The Ringer-Verse - Surviving in 'The Last of Us' Universe, Reading Recommendations, 'Doctor Who' Prep, and More Mailbag! | House of R

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Mal and Joanna answer a bunch of your mailbag questions and tackle your burning theories about what they love to see in the world of fandom. Mal's Book Recommendations: ‘The Great American Novel’ (Philip Roth) ‘Watership Down’ (Richard Adams) The works of Ursula K. Le Guin ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ (Gabrielle Zevin) ‘Project Hail Mary’ (Andy Weir) ‘The House in the Cerulean Sea’ (TJ Klune) ‘The Once and Future Witches’ (Alix E. Harrow) ‘This Is How You Lose the Time War’ (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) ‘Station Eleven’ (Emily St. John Mandel) Adapt: ‘Fairyland’ novels (Catherynne M. Valente) Reboot: ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’ series (Douglas Adams) Jo's Book Recommendations: ‘The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards’ (Kristopher Jansma) ‘All the Birds in the Sky’ (Charlie Jane Anders) ‘Carry On’ (Rainbow Rowell) ‘Circe’ (Madeline Miller) ‘Night Watch’ (Terry Pratchett) ‘Dealing with Dragons’ (Harcourt Brace) ‘Fire’ (Kristen Cashore) ‘Bitter Blue’ (Kristen Cashore) ‘Any Way the Wind Blows’ (Simon Snow) Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. I'm Brian Curtis. And I'm David Shoemaker. We're the host of The Ringers Press Box podcast. Twice a week, we have a free-flowing conversation. We're two old, old friends talk about media and sports and a little politics. Plus interviews with guests like John Crackauer and Jamel Hill, funny stuff like the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Join us every Monday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

I think that's right. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, Every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease

and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, Every choice matters.

Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. Greetings. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the Boston QZ,

but also to join us here on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished telling me she never asked me for anything, not to feel the way she felt just to do the intro for this podcast so that we can get to today's mailback. It's my house of our worky. Co-host, Joanna Robinson. How dare you invoke

mushroom tendrils on a Friday morning. Always. You know, we have like two more days before I have to think seriously about mushroom tendrils again, you know. I just assumed you were whipping up a new recipe tonight.

I am, actually. Mushroom Bergen-Young. There you go. There you go. It is mushroom time, certainly. is also mailbag time today. But before we dive into your wonderful emails, some quick programming reminders,

The Midnight Boys, Boob, have a super fun episode waiting for you on the feed from this week, a debate about the greatest comic book hero of all time. It was described to us right after they finished drafting as a house-of-R-esque length. So you've got a couple hours of fun waiting for you there. The guys will, of course, be back with you next Wednesday.

Joe and I will be back with you next Friday for a Mando Prep watch list episode. We're going to be one month out-ish from season three at that point. So we're going to run through some of the episodes and story beats that you should familiarize yourselves with or rush up on and revisit before the new Mando season. And of course, be sure to check out our Last of Us coverage over on our sister feed, The Prestige TV podcast, Van and Charles, have instant reactions for you every Sunday night. Joe and I are doing deep dives, which will be hitting your feeds on Tuesday evenings. Joe, how can everybody follow all of that? Oh, my gosh. I'm so glad you asked me.

First of all, why don't you just subscribe to the Ringervverse and Prestige TV podcast, like both of those. feeds. It's a great idea. Secondly, we're on social. I don't know if you've ever heard of social media, but we have and we're on it. So at ringerverse on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc. Last but not least, very pertinent for a mailbag day. That's right. You can email us Hobbits and dragons at Gmail.com. And the other day I said you could even use that email for poker face questions that Rob and I are covering on the Prestige TV podcast feed because I keep insisting that that's a genre show. Anyway, Hobbiton Dragons at gmail.com. We love all of your emails. We love the mushroom recipes. We love everything you send over. So thank you all so much. That's how you can

keep on top of all the things we're doing. And as you said, very apt today because it is a mailbag episode. We get to hear from all of you. We get to answer some of your questions. And we get to have Steve Allman, first of his name, help us with that. Steve. Hello. What voice will you be adopting for today's mailbag reading? Which character will you be playing as you share these questions with us? Have you decided?

You have three minutes of warning. Yeah. I was thinking either Barry Keone's. Oh, boy. Bansd Gis of an asherin. Wow. A heart range and choice on my tick accent. Tick accent.

Tanks. Or, you know, just it's either that Optimus Prime or just me. My goodness. What about Just Steve? Just Steve? No, just about it.

I think we should go for the banshees one, but sure. Just Steve. I don't want to like alienate all of Ireland. It's not you, Steve. It's like all of America's tendencies to do an Irish accent. That's fair. That's entirely fair. Yeah.

If you want to sneak in some Optimus Prime at some point, though, you feel free, buddy. You do you. Okay. All right, Steve. Let's just get right to it. We have so many good ones today. What's up?

First. Well, I want to first praise the organization of these questions from Joanna because the category for this question is origin story. And the question reads, from Wendy, what's the Mal and Joe origin story? Oh, I love this. Joe, do you want to go first? I was trying to think about, like, how I first became. aware of you as like a cultural entity. And I think it's when you and Jay started like guests

appearing on the watch, like talking about Thrones. That's when I first was like introduced to your work and your massive brain. And yeah, and then I always just like liked what you were doing. And then when you spun off into your own feed, like I, you were covering, you know, you and I were in the thick of it on Thrones and you were often covering things that I liked. And then I was involved in this organization that was running Con of Thrones, this is a Game of Thrones convention. And the first year we did it, I like messaged you and Jay to see if you wanted to come, but it was like complicated.

But you guys came the second year. And so that's when we like first met face to face. That's my memory. What's your memory? We should have structured this like an episode of the affair where each of us had to do our complete recounting and we could see what was the same and see what we were. Oh my God. You're definitely dumb. dramatic lighting.

Wow. Thank you. That means one day I'll be dancing on a moor in Montauk. And then playing... Trying to sling $75 chowder. It was a dark and stormy night when Joanna's byline first crept across my screen. No, I just have long-loved Joe. That's the TLDR.

Long-love Joe. They used to... teenly and passionately read and consume Joe's Game of Thrones coverage back in the Vanity Fair days. And I've told Joe this before, but actually subscribed to VF specifically so that I could read everything Joe wrote because the volume was so ample. And I always be like, how has Joanna Robinson generated seven block posts on a Sunday evening? This is extraordinary. I can't run out of my articles. I have the tote bag to prove it.

And as Joe said, got to meet Joe in person and got to meet our pal. Kim got to meet the storm of spoilers crew. Now the trial-buck content crew, Neil and Dave as well, at Con of Thrones in 2018. It was the first time we met in person. Jason and I were there for binge. We all got to hang out in bond to get to know each other a bit. It was just a delight. We got to hang out again at Con of Thrones in 2019.

which was a blast. You popped down to L.A. We went to dinner. We started texting. It does sound like the affair. We talked about garlic knots. And then I was really thinking about this and I was trying to retrace the steps.

And in the early COVID days, because you were doing, the storm crew was doing a lost rewatch. Yeah. And you asked me, you texted me and asked if I would jump on for an episode with you. We were both very passionate.

passionate Juliet and Sawyer fans. And you asked me to join you for a Juliet episode, not in Portland. And that was our first time podcasting together. Yes. And there was no looking back. No looking back. I've always loved your writing,

your potting, your general genius. And, you know, honestly, like never felt like I had, like, fully processed a story or the conversation around a story until I got to hear your insights. and have always really loved that I felt like we had a very like simultaneously complementary approach to talking about stories because we in some ways look at them differently and have like a different lens and perspective, but then also a very synergistic approach,

the way we love a source text. We love to apply that like lit-crit analysis to the way we're talking about mainstream pop culture, etc. And I think the real thing that we would be remiss not to mention when we identified a bond was the Jorra-Mormont sister-wife phase of our, journey, you know? People were like constantly tagging us on Twitter together. A lot of the same fictional crushes. Yeah. Yeah, the Jordan Marmont sister wife fit. It was really good. No, and like at the second, it was the second Con of Thrones in 2019. And I remember where we were sitting when like,

I don't know, everyone else had like left and you were like, hey, Joanna, like, would you ever want to come work at the ringer? Like, I'm serious. And I thought you were kidding. And then you were like, I'm serious. And I was like, I don't know anything about sports. And you were like, like, hey, Joanna. And you were like, Like, that doesn't matter. And it took, like, a couple years for you to convince me that that really didn't matter and it would be okay. And yet, I started today's Zoom by asking you about Brock Purdy and the 49ers, so. I mean, I really appreciate that you keep trying and you keep, like, dangling, like, juicy

soap opera stories associated with sports to try to get me into it. We got, like, per your comment about our synergistic approach, we got a really, we're not reading it out, but we got a really nice email from them. this guy named Steve, not Steve Allman, about, like, it's also kind of an origin story question, but it had all these, like, really, like, I felt like Steve had been, like, reading our diaries or whatever. It was just really nice about, like, the way that we work together. So, and I'm thrilled.

I'm just, like, so happy to be here with you. And, like, yeah, the rest is history. And with Steve, Alman, our Steve. Yeah. Our Steve. Same pal. I've always wanted to work with you, as you know. And I just can think of literally countless moments over the years where we would say,

man, look at this amazing thing Joe did. Wouldn't it be amazing if Joe worked here? Now you do. It's fucking great. I remember being at Conthrow's 2018 and watching you and Jay do like a social media post where you like pretended like you were racing Joe Dempsey in like the room where we were having breakfast. Like you're doing like a Gendry running bit. And I was like, the ringer looks like fun.

It looks like really fun to work there. How to get back to Eastwatch. It's like everyone else like eating eggs. And you and Jay and Joe Dempsey were like filming a TikTok essentially before TikTok. It's just, you know, really, I'm not sure I have the cardiovascular fortitude or hamstring strength for too many social videos of that exact form. But that was fun. That was fun. Really cute.

Uh, just love talking about stories with you, bud. It's been so fun. Like you, you came on a couple different episodes in the early ringerverse days. I was just like, what if this could be every day. Yeah. I think it'll be every day. The last podcast was really good, but I feel like that Black Widow podcast is really like where I was like, I can really work with Mallory all the time.

It just felt right. It really did just, it was one of those like, man, what I want to work with people who make me smarter and happier and who make me want to like be my very best every day. And I was like, Joe is that person. Let's go make a pod together. And here we are talking about our origin story and shopping it to Showtime so that they can bring back the. Oh my God.

Double feature with like on the Sunday night yellow jackets and then the Mal and Joe origin story, which is just us like reading articles and listening to podcasts. that the other ones have done. Wonderful. It's wonderful. Steve, what was your origin story with both of us? When did you realize

that you wanted to make podcast? Literally, this is going to sound I've told Joanna this before, but way, way, way, way back in the year 2016, when I was just an overnight radio assistant in Chicago, I was listening intently

to the ones who knock podcast, not knowing that I would ever run into Joanna or David Chen because those were just like the incredible aeriodite smart podcasters that I would just listen to intently. And when I heard that we would be doing a pod with Joanna, I barely remembered the fact that that was the same Joanna

that comes back and I get to work with her. And that was incredible. And I had heard about, honestly, I'd heard about Minge Mode before I had even heard of The Ringer and knowing how ubiquitous you guys were with the Thrones community was like, kind of almost bigger than any sort of like media outlet I had ever even seen before.

And seeing little bits of your top of thrones back in the day, it was like awe-inspiring. And then when I got the chance to work at the ringer, I was like, oh my God, like, I get to do cool stuff with all of these people and like make a spot with these guys. Like, this is the best. It's the absolute best.

Steve, do you know that you were like instrumental and to me decided to come to the ringer? I did not know this. Okay. Big part of the pitch. I was on a, we were in the Zoom waiting room at the Loki Junket. Yes, I remember seeing you there. Yeah, and you were on there.

And I like, I do this like weird snoopy thing on a like in the waiting room on a Zoom call to junket. Is this interesting for a podcast? Who knows? But at a waiting room, like everyone has their name and usually their outlet as their display name on the Zoom call. So I will usually like mouse over people's like tiles to be like, who's that? Who's that? You know, like I'm curious. Who's here?

Can I put a face to a name, et cetera? and you were there with like Alan, right? I was there was Charles. Yeah, yeah. You and Charles were there. And I was like, wait, there are two people from the ringer here. And then that's when I realized. And then I looked you up and I was like, oh, he's a producer.

I was like, Charles gets a producer on a Zoom call. A Zoom junket call. Like never in my life have I had a producer on a Zoom junket call. Are you kidding me? And so I told Mallory that and she's like, you come to the ringer. Steve will be on all the calls with you. I was like, all right. To work with Steve.

I have yet to be invited to a succession interview because I have yet to talk to Brian Cox or Sarah Snook. So, you know. Listen, I was just talking about the succession junket yesterday. So, listen, let's go. Let's do it soon. Put a face to a name. What beautiful memories. This is fun.

Now I'm trying to remember the first pot I ever recorded with you, Steve. And I'm pretty sure it was an ice cream taste test. No, it was exactly that. You were taking over for House of Carbs. and it was you and Julietette, you were doing a Jenny's ice cream tasting. Everybody else in the office was very mad because I had to put those in the freezer, and they're like, who is that for? And it's like, nobody here.

Not you. What a delicious day. And then in the old PS1 at sunset hour. I just was so mad that he couldn't have any of the ice cream. He got some eventually. Eventually. Okay. What a delightful trip down memory lane.

I love you both so much. This is an out. It's just a lovely heartening experience. And I think you're both wonderful. Arjuna, we didn't say anything nice about you, but you're here and you're great. Arjuna, you're a delight. I love you too. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green.

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Order now at order. Dot sweetgreen.com. Steve, what's our second question? All right, our second question is from Peter. And he says, would you please tell us about some of the non-genre stories that you love? In your last episode, you mentioned

Ethan Fromm and White Noise. So I know you've got some good stuff in the bag, but how about any kids' books or middle readers? Mallory once mentioned that Fairyland books were one of her favorites, or any genre books that you think that might be generally overlooked. I'm curious about the stories that you don't normally hear about or talk about on the pod and that make you happy.

Wow. Well, I know who I want to hear from right now, and it's the former bookseller. And current book enthusiast, Joanna Robinson. I'm so excited. I'm so excited by how many, we had so many book recommendation questions that makes me really, really happy. We decided to sort of answer one for each of these categories. So like a non-genre book, a middle-reader book, an overlooked genre book. But we might smuggle some other things in there because it's us.

I found this exercise to be nearly impossible. I'll just spoil that right now. This will be the hardest one for me today. Oh, God. Starting in the non-genre category, I would like to nominate a book called The Unchangible Spots of Leopards by Christopher Jansma, the unchange, we'll probably have a, Steve, can we put a list of all the book, Rekos in the notes for the episode or something like that? Okay.

The Unchangable Spots of Leopards is just like one of my very favorite, just like a novel, novel that I've ever read. Chris Jansma, this was a debut novel that he wrote. And it was like, I met Chris. He came to do a book reading at a bookstore that I worked at for this book. And he came on the night of the justified. series finale. And it came out that we were like both huge justified fans.

And we were both like, we're stressed out that we're here and not watching the justified finale. And so that was like a whole thing. So like one of my copies is inscribed from him and it's like has something about Raylan in it or whatever. But that bonding with Chris aside, this book is super good. It's about it reminds me a lot of Gatsby in the best way. And it's just about like a narrator and his story.

two most important friends and like his life story and how it's just like a simple it's a story about a guy you know what I mean just like one of those stories about a guy that's so well written and so the language is so evocative and you just get like sucked in and won over and I just like absolutely love it so no superpowers no magic just a guy and then here's my first smuggle I'm also just going to slide into the same category do it uh Daisy Jones on the 6 by Taylor Jenkins Reed this is on everyone's yeah on everyone's mind because Amazon is dropping the adaptation of it in March. This is one of the best books I've ever read, and I'm going to make a bid for the audiobook,

which is a full cast recording that has Judy Greer, Jennifer Beals, Pablo Schreiber, Benjamin Bratt, like an incredible cast reading. And it's about, it's a fictionalized version of basically like Flewwood Mac making the rumors album. It's about a fictional band, but it's heavily influenced by all the messy drama that it went into making rumors. And it's a, it's like a, it's a woman writing, like interviewing people about it, and they all have unreliable sort of memories about what happened, different versions of the story. So that's my non-genre. Do you want to do your non-genre before I, before we move on? Sure. I, Joe, I had.

no idea where to even begin with this. I was like, should I just share with our ringerverse listeners how I love Jane Austen? I don't know where to begin here. Yeah, yeah. I truly have no idea where to begin. Should we talk about authors we like? What's your favorite, Jane Austen? Depends on my mood.

Depends on where I am in my life when I revisited. I, one of my all-time favorite life experiences was taking a Jane Austen class in college at Syracuse. It was Jane Austen in her contacts in hours. So the first half of the semester, we read all of the Jane Austen books and stories and then went to England for spring break. I was like, wait, you told me this and you went to England and I was so jealous. You know, a few days in bath, the day in Portsmouth, a few days in London, just a like formative life experience. Just taking the healing waters, the healing waters of bath. Exactly. ran into James Perfoy on the street outside of a bun shop and bath.

And he was... You never told me that that's the most Jane Austen adaptation thing you could do. It's truly like an all-time life highlight. It was wonderful. Outside of a bun shop? Outside of a bun shop. And then the second half of the class was the art contacts, you know, modern adaptations of those tales.

What's my favorite? I mean, I love persuasion. It's my favorite. There we go. Look at that. It's like the most emotionally poignant. Someone in one of the emails we got or something like that, someone was talking about how we were like emotional terrorists.

And I was like, not intentionally, but I think we just like a really emotional story. And I think persuasion is the most emotional. Speaking of emotional stories, I wanted to, one of the things I was considering calling out here, but this is like, I was just thinking of my favorite books.

And some of them are genre adjacent, even if they're not outright genre, genre stories that I didn't know whether that made them eligible or ineligible. It's like, should I just talk about how much I love Vonnegut and Philip Roth for five minutes? Like, I didn't know where to begin. I will say. I've definitely mentioned this on Ringer Pause before. But if I had to pick just one book, the Great American novel by Philip Roth is probably my number one.

Oh, that's so interesting. Okay. I've never read it, so now I must read it to understand you better. I've read some Roth, but I haven't read that one. Okay. Extraordinary? Yeah. It is certainly not one of his most famous.

It's something that my dad recommended to me in, I think I was in 10th grade. It's broadly speaking about the communist plot to infiltrate America through baseball. Great, great. I love this. There's an entire chapter that is devoted to alliteration. It's an extensive examination of language and myth and the way that myth permeates and shaped society. It's really excellent. I love it. I was wondering if I could pick Never Let Me Go, which we talked about briefly last week actually on another pod because I love Ishigoro. He's one of

my absolute favorites. But I don't know if I can count that as non-genre. Similarly, I was like, can I pick Cavalier and Clay? I love Michael Sheeban, but that's a story about writing comic books. So for non-genre, I don't know. Should we talk about Sally Rooney for a minute? If we're looking at the contemporary lens, normal people? All-timer. Yeah, all the timer. So I did not answer the question. I just named multiple authors. No, you did a good job.

And that's where I, that's where I'm going with it. I think the Philo-Raeo. Yeah, the Philip Roth is your rec. Okay. It's the best. Middle reader is our next prompt here. And this is easy for me only because, again, I used, I worked on bookstores for a decade.

So define the age group here that, that middle reader. Exactly. So it's usually, I, there's early readers. elementary middle reader YA is usually how it's done. So middle reader is like your middle schoolers like maybe up to like 13

you know, like thereabouts. 12, 9 to 13, 8 to 13, 8 to 13 kind of arrange. Yeah, something like that. And like, again, it's easy for me because I can just like remember where I used to shelve books.

Like I, it's not as easy for people who haven't shelved book to distinguish between the sections, but I'm like, okay, that goes a middle reader. So I picked a book that actually recently talked to Mallory about book series Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Redd. It's W-R-E-D-E-E-E-dealing with Dragonss.

It's a series one of four, and it's about a princess who does not want to be a princess, so she runs away from the castle and goes to live with Dragons. It basically becomes like the secretary and assistant to the king of the dragons. and there's like four books and it's sort of like her evolution through this kingdom. And it's just got, it's filled with all of these really fun, like, fairy tales are woven in in a way where they like show up, but they're slightly twisted and stuff like that. And so it's, you'll recognize like rumble still skin, but it's a little different or all these various things or Jack and the Beanstalk, but it's a little different. And that's really fun. And I was talking to my nephew who just turned 12 the other day, and he's reading the Christopher Paulini books, the Aragon books. And I asked him if he had read Enchanted Chronicle.

It's called the Enchanted Chronicle series, Patricia Red Books. And he was like, yeah, they're the best. And I was like, yes. Because, like, you might think that they're just for girls, but I don't think they are. And yeah, so that's my, that's a middle reader that, like, if you know, you know, but it's a, It's not like flying off the shelves or anything like that. How about you, Mallory? Okay.

First of all, before I give my pick, let me say this. You're all listening to this podcast right now. You just heard Joanna say that she was talking to me about this recently. But that's not what happened. Here's what happened. Joanna gave me the nicest gift that anyone has ever given me in my entire life. And I wept in her car and then in her arms. She made me a little.

like a wooden crate filled with, I'm starting to cry, these stories from her youth and her life that she loved and that shaped something fundamentally about how she thinks about fantasy and stories and sharing stories with other people that she knew I hadn't read and thought I would enjoy. And when she gave it to me, she said, I know that you've talked before about the little bookshelf that your dad made you and filled with books that he wanted you to read one day and how much that meant to you.

And I thought this would be a nice thing. And it was so nice, it's so sweet and so wonderful. So I can't wait to read those stories. But with the caveat that, and I love you, Mallory, but with the caveat that, no pressure, if it takes a decade to read them, I'm not going to, I'm not going to Ben Lindbergh in the name of the wind you. You know, I'm on year nine of, yeah, exactly, of Limburgs.

Yeah. No rational press. But I think this will come up in a later question. But it only took me one week recently to act on another colleague's recommendation. So I'm showing some progress in my life, which is great. I am, the middle reader thing is tough because I have a different, like I love, as you know, YA fiction. Love children's literature.

Love middle readers. but I sort of think of everything as just one thing. I don't really think of it necessarily divided by age group that way. And I think part of that is because, as I've shared before in other pots, I came to reading like really late. I was a really late Bloomer as a reader when I was a kid. And so a lot of the stories that I might have read and fallen into on my own at a younger age, I actually experienced like a little later.

And high school was really like, I mean, certainly in middle school, that was when fifth grade was when I read. The Hobbit. And middle school was when I read Lord of the Rings and that was like a real pivot point in my life as a reader. But the true like seismic shift for me and my relationship to reading happened in high school. You know, you get into the high school English classes and you're reading to kill a mocking bird and you're reading, you're reading Ethan Fromm and you're reading Gatsby and you're reading Lord of the Flies. And like it just completely like, you know, opens your mind and eyes and heart to a new reality.

And late high school was when I started reading Harry and everything like that. So I just, I went back and like discovered so many middle reader books when I had exited the middle reader phase. So I don't even know if I know what a middle reader book is. With that caveat issued. Yeah. It's a tough one because like, and also like different stores, like, you know, I've been in stores that Shell Harry Potter and Middle Reader and I've been in stores that Shelf Harry Potter

in elementary. So the boundaries are like a little, a little. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, I was thinking, okay, I was thinking of books I read early in high school and whether they might be eligible. And I was thinking of a book like a separate piece, which was one of the really, one of the books early in middle school, in L.A high school, I think I read that in ninth grade that unlocked something for me and became like a foundational text in my youth.

And I was trying to think, how old were the kids in the class in sideways when they're reading passages from a separate piece? What age group was that? I'm going with not a not a fringe pick here a headliner an all timer

a pantheon pick that's a middle reader book I would say but is really right for you at any time in your life and that's one of the great things about it it's a shared favorite I think of ours Joe

certainly a shared favorite between us and Sawyer one of our other favorites oh water ship down yeah Richard Richard Adam's.

This is, I think, the perfect time in your life to read Watership Down for the first time. When you're growing up, I cried a lot when I read Watership Down. It's deeply sad. Deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply sad. When I closed Watership Down, I won't, like, get into plot details and spoilers, but I was anchored to the seat that I was in for hours after. just sobbing as a wreck. But it is such an archetypal tale

in the world building, you're in a story of rabbits and a world of rabbits is so fully realized and engrossing. And the way that they have, like their own stories and their own proverbs and their own language and their own culture, it's just a really like immersive

and fully realized fictional universe. And it is deeply sad and moving, but also inspiring and thought-provoking. And I think it's a wonderful thing to revisit when you're older, but also a really enlightening and energizing and moving experience when you're a young person, making your way through the world. So that's my pick. Warnship Town.

A couple classics. Yeah. Watership Town is a great pick. Great one. Okay. Last and not least, it's sort of like, what, overlooked genre? Genre stories that are generally overlooked. So my pick here is.

it's another series. It's a trilogy. No, actually, I think there are four now. It's the Graceling series. Graceling, aren't these books beautiful? Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue, and I can't remember the name of the fourth one that came out a couple of years ago, but by Kristen K-R-I-S-T-I-N-C-S-R-E-N-C-S-R-E-C-S-E. And the Graceling books are. sort of, if you've read the Shadow and Bone books by Lee Bardugo, that idea that there's, like, people who are gifted with certain abilities at birth. And in the gracling world, they are called graclings. And they have two different colored eyes. But basically, we're focused on a, like, in the first book, and each one has a kind of different protagonist. Like, the protagonist of another book becomes sort of like a side character.

in the ensuing books and stuff like that. But Katta is the name of the protagonist of the first book. And what unfolds essentially in the first book is palace intrigue. Conspiracy, palaces, warring kingdoms, blah, blah, blah. But with this, you know, basically strain of superheroes, like these various people who are gifted in some way are not running around. And our main character discovers that she doesn't really know the family. and the kingdom that she grew up in the way that she thought she did,

which is always a, you know, a rude awakening trope, which I always kind of like. So, yeah, Kristen, the Graceling series, yeah, really, really good. I've never, I've never once put that book in someone's hands and had them not come back to buy the next one. Like, that's, it's a really good series, yeah. I am, once again, I think ignoring the spirit of the prompt and interpreting it in the way that I see fit.

Do, do you. Because, okay, I'm about to mention one of the true titans of the fantasy stories. And so it, I think objectively would seem absurd to say that this person and this person's works are overlooked because this is one of the most celebrated and acclaimed. storytellers literally of all time. With that caveat issued, I was thinking about like modern day consumption and conversation. And even like on this pod, have we ever mentioned or talked about Ursula Le Guin?

No. And like not wanting to allow we the people of Earth and lovers of stories to get to a point where we are not. like in any way allowing Ursula's body of work to recede from conversation and appreciation. So I wanted to throw that out there. Like, do we talk enough collectively about Wizard of Earthsy? One of my stepmom's all-time favorites, by the way. Do we talk enough about the left hand of darkness?

Do we talk enough about the dispossessed? So I wanted to throw that out there more as like a prompt because I think there were like a lot of really wonderful appreciations and revisitations a few years ago. after her death. But when was the last time you had a conversation with someone about LaGuin? I want to do it more. People don't talk to each other about Le Guin. It's so funny.

This is going to sound really dumb. But I was rewatching a bad movie, which I do sometimes just to like, how did this go so wrong? It's a bad adaptation of a book I like, which is the Jane Austen Book Club. Jane Austen Book Club is a pretty good book written by UC Davis professor, but a pretty bad, dumb movie.

However, Hugh Dancy is in that movie as, like, a young man who's reading Jane Austen for the first time, but he keeps trying to get his love interest to read Ursula Lleguin. And he talks the whole movie about how good Ursula Liguin is and how amazing her books are. And then eventually, like, his love interest reads them. And then she's like, oh, I love you because these books are great. Like, that's pretty cool. But I was just listening to Hugh Danty talking about Ursula Lleguin for a really long time. But out in the wild, no, people are not talking enough about Ursula.

There needs to be, I think, like, some adaptations, right? To get people to talk about it. We'll have an adaptation question later. Yeah. I almost chose that spot to broach this for that exact reason because I agree. That's like, and it is what got me thinking about it. Like, why are we not making movies and TV shows based off of these books? I don't know what I understand.

I don't understand. Or some rights are tied up somehow or whatever. great, great books. Steve, of all the books we mention, which one are you most likely to read? Ursula Ligwin, because I've heard many, many, many, many, many people talk about it and then knowing that you guys are like,

we don't talk enough about this. I'm like, okay, that's going on the Libby app right now. Left hand of darkness, Leith of Heaven, what would you suggest that he start with? No. I don't know why I just made like a ghoul sound for 30 seconds. I liked it. Zombies!

Ollibia. Funny enough, that's what happens when I opened the Libby app. That's a great question. Left-hand of darkness is a good starting point. Okay. I think of my stepmom, Debbie, one of the all-time greats in the history of the world were here, she would point you toward Earth-C.

She loves Earth-C. Okay. Shout out, Debbie. A one-of-one. It's going on my Steve Rogers list. Do you keep it in a notepad that you fill out by hand? Yes. And then it's Beatles question mark.

Berlin Wall. Berlin Wall down, up and down. Up and down. Oh, I got. I love it. Okay. Speaking of Great Reads, we have another related question here at number three.

What do we got, Steve? This is from Becca. I just finished the wonderful book tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. And immediately wanted to know two things. Have you ever read it? and hearing your thoughts on this love letter to stories, video games, friendship would complete

my experience in Sadie and Sam's world. What other books have been tickling your nerdy brain sensors lately? Any cozy stories you'd recommend the Ringerverse as we head into the second half of winter and I will be getting my hands on lone wolf and cubson, she adds. Wonderful.

Excellent. We were literally just talking about this book in a different ring of verse. Yeah. And then my sister brought it up to me earlier this week. She just read it. You read it. This is the book you were teasing that you followed up on this or you're reading it.

I am literally reading this right now. I started it on Sunday. And this was the one that I was recommended. Juliet Litman, our pal and colleague, texted me after she recently read this and recommended it, recommended it, said that she loved it, thought that I would really enjoy it. And I texted my book club, which my, a group of five of us, college roommates, we started doing a Zoom book club over the pandemic and have, you know, been maintaining it. We try to do it like once every six weeks or so, we'll catch up on a book that we've read together in tandem. And so I was like,

guys, I got this great recommendation for this book. I've been doing some Google and everyone's raving about it. It's on a lot of best of the year list from last year and one of my one of my book Club maids and best pals. Suzanne was like, this was my favorite book of last year. I loved it. I was like, thanks for suggesting it to Book Club, Suzanne. And then another cherished pal and book club member, Allison was like, she did. And then took a screenshot of the group chat and sent it to me. And I was like, this is not how I thought this conversation was going, but I will now enjoy this on my own. And I'm four chapters in. So I've read part one. And it is delightful. And I love it. And I am highlighting so many lines about friendship and love and yearning and creation.

And I cannot wait to finish it. It is really gripping me early. I'm very early into it. I'm about like maybe 15% or so in. But it's been an absolute treat so far. It is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it. It's one of the early quotes that really hit me hard. Hit me hard.

I read this and really, really liked it. Gabrielle Zevin, I think that's how you pronounce her name, the author, wrote The Story of Life of A.J. Fickory, it was just 2014 book that I really, really liked. That was a book that was really funny because it was like, it became this beloved book of indie booksellers and also publicists because it's about an indie bookstore and a bookseller and also a publisher rep and their love story. And it's basically retelling of Silas Marner. But being able to compare those two books, which have very different, like, sort of settings and arcs helps me understand, like, what an emotionally honest writer, she is. And this, I mean, this book, which I really liked, to remind me a lot of the episode of, if people watch Season 1 of Mythic Quest,

dark quiet death, which is one of the best episodes of television ever about. to video game creators and how their trajectory over the life of the video game and snapshots of their relationships over the years through that. And I was like, oh, this is like one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. And I just had a really, really good time with that. It's funny, I was talking to my sister who just read it about the fact that I was like looking, spending time in Venice Beach when I was down in L.A. recently. And she was like, oh, did you see any video?

You know, she was just like, I just read a book set in Venice Beach tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a delightful book. And I can't wait to hear what you think of it when you finish it, Mel. I'm really excited to keep going. I'll keep you posting on my progress. I think I'll tear through it. I'll be finished before long.

What other, for the other books that have tickled are our nerdy brain sensors lately? Nerdy book tickling. Okay. For some recent nerdy book tickling. What do you got? Yeah. Okay. So, okay.

Number one, so excited. people maybe have probably read this if they're listening to this, but all the birds in the sky written by Charlie Jane Anders. Charlie Jane is written. People might know Charlie Jane is one of the founding creators of I-09, legendary Bay Area author, writers with drinks, series, etc. This came out in 2016 was the best book that I read that year. And I love this book because, I mean, it's set in the Bay Area,

but it is about a young witch and like a tech... a young boy who's like a tech genius. And so it's like this really fascinating blend of magic fantasy and tech sci-fi. Sounds like Thor and Jane. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And it's just like it's a clashing.

It's almost like a clashing of genres. But it's just this like very beautiful. I wouldn't even call it a love story, but you can't if you want, but just sort of like an adventure story. It really sucked me and I absolutely loved it. You know when like a friend, I mean, I'm not like, Charlie Jay and our acquaintances, we're not like friends, but like you know what like acquaintance of yours or a friend of yours has like written a book and they put it in your hand and you're like, oh no, what if this is bad? But this book is so good and I was like massively relieved.

And then, oh, I wanted to mention Madeline Miller's Circe. Did you read Circe or Song of Achilles, either the Madeline Miller. Books. Okay. Song of Achilles is like her most super popular one, which is a retelling of Achilles, especially through the lens of his relationship with Patrickliss. But Circe, which came out in 2018, is a retelling of the story of Circe, the witch or goddess that Odysseus meets on the island. You know you may know her from turning men into pigs, but have you heard her real story? And it is so, like, Madeline Miller's retelling of these men. mythos stories really tickles the brain in terms of like deconstructing what a story

is, the story you've heard versus what the story could be what the hitting layers are beneath the story and I was just talking to our pal Kim Renfro about Circe. She loves Madeline Miller and she was like, I think Circe,

the message of Circe is like, how is one a human? And I'm like, yeah, like that's how profound like a story like this is a story about like a goddess immortal living among or interacting with humans, watching men come and go over the ages, all the sort of stuff like that.

It's just like, and her writing is so, so incredible. So Madeline Miller, Circe. And then lastly, I'm going to recommend Susanna Clark's Piranesi. Susanna Clark, people know from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and the Ladies of Grace Adieu. but Pyreneesie 2021 came out and I read the son of friends'

recommendation and it was like, it's one of those books where you're like, what is going on though? Where you're just confused for a lot of it, but like vibing and going with it. And it's sort of, it's about your narrator doesn't really know what's going on and is trying to construct together.

They find themselves in this place with all these statues and stairs and levels and the water's rising and they don't know what's going on, and you're with them on this journey of trying to piece together, like, where exactly they are and who exactly they are

and what's happening. And I read it in, like, a day. And everyone I know has, like, read it in day. So, pure and easy. Susan Clark. Susanna Clark is an unbelievable brain. Jonathan's Strange and Mr. Norrell, like, rewrote my synapses.

How about you? In order to attempts to, to contain my smuggle tendencies, and limit this in some way. I, because I was thinking about my Q's book club from the Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow portion of this question, just decided to share the last few books

that we've read and enjoyed in our book club, which has been a really fun thing to share with friends who have been in my life now for the better part of two decades and who I cherish and adore. So first thing I wanted to mention, which is the book that we're reading right now, Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir and it is I just finished this about five days ago a week ago I loved this I tore through this and I was learning things

there's obviously a lot of like you know if you're thinking soft sci-fi hardfi a lot of hard sci-fi and Andy Weir's writing with like a lot of math a lot of science, a lot of information about space when I was a kid, I don't know if I've ever told you this show, I was obsessed with space.

Like, I was a have a telescope in my room kid. No. And I just, I was like riveted reading this. But also, I will say very little about the actual plot because I don't want to spoil anything. I will just say broadly, what can I even say here? There is a character who embedded inside of my heart in a way that I think will be lasting. That is what I will say. and it was such a funny book.

I was in stitches so many times, and it's a really interesting examination of language and communication and shared tendencies and unique tendencies, and I just really enjoyed it and had a blast reading it. Shout out Rocky. You're a Hall of Famer. A couple of the recent Cuse Book Club reads. We recently read,

this was a few months ago, the House of the Surulian Sea by T.J. Kloon, which my book club quite enjoyed and actually one of my pals in the book club then immediately recommended under the whispering door as another read because the friends in this group really just loved this so much. Theodore,

what a special little fellow, Theodore is. Just love Theodore and miss him dearly. A couple things that I've, that have, have been mentioned on Ringervverse Pods before, because these are actually two books that are beloved pal and colleague Zach Cramm originally recommended to me. One of them, Joe, I know is something that you love and adore and you've had many chats on pods about as well. This is how you lose the time more. If you're interested in multiversal storytelling, if you're interested in unique structural approaches to crafting a tail and spinning a yarn,

if you're interested in the collaborative process between multiple people, like I cannot recommend this highlight off. I thought it was extraordinary in some of the most beautiful lines in recent reading memory for me. And then the Once in Future Witches, Alex E. Harrow, have you read that show? No. You would, I think, really like it. Okay. Really, really, really like it.

I like the title. Yes. And it's kind of like it's all right there in the title. Those ones for witches and then there are going to be again. It's great. It's about female friendship. It's about sisterhood. It's about challenging convention and society.

It's about making room for magic in your life. It is really, really, really wonderful and beautifully written. I highly recommend it. And I'm really eager to check out more of Alex Harrow's writing after reading that. Some of our other recent book club reads are things we've talked about before. I've mentioned that, you know, Station 11 was a book club read. before the series came out. That was just an exceptional.

I mean, we talk about Station 11 all the time, but if you haven't read it, just treat yourself. I was listening to the score this morning. And I was like, when will I stop being in a mood to think or talk about Station 11? Maybe never. Okay. I'm up next for Book Club. It's my pick next.

So I will be selecting Clara and the Sun. That'll be our next pick, which I, again, I've mentioned already on this pod that is one of my absolute favorites. and I just simply cannot wait to read this. I will be very curious. I read it when I came. I will be very curious to hear what you think about it. I can't.

I love Ishiguro. Yeah. Same. Wonderful. This episode is brought to by Boras Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borershead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means

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I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. Okay. All right. Number four. This is from Shania and Nick.

This is for Joanna, it reads, What is your favorite episode of Doctor Who? And in case it's not the same answer, what episode are you most excited to rewatch with Mallory? What is the pod's plans for Doctor Who content throughout the 60th anniversary three year. I think Joanna mentioned this, but will you be doing something about that? Yes. Okay. So we're so excited for this. Thank you. Those were two different questions that I can smooosh into one Dr. Who question. But we got a lot of Doctor Who questions. So Mallory and I,

at the very least, perhaps we'll rope in more people, but Mallory and I at the very least are going to be recording four episodes over the year leading up to the November 60th anniversary special where David Tennant is coming back to Doctor Who. And our first episode is in March. I think we decided the last week of March is when we were doing it. And the first episode is going to cover the first season of the reboot starring Christopher Eccleston. So we'll talk a little bit about Doctor Who long history in that podcast, but you don't need to, you can go back and rewatch everything. But I think one of the reasons I want you this is like people who haven't ever gotten a Doctor Who.

are always daunted by decades of history. Where do I start? How do I do this? So I've put together a watch list for Mallory. It will probably, I haven't nailed this down with Eric yet, but it will probably live on the ringer.com. What a great website in some form or another. So you can see, like, you can watch every episode or I have opinions on which are skippable and which aren't and stuff like that. So, and notable guest stars and all that sort of stuff.

So basically, you only have to watch one season of television, which is only, I think 10 episodes, maybe 12, 12, 12, I think it's 12, 12 episodes by the end of March.

And I believe in all of you that you can do that if you haven't. But we're going to talk about Christopher Eccleston, Malikith Targo. Malia curse. Yeah, yeah. For that.

And then we're going to be moving in. So then episode two, we're going to be doing a couple David Tennant's seasons, his first and second season. I could not wait. Episode three, we're doing David Tennant's final full season, and then he did a bunch of like goodbye specials. So that will be our third episode.

And then the final one, we're going to be talking about Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jody Whitaker, et cetera. That, again, the syllabus will go up in terms of like what you can watch or should skip or have to watch or whatever. But we're basically doing those episodes like every two months. So we're going to do one in March, one in May, one in July, and one is September, and then it will be time for the special. So this is all year of who is what we're doing.

And Mal is excited, and I'm excited to share it with her. I'm really, really hyped. I'm probably going to begin my journey in a couple weeks. And I can't wait to share this thing that you love with you. What's like one of the best feelings in the world when you love a thing. Yeah. And you get to introduce somebody who you enjoy talking to. two books or shows or movies.

I just, seeing the part of this question, like, what episode are you most excited to rewatch with Mal? It made me really happy, and it made me think of, like, all the times of my life where I've, you know, like, somebody who I adore and cherish, who, like, hadn't read. I'm thinking, like, years and years and years ago, the number of people who I would just, like,

leave the first Harry Potter book on their desk or something, right? Or in their dorm room or whatever the case may be. I remember, like, one pal of mine in particular, who I really thought would enjoy Harry inscribing the inside cover of Sorcercerstone and just said, use it well,

you know, putting the Dumbledore visibility quote on there and feeling like I had torn out a piece of my own heart and presented it to him because it meant so much to me and it's like,

it's just such a good, basic thing to get to introduce people to the stories that you cherish. So I cannot wait to share this with you. Do you have an episode come to mind when you read that question? I have, I always have,

I have this, had the same answer for what's your favorite episode of Dr. for a really long time, which is an episode called Midnight. And it's David Tennant, from David Tennant's final season. And it takes place all on a train. And it's a bunch of guest stars in David Tennant.

And it's just such a perfectly taught, plotted hour of, you know, 45 minutes or whatever of television. Love train content. Yeah. But I don't think that's the one I'm most excited to watch with you because I think what will be excited to watch with you is like some of the more emotional pay. off episodes and all that sort of stuff. And so, and he, and his, he doesn't, his companion is not really in that episode.

And like the doctor companion relationship is so important. So I might go with one that I just watched, which is, it's a two-parter silence in the library and Forrest of the Dead. It's the introduction of a character called River Song. And so, okay, can I just say really quickly, a lot of people are excited for us to watch Doctor Who. A lot of people have sent us emails about Doctor Who. With love and respect, someone's time you email being like,

make sure that Mallory watches this episode of Doctor Who that Ian Glenn is in. And I was like, who do you think I am? Like, do you think there's any way on this planet? Frankly, how dare you doubt, Joanna? I'm so inspected. Like, that episode also has, like, one of the great antagonists, The Weeping Angels, and Riversong and Matt Smith and Ian Glenn is there. I was like, in what planet are we not watching this?

It's a two-biter, actually. In one plane are we not watching this? So, yeah, there's a Jormoramon episode of Doctor Who in your future. But my God. I was already excited before I knew that. That's the Who plan. Your homework. The Chris Freckleston season by March.

Is it homework if you're having a blast? Plenty of time, honestly. It's going to be great. So hyped. Cannot wait. Speaking of things that we love. Yeah. What's the next question?

I've gotten to share with people over the years. All right. This one is from Claire. For your mailbag episode, I'd love to hear your overall thoughts on his dark materials. now that the series is over. More specifically, the role stories play in the land of the dead.

I love the idea that telling stories is what restores humanity, individuality, and acts as a guiding force to salvation and freedom. Given your love for stories, I thought of you both frequently and have been dying for your thoughts. Since the reason that I finished the third season

was because Mallory told me she was going to finish the third season, I'm going to let Mallory take the chair on this one. Yeah, so we've mentioned and his dark materials, the Philip Pullman books, a number of times over our pods and I think our love for the books

and Pullman's work is very well established. I watched the first season of the show in real time, and then I fell way behind. And when the third season, the final season was ending in real time recently, decided I wanted to catch up, got a slack from our pal and colleague, Miles Surrey,

who was another huge, his dark materials fan that was specifically about the finale. And it was like, I need to hear your thoughts of the finale when you get to the finale. This is, this Miles note is the final push

I needed to get back on track here. So I thought broadly and overall, Joe, actually, I remember our Pizzeria Mozo dinner with Kim long ago. The three of us were talking about his dark materials and saying that one of the things we hoped for most dearly was just that they would get to finish it. that because of course, you know, the film adaptation is like a famous flop, right?

So I'm glad that they got to go through Golden Compass Settle Knife and Amber Spyglass. It was a very emotionally rewarding conclusion to the adaptation. I think that overall start to finish, this was a mixed adaptation. Some of the less successful elements in season one pulling Will and many of the book two, subtle knife plot points into season one, I think really helped season one, but ultimately hurt season two. Because the subtle knife is my favorite book of the trilogy.

And I was so looking forward to season two of the show. And I think that that was ultimately my least favorite of the three seasons. Same. And then more broadly, the heavy-handedness of everything about the prophecy, in particular, and the Magisterium more broadly. like, folks, if you had decided to play a drinking game

every time they said Eve, you would not have seen the beautiful finale of the His Dark Materials adaptation because you would have died of alcohol poisoning long before then. But the more successful elements, Will and Lyra were just wonderful. Individually as characters and as performers and their relationship together,

pan, the truest 10 out of 10, no notes. That we can add. What if we ever had like a pan and pub? spin-off. Just Pan and Pabu. I wouldn't survive it. It would be too much. We would have reached the limit

of what my heart could handle. I thought that Mary was exceptional and underutilized. I wish we had gotten even more Mary. Some real great Asriel vibes, even though some of the mythology-centric deployments of his characters were among the parts

that I didn't like as much. But he was really all in one throughout this. Seeing the world, you know, seeing these worlds that we've visited on the page so many times. come to life, like getting to see what the Mulefa looked like, getting to see the crossroads roads world, Cigaze, like, that was just really fun. And the final season had a few unbelievably

emotionally wrenching sequences. Pan and Lyra, obviously spoilers for his dark materials and the answer to this. Pan and Lyra parting in the underworld. In the land of the dead, I was fucking sobbing. Choke sobbing. Sobbing. I thought that Mary sharing her story, her history with Lyra and Will was just a gorgeous scene. One of my, it's a really beautiful passage in the book and was a beautiful and deeply moving sequence in the show. And then, I mean, of course, I think literally routinely in my life about Will and Lyra and their bench.

And seeing that in the finale was absolutely agonement. and fucking devastating. And I was like, wrecked. Wrecked. So that was my feeling. How about you, Joe? Yeah, I mean, I had watched season one and season two as they aired, and I wasn't even sure I was going to do season three.

But then again, Mallory told me what Miles told her. And I was like, well, the Will and Lyra stuff is good. And since the finale is going to be like so Will and Lyra and their relationship, relationship focused. I could see how they might really nail that, even if I don't really love some of the other things that are going on in the series. So I watched the final season and I, like, sobbed through the finale. So it was worth it for that, like, that they really stuck the landing for that. There's just a lot of other stuff in between that I'm like, not great. I think Louis and well Miranda is like really bad casting, like really like all-time are bad casting,

as Lee scores me. But and then, yeah, in terms of the meeting of story, the meaning of story, The meaning of story in the land of the dead. Also, Lyra Bell Aqua, like Lyra's Silver Tongue, like Lyra is this like liar storyteller. And again, Mary telling her story and like playing the serpent. Right. But again, taking that story and sort of flipping it on its head, playing the serpent is, in this case, is a good thing. And like how her story rather than like an apple is the temptation and all this sort of stuff like that. I do, I do, I mean, these books were very, very special to me. So, like, I know a lot of people liked the TV series, and I don't think it was bad,

but it was, like, very much like a B for me. But I wanted that, like, A-plus feeling all the way through because the books are so special to me. So, yeah. The stretch in The Land of the Dead in the book about stories and sharing stories has some of the most gorgeous writing. I was flipping through it after reading this question, because it was true. true said no name because she spoke the truth because it was nourishing because it was feeding us because we couldn't help it because it was true because we had no idea that there was anything but wickedness because it brought us news of the world and the sun and the wind and the

rain because it was true. I mean, unbelievable. I will say, love the story-centric nature of that stretch. We already talked about Pan and Lair on their parting and the devastation. the one thing that I really missed in this episode, in this stretch of season three in the Land of the Dead sequence, when I think back to those chapters in the books, some of the most like astoundingly beautiful writing and style and flair, but also some of the most animating ideas are in the stretch about Lyra and her death and the idea of how you can think about and embrace death.

And that was there a little bit, but not to the extent that I would have liked, because that is just a remarkable stretch of the book. I'll read one more passage just because we fucking love these books so much. Please do. This is from Lyra on Her Death, a chapter in Amber Spygdlass, the third book in The Historic Materials Trilogy. Then came a voice that hadn't spoken before. From the depths of the bedcloths in the corner came a dry, cracked nasal tone,

Not a woman's voice, not a living voice. It was the voice of the grandmother's death. The only way you'll cross the lake and go to the land of the dead, he said, and he was leaning up on his elbow pointing with a skinny finger at Lyra, is with your own deaths. You must call up your own deaths. I've heard of people like you who keep their deaths at bay. You don't like them, and out of courtesy, they stay out of sight, but they're not far off. Whenever you turn your head, your deaths dodge behind you. Wherever you look, they hide. They can hide in a teacup or in a dewdrop or in a breath of wind. Not like me and old Magda here, he said, and he pinched her withered cheek and she pushed his hand away.

We live together in kindness and friendship. That's the answer. That's it. That's what you've got to do. Say welcome. Make friends. Be kind. Invite your deaths to come close to you and see what you can get them to agree to.

And listening, I mean, like, listen to you and your beautiful, choked up voice, read that passage. Like, these, the, I'm just, I feel, I don't know why the show felt so, like, inert in some of those moments, but it kind of did. So, for me, anyway, but I know a lot of people enjoyed it, and I'm glad they did. And again, we're really glad they got to finish it. Yeah. It's all tied up, you know, all sort of stuff. And, yeah.

We'll get some book of, book of dust adaptations one day. Yeah. We'll be back. We'll be back in Lyra's Oxford in this wonderful world. What's next, Steve? All right. From Lizin, Joe, please, please, please. Speak on your thoughts regarding the finale of Willa.

I'm going to keep this brief. Basically, like, someone was asking us, like, basically, here's the thing. If I don't like something, I'm probably not going to cover it in depth. And that's the best way that you. I don't love shit talking, kicking something. That's not something I'm fond of. And so I'm covering it a lot. You know, I like it.

and if I'm not, it means I didn't really vibe with it. So, like, Van, I really tried. You know, you heard us. We both really, really wanted to love this series, and neither of us did. So that's why we didn't come back and sort of, you know, close the loop on that one. I don't know the motivations of some of the decisions that happened around that show, but what it struck me as is, like, something I talk about a lot when I talk about musicals, which is, like, you can't be afraid of the genre you're in. Like, if you make a musical and you're, like, embarrassed to be making a musical, we can tell. And it almost felt like this is a fantasy show where they were just, like, not really fully comfortable with making a fantasy show.

And so, like, they modernized the language. There were a bunch of modern needle drops in there, stuff like that. And, like, that can work. You know, like, I love a Knightsdale. Like, you know, a modern needle drop is not a deal breaker for me. But, like, this just did not go for me. There are some things, the Penultimate episode, which is them out on open water sort of, dueling and prepping for the final showdown.

I did like that episode, best of all. So I felt like I got progressively better. But I didn't like, I hated the finale, honestly. And that's all I have to say about Willow. Sorry. I wanted to love it. They did it. I'm sad.

I know how much you were looking forward to it. I really, really wanted to. I wanted you to get something that you, that you adored. And if people loved it, I think that's great. You know what I mean? I think there is, there's plenty to love in there. So if people loved it, I think that's great. Did you know that, um,

Our favorite sand snake, no one's favorite sand snake, the bad pussy herself shows up. But you need the bad pussy. All-timer. She showed up and I was like, oh, no, it's the bad pussy herself. Memorable. Anyway. Did you hear something dear me?

That was an actual sound that Steve just made. All right. Great stuff. Okay. What's next? That's why I love House of R. You know, you go from. It's like really heartfelt weep fest talking about the beauty of children's literature into the bad pussy quote in this point of mere moments.

The bad pussy. Who can say what will happen next? Who wrote that line? I want to find out. All right. This is from Jason. What IP outside of Marvel Star Wars Thrones or Tolkien would you guys want to see adapted slash rebooted into a film or TV show? What do you think the current state of film TV slash IP is?

is right now, especially given the very dicey 2022, Obi-Wan, Boba, Dr. Strange fest that we got last year. Okay, so we decided to take one, to each make two picks, one for something that we'd like to see adapted, and then one reboot. Yeah. You want to start with the reboot or the adaptation pick? I'm really excited by my reboot idea. Let's hear it.

Hollywood Call Me. It's actually kind of like a really basic. obvious idea when you like think about it. Just all of Hollywood? Anyone in Hollywood? I think, yeah, everyone in Hollywood call me. This is my elevator pitched all of Hollywood listening. And I'm pretty sure, like, if Kevin Feigy could do this, you would have already done this. Like, this, the very idea of this is giving Kevin Feiggy, like, the biggest, like, fandom boner of his lifetime.

Reboot Back to the Future. Oh, shit. With Tom Holland. As. Wow. Arnie McFly's, like, kid and have him go back to the 80s and have him interact with the original Back to the Future films. Oh, my goodness. This is a lot to process in real time.

Wow. Okay, so let's talk about Back to the Future for a second. Like, our tendency with things that feel perfectly, the first Back to Future film is perfect. The first Back to the Future film is perfect. And the sequels are less perfect, right? I have nostalgia lens about them, but they're less perfect. The first film is perfect. So you're like, don't fuck with the movie.

with Back to the Future, like, why would you do that? However, there have been some recent examples like Mad Max Fury Road or Top Gun Maverick or like whatever where it's like someone really got it. And something I know because- Academy Award nominee, Top Gun Maverick. Something I know because I recently wrote a book about Marvel Studios that'll be out in stores later this year is that Kevin Feigy skipped his prom to go see back to the future. Like the man loves back to the future.

And Tom Holland, like. is, I don't know how long he can play a team, but he's a short king. He can play a little team for a while. So he's probably like the same age, honestly, that Alex P. Keaton, Michael J. Fox. Anyway, same age of Michael J. Fox was when he made back to the future. Alex B. Keaton, you know, gets us into family ties territory, and that's where my parents got the name Mallory. That's great. I hope you get to tell Justin Bainman that one day.

Fun fact for everyone listening today. Wow, what a suggestion. That one, that shook me. That floored me. I was not prepared for... Are you against it? No. I'm not, as you know,

I'm very rarely opposed to revisiting any... I will say. ...but it would have to be handled with care. It would have to be done well. Imagine opening up that world and fucking it up and botching it. No one would ever... I mean, Hollywood called you and then everyone else would call you too to yell at you for suggesting this to Kevin Feat.

I hope they don't. I'm pretty sure I stole this idea somehow from Dave Gonzalez, but I actually think he used to be pitching this as like Dylan O'Brien. Dylan O'Brien is now like aged out of, you know, Martin McFly territory. Back in the maze runner days, though, that would have been. Yeah. Exceptional. We love styles.

We love Dylan O'Brien. This is inspired. It's bold, but it's inspired. And frankly, even though it has shocked me, it also simultaneously, it is amazing that it hasn't happened yet, given the IP boom that we're in. You know what this would be a big moment for? Much like Stranger Things has been,

like a nostalgia fashion boom. Think of the sneakers that would get re-released in conjunction with this. I'm in for this reason alone. Yeah. Great one. Wow. Okay. Bold. Here's my reboot. Can we all give Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

see another chance. Please. Please, fucking God. Can we try to do this again? Oh, my God. Stop casting Martin Freeman in the perfect role in the wrong adaptation.

The 2005 film. Now, Hitchhikers over the years has existed in many different forms, right? We're talking about the beloved and adored and hysterical Douglas Adams' novels, the old,

like, BBC radio play days, there's the UK-based TV show, the mainstream movie from The Oates, just did not succeed. And then we never got another one. And we have our memories of Alan Rickman as Marvin, but not a lot else. And I refuse to accept that. These books are wonderful. They're hysterical. They are so biting and sharp and incisive. And I think that this should be a television show. Like, I remember a lot of the a lot of the response to the film, there were many different critical pools and some people really liked it,

but this like kind of episodic nature of the narrative and saga and the stories, well, like, let's make this a television show. Not everything has to be a movie. We're in the TV IP boom right now. Is there a reason that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy can't be a eight episode of TV? Yeah.

100%. Jimi casting. Could to quote just to quote my Cal Joe, Hollywood call me. Casting, I have no idea. I would have to think about that. Do you think Sean Fantasy can get the street on board with this? Do you think you can call up the street, see if they'll back this? Sean, call us so that Hollywood can call you.

There you go. We work shot. Sean, if you call the street, the street will call us, and then Hollywood will also call us because we'll have the money. So it'll be great. I like where we landed. I like where we landed. I haven't read the Hitchhiker's books in a few years. I still love reading these in college.

Maybe I'll do a reread this year. They're just a blast. A blast. Okay. Adaptation. What hasn't been made yet? Yeah. Definition of IP that hasn't, like, what is IP that hasn't been?

Yeah, that's good. That's a good way to wrap the pot in a timely fashion today. What is IP? But love persevering, you know what I mean? So, I mean, like, all I can think of her, like, book series that I like that haven't been adapted yet. But they're not, like, major marvels. Lucasfilm, like, whatever. So,

speaking of Douglas Adams, the author that reminds me, I think the most of Douglas Adams, is Terry Pratchett. Terry Pratch has written one million books. Wow, Steve is really excited. There have been some films based on the Disc World books.

There was a really terrible TV series called The Night Watch. It came out. That was based on, on this loosely, very loosely, based on this world, a travesty, honestly. But a night watch, which I have right here, is like the best for a stand on a desk.

How big is your desk? How are you? How old these books within arms reach? I don't know. I had a big pile. I love this. The Nightwatch is, Steve's Red Nightwatch. It's like a perfect time travel loop back on your own life, kind of. story, starring Sam Bimes, who's one of the greatest Terry Pratchett creations, the leader of the

Nightwatch. So the Disc World Series, if you never read them, take place in a fictional place called, like, Morpork, and, like, there's just a million books, and you could read them all, or you can read them in any order, really. Don't start at the beginning because the Wizard books are not good, but, like, have I smuggled another book recommendation? Yes. But I actually think the thing that would be most readily adaptable, because, you know,

a lot of the adaptations have gotten it kind of wrong because again, I think they go like a little too silly. I don't know. I feel like you need to get a little more seriously, even though he's really, really funny. But like the funny comes from like kind of taking the world seriously at the same time. Or the Tiffany Aking books, which are the like, I guess more YAA books that he's written. It's a series about a young witch called Tiffany Aking and like the various witches who mentor her growing up. And I think that series is like perfect for a TV series. very's adaptation. So good.

And I'm going to smuggle one more in here. Do it. Do it. Because we're talking about Harry Potter. And like we have complicated feelings around Harry Potter right now in the culture. But I want to recommend or talk about something that is slightly off. Harry Potter, which are the Simon Snow books by Rainbow Row. Have you read the Simon Snow books by Rainbow Rowell, Mallorven?

Okay. Can I explain to you how these books? came to be because the origin story is like the best part, right? Do it. Rainbow Raoul wrote a book called Fangirl. Fangirl is about a girl who writes fan fiction. In that book, Fangirl, she is writing basically Harry Potter fan fiction, but it's not called Harry Potter.

It's called Simon Snow. So Simon Snow is like essentially a Harry Potter stand in. And what she's writing is basically like Harry Draco slash fan fiction. So it's Simon Snow and this character named Baz, who's a. who's a vampire. And so Simon and Baz. So then that book was popular, but it had all these sections of fake Harry Potter

Simon Snow fanfic in it. And Rainbow Rao liked doing that so much that she wrote a trilogy that's just set in the Simon Snow world. And it's Simon Snow and Baz and a third character who's Penelope, who's a Hermione stand-in. But like it is Harry Potter,

but it's not Harry Potter. In that, like, she came up with this really inventive idea for the magic of the world, which is that all the magical spells are based on common phrases that people use. So the first book is called carry on because, like, so you could do a spell called carry on because, you know, keep common carry on is like, you know, a Britishism or whatever. But the spells only work in the area A, where there's like people because they're, they are juiced by people shared ideas of language, right?

So they're only work where there are people around. So if you're stuck into dead zone where there's nobody, your spells won't work. And then also in the second book, they go to America. So their British spells don't work in America because British sayings aren't the same as American saying. So they have to learn a bunch of American spells. And it's really, really good. And like, and she does. And she does.

Check back in after everyone makes their way through spare. And we're all saying, Todger all the time. Oh, Harry. I have so many. There's multiple Harry Todger stories available today. The books are so they're fun, they're funny, they're light, they're whatever. But then she takes what she does, and you may or may not like this, Moller, she takes the chosen one narrative and she like really digs in and upends and is like, is, is this good? What is the trauma associated with being a chosen one, et cetera?

And then they're just also very, like, dreamily romantic and stuff like that. So, Simon's Nobooks would be a. amazingly adapted, I think. But is that just a sneaky way for me to recommend more books? Yes. What's the right streamer? Like, what's the right home for that, do you think?

Um, maybe like, Prime video. Okay. Okay. Like, I think, like, everything I like should probably wind up on HBO. But if I'm being honest,

this is more of a, like, sci-fi with a Y. or, you know, like, Orphan Black on sci-fi, that level of sci-fi, or maybe private video. Some of the great ones over the years. So, okay, I dig it. My pick is something that actually was mentioned and alluded to in one of our earlier questions. I am going with the Fairyland novels from Catherine Valenti. I adore these books.

There are five of them. They're so wonderful and such a joyful way to spend time. if you have not yet experienced September's journeys in Fairyland, I cannot recommend them highly enough. Are you interested in meeting a character named A-Thruel, who is part Wyvern, part library?

Well, this is the story for you. 100%. Stunning writing, magical ideas, this really fully realized and lovingly crafted world that leans into and embraces all of the touchstones across the stories that we've grown up reading and loving

that have influenced it in some way, but also then feels like very specific in particular to this vision. A lot of meaningful lessons, a lot of memorable characters. Adam got me the first book and had read the piece. I was like, I think this is something that you would like. And guess what he was right. Fucking love these books. They're beautiful and great. The first book includes like a four-page passage about soap.

And it is the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I've ever read. It's just such evocative language. and world building. I love it. So I don't understand why this is not a series of films or television. Oh, Joe, you would really,

you would. Yeah. I think really, really like them. Really, really, really like that. You're selling me on all these books, Mallory.

I'm really excited. You start with the girl who circumvented Fairyland in a ship of her own making is the name of the first book. It's just a wonderful title. It is. The titles are great.

The girl who fell beneath Fairyland and led the revels. there, the girl who soared over Fairyland and cut the moon into the boy who lost Fairyland and the girl who raced Fairyland all the way home. They are- So these look like they look like they're like like, like, lemony Snicket level. Is that where you sort of put it? This gets back to my earlier inability to properly slot any. To shelve something.

Sure. To properly shelve. But I think that these are, these are middle. reader into YA. Okay. Perfect. They're lovely. Lovely.

Fun. Okay. Delightful. This next question. This was a fun one. This is a quick one, but a fun one. Steve, can we hear number eight? From Nikita, if you could go back in time and watch one show for the first time together

and do a series deep dive on every episode that would come out, what would it be? Game Thrones, loss, and anything Star Wars related, excluded. Right. Yeah. Can't pick Thrones. We can't lock. We can't think anything Star Wars related. Correct.

With that parameter in place, the final line of the question, this became an easy instant pick for me. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. My answer won't surprise you. I don't think.

Did you go with a genre story? Did you go with a nerd culture story? Actually, I have two and one's a nerd culture story and one's not. Okay. Perfect. Okay. What's your nerd culture pick? I mean, watching Buffy with you would be delightful to me.

It's what everyone would guess that I would want to do is, like, show Mallory of this ur-text of my life. So watching Buffy Vampire Slayer every week with you, Mallory Rubin would be a pure joy for me. I thought that Buffy might come up here. I also feel sure it will come up soon and another question that we have. But maybe not. Maybe not. Oh, no.

No? I know what you mean, but no. Okay. My pick is Battlestar. Yeah. Battlestar Galactica. B SG. If we got to watch Battlestar together for the first time and talk about it on Ponds, it would be one of the highlights of my life.

It would be incredible. It's like one of the, we've been so incredibly imagined. This is an earnest note for a second. Immensely fortunate in the recent years of my career and my life to get to spend a lot of my time talking about some of my genuine favorite things with my favorite people. And Battlestar is one of the things that's like high on the list of my life. all-time favorite shows, and I haven't really gotten to talk about on pods.

So getting to do that would be such a joy, but also just getting to experience it. Because the first time I watched Battlestar was one of the true. My jaw is on the floor every episode. I have no interest in seeing anybody or doing anything in my life that does not relate to continuing to watch Battlestar Galactica. It was just the only thing I cared about when I watched it for the first time. Isn't Battlestar the show they're watching that great Portlandia sketch about binge watching? Yes.

It is. It is. Another. And then when they realize they're done, they just scream. Yeah. Exactly. And I've been to watch Battlestar on like DVDs. Right?

Because it wasn't, I don't think it was streaming on Netflix yet. Yeah, yeah. Got the box sets. Mm-hmm. What's your, I think there's a chance that the non-nerculture pick is the same because I went for the bit here. I don't know about you. Oh. Friday Lights.

Supranos. But we both have a one to like watch something with the person who hasn't seen it and I've seen and I'm very familiar with it. Yeah. Okay. Sopranos. Friday Night's. I really like the idea of because like you could tell me all what all the football means. I would love to talk to you about the inner workings of booster culture in.

Yeah. In Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like weather like is Maddie Saracen good? QB1, baby. QB1.

Okay. Friday Night Lights would be so fun. That's one of my favorite shows. We could talk about murder ball, you know? The murder ball season? Boy, could we? Yeah. Sharks?

Remember the sharks? They do. What a special television program. Great one. Great one. What's next, Steve? From Howard, if you could carry any, any weapon in all of fantasy,

Marvel Star Wars, horror fandom, as a survivor on the Last of Us, what would it be? One exception, no Infinity Stones or Gauntlets. Great question. I have a yes and to this for Howard. We got a later email,

like an email this morning or whatever that's not on this list of someone, well, it's just a suggestion for you, Mallory, as you play the Last of Us game. Someone says, as like a person who's scared of horror and zombies, also, but play the last of this game, they said, what you really need to do, Mallory,

is get yourself some Molotov cocktails and fling them from a distance. I have... So here's the thing. Thank you for the suggestion. I regret to inform you that part of the challenge facing me is that my aim is atrocious. So this is an issue with my guns.

This is an issue when I'm fortunate enough to pick up a brick and I can't throw it properly so I end up using it as a melee weapon where I have much more success. And the aiming of the Molotov cocktail is In fact, Adam, my husband, who is an expert gamer and has been sitting next to me watching me play. And like, I'd say it's 40% he's helping me and 60% he's just roasting me and has suggested that I just start using the Molotov cocktails to throw them against walls and distract the clickers with a sound cue in the other direction, which I think is quite rude. Quite rude.

Guessing my suggestion was to do like a bag of holding with a never-ending supply of Molotov cocktails in it. Did you consider, so a broad question I had for this is like, does the weapon that you pick mean that you have the associated powers from that fictional universe? Like, for example, if I said, I'm going to take a wand, does that mean that I'm a wizard? Or does it mean I just have a stick of wood that you're carrying? You're a wizard, Mallory.

You can jab people with the elder wand. You could probably take out an eye or two, but the clickers don't have eyes, so how is I going to help you? I have found the shivs to be useful in the game. Everyone says you should use a shiv, right, Steve? You should use shiv. Oh, yes. Shiv Roy.

My favorite shiv. That's a good question. I would say yes. If you have a lightsaber, you're a Jedi. But then like, oh. Interesting. Yeah. Which makes, well, no, actually, I think it makes my pick really good.

My actual pick. The bag of holding is, what's my comedy pick? My actual pick. is Barrack Dundarians' flaming sword. And with Barak Dundarians' flaming sword, I like this. I can't die. That's what I've decided. Okay.

So Thoros has come with you to revive you? Yes. In this sense... It's the flaming sword plus Thoris of Mir. Okay. I just wanted fire. I really feel like fire is key for what we're doing here. So I decided to go with a flaming sword.

I think the downside is, because I consider picking long call. just because Long Claw is my favorite magical blade, but it felt like too heavy to carry a bastard around if I'm trying to like move quickly and nimbly and not make sounds. Yeah, the Valerian Steel is not going to help you. Sneak around stealthily in a museum. I don't want to be swinging a Valeria steel sword. But the fire, the combo of a sword you could slice with,

the fire and the restorative powers of... Theors of Mirr. Being brought back to life is handy. Holy Roller, baby. Let's do it. So, Joe, I considered picking the subtle knife because obviously it's sharp enough to cut through anything, including a clicker head. But it's a short hill, right? It's not a sword.

So on the one hand, easier to, like, move around with it. But I think the drawback is clear, which is in order to use it. The foe has to get close enough to me that I am, I'm in mouth dendril range at that point. And I don't want to be. I don't want to be. I like the idea of being able to open a window, though, to another world to escape. That's very appealing, right? If things get really perilous.

people in every world? Well, this is, so... How far did the tendrils go? Here's actually my real concern. If the answer is yes, and you're fucking matter what. If the answer is no, I think you're going to carry it with you for a while

if you're the one who lets the spores or the tendrils into another uninfected world. That would be a tough one. The little tendrils follow you through the window? That would be a tough one. So I came down to two finalists. Okay.

I haven't made my decision between the two. Let's talk it out in real time. Contender number one, the Dark Saber. Great. Well, I was surprised you to hear that the dark saber is one of my finalists here. There's a practical element to any lightsaber, which is a hilt on your belt, right? You're not carrying around again. I love long claw, but cumbersome. This is ease of movement, ease of use. The corollary of the downside is pretty clear, which is the iconic signature activation throm. Yeah. It's going to draw some enemy clickers upon me, I think. So that would be troubling.

That said, anyone who's drawn down upon me, I can fucking slice in half in a millisecond because I wield a dark saver, Sabra, and I'm awesome in this scenario. So that would be really cool. Maybe it means I'm for sensitive. Steve, can you please make that a clip that we use later? I'm willing the fucking dark saber and I'm awesome. I'm fucking awesome. All right, Darth Mallory, what's your other idea?

I also, with the Dark Saber, I like that, you know, obviously it is a sword, but you can use it as a shield, right? you can deflect, and that's handy for maybe a tendril or a spore coming at me, but also fellow man, really the, really the enemy always. And so I got to be able to deflect bullets, which I could do with the Dark Sabre. Maybe it means I'm force sensitive. That would be fucking awesome. But if not, we know that the Dark Sabre is routinely wielded by non-force users. And also, I like that if it grows too heavy in my hand, it's like a sign to me. It's like having a coach there with me, right? I am, I've lost my focus here. I'm not approaching this the right way.

I think that would be great. I threw this out to Adam and he was troubled by my pick and was really pushing me to think about protection instead of an active weapon. And he was like, if you have the Dark Sabre, you're just going to be taking a nap and get mouth tendrils by the foe. Steve, you're not doing the last one's podcast list. So you don't see that, like, this is what happens every time someone says not pendrons. I get really upset.

It's great. I also love that this has introduced a world where the worst thing of zombie could do to you is kiss you. Yeah. Well, you know, like the idea of having the Dark Sabre and getting taken out by Clickers when you're napping. It made me think, Joe, of, you know, on House of Recommends, one of the really fun end of your pods we did. You suggested the great. As you know, I started watching it over the holiday. Having a fucking blast, almost caught up.

It's a delight. That would be the equivalent. of just of Peter getting hungry, saying like, yeah, I really need a, I really need some sustenance. I need a snack. Okay. I just would never sleep, like,

especially, like, if you go back to episode two, and it opens with Ellie sleeping on that, like, little patch of grass, the tendrils could have so easily gotten her. Yeah. Coming up through the grass, man. Well, let me throw out my second suggestion because I would sleep in her medically sealed box.

Okay. in Iron Man's Mark 50 armor. Okay. That's a way better Marvel option. I was like, is she going to go for Cap's shield? But no, the full body armor is a way better option there. And specifically, I'm going with the Bleeding Edge armor because I need nanotech. I can't be walking around the apocalypse with heavy armor.

I need something that moves with me and does what I need and adapts in real time. Maybe if I meet some genius on the road, they can replicate some of this tech and we can heal the world together. But if not, I have all of the sword and shield, active weaponry and protection that I need here. Could they penetrate the armor? I guess it's a question worth considering, but I'm going to go with no in this scenario. Now, if it breaks, I'm fucked. But I don't think that there's an equivalent here of Thanos throwing a moon on me. I think if I have the Mark 50, I'm good. That said, I really want the Dark Saber because I'm not sure if I've said this to you guys before, but if I had the Dark Saber, I would be fucking awesome.

Steve is making I object face. Steve, what's your objection? No, I don't object. I have one question. Is the reason that you pick the Mark 50 is because you would ultimately be wearing a Nike tech fleece in the apocalypse? You know, I would have some athletic on underneath. With like little straps.

With some really nice bracelets. No, no like bell bottom flares for me at the end of my joggers, though. That would be the big departure between me and Tony. Platforms. You love a flare, Mallory. All right. It's a hard one. It's a hard one to pick.

So in conclusion, I just, I really want to pick the Dark Saber, even though I think the Mark 50 is the better choice. I think, but also just like, I mean, this is why I want the flaming sword. Barrick Dundarian's Flaming Sword. So I can just like, hack at things. The flaming fucking sword sounds really fun. Yeah. Anyway, I guess I could.

You don't think the Mark 50 has a lightsaber equipment equipped to it. I was going to replicate that. You know, we've got like the sword. Extending Nanotech, repulsor beams, lots of ammo. I could probably make my own. I mean, there's no Khyber crystals in the Mark 50, but I could, I could approximate it. Also, tendril protection. I know.

I know. That's, you do need to think about the tendril protection. So I'm sad. Can we move on? Okay. So we're going through the apocalypse with a flaming sword of Molotov cocktails, Mark 50, bleeding edge nanotech armor, and the dark show. And you would be what, Mallory?

Fucking awesome. Fucking awesome. Thoros would be a tough traveling companion because he's really a rum guy and I'm more of a rye gal, you know? No, I kind of feel like that then you're not dipping into each other's supply. I feel like that's a good combo. We leave the dip in for the mouth tendrils. Dear God, Steve. Calamari dip.

Oh, boy. Okay. This next one, Joe, is where I thought you were going to mention Buffy. I know. Buffy, I know, but I'm not. But you've, you've, you've, well. allowed me by saying you're not, so I have no idea it's coming. Let's find out. All right, from Mike, what shows immediately make you like a stranger or new person you meet when they reference it?

Okay, like, Buffy's a good one, but like a lot of people have seen Buffy and what's even more special is if someone has seen like a very, like, little scene television show that you really like. So one good example is something like Slings and Arrows, which is a Canadian TV series about a Shakespeare group. That is amazing. Three seasons. The Great Sarah Polly, Rachel McAdams, ever heard of her. Luke Kirby,

your boyfriend, all, yeah, Lenny Bruce himself. So slings and arrows. Love Lenny. Amazing. Or there's like a bunch of British shows from the early odds

before it was like easy to get British television here. So like your black books, your green wing, your life on Mars, Ashes is spaced. Basically like if you had to like go out and get a box set of something.

And, like, that's, that's, you know, you know, Mighty Bush. Used to be Taskmaster, but now a lot of people watching Taskmaster, so that's, like, less special. But, like, you know, like, something, like, pretty nichey. Steve, why are you making so many faces? No, because I love all of these shows. I was waiting for you to say skins.

I mean, you know, my love for Nick Holtz is true. Of course. Yeah. Posh Kenneth. Of course. Mallory. And now I'm just sorry. Now I'm thinking about Peter again.

And the great. Black Books, by the way. Black Books? Black Books is amazing. A perfect television show. And look, if you're in it, if you meet someone and one of these comes up, you're like, this person's going to be my friend for life. Yeah. I love it. If someone went out of their way to watch Black Books at some point, yes. Okay. So going, going for, so we're not doing the like the battle stars or the loss. Right. Like, you know, small independent, the projects like Game of Thrones. Going for, uh, boy. Okay. Is dark a candidate here? Because that would be definitely one for me. If people, if I come across somebody who's just sitting there saying the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end, I say, would you like to, would you like to be my lifelong companion and creative soulmate?

And then that's what happens. And we share a journey from there of shared sorrow when 1899 gets canceled after one season. One season. So that would be a pick for me for sure. I do think I have this experience with Fringe where if people mention Fringe, I get really excited and eager to talk to them about more pop culture.

I think Black Mirror is so popular and widely consumed that it maybe isn't eligible for this version of answering the question, but I will say particularly the San Juan Apparo be right back the entire history of you, Trinity. Anyone who has strong feelings for those three episodes,

I think we're going to have a lot of fun things to talk about. And then there's one for you. Pushing daisies. I was, oh my God. You know what it said in my notes? What it said in my notes was Brian Fuller, Brian Fuller shows. So pushing daisies died like me.

Yeah. You know, Waterfalls well, blah. But yeah, pushing daisy is a really good one. I just, as you know, I feel very strongly about Lee Pace. Yeah. And pocket size, anapreel. And, yeah. You love Lee Pace as well, but you refuse to acknowledge warm fruit.

I do. There's a lot of, I mean, I had to suffer through a lot of, like, cherry, goopy cherry pie filling to enjoy that season of television. What's worse? This mushroom thing that you have now or pie? Pie. Let me just say, mushrooms are delicious. What? Pie is absolutely delicious.

This is an away game for you, Tijuana. Like, I don't understand you. To be clear. There are many pies I like. Pecan, lemon meringue, pumpkin, whatever. It's the fruit situation. That's a problem. This is, no.

it's a sad and tough day when you as a person in the world have to really grapple with the fact that nobody's perfect. And when we like this about Joe, that was our moment, Steve. Yeah. Everyone lets you down at some point.

Can I amend the question to be like, what can somebody say that will immediately ban their friendship from your life? Like, I don't like you. I don't like bye, so I don't like you. Fun fact for Harry Potterer audiobook fans is that Jim Dale who narrates the American version of the

audiobooks of Harry Potter narrates Pushing Daisies. You've never seen Pushing Daisies. That's like a fun. It's very comforting to hear Jim Dale's voice. It is. It's an incredibly charming show. Yeah. Wonderful. All right, what's next? All right. From Ben, who on Andor would you want in your tribe

of Survivor? Who on Andor would win Survivor? Knowing that the most strategic players sometimes get kicked off after the merge. Looking at you, Luton. Who would be voted out first if there was time. Okay, so we'll do a very quick run-through of some and-or characters and some of their survivor archetypes. I think that'll be the way we handle this.

We'll make it rapid fire here. Marva. Yeah. The one who makes us sob during the family visits and letter reads due to a note from B. Marva's also, I think, the character who inspires the creation of the most lasting alliance, but isn't there to enjoy the fruits of that alliance's success. Nemic, student of the game. Nemic is the modern-day survivor player who goes on Survivor and talks about having watched

Survivor and grown up studying the game and loving the game and knowing everything about it and is a genius and a tactician and a student of human nature and a student of human nature and a student of the rules of the game and knows what every challenge is going to be the second they walk up to the course, knows how people will behave, knows how to anticipate voting behavior, but is so good at it,

is such an active intimidation to the people who aren't ready to accept this level of genius that can't quite bring home the prize. I would say that Nemek is like the Christian from David versus Goliath. One of my favorite survival players, but the genius can only take you so far.

Skeen? Definitely the guy who steals everybody's food and hides it. For sure. You win something at an award. You have a limited amount of rice. Takes it while everyone's sleeping, buries it in the sand, enjoys it on his own until he is discovered.

People do that on Survivor? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's happened. There's some people have hidden. There's pineapple, some peanut butter. Some people have taken socks before. Like, some of it is just selfish. What can I gain?

And some of it is how can I talk? totally disrupt by somebody else. Starving them and taking their right portion. Yeah, it's one of our greatest television programs. Vell and Sinta, they're the showmance that you make the mistake of underestimating, right?

Hmm. Yeah. Serious players. Serious players. Don't fuck with Sinta. That's what I have to say about that. Exactly. Exactly. Sawyerara, obviously the guy who refuses to join the main alliance and thinks that he can always outsmart the numbers, even though he's clearly not in the numbers, but

somehow amazingly is usually right. And then at the end, has to explain how he got to the end, despite never being in the numbers. Luthin, I think clearly the alliance builder who has the main alliance and runs the main alliance, but also has a number of different sub-alliances that he can move in and out of as the moment demands, makes the final three without question is clearly the dominant player of the season, but definitely cannot win. This is the problem with modern-day survivor.

the person who dominates the season is it's almost impossible for them to win. Some of that is that everybody on the jury is mad at them because they have bested them in order to be in that spot. There are a lot of other reasons that are discussed at length on our wonderful Survivor Pod. The Pod has spoken. Check it out when a new season of Survivor starts this spring. What a great podcast network. I think that Mon, Mothma, is the player who is underestimated until the end, but is sitting there at final tribal and has the opportunity to out-argo you everyone else and then are in the votes. Cyril, classic, overplace his hand right away at the merge.

First one voted out. Makes the merge, but first voted out without question. First voted out and has to watch the rest of the season from his mom's kitchen eating cereal. First voted out at the merge. He's the last person who didn't make the jury. Dedra, biggest conversation starter for the people watching at home, first one cast in the follow-up here and villains season coming out of this season of Survivor. Bix trusts no one and as such, always on the lookout and finds every idol in advantage.

Paying attention, looking in the right spots, check in underneath the shelter at camp, looking in the water well, strategic player. Cassian. Challenge Beast, highly strategic, knows how to balance protecting himself with protecting his alliance. strong social game that exponentially improves each day over the course of the season, respected even by those who fear and resent him, a.k.a. The winner. Okay. What do you think? If you would ask me,

given how little I know about survival, that was incredible. By the way, a round of plus. That's the dark saver. You're a fucking awesome of answers to a mailbag question. But if you had asked me who's going to make it all the way, I would say my mind. Yeah. Like, that's who I'd bank on. Like, little Miss poker face, little miss smile. Mon definitely gets there at the end and then out talks everyone at Final Tribal. For sure. For sure. Great. So I love it. Okay. What's next? All right. All right. This is from Paul. Joe and Mal, but probably mostly Joe. My three-year-old daughter loves musicals, such as Sound of Music and Frozen. I'd love to convince her and my wife to watch something more nerd culture, but I can't think of anything. Got any recommendations? Okay, Joe.

So what would you recommend to somebody who loves musicals and is looking for some nerd culture fair? Yeah, it's interesting because I thought about this and a lot of my answers are still based in like a fantasy realm,

which is nerd culture, right? But like... But Labyrinth was the first thing came to mind, but it might be a little scary for a three-year-old or a three-year-old might be too young to be scared.

I don't know. There's like, I watch Labyrinth when I was really young. I think that counts as a musical. David Bowie sings several songs. It did not scare me, but that was in part of the scary 80s

where we watched a lot of scary shit. So it might be too scary for a three-year-old or she might just like absolutely love it. But Labrith was my first thought. And then Spam a Lot, the Monty Python musical. Hell yeah. It could be really fun. Oh, man.

And then Galavant, which was a TV series musical. that is similarly, like, sort of set in a medieval world and has, like, really fun music in every episode and is a really underrated, canceled too soon, ABC. I mean, like, no way it was going to run for a long time because it was like a medieval, a knight's tale musical kind of show. But it's really goofy and fun and has good music in it. So Gallivant would be one. And then, like, I mean, obviously people are going to say something like Dr. Horrible, but I think if something if, like, if the hammer is my penis is the best joke of your musical, it's not for a three-year-old. probably. And also we have weird region feelings. So, yeah, labyrinth, spam a lot, Gallivan. That's what I would say. But I would love to hear from people. Like a little shop of

horrors. Kind of, but again, like I watched that when I was really, really young. But again, that might be scary. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about this? Is big a musical? There's a lot of Billy Idol and there's a very memorable scene on a giant piano. So I'm not sure big is a permit for children after revisiting it. What I will say is, like, I always want to be sensitive to how sensitive people's kids are. Because, like, my nephews are really sensitive. And I, like, we try to show my oldest nephew the animated Robin Hood. And he, like, when he was really, he was young, but not, like, so young.

And, like, Sir Hiss scared. You know, so it's just sort of like, okay, you know, fine. What was your favorite cartoon to watch when you were a kid? Like, my favorite Disney animated film? I guess there are other options. But it's either Robin Hood or Sleeping Beauty. I love Sleeping Beauty. Yeah.

How about you? You used to watch Rescuers Down Under every other weekend when my sister now got to my dad's house. That was our go-to. And then when we got a little older... If you type Joanna into the gift search on Twitter, you will always get Rescuers down under Gifts. Rescuers was a great one.

And we used to watch the animated Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe quite a lot. That was part of why I always thought Turkish delight seemed delicious. It's very appealing looking in. It's not in that story. And then when we got a little older, we started watching Clueless. Oh, I was going to say, you might want to test watch this, but on the Harry Potter front. And again, like, I, it's hard to talk about Harry Potter. But anyway, on the Harry Potter front, have you ever watched the Star Kid?

Harry Potter musical? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Again, I'm not sure that a three-year-old would love Star Kid, but like the Star Kid stuff is really fun.

They're like, Aladdin musical is really, really fun. You know, so they've got a bunch of genre. They've got a Star Wars one. They've got a superhero one. Like, they've got genre musicals that you can watch on YouTube.

That might be fun for a kid. Nerd culture musicals. This is a real mashup of your many passions, Joe. But I feel like there's not enough, so perhaps there's a market. for us to get in on the ground floor. Hollywood. Call Joe. All of Hollywood.

Call me. We'll make a musical version of Back to the Future starring Tom Holland. He could do it. He's a song and dance, man. That's true. There you go. You'd be collecting your Tonys before long. Steve, do we do it? Do we have any more?

We've got one more from Josh. And he says, I'm curious which question that you'll answer from today's mailbag that you would deem this episode's secret scroll. Like the question or the person who sent in the question? I guess they're maybe related.

I'm guessing the person based on the question they ask. I will go with air quotes Jason for the IP question and the reboot, the adaptation and reboot question. Again, Hollywood calls us Zazlov. If you're interested in knowing, what to reboot or adapt, you can just ask.

You can just ask. That felt like a secret scroll one. Zaz, Collis. I'm going to go with quote unquote, Peter, Mr. Ethan Fromm and White Noise for being like, what is a book that you would recommend?

Do you what I mean? Like, that feels like an alien might ask. What are books? And should I read one? So, nice try, Peter. Yes, Secret Scroll. You think Ben Mendlson sent that one? I think Kobe Smolders in scroll makeup sent that one.

Oh boy. Steve Arino, do you have a secret scroll that you want to pick? Also, I literally never called you Steve Arrano before and I've gone it twice today. We're really trying names out today. I don't know where I got that one. I'd say quote unquote Paul because that's a very pointed musical question towards Joe. Oh, secret scroll with their secret scroll child. I see.

Yeah, secret agenda. Or the Survivor one that's very pointed towards Malin. Like, she can just riff for five minutes plus. You think that's just, you think that's just Jeff Probst looking for a crossover event? It's Mike White. It was Mike White. I mean, the dream. Literally the dream.

Okay. What a blast. What a joy. So fun. We said this is going to be a shorty and it wasn't. You know, like our beloved test said, you try climbing 10 fucking floors or answering 13 questions. with our knees. See how you feel. Thank you to all of you for hitting us up at

Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com, sending us your wonderful questions. We will do another mailbag before too long. These are always such fun. Thank you to Steve Orino, Stove himself, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Good old stove. Arjunneram Gapal, of course, for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomi Adan for his work on the social. for this episode. Remember to pop over to the prestige TV feed for our Last of Us Pods. Instry Action with Van and Charles, deep dive with us on episode three, coming on Sunday

and Tuesday nights and then head back to Ring Reverse on Wednesday for the Midnight Boys, and Friday for the House of our Mando Prep watch list. Until then, see if I can channel Joel's whisper yell here. Disappoint forward. We are silent. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families, it's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein,

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