after like my diagnosis and my treatment, you know, I i just kept thinking of like all these sitcoms that I'd seen when I was a kid where, know, you know, something happens to this one character and everybody, like all these people come out of the woodwork to help this character and like let them know that they're loved. And like, I didn't experience that same thing. And so I was like, they're, you know,
00:54:21
Speaker
Not only are am I learning to navigate like this this mental illness or like this disability, I'm also learning to i'm also like trying to grapple with, like is it me? Am I the problem? But again, that catastrophizing or that just centering of other people's feelings constantly versus like centering my own healing and centering what it is that I actually needed in my relationships. And so um in Haunting Melody, like she does a lot. She's been through some therapy. She's been through some treatment. She moves to this new town. She ends up having to team up with a ghost, um you know, something that caused her incident that created her PTSD.
00:54:59
Speaker
um in order to solve like a murder mystery that's going on in her town because she really is so desperate to prove herself to herself again and prove that she is okay, um that she's willing to put herself in kind of these risky situations if it just means that she can prove that she's okay, that, you know, just because she's disabled now, she's still as capable as other people. It just means that, you know, you might need to make accommodations for her or there might be situations that she can't handle as well.
00:55:26
Speaker
Okay. That actually leads me to want to point out that when we are treated by people in in ways that are inappropriate, and we have to go back through and parse that.
00:55:41
Speaker
I think one of the things that a lot of us think of the most is like, we have to first parse whether or not we deserved it, whether or not the person is making a good point. And that that starts you out on such a shaky footing, because if you start out like the way that I respond to things like that now is worlds away from how I would have responded to it in my twenties. And I'm going to tell you a little something about myself here that might seem a little off topic.
00:56:10
Speaker
I, uh, I've been married. well, I've been with my husband since 99. We've been together a long, long time. all after an illness in 2022 i i'm a sex writer that's like my day job and i got replaced by ai twice last year um but uh long story short i went on dating apps for work for sex articles and because there were no dating apps when i met my husband there were like you know online apps that's where we met but there were no like smartphones and you know text relationships and stuff none of that existed
00:56:43
Speaker
So I thought it'd be fun to just kind of dick around on Ashley Madison, meet some dudes, write some articles, stuff like that. And yeah what I am finding is that the difference between how I respond to inappropriate or just undesirable men now is so different.
00:57:01
Speaker
And I mean, first of all, just the whole poly concept. means that you can date and then every bad date doesn't make you feel like fuck I'm gonna be alone forever I'm never gonna find my right person that was a bad date because I'm a bad person and I you know yeah it it it can just be this whole spiraling thing and now it's like wow that guy was a dick yeah I don't ever want to see that guy again and because it's an app you could just you know you block someone and it's like they never existed in the first place Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's definitely like a lot, um it's definitely a lot um more freeing, I would say. The idea that like you have, I think that there was, I think that especially, yeah, when you're young and when you're in your twenties and i'm I'm just about to turn 30, I'm gonna turn 30 this summer, um which I'm excited for. But like i can't wait to leave my twenties behind because I feel like it was just like by so much insecurity. And I just call it the terrible twenties. Like that, that's a thing that they say in therapy and rehab, the terrible twins, because oh some of us in childhood, some people were put on a path for success.
00:58:09
Speaker
Like your parents supported and loved you and and in every way and and made sure you had all the tools you needed for success. Other families did not do that. And so as soon as you go in, and this is not a comment on your family at all. I don't know anything about your family. Maybe they're awesome, but um a lot of people go out into the world feeling unprepared or prepared in the wrong way. It's like, you know how to do your taxes, but you don't know how to make breakfast.
00:58:38
Speaker
You know, the the guy that didn't know what a cookie sheet was. So he was just taking his food out of the oven. you know he would like put a pizza directly on the grill. oh They didn't know about oven mitts.
00:58:50
Speaker
And so they'd be using like two napkins and wondering why their hands were getting burned and stuff. You know, just very basic things that people did not know to have a proper foundation on life.
00:59:02
Speaker
Now, I have to think that if you're a man and you make it to adulthood without knowing what an oven mitt is, you haven't spent ah ah enough time helping your mom in the kitchen because that's an easy one. For real. Yes.
00:59:15
Speaker
But yeah, that foundational stuff is no joke. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Speaking of dating, am particularly intrigued by your upcoming project, which is called Skin Crawl. And I'll tell you that I like to devote a little time every week, mocking arrogant incels and Manosphere fans and men who look like thumbs and hats that think I'm going to be upset when they tell me that I'm not fuckable. um that so So tell me, well what what you got coming up?
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah, so Skin Crawl. um Skin Crawl is ah basically a book about why I think dating sucks and why I hate it. um But it's it's about a woman that thinks that she's found the man of her dreams.
00:59:58
Speaker
um And he is actually a man that is possessed by carnivorous water beetles. um So these water beetles, it's kind of, um he's he's basically possessed by these water beetles and he they're constantly, he's almost like a vampire in a sense in that he's constantly like on the hunt for blood and he's on the hunt for um being able to feed himself because the beetles are desperate to like procreate and replicate themselves. So we have our character, val Mallory.
01:00:30
Speaker
um Mallory is just is kind of she's gotten she hasn't gotten over her previous breakup she is so desperate to find the man that is the one because she's just sick of this shit she doesn't want to do it anymore um and she ends up meeting this guy named Cole and Cole is the man who's possessed by water beetles and um as they continue to date Mallory's friends um who are include um who includes Sage and another guy named Vance. um I'm sorry, Lance, Lance. um
01:01:03
Speaker
Sorry. Thank you for not naming anyone Vance, my goodness. No, I did not name anybody Vance. His name is Lance, my bad. I was like, that came out wrong. but it was It was Lance. um So um Sage and Lance, who are kind of in this other sort of relationship, like a will they, won't they, like, situationship from hell, are the ones that kind of figure out that something's going on with this guy, and they realize that they're going to have to, like, protect her from him. And so it's just kind of about this situation of dating gone horrifically wrong.
01:01:34
Speaker
But I think it also represents, I like to say it represents the four um horsemen of the dating apocalypse. where You have Cole, who is like the incel guy. Like he's the guy that wants to be like a man and he's very controlling and domineering over women, but he does it in some very subtle and like very like smart ways. He's not like, he's not so overt about a lot of it is like very covert um in terms of like how he talks to her and how he's able to manipulate Malorie into um giving up more of herself.
01:02:07
Speaker
And then Mallory, you have somebody that basically has such low self-esteem that she constantly centers men. um And I think that there's a lot of conversations going on right now about like centering men or like just constantly like fixating on a man and like thinking that like this is the end all be all. um But then with Lance, um Lance is the guy that's kind of, he's actually a little bit ah emotionally, like anxiously attached.
01:02:35
Speaker
So he's in this situation ship with Sage and he's just kind of desperate to get to this point where they can call it a relationship. And Sage on the other hand is very much an emotional avoidance. She is trying to kind of distance herself from um the concept of a relationship as much as possible while also wanting to indulge in the benefits. So it's just, it's it's chaos. There's a lot going on in it. um I think that people would really like it if they find, if they if they like gross things and if they like really complicated relationships, it's definitely, it was a very fun one to write.
01:03:10
Speaker
Yeah. It sounds like it. When is it out? um I think it's going to be out in June of this year. It's supposed to release this summer, sometime this summer. don't want wait lot that long. Send your dad. Yeah.
01:03:22
Speaker
I hope, yes, I think we're still kind of working on the edits for it as well. So the arcs are not out or ready to go yet, but hopefully they will be soon. checked in, but we'll see. yeah I so. Yeah, got medical stuff going on. I might not have until this summer, but oh but yeah, yeah, that that is that sounds must read for sure. um But let me ask you this. If somebody is not familiar with any of your work, where is the best place for them to get started?
01:03:50
Speaker
That's a really great question. I think it really kind of depends on where you're at in terms of like horror. Because sometimes I meet people, especially like when I'm out tabling at events, I meet people that are like, I'm not really big on horror. I'm scared. um And if you're that person, I actually think that Haunting Melody would be a better read for you because it's written for an older YA audience. So I think that a lot of adults that have read it have really enjoyed it, but it's not like so young um sounding in voice that it's you know, it's difficult to connect with.
01:04:22
Speaker
um I think that, and and I think it's like thrilling. I think it's very cute. It's meant to be like a a cross between Ghostbusters and Gravity Falls. So it's just kind of a mashup of my favorite things. um And I think that that's a great entry point. um If you're looking for something a little more mature um and if you're looking for something that's like kind of dipping your toes into adult horror, I recommend my novella, ah Mewing, that was published with Shortwave. And that one is about a Instagram influencer that joins this co-op house and she falls in love with the charismatic leader, but also descends into madness. And there's some stuff about like demons in a basement.
01:05:02
Speaker
um So that one's very fun too. Wow. Damn, that's my mind's blown. I am remiss in my reading. that And that's one of the things I find out. I was running a magazine for a while, but this is our last month.
01:05:17
Speaker
And the wild thing about it is that there are so many spectacular horror writers that I have never heard of. And I'm real active online in the communities. And there are just so many people out there that are writing incredible witty, poignant work.
01:05:33
Speaker
And I've never heard of them before. And that is like one of my big laments that there is just not enough time to read everything I want to read. Now, am not a gamer, but you are, and you are also a game developer. Now, i I, mean, a video game to me is like, you know, you, you put all the little puzzle pieces together and then at the end there's a rocket ship. Like that's about where I stopped.
01:05:57
Speaker
um well get yeah you know Actually, I'm so old that when I started playing Tetris, it was called Net and everything was right. if You could only play it on a full ass computer. Oh my gosh.
01:06:08
Speaker
So for someone who doesn't know anything about game developing, is that just like lines and lines of code or how does how does that all work? that's really That's a really great question. So yes, it can involve lines and lines of code, but I'm actually not as familiar with that. I'm trying to teach myself a little bit more unity. um But a lot of the times I'm using like game builders or like other kinds, like I used a lot of RPG Maker.
01:06:30
Speaker
um And so RPG Maker is a really great way to kind of dip your toes into game development. That's super easy, especially if you like things that are more action oriented. um There's also people call it ah like RenPy, but i've I've heard other people call it RenPy. It's a Python coding. It uses the Python language and it's a really great popular way for people to build like visual novels and dating simulators. So RenPy is a free method that I've kind of dabbled in here and there.
01:07:01
Speaker
um But of course, I find it like difficult to learn any programming language. It takes time and I'm quite impatient. So that's why i ended up using things like RPG Maker. um But you can also, um yeah, RenPy is ah a great source because it's free. RPG Maker is paid. So, like, never pay full price for that if you're interested in getting into game development. um It's a great way to dip your toes into it. It won't, like, you won't be able to develop the most complex games, and that's why I'm trying to teach myself um more things in regards to... um
01:07:32
Speaker
like Unity and other kind of programming language. And so one of the things that I was hoping to start this year um before a lot of unfortunate things happened in Minnesota, um I wanted to um sit down and take the time to do a lot of those coding classes. um And so hopefully I'll get the opportunity to do that a little bit later. But yeah, I'm technically working on a game. I've had to put it on hiatus for a while since I um moved back from Atlanta. My main computer that I had for all those years broke. I replaced it like...
01:08:01
Speaker
I think last year and this new computer is not nearly as nice as my computer that I had, which is so sad, um but I'm doing my best. I put together like a lot of the artwork for the game um that I'm working on developing, but I still need to do like the actual like coding and like building and development of the game. Yeah.
01:08:20
Speaker
I see. see. So it sounds like there are free ways to dabble in game development to see whether or not you like it and are good at it, but that after a time you're gonna sort of reach the limits of what that can do and then you gotta to decide if you want to invest in in going further. why Am I getting that right?
01:08:41
Speaker
Yes, yes. And there's other like types that you can. Yeah, there's other things that you can learn. There's um like Adobe. There's Unity. I think Unreal Engine is technically free now. So there are so many different like languages that you can use.
01:08:54
Speaker
um Another really great one that I know of is Twine. um Twine has really helped with being able to write branching narratives because that's basically all it is, is like text based games that you can um kind of um it's it's It's text-based games and so you can kind of navigate through a branching pathway to tell a story.
01:09:15
Speaker
And so that's also a really great software too. So to be clear, we're talking about software that helps you create and organize your own content. Nothing is generating content for you, right?
01:09:27
Speaker
Yes, it helps you generate. Yeah, yeah. So twine helps you um Twine helps you just kind of branch things out. So if I wanted to write like a murder mystery story that takes place in a house, but I wanted it to have multiple endings, I can um write all those different things. And then I can use the program to connect those different sort of branching, those different kind of branches. And that really kind of helps um visually, helps you, I guess, visualize like the different types of like branching narratives that you can go on.
01:09:59
Speaker
That's really interesting because my husband and I used a program like that because we were trying to write a choose your own adventure horror book for adults. And ah again, i have AUDHD, so I was having a really hard time just organizing it in my mind.
01:10:15
Speaker
And so it basically just looks like a big flow chart with a couple of, you know, curly arrows that go back instead of forward. But yeah, so so I get that. I'm able to get my head around it in that context.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yay! Yeah. um yeah So let let me ask you, like, what makes a good game, in your opinion?
Chloe's Interests & Hobbies
01:10:35
Speaker
What makes a game good? i love a game where it feels like the characters are my friends. Maybe not. They don't have to be my best friends, but it feels like I can walk into a room with them at any given moment, sit down, and I'm immediately like emerged in the conversation that they're having. And I don't necessarily need to know like the topic that they're speaking about very well.
01:10:59
Speaker
um But I think that one of the things that I really like about games is just the illustration of relationships. I think of protect in particular within like the past 20 years of gaming, a lot of games have continued to focus on developing like relationships and bonds. That's why you see things like The Last of Us. um But it's also why things like Dream Daddy took off ah so much because it's just it's games about relationships.
01:11:23
Speaker
um And games about navigating the real world that I think are becoming so interesting to folks. And they love being able to connect to things um as well as ah do things like puzzles and challenge themselves. And so video games are kind of the best ah the like the best of both worlds in those options.
01:11:41
Speaker
Cool. Cool. You know, i never I never got into games that you play with other people. Cause puzzle games are pretty much the end of it for me. Like I was saying, although I guess I did play, Mario, uh, you know, the the, the, the, like the really early one with the underground levels and the princess and another castle, that whole thing. That that's what I played. I never got up to the one where they were in cars.
01:12:07
Speaker
That one's a good one. Now talk about a game that like tears apart relationships. Mario Kart has caused many fights between me and my brothers, honestly. Oh my gosh. I'll do that.
01:12:20
Speaker
So, okay. A lot of the people that I have on the show are my friends or people that I know through the writing community. um you and i are just talking for the first time today really except for a few emails setting this up so i don't i don't know a whole lot about you um so what are you what are you streaming these days what what what is it that you you watch when you're flipping through your pay stuff i mean i want to hear about the horror certainly but like if you're doing star trek handmaid's tale you know what what what you're doing on hbo all that give it to me
01:12:52
Speaker
this is so This is so silly, but um at this point, I'm actually kind of re-watching, like, a lot of American Dad because it's so mindless. It's very well-written, but it's very mindless, and I find myself, like, especially over the past the course of the past two months, or the past three months, gosh, where halfway through March now.
01:13:12
Speaker
um But I've needed something that I can just kind of take my mind off of things. And it's actually, it's very interesting to go back and watch like a sitcom that began in like the, I think the earlier, like the mid two thousand and see the kind of conversations that they were having back then and compare it to like the kind of um political conversations that are going on now. um Another big one that I watched and I finished it, I think like, I want to say like last year in the fall, but I finished like my rewatch of King of the Hill. And that was also a really great show to rewatch. You know, I did ah a couple of of ah King of the Hills just to get ready for the new series, which I really love the new season that they did.
01:13:53
Speaker
i was I was very impressed with how well they pulled that off. I have to tell you though, Stan Smith said something that I saw just a couple of weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head. he said there they were at ah they they were getting some food they're in a restaurant and dan was like explaining about the restaurant and he said they've got a sandwich that's made entirely out of bread it's called the loaf and that framing just stopped me in my tracks because you know i'm a writer i'm always looking for your ways to say something and that was just like loaf
01:14:33
Speaker
Oh, because it's a loaf of bread, but they're calling the sandwich that. Like it just kept bouncing around in my head over and over. Like, okay, he's saying this, but like, get it, get it. yeah is Yeah. Then I have to be one of those people that make sure everyone else in the room got the joke. And they're like, yes, you idiot. He's talking about a loaf of bread.
01:14:50
Speaker
But yeah, I love the writing on American Dad. I wanted to jump into my screen when they went into the Willy Wonka weed factory with Snoop Dogg. Like, no, I need that machine. got to find out my ideal straight now that I, how how can I live without knowing that? um And yeah, King the Hill is is just great. So I was actually raised by conservatives. I am not a conservative, but I very much appreciate the depiction of someone who is conservative, but also well-meaning.
01:15:25
Speaker
You know? yeah pink Hill is not an open racist. He's not, he's kind of sexist, but he was raised by Cotton Hill. So compared to that, he's doing really well. You know? Yeah.
01:15:37
Speaker
And yeah so, and I think that the neighbors are kind of like the neighbors on Family Guy taken to an absurd extreme. Like, obviously they they don't have a, like, I think Bill is probably the closest thing to a quagmire, even though he doesn't get with a lot of ladies, you know, he would, if he could, I guess maybe Boomhauer would be them. Boomhauer, but like, Boomhauer is so much more riskable. Well, he at least is a little bit... Boomhauer, I think, still, they comment that he's still, like, kind of ghost women or, like, he dates them and dumps them.
01:16:10
Speaker
But he at least, I think, has a little bit more decorum. Like, there was an episode where Luann actually went to live with Boomhauer and, like, he had misinterpreted the situation and, like, Boomhauer didn't do anything appropriate or out of line. Like, that's his that's his friend. And, like, also, this is a very young woman. He would not do that. And so...
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that I really love about King of the Hill is that it's like you said, like, like you said like he's... Hank is is a conservative, but he is somebody that is at least still willing to challenge, like, his worldview. And his... brand of conservatism um is kind of grounded in like being good to the community like his his idea of american values and like upholding those is being involved in the community and that's why he does so many things like he's i think like the neighborhood captain um he is like the designated point person for when they have like tornadoes or other kinds of emergencies um so he like there's a lot of things that hank hill does that i just i find personally admirable Like, would I always want to hang out with a guy named Hank Hill? No, because he's very dry. um But I think that that's one of the things that I really enjoy about the show is that a lot of the times it's about like these characters that, yeah, maybe they grew up a certain way. Like he grew up with Cotton Hill um being a sexist and as horrible as he was. And he's trying to unlearn that.
01:17:35
Speaker
um for his son and like for his wife and trying to be a better, I think he's just, he's, he has his values, but he is also consistently trying to be a better person. And if that means that maybe he needs to adapt or change his values, he's willing to do that.
01:17:49
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Very true. And if more conservatives were like that now, I think I would be friends with more conservatives. Yeah. Because I used to have lots of conservative friends. I went to a churchy college met lots of conservative folks and had, you know, we we were able to disagree respectfully.
01:18:07
Speaker
And that fell off, I think, right around the time of the Tea Party, when poor people were being demonized for needing things or wanting wages, because there was this, i can recall there there was like this shift on Fox news between saying people want welfare because they don't want to work. They don't want to work. They don't want to work.
01:18:29
Speaker
And then when the discussion was about the minimum wage stagnating, they talked about good wages as a handout from your employer. And at that point, I think I was like late teens, early twenties. And I was like, well I guess I must've been early twenties, but I was like, wait a minute.
01:18:47
Speaker
Wages aren't a handout. Wages are a thing you earn. That's why you have a job in the first
Workplace Challenges & Journalism
01:18:52
Speaker
place. And you could, like it was, well, you're a journalism major, so you know, like the, just the subtle language usage that like, you know, we all see it now because Fox is just so blatant about it. But Back then, it was striking to see a news organization being so obviously manipulative because we're all still pretending they were a news organization and not a propaganda arm at that time.
01:19:17
Speaker
Right. You know, and that but that also kind of brings up another point like, you know, I know that it was it was the news broadcast that was talking about that. But I also think that like within journalism as a whole, there is this or I want to say, like, maybe even in the creative industry as a whole, like that sentiment has kind of bled into everything. And now it's kind of this whole, oh, you should be grateful that you even have a job, even though we're going to pay you like pennies to do it. ah Like one of the reasons why I didn't end up staying um in journalism as my longtime career, I mean, I remember like doing an interview, i think after, um I think it was after I had come home from um New York where I was, I had interned with Kotaku and then come home and I like just tried to apply to everything. And I remember sitting on the phone with like this guy from this one, it was like a media organization. and I had mentioned at the time that I didn't have a car. I just got back again from living in you New York City. I did not need a car. I had maybe like I didn't have enough money to my name to really buy a car at that time. um But he's not he's offering like, you know, seven it was like a ridiculously low amount of money, not even really like a decent wage. And he's laughing about how I don't have a car.
01:20:30
Speaker
I'm like, excuse me? I'm like, you know, if you care about like your employees being able to invest in themselves, you have to invest in your employees. I'm sorry. Like yep money doesn't grow on trees. You would think that you would know that, but I guess. Well, and I mean, I had an employer that was actually my last day job was paying preposterous, just preposterously low wages and requiring a degree. And I remember going in for my performance review and explaining all the things that I had learned in the previous year, like how I had approved myself and made myself a more valuable employee. And he said, well, I don't see why that means we should pay you more.
01:21:10
Speaker
And I said, well, here's the thing. If I quit, it's going to take you at least 18 months to train someone else up to the speed where I am now.
01:21:20
Speaker
So I'm saving you money just by not quitting because you just said that to me. you know yeah That's me saving you lots of money. And I'm not asking for lots of money. I'm asking for a non-preposterous wage.
01:21:34
Speaker
You know, like a grown up wage, the wage of someone that doesn't go home to their parents having just cooked them dinner. You know, I'm a grown up, I need real wage. And exactly. That's the thing that employers act positively aghast that you want to be paid, not even what you're worth, but what you need to, you know, right now our rent is 72% our income.
01:22:00
Speaker
And that should be illegal. But they just keep raising it and raising it. You know, it's it's outlandish. And then, you know, they look at us like, oh, well, you guys really aren't trying that hard, are you? Like, man, don't you come say that to my face? yeah Really, though?
01:22:19
Speaker
Yeah.
Chloe's Online Presence
01:22:20
Speaker
oh yeah Well, we're kind of getting towards the end of our time. I want to know, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we did not get to That's a great question, but I think i think we've covered like a lot of it. I guess the only thing that I could say is like if you're looking to find me online, you can find me on my website, which is chloespenceronline.com.
01:22:43
Speaker
um I am most active on Instagram, so you can also follow me there at heyitschloespencer. Cool. All right. Do you have a link tree? You should. do you have one? Yes.
01:22:54
Speaker
Yes, I do have a link tree. It's in my Instagram bio, so I don't know it off the top of my head, but We'll have it in the description, so it'll be findable.
01:23:05
Speaker
um We also like to give guests a chance to ask me a question if they have one. And since you know almost nothing about me, there's a lot of ground you can cover. Yeah. um What is the horror character that you say you resonate with the most and why?
01:23:26
Speaker
God. Annie Wilkes, wide margin. um Oh my gosh. I love Annie. I love Annie Wilkes. I don't love book Annie Wilkes because she's a little all over the place. You know, Stephen King, there's some things that he wrote in there that's a little like, ugh. But like Annie Wilkes from the film, i love I love her. I love Kathy Bates. I think Kathy Bates is so pretty. Are you watching that?
01:23:50
Speaker
ah No, I'm not watching Matlock. I need to do that though. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You know, Kathy Bates Matlock is giving me a love for cozy fiction in a way that I would cough at in my younger years.
01:24:03
Speaker
Because I used to say that cozy fiction is for people that like, I was really smug in but a lot of my opinions. And I'm like, oh, so I guess if you don't want to be challenged, but then, you know, like now that I'm older, it's like, wow, you know what?
01:24:17
Speaker
Maybe I don't want to have my heart ripped out of my chest every week. Like you would on a legal drama like, you know, LA Law or The Practice where like every episode is designed to infuriate you.
01:24:29
Speaker
The show is not like that. It's still pretty serious and there's a lot of conflict and drama, a lot of great characters, but Kathy Bates is your lead and she is just as delightful as she thinks she would be.
01:24:41
Speaker
Now, here's my thing with with Annie Wilkes. is that like I'm screwed up because I have a, you know, a difficult upbringing and everything, which I don't know if you saw Castle Rock, they really dive into Annie's childhood in that.
01:24:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I need to see. Oh, season two of Castle Rock is just outstanding. Because when I watched Castle Rock season one, I was impressed with it and thought it was really good and looked forward to the second season.
01:25:09
Speaker
And the second season was they bring in Annie Wilkes and the Marston House, which are like two just major, major wetness things. I mean, Salem's Lot was my jam as a kid.
01:25:20
Speaker
So, yeah. but But Annie's obsessiveness. fangirl and I have one particular like 30 year fangirl obsession with someone that turned out to be grossly misplaced but I very much appreciate the impulse of well I want if I could squirrel myself away with my person and just be like I need to know everything about you that I don't already know. Tell me all of it. Yeah, I'm sorry your legs are broken. I'll get to that. But listen, about your book.
01:25:57
Speaker
Because like when I when i fix i fixate on a celebrity, i'm not interested in like having sex with them or whatever. like it's not a It's not that kind of thing.
01:26:08
Speaker
Because my vanity is intellectual. So I want them to think I'm smart and think I'm cool and read my book and go, damn, that's a good book. you know yes That's what I'm looking for for from the people that I obsess with.
01:26:21
Speaker
Um, so, so yes, that's, that's why Annie, um, she does a lot of manual labor. I don't really do that. And she doesn't like profanity and I'm a big fan of profanity, but otherwise, course, I guess by the end, she, she does, uh, lay out a few profanities, at least in the movie.
01:26:38
Speaker
It's like, yes so the, the lady who, uh, and, uh, uh, regaled us with cockadoodies the whole time just suddenly managed to realize that someone is a lying cocksucker.
Mad Lib Session
01:26:49
Speaker
Like, oh, well, we're we're going yeah oh gosh annie is so just an iconic villain honestly i love her be agree all right so guess what it is time for mad lib and i hope that you are um i'm like writing already writing um
01:27:13
Speaker
yeah i hope you're well versed in these i know and i'm not a lot of adults do a lot more of mad libs i do these at parties we had mad libs at our wedding that was our favor we made a little mad libs right okay so this is um let's see i need some nouns i need one two three singular nouns three singular nouns. Okay. Let's do chainsaw for the first noun, just because why not? um And then for the second one, let's do,
01:27:53
Speaker
um don't know why this is coming to mind, baby carriage. It's horrible. um And then let's do for the third noun, a soccer ball.
01:28:09
Speaker
All right. And I will need some plural nouns. Looks like one, two three, four, five plural nouns. Okay. Five plural nouns. Let's say,
01:28:24
Speaker
um
01:28:26
Speaker
ahsh okay. ah i'm i'm thinking I'm thinking dogs for the first plural noun. right. Doctors for the second plural noun.
01:28:38
Speaker
Okay. For the third one, let's do assassins. And then for the fourth one, i think um bakers.
01:28:55
Speaker
Cause why not? And then the ah final one, ah let's do ax wielding slashers or ax, ax wielding lumberjacks.
01:29:11
Speaker
Lumberjacks. Yes. All right. And so we will need some adjectives. Looks like one, two, three adjectives.
01:29:24
Speaker
um Okay, the first adjective, let's do rusty.
01:29:30
Speaker
and then the second, let's do coral, like the color. right and and then the third, let's do slow. All right, and I lied, I actually need one more.
01:29:45
Speaker
Okay, and then one more, let's do effervescent to be fun.
01:29:53
Speaker
Yes, these are also a little spelling test for me. that i need a place. A place? Let's say a playground. All right.
01:30:06
Speaker
Now, this is person in room, and that is always the guest, so that will be Chloe. i need a number. Nine. Nine. Another person in room, if that happens ever, that's me. so wordness And a verb ending in ing.
01:30:27
Speaker
A verb ending in i n g running.
01:30:31
Speaker
And we have a celebrity male. A celebrity male. Let's do Benedict Cumberbatch or what if I always like any word and any C word can just me. Yeah. Literally it's like Benedict Benny Ben Benji Benji Cunningham. all Right. Right. Brimble Blank's Cooper snatch. um Sure.
01:30:58
Speaker
exactly All right. I need one more place. um Hospital. And then we have another person in room here.
01:31:09
Speaker
um so I'm going to have that be one of the geckos and all my geckos are named after famous lesbians. So we're going put Joan Jett. I love that. Right. Right. Okay. So that's everything.
01:31:21
Speaker
So this looks like it is from the journalism part of the book, which I did not plan. We do these in order just for, you know, some sort of professionalism.
01:31:32
Speaker
Um, so this is called today's top stories. Good morning. Here are the rusty stories we're following today. A 30-foot-high chainsaw struck the coast of the playground earlier today, causing coral flooding and forcing residents to flee to hire dogs.
01:31:52
Speaker
A really a rare watercolor baby carriage by renowned 15th century artist Chloe Van Gogh sold at an auction today for a record sum of nine doctors.
01:32:07
Speaker
Ledness turns 113 today declared the oldest living soccer ball. I'm going to pretend that's not reference to my weight.
01:32:14
Speaker
and is declared the oldest living suckccerball i'm going to open and that's not a reference to my weight by the book of World Assassins. Oh, I like that.
01:32:25
Speaker
New slow research out of the University of Bakers concludes that 30 minutes of vigorous running can help you lose up to 10 axe-wielding lumberjacks in a month.
01:32:39
Speaker
Yes, those are the best. Hollywood heart bra Benedict Cumberbatch has married longtime love JoJet in a lavish, effervescent ceremony at the local hospital.
01:32:54
Speaker
Oh my gosh. And the whole- See, now that's irreverent. um Normally this is where we'd wrap it up, but you are actually gonna do a reading for us today from, well, actually I'll let you set it up.
Excerpt from 'Code Skull'
01:33:06
Speaker
Yeah. um So I'm gonna do a reading from the last book, um the I should say the latest book that I release released, although it came back, it came out in June of last year. um It's called Code Skull and it's a part of Maddox Media's Totally Freak series.
01:33:21
Speaker
and it centers on an ambitious arcade gamer girl that basically finds this RPG game that's on a floppy disk, so it's set in the 90s, old school. um But she plays this game and she inadvertently releases this terrifying technological creature that can infest and overload any electrically powered object.
01:33:42
Speaker
um So what I wanted to read today was just of chapter two. um And chapter two kind of sets the scene for what this little demon can do. Cool. well I'm going to turn off my mic and listen. That's what's going to happen here. Okay?
01:33:59
Speaker
Okay. All right. ready to go All right. I'm ready. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Chapter Two. When her older brother Liam went to St. Olaf, Tanner moved into his former bedroom, which was in the attic.
01:34:13
Speaker
Earlier that summer, Mick and Tanner had plastered the space with posters and hung beaded rainbow curtains from the rafters, which separated the bedroom from the study, or the area that Tanner kept her books and the old Dell Optiplex that her parents had gifted her so long ago, after they couldn't figure out how to use it. Although dated by 1998 standards, Opti was affectionately referred to as their mutual bestie.
01:34:36
Speaker
From Friday night spent typing up stories in WordPerfect to exploring countless games, he was firmly a part of their life and friend group. When Mick leaned over to put the floppy disk in the drive, she patted the monitor.
01:34:46
Speaker
Good Opti. My computer isn't a dog. Tanner retrieved a box of tissues from her nightstand and trotted over. She blew her nose three times. Each sounded as stuffy as the last. Mick didn't pay any attention to her. Tanner grimaced as she sat down beside her friend.
01:35:00
Speaker
Outside, a thunderstorm rumbled, its energy rattling the windows. "'I hope we don't lose power,' Tanner grumbled. The computer clicked in Word, attempting to load the game. Within a few moments, the program loaded.
01:35:11
Speaker
but string of glimmering lime-green letters sashayed across the upper part of the screen. CodeSkull. "'I've never heard of this one,' Tanner said as she chucked her used tissues in the waste bin. "'Must be old. What's it about?' "'I don't know. Tommy didn't give me the box, only the case. Why did you take the game from him if you don't even know what it's about? i mean, what if it's boring?' Mick grinned. What if it's not?
01:35:32
Speaker
She cracked her knuckles, then her neck, before settling her hands on the keyboard, Codenette's familiar stickiness, courtesy of a spilled soda can once or twice. Tommy said it scores you based on how good your decisions are. Like, you make a smart choice and you get like 100 points. A bad one, you lose points. He wanted me to beat his score.
01:35:51
Speaker
Tanner's eyes flitted over to the Kit Kat clock ticking on her wall, its tail sashaying from side to side. What was his score? Like 9,000 something. Are we going to be here all night? Tanner squirmed in her seat.
01:36:03
Speaker
I thought you and I were going to catch that showing of Halloween H2O tonight. That's supposed to be a bad film anyways. Tanner's bushy eyebrows set in a firm line. She scoffed and leaned back in her chair. Mick elbowed her.
01:36:14
Speaker
Hey, we'll check this game out, and if it sucks, we'll quit, okay? Fine. The displeasure did not erode from Tanner's face. Mick rubbed her hands together excitedly before she pressed the enter key.
01:36:25
Speaker
On the screen, words materialized and after a few seconds formed a dense paragraph against a solid black background. Welcome to Code Skull. I am pleased to meet you. Are you ready to begin? Mick took a deep breath before typing in her response.
01:36:37
Speaker
Yes, if you are so sure. You're about to embark on a spine-tingling adventure unlike any other. Throughout the game, I will be grading the intelligence of your choices based on how you respond to certain situations.
01:36:50
Speaker
The smarter your decision, the better your score. How could it even make that determination? Tanner muttered, unimpressed. No code could possibly be sophisticated enough to do that. Do you not remember System Shock? Mick asked.
01:37:02
Speaker
Tanner shuddered, hugging her knees to her chest. I try to forget, but Shoden speaks to me in my nightmares. But System Shock came out in 94. I thought this game was like way older than that. Dude, Mick gripped the mouse a little too tightly.
01:37:15
Speaker
Are you gonna keep bugging or are we gonna play this game? Continue, princess. Mick glanced back at screen. A new block of text appeared. It's very important to ask my permission before exiting the game so that I can save your place.
01:37:29
Speaker
Do you understand? Mick responded, yes. Excellent. Allow me to set the scene. A whooshing sound echoed from the speakers, and Mick couldn't tell if it was meant to mimic wind or water crashing over rocks close to shore. The scream remained black.
01:37:45
Speaker
Tanner wrinkled her nose. Did it break already? Mick clicked the mouse a few times, trying to get the game to respond. Patience. We have to set the scene. Mick's eyebrows rose. Wicked.
01:37:56
Speaker
You were a traveler, but you were not alone. You have a companion with you. Is this companion friend or foe? Ooh, this is a cool choice," Mick said, her fingers grazing the keyboard. What do you think, Tanner? You want to be the friend or the foe?
01:38:10
Speaker
Friend, Tanner said. Mick typed in the response. Friend. Nice of you to have a friend to accompany you on this ominous night. What with the rain pounding on the windows? Tanner pushed her glasses up her nose again and glanced to the window, which was streaked with raindrops.
01:38:24
Speaker
Somehow, in their frustration to set up the game, they hadn't noticed that it had finally started raining. You and your companion are weary, traveler. You've been traveling walking through the forest of darkness for several hours by now, but as you round another winding corner, you come across a home.
01:38:39
Speaker
Graphics emerged. A plethora of dark trees, pixelated and grainy, surrounded the edges of the screen. In the center, a small trail, trodden digital Kelly Green glass grass led a winding way to a buttercup yellow house.
01:38:50
Speaker
The image rested on the screen for so long that Mick pressed the enter and arrow keys, trying to see if there was a way she could propel the character forward. After pressing the up arrow, her character emerged from the shadows of the trees, walking forward.
01:39:01
Speaker
The character had long brown hair and blue clothing. As she held down the arrow, another character materialized with cropped blonde hair and pink clothing. Tanner arched your brow. I thought that this game was text-based.
01:39:13
Speaker
I guess not, Mick said. I mean, I didn't get much of a chance to talk to Tommy before he told me he had to bounce. Why did he have to bounce? Something about taking care of his little sisters or whatever. Mick attempted to press the down arrow to see if her character would go backwards only to be met with the lecturing lines in the game.
01:39:28
Speaker
Now, now. I didn't say you could turn back, did I? You started it, you finish it. Unless, of course, you ask for permission to save your place. Mick frowned. Kinda weird.
01:39:40
Speaker
Really? You've played a lot more RPGs than me. I thought if your character wasn't supposed to go in a certain area, the game was supposed to tell you not to do that. Usually a game doesn't outright tell you that. It puts up a wall or an object in the pathway. I can't remember the last time a narrator would have said something to me.
01:39:55
Speaker
Mick scratched her head. Maybe it's trying to, what would our English teacher call it? Break, Mrs. Lewinsky would say that it breaks the fourth wall? Yeah, maybe it's trying to do that. Ooh, Tanner said, and for the first time since they had sat down to play, her eyes sparkled with this excitement.
01:40:11
Speaker
Kind of like in Ferris Bueller? Yeah, that's kind of dope. It wasn't unusual to make that a video game would try to throw a curveball or two like this. She remembered playing through Castlevania Symphony and the Night on the PlayStation and how the castle had completely flipped upside down at a certain point, forcing her to replay the game. If anything, seeing how weird this was, it sunk in that this was going to be good, and served as an annoying reminder that Tommy Perlazza, maybe Tommy Perlazza, had good taste.
01:40:37
Speaker
Glued to the edge of their seats, the girls leaning closer to the computer stream screen. Outside, rain continued to pitter-patter against the windows, with pace increasing. Tanner looked outside and shuddered. It's getting pretty bad. Are you gonna be okay to ride your bike home later tonight?
01:40:49
Speaker
Mick didn't even acknowledge the question. Tanner realized her friend either didn't hear her or was so not concerned in that moment. Pressing the up key again, Mick guided her characters down the pathway. Pixelated and grainy trees fell to the wayside, and the house loomed bigger and bigger.
01:41:03
Speaker
The camera doesn't even cut away, it just zooms in Mick said. That's so cool. Now that they were closer to the house, their characters had more details too. The brunette had small flecks of bread across its chest, resembling a pattern. The other character, at the blonde, had yellow stripes on its abdomen.
01:41:18
Speaker
Tanner gasped. Dude, what? Dude, that's us. Mick squinted at the characters, then at their own clothing. She was wearing a navy t-shirt with red cherries on it, courtesy of the last Old Navy Summer blowout sale that her mom had bothered to attend. Tanner was wearing a pink shirt with yellow stripes. The characters' hairstyles were also similar to their own. Mick's with long brown hair and Tanner's short and blonde. It was uncanny, but then again, it was pixel art.
01:41:42
Speaker
How many different character designs could someone create with a limited palette and like MS Paint? Or whatever the heck game designers use to make a game. Just coincidence, Mick decided. Coincidence? They've even got my glasses, dude. Look at those circles around Blondie's eyes. What else could those be?
01:41:58
Speaker
Mick parsed through her mind for a logical explanation to this conundrum. Maybe there was some sort of character creator that they had bypassed? Maybe Tommy, who would last had the game, manage to create the characters and then save the game as soon as he'd done it?
01:42:10
Speaker
But then that beg the question, how did he know what they were going to wear that day? Did he see them earlier in town go home to generate their characters and then double back to the arcade to give Mick the game? The thought seemed ludicrous but plausible. The game had obviously creepy overtones and knowing Tommy, he'd jump at the chance to freak them out.
01:42:26
Speaker
Tanner's perspicuous tone snapped Mick out of her train of thought. "'What weirdness have you gotten us into? Chillax, okay?' "'I'm sure there's an explanation for this,' Mick said. "'Tommy's probably messing with us. Besides, you said that you'd give the game a fair shot.'" Tanner's finger almost turned white when she pressed it hard against the screen. Her finger covered one of the windows of the yellow house that the characters were standing in front of.
01:42:47
Speaker
Something green and bulbous corrupt up one side of the house with faint flecks of white shining through. Do you see that, Tanner said, her voice trembling. that's That's the trellis outside my old bedroom window, the bedroom I had before moving into the attic.
01:42:59
Speaker
What? Mick squinted at the structure again. No, it's not. Mick, Tanner said, insistent. That's the outside of my house. There's one, two, three, how many windows do you have in the outside of your house? I don't know. We'll run out and check. In the rain, Tanner cried out, cheeks red with fury. Dude, come on, that's so totally my house.
01:43:19
Speaker
I don't see the attic window. Mick rolled her mouse over the house in search of it but couldn't find anything, even if this was a perfect recreation of Tanner's house, which Mick didn't think it was. She still thought it was possible that Tommy could be messing with them, but mostly she wanted to get at least a little further in the game before turning it off.
01:43:35
Speaker
She wondered if Tanner was being extra dramatic so that she could pressure Mick into doing something else. Tanner did that sometimes and it was so annoying. There was that one time in the third grade when Mick had wanted to go fairy hunting in the woods, but Tanner was so freaked out and insistent that kidnappers lived out there that Mick had given up before she'd even started.
01:43:51
Speaker
Mick was older now. She knew that fairies didn't exist and that kidnappers probably didn't live in the woods. And she knew that Tanner was too old to believe in any ridiculous things like that too. Okay, and that is it.
01:44:05
Speaker
Wow. um i I need it. i need to I need to know what happens next. It's a fun one. Wow.
Conclusion & Listener Support
01:44:13
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm so glad you could be here and that we could have this conversation and I could hear so much about your books.
01:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me. I had a really great time. How wonderful. It was my pleasure. And we want to remind readers that, uh, readers, no listeners. Well, readers and listeners, I'm sure most of our listeners also read, um, we're a literate bunch, but the best way to support the show is to find us on coffee. That's K O hyphen F I. And, uh, once the magazine wraps up at the end of the month, all of our shows are going to have the names of our donors. Uh, they're in the, the, uh,
01:44:49
Speaker
magazine for now, but we are wrapping it up this month. So after that, we will be saying all of our donor names on the show if you want. I think some people are going to want an ad or two, so we'll see how that goes. But thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week.