Full Transcript for Episode 22: Cylia & Erik Plot a Callback

in the first recorded episodes, we were using like side chats with each other to be like, you need to hop in here or you know we don't seem to need that anymore. And I don't know, like I think we figured out the ebb and flow. there's also a lot less you know like pauses that that get interrupted or trounced upon. Like I th I just think that we've gotten better at the two of us have gotten better at reading and anticipating when the other one is gonna hop in. and I think that it's I think that, you know, it helps that we're doing this in a video format for the two of us as well as for for the audience that might be interested in that, because we get to pick up like the micro expressions that indicate that somebody is gonna say something. So like I can see, you know, I can pick up when I when I see you getting ready to to make a response and I don't need to I don't need to get in the way of that. So I think that w our our our our dynamic has become much more organic and it's much less we don't we don't have to we don't have to be like Your turn to talk or you should ask this. We don't we don't need to be premeditated about it. I think that we've got the we've got the instinct on it. in the same way that like you know we're thinking almost more muscle memory though than instinct. got that down. Another thing that I noticed, and this is mostly just in terms of Sirius, is that when we first recorded with Sirius, I think we'd trade I'd traded like a couple emails with him, but I hadn't talked to him much. and by the time we recorded again, I had talked to him quite a bit more and I was much more friendly with him. So I think that you can see that my dynamic with Sirius is Between our episode zero recording, which still maybe, maybe has been out. Who knows? Who can say what the future will bring? but our episode zero recording and and and then the episode twenty one. I think that's the episode that'll be with Sirius, right? Yeah. Twenty one will be will be the the it's the last episode. We can count. We know where we are. there is a a significant shift in sort of my rapport with Sirius, and I think that that's That's good. And that's and that's great. Like I I it it goes to show that I think that we we work better or at least we we have a different vibe when we're both friendlier with the guests on a personal level. I think that'll be at some point, theoretically, we're gonna run out of friends to interview. Or we just have to keep making more friends. That's what we're that's why we're going to WorldCon is to is to is to make super good friends with with people we haven't met before. Hey guys, come be our friends so you can be our guests because that currently that's our litmus. No, I I I do think it'll be interesting as we move forward, like looking forward into future seasons. as we interview relative strangers. Yeah. i i and you know, you always think about those social dynamics when you're when you're it like if if we were in real life and it was you and I meeting a person that neither of us knew very well, that new person might be just a little bit thrown off. by like that slight imbalance that you and I are so familiar and so friendly, and then they're there's sort of the odd person out in that dynamic. And I I guess I I wonder how that plays out. I've certainly experienced it, it seems like, in some of these recording episodes where there have been guests that I've known extremely well and I'm extremely friendly with. Maybe maybe even have known longer than I've known you or have known for the context of our pod in more in more detail than I've known you and it and and I could feel that dynamic shift. It certainly I think our dynamic is just a little bit different for our next guest coming next week, Katherine Valenti, because you and Kat have such history And there is just a difference you can feel a little bit. Like when there's when there's a tripod and two legs of that tripod are th this metaphor it's away from you. It's a weak metaphor to begin with. two of the legs have wheels. Two of the legs like knew each other from like the nineties and then another No. So anyway, yeah. I I think the funny I mean I'm sure we will talk about it more in our discussion episode our plotting episode for Kat's interview. Looking back, the funniest part was me trying to be chill and like not point out and she's like, We're friends. What are you doing? Stop it. Yeah. So anyway, i i i i i it's It's a it's a fun evolution, like from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. Like it is a like we are we are we have evolved in our in our in our rapport and in our methodology. One thing I noticed with our episode with Sirius that does not often happen with other guests is he turned the tables on us and asked us questions. And it's happened a couple of times, but I I think it points out like he's used to being the host. Yeah. And I appreciated that. I think he did I think it was funny. think his questions were great. and I I think I mean Sirius is a is a very, very good host and a very, very smart dude. So so having the tables turned, by Sirius. I'm gonna note that. Yeah, okay. And and and may pull that out in the future. Just for posteriority guys. Eric doesn't mind being on on the flip side of Sirius's questions. yeah, so i but also just, you know I Sirius is a fun guest, I think because i in some ways he and I have a lot in common in the sense that we pull influences from so many different spots and it's not it's not as linear I think as some of some of our other conversations have been. Some of our other conversations with people are I read this, then I read this then I read this then I read this and inspiration is a through line. And I think with Sirius and also with me it's a scatter plot. It's it's you know a lot of darts were thrown you know like it's the difference between you guys just have that comics connection too that like I mostly know comics through my spouse and through Sirius.

Like that is my comics knowledge. It's it's much more limited than my science fiction, fantasy, novel and story knowledge. Comics is a is a is a is an interesting z genre because it shouldn't be a genre, right? It should be a format. It's not a gen but it function is kind of a genre. But it's functionally a genre because when you so My experience with comics, like and I don't think this story came up when we were talking to Sirius, but this is a fun like backstory for how I got personally into comic books. the way that I got into comic books, there were like there were two dis there were like three distinct sequences of events, right? The first was there was a a movie theater in the small town that I grew up in, a single screen theater, you know, like one movie every two or three hours. My mom and my brother and I were gonna go to the movies and there was a Gap. Like we had like a we had like twenty or thirty minutes to kill before the movie. And like next door or on the same block was a comic book store. And I'd never been into a comic book store before. So we went into a comic book store and my mom said, You guys can each buy one comic book. You can each pick one comic book. And I must have been like a little treat or something. Yeah, well it was like, you know, it's like it's like, you know, get a toy, pick out a toy. It was just pick out a comic book, you know, like that'll be that'll be part of this outing. and I must have been like eight, maybe. and my like story evolution in some ways went from like huge into Star Wars, like huge, huge into Star Wars. And so like when the Star Wars movies were coming out, every gift that I ever got was Star Wars related. So I always got all the Star Wars action figures. But by the time I was eight years old, the Star Wars action figures had stopped being manufactured or were not available anymore. So you couldn't really get new Star Wars action figures. And the solution from the adults in my life when it came to birthdays and Christmas, and they made this decision without any influence from me. Like I didn't say I want this, but they they they were like, well, action figures are action figures. so they immediately just switched me over to G.I. Joe action figures. and Sirius and I, and I'm gonna take some of this and this is part of a conversation that you didn't you you you we had some technical difficulties in our recording and you dropped out and there was a good like ten minutes where Sirius and I are chatting, and one of the things that we were chatting about was our early experience with G.I. Joe action figures, and specifically the ways in which they would break and the ways in which we would fix them. and the ways in which disassembling and reassembling G.I. Joe figures in weird ways became kind of significant for both of us. but like yeah, so we we would we would like cr you know, so I would get G.I. Joe figures as gifts. And initially I was like, This is not the same thing. These are not Star Wars

characters. Like I like lightsabers, I don't like US Navy men. Like those are fundamentally different genres. But action figures, like comic books, adults figure are transferable. Like they figure that if you like one action figure, you may as well like another action figure. That is not the case for any other major format. Like if you think about a book, if you see some and maybe some adults think this for kids, for kids' books, but as an adult, you don't see somebody reading like Pride and Prejudice, and then you're like, you know what you would like is Silence of the Lambs. Like that's you're reading a book, here's another book that you will enjoy. It's a novel, here's a novel. They're interchangeable, but like that is the attitude about action figures to a certain degree. And the thing is, it's kind of true. Like you know, like it is kinda true. People that like action figures are usually like, Well, G. I. Joe figures are not the same thing as Star Wars, but they're pretty cool. So So I got G. I. Joe action figures. Fast forward to going to that movie theater picking out a comic book. I grabbed a G.I. Joe comic book because that was what I could find. Like there were Star Wars comic books, but I think all the Star Wars comic books were too expensive. And my mom was like, Not that one. You know, not those. The cheaper one. The the ones the one that's gonna cost me like seventy five cents, not the one that's gonna cost me eight dollars. So I grabbed the G.I. Joe comic book randomly, got it. And then in that G.I. Joe comic book there was an advertisement for subscribing to G.I. Joe comic books through the mail. And because I lived out in the middle of nowhere. Even to get to this movie theater was like a forty minute drive from my house. So there was an ad in the back of the G.I. Joe comic that you could order twelve issues of G.I. Joe to be delivered to your house and it'd show up in your mailbox. So I subscribed to G.I. Joe. And I got because they were cheap. Like and my parents were like, We'll do that. That's fine. It's like, you know, at that point comic books were were were very, very cheap. and so I got G.I. Joe comic books. So the first event was You know, hear G.I. Joe, it replaces Star Wars. Take that y to run. And I kinda was a G.I. Joe fan. And anybody that's read G.I. Joe comic books from the mid-80s, when a writer named Larry Hama was writing G.I. Joe knows that those were actually way better comic books than they had any right to be. They were legitimately cool comic books. Like they had they had good character development, they had interesting stories, they were pretty solid comic books. and Snake Eyes and and the Ninja stories with Storm Shadow and all that stuff, those were really cool. Those were like proto Wolverine characters for for an eight or nine year old. next event is I go to visit an aunt and uncle in Washington DC for a summer. And as a treat, while we're stuck at a little convenience store waiting for a tr subway train to show up. My aunt says, Why don't you buy a comic book off of the rack? And they didn't have any G.I. Joe comic books on that particular rack. But they had an X-Men comic book. And the art on the cover was like, okay. And so that idea that like you like G.I. Joe comic books, therefore you will like other types of comic books, was just established. So I grabbed an un an issue of Uncanny X Men. It happened to be Uncanny X Men number two eighty one, which is a significant issue, for me. and I often sneak in Easter eggs that reference this particular comic book into my books and stories. So if you ever see me refer to like UXM two eighty one, like it's like just a random serial number code for something in the back of the in the back of the book. That's me referencing Uncanny X-Men number two eighty one. which was the cute Yeah. So it's like one of my it's one of my personal Easter eggs. but Uncanny X-Men number two eighty one was significant also because it was the comic book that came out from Uncanny X-Men the same month that X Men number one, which is I think to this day is still the largest selling comic book of all time, came out. And it was and it was like the sister title to X Men. And I don't know, it was a great frickin' comic book. But once you get a comic book, people want to give you other comic books. They don't care that G. I Joe is military guys and X Men are superheroes and that in G. I Joe they're wearing fatigues and Real uniforms, or sometimes they're wearing ridiculous costumes. But in X-Men comic books, they're all wearing ridiculous costumes. and then suddenly, once you're reading comic books and you're going to a comic book store, your your your friendly local comic book guy or comic book gal or you know comic book person is not gonna is not gonna limit you by subgenre within comics. They're gonna say, you like comics, you'll like this comic. and so I think comic books this is where fundamentally I circle back to making a point. Comic books I think lend themselves to that scattershot eclectic approach to exploring different genres. Movies also are like this. like movies are are are you know like I will watch virtually any genre of a movie if it's a I j I d I'm not I'm not specific. Like some people will only want to watch romantic comedies or whatever. I'll watch anything. and I'll read any comic book. I am less willing to read any book that anybody hands me. Because books are different. How are they different? Maybe it comes down to like the time commitment. I was gonna say, I I at least for you, what I've noted is You you want to consume like you're running out of time. Yeah. And and you like y there's so much else you could be reading that I think you actually get sad and frustrated when you don't like something 'cause you're like, I could have spent my time reading something I liked. no. And and so I think it it's just viscerally disappointing to you because you feel like, Hey, I I had this budget of time allotted.

And I I wish I could get that back 'cause in general, obviously, this can vary f based on person and story, but in general reading a novel takes a lot more time than watching a movie or reading a a comic book. Yeah, yeah. I mean I you know, comic books vary, based upon how they're written and how much time you wanna spend on them. I mean, there are comic books that have no words that I still might take longer to read than a comic book To read than it might take, I'm doing rabbit ears, folks, for the video, for the non-video watchers listeners. I might spend as much time per page, you know, thinking about it as I might something that's crowded with text boxes or or captions. But yeah, comic books definitely vary, but yeah, for sure they're they're a less of a individual like f you know. within the within the comic book reading community, floppies or monthly issues are by far like they're kind of designed to be samplers. They're kind of designed to be a l to allow you to grab to grab an issue here or there. And and I remember when I started after I read Uncanny X Men number two eighty one, I was like, I like this. So I started buying other X Men comic books from the from the Spinner rack. But then I started sampling other superhero comics from Marvel. I started sampling Spider Man and Daredevil and Punisher. And then I started sampling Superman and Batman. And and all of them were were available and and for the longest time I had this section. I liquidated or sold off my my comic book collection a long, long time ago. mostly because it's just it's just so cumbersome to move, right? Like you've got You've got big long boxes. I used to have like six or seven big long boxes. I I have multiple long boxes intro boxes. I am very familiar. Yes. It's just it's it's it's it takes up a lot of space. And when I was in when I was c when I was out of college and I was moving around, I just couldn't I didn't have any place to store and I I didn't want to hold on to so I sold and when I sold them I I remember I had a section that was just these are all of the one off comic books that I bought that I either didn't buy the rest of for some reason Or I couldn't find the rest of, but like I have a random single issue of like Infinity War number four or something. and you know, and that's just the way it works out. Did you keep two eighty one? I didn't. and not only did I not keep that comic book, but that comic book was well read and pretty well pulped by the time by by the time I got rid of my comic book collection. because that comic like had traveled with me across the country and from Washington DC back to Oregon and like I think it was readable, but by even by then it was like it was it was it was a well loved comic book. but it was like a you know and I think about that every once in a while. Like if I was to buy back issues of comics, now that I do have, you know, some storage space in my home for them, that might be one that I would pick up because it has such a such a a a a a nostalgic memory for me. But also it'd be kind of disappointing to have it in like mint condition. Like in some ways. You need this the slightly worn Yeah, I kinda like that's part of the experience was that it was that the comic book was pretty beaten up. Like I don't know, like one of the things that that that that never stuck to me like and I did it to be fair. Like I wasn't I wasn't some sort of comic book reading heathen. I bagged and boarded my comics at a certain point, like everybody was pressured into doing this, but as if you're a comic book reader, because at some point in the early nineties there were enough stories that traveled around of like somebody found an old issue of Superman in the attic and it was worth enough to buy the farm. there were always there were always these little stories or and the comic book companies were happy to to encourage this. that like, if you buy this issue where Superman dies eventually you're gonna be able to buy a small country and that's not the case. Like they printed too many of those. There's people with beanie babies that are just waiting for that market to turn around. Fair. Anyway, but I but I I guess I guess I'm happy that we had Sirius on the show again because his approach to the way that he discovers things is similar to my approach the way that I discover things. I also one of the things that he said in our in our conversation that I really, really, really like and I think that he summed it up extremely well, was talking about how some reads are for a particular mood, you know, in like a particular context. And there's like a Sunday afternoon book and that's different from a Monday night book, you know. I love that. I love that that approach. Because I've been thinking, I think about that a lot. Like you say, you may you comment and it's true. I get upset when I don't like a book. And there's two reasons. One, it it does feel like I've I've I've invested time that I didn't get what I w like I didn't get the return on on the investment of time. But more significantly than that is I almost never read a book that I haven't seen somebody passionately say this is a good book. Like it doesn't matter who it is, but somebody somewhere has is enthusiastically said this is a good book and has gotten enough enthusiasm to to kind of get past that initial reticence to talk about it, to s to express, I really enjoyed this, and I am sharing this thing that I really enjoyed. And then to read it and to not enjoy that, I feel like not only have I missed some time with the book Like there's some some some frustration with like the misallocation of time with the book, but also there's a missed opportunity to connect with the person that recommended it to me. Do you ever find and and I'm asking this because in the episode you specifically said like I like whiskey fine. I love it when people who love whiskey and are passionate about it talk about it because I love the passion and learning

about what they love about it. Do you ever find a book that you bounced off initially and then heard from someone who loved it and gave it another chance? And with that window that they lent you, like telling you what they loved about it, were you able to like figure out how to like it? I don't know if it's ever gone from like dislike to like, but it's gone from, that was okay, to wow, I really appreciate that more. so it's gone from like neutral. to to to appreciating it a little bit more. like yellow to green but never red to green. Correct. maybe red to to yellow. I think I think I've gone I think I can go like one degree. I think I can move one degree. I can move from I can move from I I didn't care for this to I respect this but it's maybe not my cup of tea. and I can go from I respect this, but it's not my cup of tita. You know what? Actually, I I kinda love it now. I'm gonna I'm gonna work on expanding the scale into like a five point likert scale. Yeah, so that I and then you're you're trying you're trying to trick me into putting my books into into some sort of a rating and tracking system so that you can you can like I I I know what you're doing here, Celia. You're trying to put leash on me. It's it's not a leash, it's just a little harness with a GPS. my god. I don't wanna restrain you, I just wanna track where you're going. That's Now who's reaching for metaphors. Yeah. But also maybe slightly just a little bit revealing, so I should be afraid. I'm not I'm not gonna argue with you that. So what about you? Did you notice anything s like anything more significant in the difference between our first bout with Sirius and our second second encounter with Sirius? Like is there anything else that strikes you about the that conversation? I think we talked about slightly fewer books, which is one of the I mean, not a ton just because, again, of the scatterplot nature. and of course, like Sirius and I also have a whole other Side project going, which we link to in our YouTube and our Instagram accounts to Signal Boost. So that that took a chunk of conversation that wasn't present in the first one either. Right. Just because that's like kind of a different whole thing. what's I I think tonally though, the purpose of your and my conversations both with each other and the our interviews are different than what I do with Sirius. Like it feels more unidirectional. Like 'cause the entire point is a small snippet where I'm hyped about a story and I'm sharing it and I'm sharing why I'm hyped about it and and why what elements of it I think people will appreciate and therefore why I want them to read it, right? Whereas I'm not the at least I don't think of myself as a primary focus of our conversations. It's more relational, it's more in conversation, it's more back and forth recommendations and and we still talk about it, but it it is inherently long form because it's about the connections and the conversation more than a singular end product. Yeah. Two possibly the limitation of our listener base. our our show is is slow internet. It's it's it's not it's not the soundbite internet. We are not we are not doing we are not the TikTok of podcasts. No, we're not. And and we're we're not that on purpose. because what we're trying to offer and I it's funny because I saw I saw in Curtis C. Chen's newsletter, which I have plugged Curtis Chen's newsletter a bunch of times, but I'm gonna plug it again. 'Cause he sent out a new one because we're recording this shortly after Curtis's episode went live. and in his newsletter he's like, I know it's it's long, you know. But you know and there's an interesting thing, like there's an apology for that, like and I find myself doing it. I'm like, I'm sorry, our our podcast show is ninety minutes. On the one hand What I'm try what what I want to evoke, and maybe this is not what you want to evoke, but what I want to evoke with a show is the sense of I met up with some old friends and we started talking and then we looked at the watch and go, crap, did you notice that it's been over an hour? No, I I'm a hundred percent in that that same vein with you. I think originally we talked about it being a cross between a panel discussion and barcon in part because that those are the best wide ranging conversations where you're in the geek of it all and just super happy and talking and all of a sudden it's two in the morning and you're like, God, I'm gonna fall over, I gotta go to sleep. like that and the and I I've talked with a couple different friends about this. Like I like podcasts that it's people who like each other talking about things they like. Yeah. And like that's Like I just wanna hang out with friends. And often I like it's great because I get to hang out with my friends on this podcast, but also those are the podcasts I like to listen to. Like I'm not gonna listen to like this person was absolutely obliterated with these two sentences. Like I just don't that's not for me. And I know there's there's some like takedown podcasts and there's some like aggressive like other things or there's very sciencey research being challenged stuff. Like much like comics and music and everything else, there's a lot of subgenres of podcasts, right? Just because like you like one format. One one podcast does not mean you like all other podcasts. So it's also about like what do we like and what do we want to add to in this form. And I think the way that Sirius approaches like finding media is the same way that we approach talking about media, which is that like we might just go out and grab something that's completely suddenly random. Like it might seem it might seem and then what we're trying to do is we're trying to to to to to give sometimes l long winded explanation as to how those things are maybe not as different as you maybe thought that they were, that there are connections there and that and that maybe there are also connections to to other things that you haven't

thought about. And so, I'm I'm much more inclined to think of our of our of our podcast as like a You know, I write the descriptions f for for the episodes when we upload them and I have to distill it down, but it's almost always just we talked and we we had a good conversation and we covered a lot of material and maybe suddenly in the middle there we we talked about tripods for some reason. like I'm like got hung up on the metaphor of a tripod, you know. But like that's part of like the it's the difference between like you know, it's like Google Maps has enabled everybody to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way pop possible. And if there's traffic along the way, we know to take a different route to get there the most efficient way possible. We are not trying to be the Google Maps of anything. We're trying to take the scenic route to all of these conversations because isn't life too much Google Maps anyway? Like aren't aren't we aren't we all so so single direction all the time? Isn't there some value in in sampling and smelling the roses, so to speak? I also thinking about the conversation with Sirius, it I did notice that I was let me check my note. I was viciously attacked on my non writer identity. Was it vicious? Literal literal note that I wrote down at the time. Was it all that vicious? it was with the best of intentions. It was not light and fluffy. It was not a throwaway line. It was multiple minutes of interrogation and unpacking. I'm sorry about that. Like I No no that's not to request an apology. It is an observation. Well, no, because I think that it's fair. I think it's fair to apologize for that because I think You know, in all of the things that we that we're doing on this show, there's always this sort of very excited, you know, like I want to tell you about something. my one of my f I think my absolute favorite, like, internet story of the last several years is when a Twitter user named with a with with a Twitter handle Bigelus Dicolus promoted Promoted stupid. Promoted to their it's to their s to their Twitter feed, How to Lose the Time War by by Max Gladstone and Amal Elmotar in a very like big list diculous way in a way that turned the book into kind of a a a best seller again. You know You're familiar you're familiar with this story, right, Celia? You've never you've not heard about the Bigelus Dickelus story? This is just such a fantastic story. It's ba like I'm gonna tell me the lore. I'm gonna have to look up the exact I'm gonna have to look up the exact details of this. Because I've talked to Max about it and Max is like, I don't know how that happened. It's a very All of a sudden there was a sales spike and they try tried to trace the breadcrumbs and landed on the account called Bigelisticolus. It was ha pretty obvious when it started happening because it did go very quick. There was a quick a a very okay, so there is a there is a like Amal posted something on her webpage, the twelve days of Bigelisticolus. and Is you know, and it's just as far as I can tell, and I'm just gonna read some of this from a mall's content, as far as I could tell, someone going by the name Bigelus Dicolus Wolfwood runs a fan account for a nineties anime called Trigun, which was recently rebooted and tweet about loving the time loving Time War with imperative enthusiasm, and somehow over the course of twenty four hours, that tweet went viral with people chiming in to say how much, how passionately, how violently they love the book, and it blew up. And despite the fact that Twitter does not sell books, there was some I did some some finger quotes there. enough people bought our book in a short enough period that whatever algorithmic alchemy determines Amazon's best sellers took notice, and the upshot of it all is that corporate marketing people at Simon and Schuster now know the name Bigelus Dicolus. and it and it fully went like viral and what I remem and she posts the the original tweets which was all lowercase read this period do not all caps look up anything about it lowercase just read it it's only like two hundred pages you can download it on audible it's only like four hours do it right now I'm very extremely serious And that got hundreds of th that got like hundred thous over a hundred thousand interactions. Well over a hundred thousand interactions. And it led to the book kind of having a a minor resurgence. I am a fan of the book. have you read How to Lose Yeah, it's a great book. It's a fantastic book. Everybody should read it. Also, Amal and Max are great people. Like, it could not have happened to a nicer couple of writers and a better book. Like it wasn't like it wasn't like somebody being like, read this and it was like a book by a jerk or a crabby book. It's a great book by a couple of great authors that was fully sincere. And so my point being that there is the the that that I was bigalus dicklessing you. You can't I can I just k You guys on the podcast the other day, Eric Bingel is dickest me. I can't that is not a s I don't know what that sentence is so weird. But like that was you know, like in that conversation about writing and us being like encouraging you, that was me being like, I'm very extremely serious, Celia. It's great. You know, just do it. And so I think that there is something extremely relatable about that sort of unbridled enthusiasm to go out to your Trigon anime fan friends and say, you know, like rate this book, and in my case it was my cop my my podcast co host You know what's great is writing your story. And so like I apologize in the sense that like that is more about me than it is about you. It is more about my love and my fan like to a degree, like in a weird way, I am not a fan in a way that I would consider a fan of virtually anything. Like it's just not it's not the way that I interact with with with Sori. I don't I don't I wouldn't put myself like a fan. I'm a fan of people, like individual people, but they're

usually like my friends. I'm a fan of like individual things, but I I I'm I'm rarely a fan. I am a weird super fan of writing as a as a thing, like as an exercise. Like when it comes to like creative output. So less than story output than telling your story, then the process then Yeah, the process. Like it's it's it's I've so it's it's like one of those people that's like, you know what, I I for the first time had proper hydration. You really need to be properly hydrated. You know, and like that that like fervent that fervent like you'll never believe how great it is when you drink enough water over the course of the day, how well it makes how good it makes you feel. I'm like, you'll never believe how good it is to feel the freedom and the rush of going through that process of sharing your story, even if it's only with yourself. So that's more about me Telling you that Bigolus Dicolus wants you to drink more water. I don't I don't you guys, I'm sure it has a really profound history that went into that Twitter name, but I just every time every time I hear it. It's a name it it is a name I think of a character f or a reference to a character from that Trigon anime. It's not like a I don't It's not in reference to the life of Brian Monty Python skid. Honestly, that's what I thought, but yeah, I don't know. I Some things in this world are too pure, and Bigelus Dicklus is one of them. It's too pure to understand. It's too pure to like really to really understand. Then to tarnish with my prurient snickers. yeah, if you're listening to this don't just Google Bigelus Dickelus. That's a don't do it. Guys, the the internet's so weird. Don't don't do that out of nowhere. But check out how to lose the time war and specifically look up Amal's write up on it. I'm pretty sure Max probably wrote something about it too. But like yeah, it's definitely like that's one of the best it's like such a wholes it's like a wholesome internet story that's so uncommon anymore. Because it's much more likely that that like on the internet anymore somebody is like you know this you know I Jimothy, are you familiar with Jimothy Celia? The this the long legged round raccoon in Chicago? Why yes I am. Seattle, not Chicago. Seattle. Seattle, sorry. Gosh, you're gonna get you're gonna get yourself banished from the Pacific Northwest. But like my expectation would be based on my experience with the internet, is that everybody's gonna be like, I love Jimothy, I love Jimothy, and then somebody is gonna pipe up with the thing that's gonna go viral that'll be like, Did you know Jimothy actually embezzled money from a children's cancer, you know, tyranny? And then and then that's what's gonna go viral. Yeah. Did you see that video? And and Bigelus Dicolus, to my knowledge, and maybe this is just it's it's so It's so perfect. You don't want to know. Like so but it but it was but it was a very it was a very wholesome, wonderful moment of the latter days. Like the very latter days of when Twitter was capable of those of such things. So before yeah, before I left, before the mass exodus. and and that is that is what the inspiration I think is whenever I'm encouraging you to to to to you know, check in with with your with your muses. is is more about like, this is so good for me. I've had such a good thing experience with this. I want to encourage it for others. Like, I'm really big on encouraging people to go to therapy and exercise on a regular basis. And hydrate. And some of those things You know, sometimes I'll recommend like, you should go to therapy and then somebody will can respond to me on the internet and say, like, but one time I had a therapist that stole money from those cancer children. And so you know, like they're gonna milkshake duck therapy. Or you know, like must be nice. Callback. Not my therapist, guys. she's great. I I I hear you. I was not looking for an apology. I am grateful that you d you self disclosed where it was coming from. I think it's really about for me and often you know, if I try and be really careful just because I know that I'm a little nerdy, know it all. And often I really try to not give recommendations unless people ask me for them. And often if a friend is talking about something or it seems like it's a complaint, I'll say, Are are you looking for support or recommendations just to help me navigate like what mode I'm trying to shove my brain into? Because the very easy, wide, paved road for me is the recommendation road. And I that's often my apologies. I'm so sorry, I went down recommendations and and that maybe wasn't what you were looking for. I think I like unpacking why or why I do not like things or why I I am or am not drawn to things, which is what I was trying to do in the moment is like, all right, I'm saying no, but why am I saying no? What is the thing? And it was helpful that it was with two friends who know me really well. And like Sirius accurately mentioned, like, you're really busy. No wonder you don't have extra brain for this. Maybe when you do have extra brain, don't shut that door. And I think that is a fair ask. Yeah, I I often wonder, I know a lot of people who came to to writing more seriously. during Seriously. Uh-huh. But came to writing came to writing with a little bit more intentionality during the pandemic shutdowns. There are a number of people who who joined the community at that point. and there are also a number of people that that maybe were that found their way to writing in college or high school or a different time in their life, when they did have more free time. And I and I think that We talked about this last time about like the ebbs and flows of things. and I think that one of the th one of the things that you miss out on by not building in fallow periods for yourself is you miss out on those doors that you might not think to go through, or might not have the energy or even the enthusiasm to go through until you finally have nothing to do but go

through them. a lot of you know, a lot of I think Sirius's story, even about how he you know, how we came to reading books was I was grounded and I wasn't allowed to watch TV, but there were books. Yep. and you know, maybe you maybe you don't go through you know, you don't fall in love with books until until, you know, you have the you have the space to do so and maybe you're funneled that direction. Maybe you find yourself suddenly writing a story because you you go to an Airbnb and The power goes out and you only have like a candle, you know, and your laptop, no internet to distract you. And it's in that it's in that fallow period where you have no other option but to exist alone with your with yourself that you find that thing. And then you can kind of carry that fallow enthusiasm with you later. But how many writers would start writing if they never had that opportunity to just stare at a blank Page without pressure. What human creativity could do in a post capitalist society is amazing to think about to me. The the art we could create if we didn't have to sell our time and bodies and selves for commerce so we could exist and live and pay mortgages and rent and buy food, right? Like that itself is a whole other that's another of our podcast spin-offs. I also talk communism, you know. Eric and Silia's left. Or at least a so socialist I dem demo democracy. I I also think about though like I'm already like I've had retirement consultations and I recently updated my prospective retirement To move up by five years, which is amazing. And I'm already thinking, like, that's not that's still relatively young. That's only 15 years away for me. And like, I could have a whole second career. I could look at exist I actually was talking with a friend last night at at your house about like I could actually, if I wasn't worried about The dollars coming in to feed and house my family, I could have a whole other career in book nurtery space. That sounds amazing. Whether that's as an editor or as a collaborator or as a writer or whatever the thing is, right? Like that sounds really appealing to me. And I am so ruthlessly practical that it for me, that in the same way that you don't want to spend time on things that aren't worth it from a consumption of story perspective. I'm that way with generating money right now. Like I I need to support my family and myself in this capitalist world that we're currently living in. And therefore, I'm gonna be ruthless with where I spend my time. Currently, this podcast, the reason I'm spending so much time on it is it is worth. The lack of money. In fact, it is currently a negative cash outflow. It's a cash outflow, not inflow. And a hundred percent worth it. It's been amazing. I'm I've been reflecting to people how much I like laugh and smile and I'm it's just it's it is truly refilling my cup in a way that makes the rest of my life better. So hey Eric, thanks for that. Thanks for doing this project with me. ditto friend. I

want we will talk a lot more I think about our overall thoughts on this podcast and some of the some of our what we've learned and and what we've gained and maybe some of the challenges that we've had. we have a plan for that's our twenty fifth episode for for season one. That's that's an all in plotting. It's like plotting all of season one. and that's gonna come out the the I think it's the last Tuesday. of September. So that will be the the official like our our last interview is next week. That's with Catherine Valenti. we'll discuss our conver we'll we'll have a a regular plotting episode after that and then one more after that to talk about the entire season. and that's w we're gonna we're gonna be you know Gushy and emotional and like yeah, it's gonna be like the last it's gonna be like the last Taya Camp. Like it's one of those like because the thing is is that like even though even though Syl and I will continue to be friends and we'll still see each other and we're gonna do a second season, unless, you know, who knows what happens between now and then, but our plan is to do a second season. Our plan is to have a second season, right? But you can't, you know, like how do you make God laugh? Make a plan. so you know, th the the intention for sure is to is to to do a second season. And we're certainly even if we didn't do a second season, we're gonna see each other all over the place. It's still gonna be like the last day of camp. And we're still gonna kinda have some some real sappy conversations. So you're gonna wanna have your handkerchiefs ready for that one. for the last I will have a box of Kleenex right next to me. And if you watch it on on on video, I cannot promise that there won't be Just unbridled sincerity in our faces and whatever way that manifests. I think I think I think we're not spoiling it to say that that this has been a good experience for us and I hopefully for the guests that we've had. So What have you been reading, Celia? What a great segue, Eric. I have been gearing up for my vacation time to go to WorldCon. And so I've only read three stories since we talked a little more than a week ago. and two of them were fairly short. So I have read The River That Ran Away to Paradise by Victoria Goddard. She is the author, and it takes place in the same world as The Hands of the Emperor, which I've recommended to multiple people, particularly in my board gaming group. And we have a whole sub thread of I always post one she sh she self-published, and so I'm part of her Discord, so I always see when her her stories come out. I also read a non-speculative fiction book called Madison Square Murders by C.S. Poe. So one of the things we haven't really excavated a lot in this episode is I like a procedural and a cozy murder. yeah. So like my spouse will find cozy murder shows for me to watch. Yeah, I love I love I love nothing makes me feel better than watching somebody get murdered. For me it's more the solving of the murder. No,

no, I hear ya, I hear you. Like for sure. so this was It's for TikTok. So yeah, I have to make the jokes. I have noticed sometimes you'll like make a joke and if I don't react to it, you'll like double down. You're like, I need you to hear this. No, no, I need the response. Everybody g everybody in my life gets that same behavior. I want you to know that. That's that's I was trying to be special, Eric. Thanks. Thanks for that. Okay, so Madison Square Murders by C S Poe is the first in her a series of them. I really wanted to start reading the others, but I'm trying to read all the other things I'm reading. But this series is going in my to read pile for sure. it is just a couple of queers on the police for solving murder and it's lovely and it explores trauma, but it's also about how how to support people and how to show up and be together and also The the primary detective is assigned to cold cases and an act of love for him is remembrance. And that to me just like I just got chills just saying it, like Gosh, there was that Marvel movie, like what is grief but love persisting? Like it is the when you remember things, when you remember people, that is in some ways an act of devotion. And that to me is really special. And so that it really touched me. I really, really liked the book. I'll have to check that one out. and then a little collection of short stories by Celia Lake, called A New Landscape, which accompanied her last book release called Brave Truth. So that was my little palette cleanser after the gruesome murders. I needed some cozy. even after the Cozy Murder, sometimes I still need a palette cleanser. currently I am reading an audiobook for We Are Many, the second book in the Bobiverse. Okay. I am also that's by Dennis Taylor and it's narrated by Ray Porter. wow. I think Ray Porter's becoming one of the like I'm gonna give a book a chance if it's narrated by him. He's just so good. I am about 80% of the way through Dungeon Crawler Carl, which is my first foray into lit RPGs. It has a little bit of crossover with old school portal fantasy. Like like it's a very much a science fictional stat heavy take on it, but it reminds me of some older book series like Guardians of the Flame, like or did you ever watch that Dungeons and Dragons animated series, cartoon? Yeah, the or the classic, you know. Yeah. Where they're like playing D and D and then they get sucked into D and D world. Right. so it's definitely a different logic structure, but it feels very much the same. and then I'm reading another not just not speculative but non fiction book. this is a little bit connected to my day job life is synaptic self, how our brains, our brains become who we are by Joseph Ledoux. So it's about neurons and synaptic connections and it's I'm only like 10% in, it's a little, you know, denser. But like in my past life I supported neurology and research in neurology. And so I I often find these kinds of things really fascinating, particularly when you start looking at the structural underpinnings of selfhood. And then next up I'm saving. For my travels to WorldCon is Robert Jackson Bennett's A Trade of Blood, which is the third in his Anna and Din series because it did just come out. I did pre-order it, and it's like a little treat I'm saving for myself for the travel because I really love that series. Yeah, I absolutely love that series. It's one of my it's also a two a must read for me. I am seventy-five percent through that book. nice. So it'll be in the list you're about to give me. Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure you're gonna enjoy it. I'm certainly enjoying it. So I can't wait at WorldCon to talk to you about it. Yes. do you want your assignment now or do you want to share your book list with me first? Why don't we why don't we do with the assignment now? All right, so while this is not in the donut hole. of your speculative fiction in terms of like classic. It is a banger and or Ceres mentioned it in our conversation with him. So City of Brass by S. A. Shakrabordi. It's real good. Yeah, it's been on my it's been on my on my radar. I've just you know sometimes it requires somebody nudging for me to put it up towards the top. Well I'm also noticing I literally put this stack of books here to bring to your place and totally forgot to bring that to your place this weekend. If only if only we see each other more often. I will not care slep them down to WorldCon. I will smart do it as a follow up. Awesome. I'm looking forward to that one. I've I that there was a new book in that series fairly recently too, right? Yeah. So I think I think that's another reason why it's been top of mind because I think somebody was talking about reading the new book from that series. I th I think so. Okay. Sirius was talking about having read it and then is now re listening to it as an audio book, and that's what got us in our in our our conversation, the the description of how narrators bring a whole different aspect to stories. Alright, I'm looking forward to reading that one. So, my reading. I've I've finished two projects and they were both ones that I mentioned our last time, so they were things that were either in flight or in or in the queue. I did finish Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, which is a banger of a book. It is a fantastic book. yeah, I I loved it. I mean I I l I I I extremely enjoyed the other Octavia Butler book that I read. But this one is something else. Like this one is this one is a hell of a a hell of a read. and yeah, I just sometimes when I read a book like this, I I feel this like, dang, why didn't I get to it sooner? and that's definitely like my feeling with this. Like there's a world in which I read this at like sixteen or seventeen and I kinda wish that that that had happened, but I you know The best time to read this book would have been when I was sixteen or seventeen, and the second best time is as soon as I could get to it. And this was We need to tell John Wiswell that he was right.

Yeah, no, I mean John John was right. Hashtag, you know, like John Wiswell was right. I think that we'll get that we'll get that trending pretty quickly. and then I I finished my reread of The Thief of All Ways by Clive Barker, because I had asked you to read it and I and I like to make sure that I like to make sure that when I when I when I make that recommendation, I don't reread the book and go like, no. You need like an escape hatch. Like you need to. There's something in there. Well, and also just because I've wanted to to revisit Clive Barker because Clive Barker was such a such a a big influence on me. but also one might say a core influence. Yeah, core influence on me. Yeah. w one of the things that's I don't talk about this much, but I have a pretty bad memory for about f four years of of a particularly turbulent time in my life. and that was the time in my life when I read most Clive Barker books. So while I remember reading them and I remember enjoying them, actually maybe more like six years of of just Swiss cheese. memory. and it's it's a thing, folks, I'm not you know, it it's a thing that happens. but my memory for those six years, like I remember enough that like I can recount where I was, but it's like those memories are all in like weird black and white. like I remember the things that happened and I remember the emotional responses, but I don't always remember the details. And it's particularly weird when it comes to books. Because I remember reading a book and enjoying the book and I remember like ten percent of the of the content, but I don't always remember the rest. and so that's one of the reasons why why I want to go back and I wanna revisit those books that I know meant so much to me emotionally. And even like i I've even done this with movies, you know, like because it's the same kind of thing. Like there's just time period for me. I don't Yeah, you know, like it's it's a s it's a self defense mechanism, I'm sure. yeah, I'm memory encoding and the human brain is extremely adaptive and it does those things on purpose. So, there are books that I read during during like the you know, the literal donut hole of my of my life experience. And The Thief of All Ways was one of them. I remember really enjoying it and Clive Barker in particular. and I'm glad that I reread The Thief of Always and it and it reaffirmed for me that like, yep, I I do love that book. It's a fun book. It's not I mean, it's not like it wouldn't knock my socks off maybe now as much as it did then, but books are context driven. Yep. Like I'd already read it once and Well imagine someone reading Lord of the Rings now and like, that's so derivative. It's like, no, no, no, that's the OG. Yeah, so so stuff like that. So those two I finished. and as I mentioned, I'm about seventy-five percent into the into trade of blood. I I did immediately cut in line, I think from from what was next up, which is still my my current like on deck Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling is still the next book that I'm gonna go to. And then after that I actually have the second book in the Vercossagan saga. the the first, you know, I guess the first miles for Cossing and Book. So that will be immediately thereafter. those two are are the next two that I'm gonna hit. and hopefully we'll be hitting those. I'll probably be r in ingesting one of those two on the way to and from WorldCon. So those are those are what I'm working on now. And I think in my queue actually I I you know, you you we we we kinda did some mutually assured Ray Bradbury in our last plotting episode. So I've got holds coming up from the library for for some Ray Bad Bradbury stuff. I d I can't explain why I feel particularly urgent to check that out, but I I feel like a strange urgency. Like that's just something I wanna With Ray Bradbury? I don't know why. I just I think I just heard about it enough times recently that I'm like, you what? You're like tipped over. It's time. I just want to get there. I also I will also say go ahead. just for our listeners, the next book in the Verkossigan saga is The Warrior's Apprentice. And that's where you meet adult Miles Verkossegan. And also, you know, in my Holtz list from the library includes some other books that we've we've talked about. that we have coming up. So I've also got I've got both Ray Bridbury, the one that I assigned you and the one that you assigned me, and then Canticle for Librewitz, and then the next Octavia Butler book in the in the Liliths Brood Orxenogenesis series. and then my assignment for you, and this is you know, I've always adhered to the chaos method of of giving the books, which is just like sometimes I'm gonna give you horror and sometimes I'm gonna give you something else. the particular inspiration for this one was that I looked back at our show notes from the episode zero with with Sirius and I saw that in that episode one of the books that we talked about but we did not one of the books or authors that we talked about in that episode zero that we didn't talk about when when we when we revisited the conv when we when we Sirius back on, is G. Willow Wilson. and so G. Willow Wilson is a is a is a writer that I became familiar with as a comic book writer first, because she wrote some some some Vertigo comics that I remember being familiar with. And then she also is the one of the creators of the more modern Kamala Khan Miss Marvel character. which is, you know, they made a Disney series for and and was sort of i is a big deal. It's a great character, a great great comic. but G. Willow Wilson has also written several standalone maybe several three or four, maybe more than that. Yeah, I I was familiar with G. Willow Wilson from A Leaf the Unseen. Yeah. So there's there's a And that was before She started working in the the Marble series. So yeah, it's Yeah, it was pre pre Miss Marble. So she's done she's done other things. My funny G Will Will Olson story, and I teased this to Celia

before we started recording, was I had a professor at the University of Oregon when I was a student back in the twenty plus years ago time period, who who I don't know if he's still doing it, but for a while he was he was running the like a comics sub department. inside the University of Oregon, like inside the English department. and I was at Emerald City Comic Con several years ago. I wanna say probably like ten years ago. and my professor, who I haven't seen since I was in school, is sitting at a table, not at like an official booth, but is like sitting at like a like off to the side, kind of having like a private conversation. with G. Willa Wilson, who I recognized because because I'd seen photos of her, her author photo and stuff from interviews. And I was familiar with her work. I was a fan of her work already. it was I think it was pre Miss Marvel or it was like early enough that she wasn't she she hadn't quite gotten Miss Marvel famous yet, in comic book community. And I see the two of them and I make a beeline to them, right? Like with this intensity of like a fan going to seek an autograph from somebody. And G. Willa Wilson, logically, is thinking Like this person is coming to harass me, maybe in a positive way. And kind of does like a a slight shifting of of like, now I should be prepared to interact with a fan. And it's like hi and says hi to me and I'm like, hey, I'm here to talk to him. And I've wanted my professor. And it was like like I don't know that it was I certainly wasn't like trying to to to like snub G Wan. You weren't trying to like let her down. But I was like I was like, I'm here to talk to my professor and I wanna sit down and geek out with my professor for a while. Like I go back with this guy, like, you're great, love your work. But right now I'm here to talk to this guy. And it like 'cause nobody else in that comic book convention was like seeing my old University of Oregon professor and making a He didn't have a signing cue. Yeah. No, he didn't. And it's just like I just I love that my my my interaction with G. Willow Wilson is, yeah, you're great. Sh shh I'm gonna talk to him. You know, like I'm gonna talk to this other person. Like what like In some ways it boggles the mind that somebody that I was a legitimate fan of and was impressed with, I I was but I was still so much more excited. it that that's how you navigated that particular But I was I mean this was a this was a significant professor for me and I wanted to talk to my professor. So it was just sort of it's kinda funny. At any rate, my favorite G. Willow Wilson book, and G. Willow Wilson came up with the way I have a tie in to Bring It Full Circle Bring It Full Circle. Sirius has a Sirius Slack Pack panel at Rose City Comic-Con, the Portland Comic-Con upcoming, I think early autumn, coming up soon. And I I I hopefully it will have already happened by the time this episode is released in the time travel of podcasting. And I believe he's trying to outreach

to G. Willow Wilson to see if she can join them. So So Rose City Comic-Con happens on September 11th through the 13th. I think this episode will actually air maybe the the week before, like that Tuesday before. So for any Portland local listeners, you should go check out Rose City Comic-Con and check out serious. Slack pack with Sirius Black. And you absolutely should. Rose City Comic Con has been doing great has been making great strides to support a literary track. I I have several friends that have been doing it. in fact I have I have at least one friend that's coming down to do Rose City Comic Con that I'll probably be meeting up with afterwards. It's not just a comic book show though it is also a great comic book show. It's also a great literary like if you're into books, Powell's will have signings. Powell's books are a local big independent bookseller will have signings with some great authors and there will be some programming. It's great. To the assignment, my favorite G. Willow Wilson book is called The Bird King. and it's a fantastic book that has it takes place, Right. around the time period that there is like a changeover between God, this is where my history is gonna get all mong mangled. it's it's basically like there's a shift of of conquest over the I part of the Iberian Peninsula between between Catholic Spain spa Spaniards and and and Muslims coming and back and forth. So there's there's there's a l there's a there's an interesting culture clash that's happening between between the two between the two empires. and there's a main character that kinda gets caught in the middle of this between these Catholic interrogators coming after them and and it's it's it's a it's an extremely cool book. and I there are a couple of elements of it that are that I think are particularly interesting when it comes to story and and mythology and and and the stories that we tell. So it's a it's a it's I think it's a great book and I think you'll like it. A a quick search. Tells me that the Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula Peninsula called Al Andalus. the Muslim conquest was in around seven hundred common era and lasted until the fall of Grenada in almost fifteen hundred. Yeah. And so this takes place in I think fifteen hundred. I think it is in fact it is. So when it was actually from the the Al Andalas back into Catholic power. Yeah, so it's set in f and I'm reading now I'm reading them the blurb a little bit of the blurb, which is it's set in nineteen forty one during the final days of the Muslim Emirate in Granada. It follows Royal royal concubine Fatima and mapmaker Hassan as they flee the Spanish Inquisition using Hassan's magical ability to alter reality. It is a it is a it is a great read, in my opinion. and I think that you're gonna love it. I mean that this this book like sometimes I'm giving you books that are like these are these are challenging and we'll see whether or not you like This one is just like a I can't believe you haven't read this book yet, so you're gonna love it. It's just a simple this is just a simple this is a simple like this is just a simple like I have zero doubts in the world that you're just gonna enjoy this book. generally speaking like I'm shocked. I like this wasn't even on my radar. It's a great book. I got it I think I got it like I I don't know what why I picked it up. I mean I'm a fan of Jeet Willow Wilson's, but I I I don't know what inspired me to make it the top of my read pile when I did, but I did and I cruised through it super fast and I loved it. So it's a it's a great book and I and I'm excited for you to get a chance to read it. and I I think that any of our listeners It's it's a it's a book that I w I I recommend like widely and broadly to people. people that don't like fantasy or maybe don't enjoy fantasy enough, there's a lot of history and philosophy and and stuff going on in the book that you maybe won't feel as overwhelmed. and for people who like fantasy there's certainly plenty of that. it's just a it's just a really human, interesting, compelling book. It's got a enough layers to satisfy a a swath of people. Yeah, I think it's I think it's I think it's I think I have a feeling you're gonna very much enjoy it when you get an opportunity to read it. good, thank you. All right. We did it. So next week, folks, next week, it's our final interview of the season. And it's Catherine Valenti. And it's a good one. And I'm very excited for people to see it. And then after that, we only have two more plotting episodes left. And then season one is in the can. and as mentioned, we may have some bonus episodes that come out between the end of season one and the beginning of season two, which will probably be in the April time frame, but we aren't sure yet. We're we're trying to be flexible in part because we actually are gonna be kinda as much as we're trying to be followed during this period, we're actually gonna be kinda busy because Eric has a book coming out in March. Yeah, I do. so if you would like to make sure that you don't miss any of our special releases, you can follow us on Instagram. You can subscribe as a no cost patron on Patreon. you'll also get my sassy little side notes in the book lists and pictures of my bookshelves that I always put in our book lists on Patreon should you you choose to subscribe in that way. of course there are supporting the pod tiers in that but it is not necessary to see much of our content although during the follow period we are likely to load subscriber tier exclusive content just to to keep things to to help reward those who are choosing to support us in that way. Absolutely. So we've got great stuff coming up. and then Celia and I are gonna just a little just a little rest. May take a couple naps. Just just just a just a bit. But we'll be back and we're excited. We're excited for the future. Until next time everybody, keep reading. You've been listening to Connect the Plots with Silly and Eric. Thanks. Please connect with us on social media. We're Connect the Plots Pod on Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky. You can also support us and gain access to exclusive content on our Patreon. That's it, patreon.com forward slash ConnectThePlots Pod all spelled out. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.