Episode 18: Bunny Trails

We go down various rabbit holes as we talk the upcoming Nancy Drew musical, early 2000's flash games for the girlies, Mattel vs Bratz, and why Gabe likes the horror genre.
Flash Games referenced can be found at www.numuki.com

You can send in your local tea to: nosidequests@gmail.com
Twitter: twitter.com/nosidequests
Instagram: instagram.com/nosidequests/?hl=en
Twitch: twitch.tv/nosidequests
Discord: discord.gg/MYkWFBwKnm

sweetie_potat
Twitter: twitter.com/sweetie_potat
Twitch: twitch.tv/sweetie_potat
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sweetie_potat

nenyaadamas
Twitter: twitter.com/nenyaadamas
Instagram: instagram.com/nenyaadamas/?hl=en
Twitch: twitch.tv/nenyaadamas
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nenyaadamas

Transcript

00:00:09:27 - 00:00:19:00
Gabe
What's up, fellow Questers! Welcome back to another episode of I Don't Believe in Side Quests, where we love to remind you that every Side Quest is somebody else's main quest. I'm Gabe.

00:00:19:02 - 00:00:19:23
Lauren
I'm Lauren.

00:00:21:11 - 00:00:30:27
Gabe
Let's do some catch up. What's happening this week for us? I have nothing. How's yours been?

00:00:30:27 - 00:00:52:21
Lauren
I'm going off to the wedding in two days. So my life has been just, like, getting ready, packing. I picked up my bridesmaid dress yesterday so I could go on that and just trying to get my wedding. My best friend's wedding in Montana that I did The Bachelorette for. Yeah.

00:00:53:11 - 00:00:54:01
Gabe
That's right. Yeah.

00:00:54:02 - 00:01:32:16
Lauren
Finally here, the wedding is finally happening. She got engaged at the same time as I did. And just like due to venue and other shenanigans, they waited kind of an extra year to get stuff down. So anyway, so we're finally here. It's finally wedding time. So, yes, second stint as maid of honor. That's rock and roll. I like realized in just a rush I was like doing my skin care on Saturday and I was just like, Oh my goodness, I have to do the maid of honor speech at this wedding.

00:01:34:06 - 00:01:36:26
Gabe
So you'd probably do anyway.

00:01:36:29 - 00:01:46:11
Lauren
So that's what I've been doing in any mirror that I walk past is trying to, like, talk through and work my way through.

00:01:46:16 - 00:01:47:15
Gabe
I think you'll rock it

00:01:48:25 - 00:01:56:04
Lauren
I I'm excited. Really good. I've talked myself through a few, so I know the direction I want to go. I just have to nail down my verbiage.

00:01:56:29 - 00:01:57:17
Gabe
Mm hmm.

00:01:58:16 - 00:02:00:09
Lauren
Kind of make a little script for myself.

00:02:01:04 - 00:02:16:04
Gabe
Then I'll be fine. Just imagine everybody in their underwear frames and not what we're supposed to do. Yeah, that's what I was always told. When you go off to do a speech, just picture from in their underwear at.

00:02:16:04 - 00:02:17:01
Lauren
The base, like.

00:02:17:01 - 00:02:17:17
Gabe
Okay.

00:02:17:29 - 00:02:52:04
Lauren
You want to picture that everyone else is as uncomfortable or awkward or nervous or self-conscious as you are, so that you feel more confident and that you're like, Oh, now I'm the one who has it together in this room, so I'm going to keep going, keep rocking. Now, I don't know how that ended up, people being without clothing, because I feel like a lot of people have similar reactions of just like I don't know how I feel about that.

00:02:52:04 - 00:02:56:00
Lauren
That does not inspire me to do my best work.

00:02:56:20 - 00:03:00:04
Gabe
But yeah.

00:03:00:04 - 00:03:18:07
Lauren
I think fundamentally, just like picture or just understand that everyone else is like, oh my gosh, I wish I was not up on that stage. She's doing amazing. I'm so glad it's not me. Is more of the mentality there.

00:03:19:08 - 00:03:29:25
Gabe
I feel like I blacked out for any speech I've ever had to do or like public talking because honestly, I don't remember it. I don't know how I got up there and did it, just that I did it. Oh, totally.

00:03:29:25 - 00:03:56:25
Lauren
So that's what I did a lot of theater when I was younger and yeah, 100% I would just I would walk off the stage and be like, Oh, but again, I don't know what happened. Said my lines. Because, yeah, if you have like get out your script, do something else and you're just fully prepared and you just really just like a sport, you're swinging a bat, you're not trying to overthink what's going on.

00:03:56:25 - 00:04:22:10
Lauren
You're trying to just we're just going to do it. We've trained for this. We're ready to go. So in some gaming news, so there's a Nancy Drew musical that is being announced and being worked upon. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like the Nancy Drew show now. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why there is all of a sudden this interest.

00:04:22:10 - 00:04:39:29
Lauren
I mean they've recently done I'm it doesn't sound like it's going to be a jukebox musical, which is what my greatest fear was. So that's good because they've been doing a lot of jukeboxes, like with Clueless, they did a jukebox mix, they've been doing kind of pop culture, jukebox musicals.

00:04:40:13 - 00:04:42:04
Gabe
It's been a little trendy, mean.

00:04:42:27 - 00:04:55:10
Lauren
So Jukebox Musical is is using music that has not been written for it. So for example, they did Clueless.

00:04:55:10 - 00:04:56:19
Gabe
Added stuff.

00:04:57:12 - 00:05:06:25
Lauren
And they did not add new stuff they use like pop songs from the nineties. So it's just like if the radio is on, you know, like, yes.

00:05:07:05 - 00:05:18:16
Gabe
That's what I am. Yeah, it's adding new like different. So obviously it doesn't have to be a new written song. I just mean like it's new to what the musical is, was I know what you're saying. Like it's.

00:05:19:20 - 00:05:38:00
Lauren
Yeah. So I was, I was just concerned that they were going to do, they were going to have like Ariana Grande songs or something in Nancy Drew because they I know they're doing a Disney Princess one with all Britney Spears songs. So anyway, I was just concerned about.

00:05:38:00 - 00:05:55:07
Gabe
The jukebox situation, but there's never been a Nancy Drew musical before, has there? Correct. Right. So then if it's never had music written for it, how could it be a jukebox musical? Okay.

00:05:55:07 - 00:06:23:00
Lauren
I was sensing we were not on the same page, so. Okay, great. So a jukebox musical. So they write a play and then they say, Ooh, what was a popular song? So for example, going on Britney Spears, oops, I did it again instead of having a like that song, Oops, I Did It Again is in the musical. So they're not the not.

00:06:23:03 - 00:06:54:27
Gabe
Justin Oh so it has nothing to do with like I get that part that what you're saying. Okay. But I thought you were saying what made it that was not only that they used it, but because it was a, what would you call it, an established play with established music already for it. So but you're just saying it only has to do with the fact that it's taking a popular song.

00:06:55:20 - 00:07:17:28
Lauren
So the entire soundtrack for the show is popular songs. It never had original music. Yes. So they created a music with just popular song.

00:07:18:00 - 00:07:39:00
Gabe
It wasn't, I guess this wasn't already a musical, was it? I was thinking Clueless was a me like had been a musical. And so I was thinking it was like Chicago or something, right? Where it has stuff that's been written for it. But then you're saying or like, okay, okay, this is what I pictured in my head. The Seek, the beauty and the Beast, live action right.

00:07:39:00 - 00:08:02:16
Gabe
The original Disney one, right, has its songs in it, but when they did the new Beauty and the Beast, they redid some of the songs. They added songs that weren't in the original, right? Obviously it was still written and designed for it. That's what I was thinking. You mean because there's never been a musical? I kind of forgot about that.

00:08:02:16 - 00:08:09:04
Gabe
So it has nothing written for. It has not been established for it. Just like I get it now.

00:08:09:09 - 00:08:41:23
Lauren
I mean, girls also didn't have music and they wrote new music for it. Clueless did not have music, and then they did not write the music for it. They just used songs that may have been on the radio in the time or are otherwise like. So the Britney Spears musical is talking about she uses Britney Spears songs and then they kind of weave a story around those premade songs instead of writing the story and then creating songs that work with it.

00:08:43:06 - 00:08:53:02
Gabe
So like, what's the name of that movie? Mamma mia. Right. Is that the same thing? Right, because of you saw the wrap box musical.

00:08:53:03 - 00:08:53:23
Lauren
Yes.

00:08:54:14 - 00:08:58:28
Gabe
Because it. But it's it's all ABBA songs. Yes. Right. Okay.

00:08:59:01 - 00:09:29:16
Lauren
I guess a great example of a jukebox musical. So it can be done really, really well, but it can also be done in kind of a lazy way. Mm. Of just, well we don't, we don't feel confident that we can write music that's going to work along with this. So instead we're just going to have our performers sing popular songs in the context of this, right?

00:09:30:06 - 00:09:39:01
Gabe
I mean, they just texted me, Mamma mia, right after I said it, you should text me. Mamma mia. Amazing. Yes.

00:09:40:06 - 00:10:16:28
Lauren
So to be clear, this, Nancy Drew, at least from what I can tell, is not going to be a jukebox hereditary. Right. It is being composed by the man, Alan Menken, who's composed The Little Mermaid. They are using the legally blond and mean girls lyricist Nell Benjamin. The book is being written by a two time Oscar winner, Sarah Koenig Chen And it is going to be directed by three time Tony winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient James Levine.

00:10:17:09 - 00:11:12:29
Lauren
Look, I'm looking so there's a lot of composers, lyricists in there. So I feel good that it's not going to be a jukebox. And it's called The Mystery at Spotlight Manor, and it is about a musical theater, Camp Blue. So they're going to musical theater camp, taking to the stage, singing some songs. I don't know. When I was looking at this, I also saw that there is a 2018 attempt at a Nancy Drew musical and that was the concept was it was Nancy Drew at age 60, and she and her daughter, Diana Nickerson, and Diana, Diana's daughter, Nell Nickerson or somebody else.

00:11:12:29 - 00:11:41:10
Lauren
NICKERSON So, Nancy Grant, her daughter and her granddaughter are on a cruise. They're on a cruise ship, and she's facing life's biggest mystery, her own family. They did a staged reading of it in 2018, just been like, who? And then no one ever heard of it again, at least not from what I could easily find. So I don't know what happened there.

00:11:41:10 - 00:11:44:27
Lauren
But this is a completely different concept. They clearly were like.

00:11:45:03 - 00:11:45:13
Gabe
Hmm.

00:11:45:16 - 00:11:47:26
Lauren
Maybe no one wants to see.

00:11:47:26 - 00:11:54:13
Gabe
Three generations as too much. Yeah, you have to at least establish a daughter first. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

00:11:54:17 - 00:12:24:07
Lauren
Yeah. So part of the concept was that Nancy was like a world famous detective, and everyone knew of her and blah, blah. I have no idea why they conceptualized this in this way other than maybe because she was she like, grew to fame in like, you know, the thirties, 40, 50. So maybe they were thinking, well, that's when she was doing her young detective work.

00:12:24:16 - 00:13:00:27
Lauren
And then now she has grown up anyway, I don't know. Anyway, it did not happen. So now we're at musical theater camp and the article I was reading in Playbill was saying, While this is the first time Nancy and Co will be taking to the stage themselves one of the most successful computer games of the early 2000s was Nancy Drew, the final scene, which transported the teen to the fictional Royal Palladium Theater in Saint Louis, where a movie that movie star disappears from his dressing room three days before the theater was set to be demolished.

00:13:01:06 - 00:13:10:01
Lauren
The game is loosely based on a 1989 Nancy Drew book of the same name. I was just really excited to see a little Nancy Drew game shout out there.

00:13:11:22 - 00:13:26:03
Gabe
Wait, that's not a guy, though, who disappears. It's Maya. It's her friend Maya who disappears in that world looking for.

00:13:26:03 - 00:13:28:23
Lauren
You're so right. I copied that in. And it's the.

00:13:28:23 - 00:13:33:27
Gabe
Movie star who were accusing of being the bad guy.

00:13:34:24 - 00:13:38:01
Lauren
Yeah, that's so good. Thank you for catching that.

00:13:39:02 - 00:13:39:24
Gabe
You're welcome.

00:13:39:25 - 00:13:43:05
Lauren
I was just passively reading a line, just excited to be included.

00:13:43:05 - 00:13:56:19
Gabe
And I was being really confused for your reading as I have. I never played this Nancy Drew before. And then I was like, Well, that's not possible. Seth played all of them. And then I was like.

00:13:57:02 - 00:13:58:02
Lauren
Wait, you know, they're just.

00:13:58:02 - 00:14:20:23
Gabe
Like, My God, it. Yeah, it was the three days or no, it was where you said demolished. And I was like, Well, I remember the really traumatizing thing about our friend was going to get demolished and I was the like the, the villain the villain fight in that one is intense for your race. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

00:14:20:24 - 00:14:43:00
Gabe
Okay, I got it. I'm. I know that's pretty funny. I like how they include that though. And like, it's not like Nancy actually does anything on the stage. She doesn't do any stage acting. I feel like if you really wanted to do that, you should have brought the grease on into it, because at least we actually have to like don't we have to say lines?

00:14:43:00 - 00:14:56:12
Gabe
I don't remember if we actually get something for us to memorize the lines. But I swear, as Nancy, we go up on the stage, don't we, and we recite stuff and you're like, well, maybe, don't we in the Grease on the news. It's one of the newer ones.

00:14:56:12 - 00:15:02:21
Lauren
I was thinking Merchant in Venice when she goes on stage on a cat in a catsuit and she does her little dance.

00:15:04:16 - 00:15:19:24
Gabe
Well, yeah, but she's not. She's honest. She's not. Well, she is, but she's not actually reciting anything. We're just that one gives me ladies of the night kind of dancing. I'll be honest with you. Yeah.

00:15:19:24 - 00:15:22:03
Lauren
No, it's. It's wild for sure.

00:15:22:06 - 00:15:34:28
Gabe
Did you say Merchant of Venice or what did you say? I'm sure I did. I think she said I was also like. Right, right. But then you said cat dancing and I knew it, too.

00:15:35:02 - 00:15:39:26
Lauren
And what is it?

00:15:39:26 - 00:15:41:05
Gabe
Oh, now, I don't know.

00:15:41:26 - 00:15:44:06
Lauren
Merchant of Venice is sure it's us.

00:15:44:13 - 00:15:50:09
Gabe
Because as you said, that my my brain was like, Oh, right. That's the.

00:15:50:21 - 00:15:51:23
Lauren
Phantom of the.

00:15:51:23 - 00:15:53:10
Gabe
Phantom. Venice. Yeah.

00:15:53:22 - 00:15:56:22
Lauren
Of Venice. Because it is Shakes and Phantom.

00:15:57:05 - 00:16:05:05
Gabe
Phantom of the Opera and Merchant of Venice. That's so funny.

00:16:05:06 - 00:16:10:11
Lauren
Oh, no, man. We are 20 minutes into the sincerity of disaster.

00:16:10:12 - 00:16:18:23
Gabe
Fabulous as a grease. The grease was like the labyrinth of lies or something like that. Yes. Dev, you played that one? Yes.

00:16:20:01 - 00:16:24:09
Lauren
I don't think we go once. I don't think we perform anything on stage.

00:16:26:02 - 00:16:41:24
Gabe
What I swear we do, we have to say lines. Maybe it's not in front of like a huge audience, but we do at least practice it. I swear we do. Okay. You keep talking about it and I'm going to Google it.

00:16:41:24 - 00:17:08:08
Lauren
So another thing I just wanted to you know, I just love to check on what's in the news, what articles are being posted. And I saw an article by the Daily Mail which, you know, it's a trustworthy, good news site, but, you know, they're fun. They they they have fun anyway. So they are talking about a new study that just came out that they were looking.

00:17:08:17 - 00:17:46:11
Lauren
So research of more than 13,000 video game characters has revealed that just 35% of words are spoken by women. Now. Now, they took 6.2 million words from the scripts of only 50 popular role playing games. So, yes, it's 13,000 video game characters, but they were using only 50 games. Of those 50 games, the lowest of the 50 with just 6.7 and 6.4% of female dialog was Kingdom Hearts, 3D and Kings Quest six.

00:17:47:21 - 00:18:25:10
Lauren
Now at the high end with 80% female dialog is King's Quest for cell. King's Quest, I don't know. And King's Quest two had 79. So King's Quest two and four, lots of ladies talking kings with six, almost none. So I don't know what that says about the series as a whole. And then Final Fantasy 13 had 54.6. So King's Quest for two and then Final Fantasy 13 had the highest percentage of female stalking.

00:18:25:19 - 00:18:26:03
Gabe
I don't know.

00:18:26:28 - 00:19:01:02
Lauren
I also try to click on the link to the, quote unquote controversial research from the Daily Mail article. And it took me it was a broken link. It took me to an error page. So I can't even go and look at whatever research they were discussing orally. But I, I'm excited that research is being done on these sort of things and that people are really looking at, you know, female characters and female interactions in games.

00:19:01:12 - 00:19:07:04
Lauren
I find that fun regardless of how actually successful it is. I like that they're trying.

00:19:07:19 - 00:19:34:12
Gabe
Unless and I'm still looking. I swear we get up on the stage and this and unless so I don't know what else I could be pictured in my head. I do remember watching you play this game because I think I remember watching you try to solve the hand puzzle where you're like, move in. Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that.

00:19:34:12 - 00:19:55:03
Gabe
And you didn't want us to back the game, which is totally fair. But I think there was someone in there who, like, they couldn't help themselves. They're trying not to, but they really were like, I can't believe you're just not understanding. This is like, Oh my goodness.

00:19:55:19 - 00:20:13:17
Lauren
That's how it always goes. Nancy Gaines I don't know. I think it's probably just anytime there's a puzzle in general, people are so impatient at times when people are not doing the puzzle quickly enough for them and they're just like, Oh my gosh, how could you not know this is what?

00:20:13:17 - 00:20:30:00
Gabe
And I don't understand how hard it is when you're like screaming until I like your brain is managing two different things. So trying to you know what I mean?

00:20:31:12 - 00:20:31:24
Lauren
Even if.

00:20:31:24 - 00:20:33:13
Gabe
Streaming. Oh, no, I know.

00:20:34:09 - 00:21:03:22
Lauren
It's still like guys in some of these doing this and they're not getting it right away. Part of the fun of the puzzle is puzzling it out. If it's driving you bananas, walk away like go do something else, come back or just leave that like it's fine. You don't need to be there if it's driving you mad. Anand's That somebody is not solving something quickly enough for you like that's.

00:21:04:06 - 00:21:04:09
Gabe
It's.

00:21:04:16 - 00:21:05:12
Lauren
Not your best it's.

00:21:06:17 - 00:21:31:09
Gabe
True I think the only time eat watching you solve a puzzle where I got I don't know frustrated is the right word but where I was kind of losing my mind was the I think it's Castle Malloy is that the game is but it's it's the wedding party and you're trying to choose where everyone's sat. Is that Castle Malloy?

00:21:31:09 - 00:22:00:04
Gabe
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you think there's, like, two hints or not? Two of the lines told you, like, pretty much gave you who had to be right here and who had to be right here on the table. And then that kind of pretty much determined how you could do the rest. And like you kept reading them and you kept saying it.

00:22:01:17 - 00:22:23:03
Gabe
And so everything kept being wrong because you just wouldn't put the right person here in here. And it was like it was like a half hour of you doing it. And I was like, I can't say I might not have been a half hour, but it was it was a good while where everything just wasn't quite working because of those two.

00:22:23:03 - 00:22:47:09
Gabe
And I. I know you didn't want help, which is fair. I totally understand. But I was like, oh, my goodness. Just just step back for a second and only focus on these two in your head, please. It'll make your life so much easier because you're understanding every other clue. They're just not working because of those two people. So it was so funny.

00:22:47:09 - 00:22:56:10
Gabe
And if I remember, is this corner, this this corner of the table. But it was like those were what determined how you did the rest of the thing.

00:22:57:05 - 00:23:12:13
Lauren
So yeah, I've seen evidence blindness on that where if I'm just like, nope, that one I know for sure. Set in stone, done dusted, do not touch. And then I just scan right by it and that's the cap.

00:23:12:18 - 00:23:31:03
Gabe
That's the cap. Tactically, you're like, no, they have to be here. And someone was like, I don't. And then someone who didn't had never played this before. I didn't know anything was like, I don't feel like that's right. You're like, No, because of this, this and this, they have to be here. And I was like, Oh, you're so close.

00:23:31:03 - 00:23:42:26
Gabe
If you just, like, hit the right foot to around, then you'll be fine. Then they're out of it. Anyways, I'm sorry I wasn't trying to put you on blast or anything. I was just.

00:23:42:26 - 00:23:47:21
Lauren
That's fine. It's something I'm aware of myself. Something I'm dealing with.

00:23:49:08 - 00:23:50:27
Gabe
Well, I saying.

00:23:50:27 - 00:23:54:14
Lauren
Like, it's hard.

00:23:54:14 - 00:24:30:10
Gabe
Otherwise, I don't think I've ever had an issue watching you. Even, like, if I know, quote unquote, the answers from having played the games or that maybe that one game enough times, I still don't feel like annoyed watching you because I feel like it's pretty. Um, I don't know if it's, I don't know if saying is pretty easy is the right way but like like I can watch your brain working and seeing like your thought process and like your thought process makes sense and watching you logic through it.

00:24:30:19 - 00:24:40:11
Gabe
So then it doesn't feel like you're taking a long time or it's obnoxious. That one was just like, you're just your worst enemy now.

00:24:43:27 - 00:24:48:27
Gabe
Yeah, that's great. That's what, you know.

00:24:49:11 - 00:25:14:28
Lauren
I like, especially with puzzle games like Nancy Drew, there are just a lot of people who have played through the games or know the games super, super well, and they're like, I would be doing this so fast. And it's like, Well, you go do it that way or go watch a Speed Runner or something like that. Like we don't we don't have to do it like that.

00:25:15:06 - 00:25:15:26
Lauren
It's okay.

00:25:16:28 - 00:25:35:05
Gabe
But also why are you watch seeing someone speed through it like unless they're speed runner in which case. Okay, I understand. But if they're just normally playing the game, why are you wanting to watch someone who's just going to cruise right through it? You know, like, I feel like the joy of a lot of the games watching you plays.

00:25:35:05 - 00:25:48:25
Gabe
You've never played them before, or maybe it's been a really long time, so you don't necessarily remember. So it's you like seeing you now versus as a child going through and working through that and experiencing it for the first time?

00:25:49:15 - 00:26:13:04
Lauren
Well, now, even when I replay games, I still, you know, have to I mean, there are 32 games to go through. Like there's a lot I'm not going to remember. Everything from everything. So there are definitely some pieces where I'm like, Ooh, yeah, no, I remember that. Now I have to go here and now I have to go here, and I'm going to have to go and talk to this person.

00:26:13:04 - 00:26:28:13
Lauren
But yeah, there are plenty of the games I've only played once, maybe twice, and so there's still a lot of like brain power that I have to use, but even games that I know really, really well, like I can still, like I still enjoy playing them.

00:26:28:17 - 00:26:29:10
Gabe
At.

00:26:30:06 - 00:26:43:24
Lauren
A normal pace. Now they don't take me a long time because I'm I'm not rushing through them. But I do know where to go next. Right. As opposed to just like trying to do it as fast as possible.

00:26:44:04 - 00:27:08:21
Gabe
I have what I call my my Nancy book, and this was the first time where I went through all the books or all the games in order to read them. And I took the diligent notes. So every time I replay, I just pull this out so I don't have to rewrite all of that crap again. But like you can also see her each time I play it, I make notes of different things or I noticed something else.

00:27:09:04 - 00:27:18:24
Gabe
Or I change how I wrote my note and like I added. So this is my because like some of it too, I worked really hard on them.

00:27:19:05 - 00:27:19:15
Lauren
Yeah.

00:27:20:01 - 00:27:52:03
Gabe
What I want to show, probably the ones I'm most proud of her was the What's the Scarlet Hand, what numbers like six. Yeah. Yes. Secret of the Scarlet Hand. I took my time. Oh you trying out the like the symbols. And so I'm like pretty proud of that one and like writing that stuff, so. And then it's all in one place too.

00:27:52:03 - 00:28:07:26
Gabe
I find that very esthetically pleasing or like I have a ton of the different code breakers right now to always be able to look back at them and stuff. So my Nancy book, did I ever show you the scrapbook I started working on?

00:28:08:12 - 00:28:11:11
Lauren
No. I know we've talked about it, but I don't think I've seen it.

00:28:11:11 - 00:28:23:02
Gabe
I have it right here too. Sorry. Side note, then I'll stop. I have to get back to it. But I started imitating like Nancy's scrapbook.

00:28:23:02 - 00:28:23:23
Lauren
Oh, yeah.

00:28:23:23 - 00:28:24:16
Gabe
Yeah, yeah.

00:28:26:03 - 00:28:35:06
Lauren
So you've written out all of the Nancy Drew games and then each page is showing photos and press.

00:28:35:06 - 00:28:45:16
Gabe
The case is the copy. Yeah, but like, you know how you can look at it in the game? Like her scrapbook. Yeah, I. Yeah, so I like that.

00:28:45:16 - 00:28:46:19
Lauren
So girls.

00:28:46:27 - 00:28:58:24
Gabe
Imitate it. I think the one I'm really proud of. Oh, this one I was pretty proud of because I had to try and like imitate his picture and all of that.

00:28:58:24 - 00:28:59:07
Lauren
Yeah.

00:28:59:07 - 00:29:08:04
Gabe
And then I oh the ID, I made the ID as well and I like laminated it to look like an ID and I had to try and cut out.

00:29:09:18 - 00:29:14:07
Lauren
So I spent day by like, you know, so crafty.

00:29:15:23 - 00:29:37:11
Gabe
The only thing that's super awkward is I think the case numbers I think the case numbers might be messed up to. Oh, no, but I, I don't know if it's the case. Numbers are, if it's just this, if I mix it up three and four, but I think it might be the case numbers are mixed up.

00:29:37:19 - 00:29:38:28
Lauren
Because this is three, right?

00:29:39:26 - 00:29:40:15
Gabe
Yeah.

00:29:40:15 - 00:29:41:17
Lauren
And then this is four.

00:29:41:19 - 00:29:43:17
Gabe
But was this supposed to be three?

00:29:45:13 - 00:29:48:04
Lauren
No. Haunted Mansion is.

00:29:48:15 - 00:30:18:12
Gabe
Three or what? Did I mess up? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I messed up. I think what I messed up is that. Okay, let me make sure I'm on this right. What is number three supposed to be? Message in a haunted mansion, right? Yes. Okay. So is that isn't messaging? That's when we meet that one lady, right?

00:30:18:12 - 00:30:21:16
Gabe
Mrs. Hotchkiss, is that treasure.

00:30:21:16 - 00:30:21:26
Lauren
In the royal.

00:30:21:29 - 00:30:22:09
Gabe
House?

00:30:22:09 - 00:30:27:08
Lauren
Not treasure in the Royal Tower is the Antoinette one.

00:30:27:08 - 00:30:46:18
Gabe
Okay, so then this is what I think I messed up is that one of my issues was like I would get all this extra space because I couldn't quite lay it out how they laid it out. So some of the stuff that was like hints or clues, I sort of like these. They're like little clues are kind of hidden throughout.

00:30:46:25 - 00:30:53:11
Gabe
So I think what I messed up is that message in a haunted mansion was all that the symbols, right. That like.

00:30:53:20 - 00:30:54:04
Lauren
Chinese.

00:30:54:04 - 00:31:03:22
Gabe
Symbols and. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So they're in this one, they're in number four and starter number three. Oh, so number three and house number four.

00:31:03:28 - 00:31:04:19
Lauren
Is.

00:31:06:05 - 00:31:27:15
Gabe
Yeah. Yeah. So number three has number four clues and number four has number three clues. But that's fine, right? It makes sense. You know how are they? It's a mystery, right? Who knows what they are? Oh, yeah. And then I had to fake I had to try and make little tiny fake pamphlets that, like, look and feel like pamphlets.

00:31:27:24 - 00:31:35:23
Gabe
Oh, my gosh. I have to. I have to keep going. I stopped after number four, but I was I was actually really proud of these. I was like.

00:31:35:23 - 00:31:37:14
Lauren
Man, those are really cool.

00:31:38:15 - 00:32:06:14
Gabe
I'm hoping I can keep working on this this summer. So my new what I've been doing was my new playthrough of the Nancy jurors, which I stopped at when we played Shadow Ranch, I think was I would play the game and I would download that and then I was adding it to put on YouTube. I would screenshot from my play through the pictures I needed for the scrapbook and like going through that.

00:32:06:14 - 00:32:15:03
Gabe
So it took a lot of work, but it was actually so much fun. And like looking back at it again, I'm like, Holy cow! I was kind of crafty.

00:32:15:03 - 00:32:16:13
Lauren
You are crafty.

00:32:17:25 - 00:32:35:00
Gabe
I was actually impressed at my work looking at it after I did, I was kind of like, Oh man, I could have done this so much better. But like looking at it again now, a year later, I'm like, Oh wow, look at me go. Oh, wow. Anyways, oh, wow, wow. Show.

00:32:35:00 - 00:32:39:00
Lauren
Yesterday we did our first ever twitch stream.

00:32:39:09 - 00:32:40:19
Gabe
Wow I did.

00:32:41:03 - 00:32:43:08
Lauren
On our no side quests.

00:32:43:24 - 00:32:44:26
Gabe
Twitch account.

00:32:45:24 - 00:32:50:20
Lauren
Which was really, really fun. It was a really good time. We in our last.

00:32:50:20 - 00:32:55:04
Gabe
Episode did we figure out why we were on Searchable on Twitch.

00:32:56:22 - 00:32:57:15
Lauren
While we're searching.

00:32:57:15 - 00:33:09:02
Gabe
Figure that out. We are so okay. So it's somehow fixed. Okay. Our twitch is no side quests. Just so you guys go on if you want to go look twitch. ITV search on our site quest continue. Right.

00:33:10:16 - 00:33:14:22
Lauren
So in our last episode, we started we went.

00:33:14:25 - 00:33:16:06
Gabe
Off kind.

00:33:16:06 - 00:33:19:05
Lauren
Of on a little funny trail of.

00:33:21:15 - 00:33:21:26
Gabe
A bunch.

00:33:21:26 - 00:34:01:23
Lauren
Of those old flash games and dress up games and virtual games that we played online during the early 2000, early to mid 2000. And we found a Web site called New Monkey and Umu Chi that had a whole bunch of those games stored. And I mean Barbie games, my scene, Bratz, a bunch of Disney and Nickelodeon games. It had Winx Club and so on stream on our twitch yesterday.

00:34:02:10 - 00:34:14:27
Lauren
Gabe and I went and played a whole bunch of those games, including like a Garfield quote unquote horror game. Anyway, it was just really, really, really fun.

00:34:15:27 - 00:34:43:26
Gabe
I made note of what we did were all we played, so we'll remember because initially when we were thinking about this episode, we were thinking about the episode where we somehow I don't even remember why I thought of dream life, but Hasbro and the designers world, which I sought to figure out if we can ever do that, if I can get those and somehow like plugged them into the TV and you can see them, you can record it, I don't know, I sort of figure that out.

00:34:43:26 - 00:35:11:29
Gabe
But then we were talking about how we also played Barbie games back in the day. My seen Bratz, but I made note of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Sweet 16, which was a Gamecube game. But it was like in this there's this time. And also I felt like it kind of matched which seemed to be the is the genre of games that developers were pushing to try and get females to play.

00:35:11:29 - 00:35:18:04
Gabe
Like this is what they thought the women wanted the girl, the girls of gaming wanted.

00:35:18:18 - 00:35:29:24
Lauren
And they were not wrong because there definitely were a lot of girls who played those games. Like when we were going through some of these games.

00:35:29:24 - 00:35:30:09
Gabe
I was.

00:35:30:12 - 00:35:38:17
Lauren
I had just so many memories coming back in. Now, I'm not saying they weren't drawn to play these.

00:35:39:01 - 00:35:42:08
Gabe
But they weren't right.

00:35:42:08 - 00:35:44:10
Lauren
But there were definitely girls who did want.

00:35:44:18 - 00:35:44:22
Gabe
To.

00:35:46:07 - 00:35:52:05
Lauren
Get released, who had grown out maybe of like playing with their own doll.

00:35:52:05 - 00:35:52:21
Gabe
Dolls.

00:35:53:15 - 00:36:14:06
Lauren
And who are maybe a little bit older, maybe, or maybe just didn't have the dolls and were excited about computer games and excited about fashion and hair and makeup. And you didn't have to buy anything. So it was so fun to do this virtual dress up. What's the one that we played with the really wacky hair?

00:36:15:23 - 00:36:20:09
Gabe
Oh, that was the wings. That was from the wings where we had the hair salon.

00:36:20:09 - 00:36:23:25
Lauren
Yeah, there's a hair salon where we had to chop people's.

00:36:23:25 - 00:36:25:07
Gabe
Hair in this hair salon.

00:36:25:14 - 00:36:58:28
Lauren
Yeah. And do makeup and get their bangs all working and we got points based on how closely we did it to what they wanted. And the hair colors were wild anyway. It was, it was just a good time. And it's something that if you own a doll, if you cut their hair, you cannot get that back. So it's just a fun way to like still do it but not have any lasting consequences, which is something I say a lot about games, right?

00:36:58:28 - 00:37:03:01
Lauren
There's no lasting consequences for most games.

00:37:03:01 - 00:37:12:18
Gabe
Like unless a guy comes and starts data mining us to pay attention to what we do and then giving us all kinds of harsh consequences.

00:37:12:18 - 00:37:35:06
Lauren
So create your games solely to say, I'm begging you, actually. I mean, go for it. I just will not play it. So if that affects you at all, knowing that I. Lauren So you could I will not be playing your games. Take that to heart, but.

00:37:35:23 - 00:38:05:03
Gabe
Okay. All right. So this is where I would say they weren't wrong and that there are a lot of girls who liked playing these games, but they weren't right in that. It's it's I feel like there's a huge assumption that these are the only kinds of games girls would really want to play. And they that's not true. Girls enjoy just as many different variances of games as you guys do.

00:38:05:22 - 00:38:37:16
Gabe
Granted, I think I think it's more normal for girls to play, quote unquote, more masculine games than it is for the guys to play more, quote unquote feminine games. I don't know a lot of guys who played the Barbie Flash games or the Dream Life or any of that. But I know a lot of girls who played the college duties, the as I say, Wolfenstein, they don't know if that's the right one.

00:38:37:16 - 00:38:43:08
Gabe
But, you know, like the very well you think are male kinds of games. Go ahead. You had a comment.

00:38:43:08 - 00:38:54:10
Lauren
I like to think of these Barbie games and my scene as like Gateway games because like I didn't.

00:38:54:10 - 00:38:54:29
Gabe
Have.

00:38:56:07 - 00:39:24:05
Lauren
People in my life who were playing video games. Like we didn't have consoles like we didn't we weren't we weren't a gaming family and I was the oldest child. So I didn't get into it. It was going to take a bit. So I think having these kind of games online and being like, Ooh, this is a game. And it was like, you know, for girls.

00:39:24:05 - 00:39:43:24
Lauren
And so it was there's something that appealed to me to play. And then from there I started playing other games. Once I got used to like playing games on the computer and started being like, Hmm, I want something with maybe just a little bit more to it or a little more exciting or a little bit more using my brain or whatever I was doing.

00:39:44:12 - 00:40:12:20
Lauren
But it was a way for me to be like, Ooh, I want to be doing something online that's interactive. Hmm. I could start out by playing these fashion games and, like, have fun with that. And that will kind of introduce me into seeing some other flash games and learning some other controls and doing some other things. So it just, it kind of works your way in and says, perfect, you know how to use a computer.

00:40:13:26 - 00:40:16:24
Lauren
Now let's move on to phase two.

00:40:18:19 - 00:40:45:07
Gabe
Well, my thought process more wasn't the type of game itself. It was more of like, I don't I could not just off the top of my head name the male equivalent of flash games because I know there there were sites that were more towards boys when it came to flash games and like these were on websites more geared towards girls or literally on websites basically saying games for girls or stuff like that.

00:40:45:18 - 00:41:25:15
Gabe
That's more of what I meant. Call of Duty is what I could come up with to top off the top of my head for a more typically male mental game. So yes, I would agree there are gateway games, but our soldiers thinking of the Flash games and I was trying to say that it seems like because the only times where I really saw like gender neutral flash games was, you know, like Disney, Nickelodeon, but even those seemed kind of to be flavored more towards a girls side, more towards a boys side.

00:41:27:06 - 00:41:48:17
Gabe
But a lot of those shows are kind of just so I can't in Montana more often than not, one towards the girl side because of just how the show Hannah Montana was. But The one I was talking to you about, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers. Mm hmm. Two of those games, I would say, were very gender neutral. It wasn't.

00:41:49:06 - 00:42:20:14
Gabe
And the one I'm specifically thinking of is it was essentially a flash game platformer. Do you know what a platform, right. You know, the platformers were like was the popular one that everyone knows. Hollow Knight. Knight Hollow. Hollow Knight or something. So it was one of those. Right. And you could be sure, but Mario's more like this. And the platformer I'm talking about, like Hollow Knight is like this, right?

00:42:20:14 - 00:42:26:22
Gabe
Searching. Okay. Do you think progression is vertical, not horizontal, if that makes sense.

00:42:27:01 - 00:42:29:23
Lauren
I played a lot of neopets. Sorry. Go back.

00:42:30:02 - 00:42:40:11
Gabe
Continue. That's okay. That's okay. But that one. I'm pretty sure if I remember you could play as or isn't Mandy. No brand is out. We decided because injuries from the game show.

00:42:40:20 - 00:42:42:18
Lauren
Yeah Brandi's the.

00:42:42:18 - 00:43:00:00
Gabe
Grandmother so Brandi so you could play as the girl dog Brandi or you could play as the male bunny mistress. Right. But the the layout of what you're doing looked the same. And it was just a jungle, essentially, as what it was. But anyway, so that's. Yeah, I don't remember, I was going with my tangent.

00:43:02:15 - 00:43:06:29
Lauren
Geared for girls, geared for boys.

00:43:06:29 - 00:43:24:17
Gabe
Yes. Oh yeah. And saying that those are really the only gender neutral sites that I saw for games. Yeah, I will agree though that probably did help to get a lot of gay girls who didn't think about gaming into gaming, which is awesome, but I assure.

00:43:24:22 - 00:43:25:06
Lauren
Them.

00:43:26:07 - 00:43:26:28
Gabe
Yeah, that too.

00:43:27:05 - 00:43:59:03
Lauren
Sure. On girls life. Okay Mom or whatever or American Girl dot com. And they're like, oh, here's some fun games to play that are like, you know, suitable or whatever for a young girl, that's not going to be anything inappropriate in any capacity. So, all right. Here you go. Parents can feel very comfortable with their young, impressionable child playing any of these games right?

00:43:59:03 - 00:44:16:26
Gabe
Right. Oh, right. Okay. Yes. And this was where my brain was going. Was that right? So like, you have those sites or you had the wing site that had other links games or, you know, Barbie. Right. Instead of what we were using, which was a combined version of all of them, all of them had their own individual sites.

00:44:17:08 - 00:44:43:05
Gabe
But if you think about it, all of them still were basically fashion cooking, changing your room and stuff. Right. They they didn't. So just because it was on a girl's site or just because it was on Barbie, they still didn't think girls would be interested in anything beyond that. That that's my great that's what I was trying to get to is that is my gripe.

00:44:43:18 - 00:44:59:07
Gabe
So when we played the Polly Pockets, right, that was really fun because I remember that a little bit went beyond that, right? So we were playing that. The one we played was we were trying to find objects within the bigger picture. I don't really know what you put in objects.

00:44:59:07 - 00:44:59:18
Lauren
Yeah.

00:45:00:03 - 00:45:38:05
Gabe
Yeah. I hit an object game. That's all I would say. Are more gender neutral game or Yeah, game because it's a puzzle, you're just using your brain. So I appreciated that and that's what assurances I wish the winks and the Barbies had had done more of that because even when we were looking at what the newer games were for that, it was still fashion, makeup, cooking, shopping, dress, whatever, you know, and that well below sad.

00:45:38:05 - 00:45:40:14
Lauren
Yes I mean I.

00:45:40:14 - 00:45:40:29
Gabe
Is your.

00:45:42:05 - 00:46:21:00
Lauren
Go ahead. I can't speak for wings because as we discussed I'm not very familiar with that franchise but like for my scene specifically. Right. So they are a mattel brand. It was a series of dolls. Right. And they kind of had like if you aren't familiar with the missing dolls, they're kind of they're similar enough to Bratz that the company that makes Bratz sued Mattel and won because the missing girls had three.

00:46:21:07 - 00:46:39:07
Lauren
Remember that attributable okay or close enough to the Bratz traits so that their company had or was able to win their suit. And then Mattel stopped making my seeing dolls but like the first Michael Frye, you.

00:46:39:07 - 00:47:08:15
Gabe
Keep going with that. My question is, did okay so Bratz are like younger than Barbies, right? Bratz were supposed to be in like high school. I feel like Barbie was kind of just a an age neutral. Mm hmm. Okay. So did they have, um. I don't really know as much about Bratz. Okay, so, like, Barbie, you had, like, nurse Barbie or Teacher Barbie or the Bratz wouldn't necessarily have professions.

00:47:08:15 - 00:47:20:13
Gabe
Right. But did they have maybe like a more narrowed interest? Like, was there like a sports bra doll? Yeah. Yes, yeah. Okay. All right. Keep going.

00:47:20:19 - 00:47:26:22
Lauren
Yeah. So, Bratz, I don't know if you saw the Bratz movie that came out.

00:47:27:27 - 00:47:29:03
Gabe
I remember the commercials.

00:47:29:20 - 00:47:38:13
Lauren
I love that movie so much. But yes. So there was like a sporty one and then like a smart one and then like a fashion designer one.

00:47:38:13 - 00:47:43:08
Gabe
And actually, I have another question.

00:47:43:08 - 00:47:45:04
Lauren
Musically talented one or whatever.

00:47:45:04 - 00:48:10:02
Gabe
I don't know. The Monster High Dolls are similar to the Brad Styles, right? Yes. The Monster High was that like the newer generation version of Brad Styles. So I know it came after Brad Styles, but I didn't I don't really know what was the point of the Monster High Express except that they were fun because you could be like a werewolf or a vampire and stuff.

00:48:10:02 - 00:48:12:04
Gabe
But so.

00:48:12:26 - 00:48:14:14
Lauren
Okay, let's, let's go back.

00:48:14:14 - 00:48:17:15
Gabe
So sorry.

00:48:17:15 - 00:48:19:03
Lauren
Because Monster High is also Mattel.

00:48:20:24 - 00:48:24:01
Gabe
Oh, so that's the missing kind of stuff.

00:48:24:26 - 00:49:03:05
Lauren
Mattel did Barbie. Oh, Mattel. So the first missing doll was Barbie. Like her. She was blond. She looked like the missing dolls, but her name was Barbie. And then her friends, her my seen doll friends were named after various areas of New York. So there was like Kennedy, there was Madison, Chelsea. Anyway, Barbie, Madison and Chelsea were the three original missing dolls.

00:49:03:05 - 00:49:08:00
Lauren
So this was kind of like new generation of Barbie, I think was the intention.

00:49:08:24 - 00:49:12:27
Gabe
Okay. But it is after Barbie. Yeah. So it's not actually Barbie.

00:49:14:03 - 00:49:28:08
Lauren
It's a yeah, it's a new line of dolls that they're kind of they were kind of trying they saw the popularity of the Bratz dolls and they were like, Let's try to bring Barbie into that. So like, they're stolen.

00:49:28:14 - 00:49:37:04
Gabe
Did they make the original Barbie so they didn't make the original Barbie doll? Yes. Okay. But then they made an updated one trying to match the Bratz.

00:49:37:06 - 00:49:38:07
Lauren
They started in the Oakland.

00:49:38:10 - 00:49:40:02
Gabe
Forward and named.

00:49:40:02 - 00:49:59:21
Lauren
Their blond, blue eyed or whatever doll in this new line that kind of had more the Bratz characteristics. They named her Barbie as well and then gave her a new front. They then retired the Barbie character and just had a bunch of new friends. So they kind of like backed away in.

00:49:59:21 - 00:50:00:09
Gabe
The new line.

00:50:00:14 - 00:50:07:05
Lauren
Do that. Got it. Yeah. And so this new line of seen dolls, which included a doll named Barbie.

00:50:07:14 - 00:50:07:24
Gabe
Anyway.

00:50:08:27 - 00:50:24:02
Lauren
So so they retired those because in 2005 MGA Entertainment filed the lawsuit, blah, blah, blah.

00:50:24:02 - 00:50:27:04
Gabe
Okay. So this was their comeback. The Monster High.

00:50:27:24 - 00:50:29:02
Lauren
That's where I'm going with this. Okay.

00:50:29:12 - 00:50:30:04
Gabe
So, okay.

00:50:30:18 - 00:51:10:07
Lauren
So I'm just looking at the legal issues of the missing dolls because okay, I had part of it in my brain anyway. So MJ Entertainment filed the lawsuits against Mattel in 2005, alleging duplication of its Bratz dolls, multi-ethnic looks, fashions and packaging. And then Mattel Counter-Sued MGA Entertainment, saying that the creator of Bratz had been working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz in 1999 and had taken that idea over to MGA, and then MGA developed Bratz.

00:51:10:07 - 00:51:40:15
Lauren
So they were like, I think we get this for intellectual property since he was working for us when he came up with the idea. So the Bratz creator, Carter Bryant and Mattel reached a settlement. So then Mattel received $100 million in damages and then further issued an injunction that forced MGA to stop producing Bratz in 2011. There was a retrial where MJ toymakers said that I'm sorry, in producing the missing dolls.

00:51:40:15 - 00:51:52:11
Lauren
Mattel stole our trade secrets and violated antitrust laws. So they're saying even if the intellectual property was developed, that still doesn't mean that they can steal.

00:51:52:18 - 00:51:53:06
Gabe
Our.

00:51:53:23 - 00:52:19:26
Lauren
Ideas and whatever. So they sought $1,000,000,000 in damages. But then the judge found in favor of Mattel, but MGA received an award of 309 million. So they so they got their million dollars in back and more. Anyway, the company was able to produce Bratz again. And then Mattel retired. The missing line now. So this.

00:52:19:26 - 00:52:21:08
Gabe
Is ten months or.

00:52:22:08 - 00:52:23:01
Lauren
So.

00:52:23:17 - 00:52:38:14
Gabe
Comeback season. I love it. So then so we can have normal people wants to close the Bratz we have to create monsters because then surely they can't say we're copying.

00:52:38:14 - 00:53:02:20
Lauren
Right? So Mattel stopped producing my scene in 2011, which is when Bratz came back online. Yeah. And Monster High was launched by Mattel in 2010. It is for a different age demographic, but.

00:53:02:22 - 00:53:12:03
Gabe
Okay, so okay. So if it was launched in 2010 though, it was that after the retrial, sorry, or did the retrial have.

00:53:12:03 - 00:53:32:03
Lauren
Been to be clear, Mattel stopped selling my seen dolls in the U.S. in 2008. But was still selling them internationally and until 2011. So they stopped in the U.S. in 2008 and two years later came out with Monster High Dolls.

00:53:32:03 - 00:53:34:28
Gabe
When did the first trial happen? What year did the first trial happen?

00:53:35:11 - 00:53:41:27
Lauren
2005. I see. And then in 2000 and Bratz.

00:53:42:27 - 00:53:50:01
Gabe
Bratz could have produced from 2005 to 2011.

00:53:50:01 - 00:53:53:23
Lauren
2006? Yeah. 2006, I believe.

00:53:53:24 - 00:54:02:19
Gabe
Holy cow. Five years without, man. That's crazy. That doesn't even seem possible. Interesting. Okay, so, trial 2005.

00:54:03:18 - 00:54:14:01
Lauren
Trial one 2005. Trial two 2006. And at that point, Bratz stopped going. And then 2011, we got counter sewage and then.

00:54:14:09 - 00:54:32:04
Gabe
Right, okay, but 22,008, they no longer sell mice in dolls in the U.S. but they're still. So are they. But are they making new ones internationally or are they just reselling what's already come out? I don't I'm not sure. Okay. It's a little too complicated. Sorry. It's they're not.

00:54:32:04 - 00:54:46:28
Lauren
Selling in the U.S. They continue selling internationally. I think you're continuing to sell for three years internationally. You have to be making more. You're probably not putting a lot of effort into it, but you're making some more.

00:54:46:28 - 00:55:10:26
Gabe
Okay. So then my my question would be, did they suspect the retrial was going to happen? Right. So when they filed for the retrial, the retrial wasn't going to happen right away. There's time between that. Sidis think they could smell the roses in the air. They knew what was going to happen. They suspected maybe they weren't going to be successful.

00:55:10:26 - 00:55:14:22
Gabe
So they're like, How do we come back with the different thought?

00:55:15:02 - 00:55:42:16
Lauren
So according to Wikipedia for Mr.. Hi, I'm just in the Wikipedia right now. Thank you. Wikipedia, allegedly, Mattel began conceptualizing and they say Mattel began concepts to people at Mattel, began conceptualizing the Monster High franchise in 2007. So 2006 is when Bratz went off line 2007, they filed for trademark of Monster High. So Garrett.

00:55:42:16 - 00:56:09:00
Gabe
Sand. Okay, theory. Theory. This is my new theory. Okay. Even though they won the Bratz quote unquote won the Brach trial. Right. And the brass had to stop producing, it's still bad PR, it still looked bad for them. So they're like, okay, we have to come back bigger and better ever. So even though it took a long time to get there, that was the Monster High was How do we top Bratz without being too close to it?

00:56:09:13 - 00:56:13:08
Gabe
Okay. Okay. So the packaging.

00:56:13:08 - 00:56:38:09
Lauren
Designer at Mattel named Garrett Sander, he and his twin brother Darren went shopping. And his twin brother Darren and that's how this is phrased, is just sending me Garrett and his twin brother Darren went shopping with young girls one day. Okay. No, no idea of are they related to these young girls? They're just shopping with young girls. Okay, great.

00:56:38:21 - 00:56:40:05
Gabe
They're like brats over missing.

00:56:40:05 - 00:56:46:08
Lauren
Well, they noticed that young girls were into Goth fashion. This is 2007. I'm starting high school.

00:56:46:20 - 00:56:49:15
Gabe
Okay, so the young.

00:56:49:15 - 00:57:09:22
Lauren
Girls, the girls are into Goth. This served as inspiration for creating a toy brand of the dark esthetic. Darren was involved with the early concepts for the brand. He came up with the slogan Wear Freaky, Just Got Fabulous. He also remarked Because the characters were monsters, they had more freedom to do things that ordinary kids could not do.

00:57:09:22 - 00:57:20:03
Lauren
Inspirations for the brand include children's interests in Tim Burton and Lady Gaga. Now, according.

00:57:20:09 - 00:57:24:01
Gabe
To I love that Tim Burton inspired Monster High Dolls.

00:57:25:01 - 00:57:39:05
Lauren
I mean, it makes sense. I mean, 2000, that there was so much going on with what's that brand hot topic. Yeah and Spencer's.

00:57:39:05 - 00:57:41:08
Gabe
My gosh Spencer.

00:57:41:08 - 00:57:45:04
Lauren
Before Christmas shenanigans Frankenweenie.

00:57:45:14 - 00:58:03:19
Gabe
So you're talking about this from high school but I still know what you're talking about because this was all from. But I was in middle school, right? Yeah. So this was like my seventh and eighth and your talk talking your this is so funny. Yeah. Oh, yes. The Corpse Bride. Yeah, yeah. On my list was this one. Coraline came out around this time too.

00:58:03:19 - 00:58:08:07
Gabe
Probably that wasn't quite as goth, but it was still like a darker. Yeah.

00:58:08:21 - 00:58:12:00
Lauren
But yeah. That whole just like Spencer's.

00:58:12:00 - 00:58:12:18
Gabe
Oh my gosh.

00:58:12:18 - 00:58:14:29
Lauren
Yeah. Spencer is hot topic all of.

00:58:14:29 - 00:58:15:21
Gabe
Those.

00:58:16:12 - 00:58:32:17
Lauren
Yeah. I have very strong memories of my high school career. I if you have seen me or know anything about me, obviously do not go down that path. It's a little intimidated.

00:58:32:17 - 00:58:43:09
Gabe
But we all dabbled though, during that time period. We all dabbled. We couldn't help ourselves. I'm sorry I keep interrupting you. I'm totally. I'm sorry.

00:58:44:06 - 00:58:58:24
Lauren
So I'm looking at the merchandise in the doll or in the merchandise section of the Wikipedia page. And according to a social media post made by Garrett Sander, the very first prototypes of the dolls during its development were made using hand.

00:58:58:24 - 00:58:59:16
Gabe
Molds.

00:59:01:03 - 00:59:13:07
Lauren
From another Mattel doll line that was never officially released. Bodies from Barbie collector dolls and with some accessories from my Seen Dolls. So they definitely were kind of using a variety.

00:59:13:08 - 00:59:23:27
Gabe
Rankin Stein. Mm. Frankenstein dolls, yeah, I get there's.

00:59:24:07 - 00:59:31:00
Lauren
750 different dolls have been released since the 2010 launch of Monster.

00:59:31:00 - 00:59:40:12
Gabe
For Monster High Dolls. 750. How many does Barbie have? There's no way she has that many. Those crazy.

00:59:40:12 - 00:59:42:20
Lauren
Probably.

00:59:42:20 - 00:59:49:24
Gabe
Really. I guess maybe. I don't know. That's so many unfathomable amount.

00:59:49:27 - 00:59:52:14
Lauren
Yeah, it is truly a lot.

00:59:54:04 - 01:00:15:12
Gabe
And I still okay so I still think my theory is right. But then when they're having to, you know, pitch to the CEO, now, how do we do the bigger and better than Bratz? That's where that came from. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It was like they were like, okay, so we did some research, and this is what we found, and this is what we got to do.

01:00:16:23 - 01:00:24:16
Gabe
I'm going to say how many different Barbie dolls I could you know, I find it like.

01:00:24:16 - 01:00:55:25
Lauren
Oh, there's competition from Bratz dolls, lol, because 2001 is when Bratz arrived. And in 2004, sales figures showed that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie dolls in the UK. But Mattel maintained that in terms of the number of dolls, clothes and accessories, Barbie remained the leading brand. So it makes sense that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbies. If everyone already had Barbies and they just wanted to buy more stuff, their Barbies as opposed to buying the new Bratz dolls.

01:00:56:17 - 01:01:10:07
Gabe
Anyway, this is there are more than $170 with different skin tones and hairstyles for Barbies. So 700, I guess it depends on what are they deciding that makes it for 750 that.

01:01:10:12 - 01:01:18:14
Lauren
Well, I mean there's so many and then all the characters have their different like it's different.

01:01:18:18 - 01:01:21:05
Gabe
So just different versions of the character.

01:01:21:05 - 01:01:23:19
Lauren
Yeah. I don't think it's 150.

01:01:23:19 - 01:01:23:28
Gabe
Okay.

01:01:23:29 - 01:01:32:15
Lauren
I see specific characters, but just like how Barbie has like Skipper and all the other ones, Kelly, whatever.

01:01:34:05 - 01:02:02:26
Gabe
Those would be like friends of hers. But there's Nurse Barbie. Doctor Barbie. Mm hmm. Right. That's what she would be saying. Okay, I get it. Okay. Sorry, because you're talking about this and you're talking about the whole suing and all that. So this makes me think of. Right, you had American girl dolls and then I don't know if it's Target, but in Target, there's like basically American Girl Dolls, but they're called is a next generation or something like that.

01:02:02:27 - 01:02:14:21
Gabe
Mm hmm. How is that not suitable? Because you cannot tell me. Those are not the first time I looked at them. I was like, What am I looking at? Why is this something an American girl did? I was so shook.

01:02:16:26 - 01:02:18:22
Lauren
In our generation.

01:02:19:26 - 01:02:23:13
Gabe
Oh, maybe it's our generation. That might be it.

01:02:24:27 - 01:02:37:06
Lauren
What is the difference between American girl and our generation? The biggest difference between the American Girl Doll brand and our generation brand is the price. Exactly what their house.

01:02:37:06 - 01:02:43:13
Gabe
Yeah, it's like it's like the Walmart version of of American Girl doll. It's crazy.

01:02:43:13 - 01:02:44:26
Lauren
Oh, they do sell them at mart.

01:02:44:26 - 01:03:09:05
Gabe
So the American Girl dolls are the our generation. Well, I would figure if they're at Target, they're probably at Walmart. But that's what I'm saying. Right. You have the name brand and then you have the the knockoff brand. So how how is that different, though, between the missing and the Bratz? Was it my scene that tried to go after Bratz first?

01:03:09:05 - 01:03:11:13
Gabe
Are the Brasco. After my scene first.

01:03:11:14 - 01:03:22:11
Lauren
Rats went after my scene and then an mattel went after the creator of Bratz for intellectual property.

01:03:22:11 - 01:03:35:13
Gabe
Right. That was there coming back at them. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. All very interesting. I love that. Okay. I'm sorry. Was there more tasks that that you were going to keep telling us about?

01:03:36:19 - 01:03:48:07
Lauren
Well, I we went down this road because I was thinking about why there's so many decor o the.

01:03:48:07 - 01:03:49:09
Gabe
Fashion and.

01:03:49:09 - 01:04:16:06
Lauren
Fashion games. It's because there are a lot of them are based on doll lines that they want to sell fashion and accessories for. So there's just a lot of like, oh yeah, here's your doll. Here's what she can look like. Isn't this fun? You can do this. Oh, yeah. If you buy the clothes, the room accessories, the all these so so their sales pitches and that's the.

01:04:16:14 - 01:04:48:18
Gabe
This was my comeback to that because. That's right. That's right. So I predicted what you're trying to say to me and this was my well, sorry, I don't know why my brain's acting like this is a debate, but like I was thinking about what you were going to say to me and what my response was to that. That happens a lot On our, on our podcast, I don't know if you've ever known that, but usually when I interrupt you to ask a question, it's because my brains are already speculating the overall what you're going to say and how am I going to respond to that.

01:04:48:25 - 01:04:56:29
Gabe
So sometimes I ask a question like I'm a lawyer, so I should clarify where. Okay, so I asked you about.

01:04:57:27 - 01:04:58:28
Lauren
What's my sense? Of course.

01:04:59:02 - 01:05:31:24
Gabe
Always, always there always is. So that, I don't know is awful that I feel like that's okay anyways. So okay. I guess I asked if they had a specific niche things about them. Right, the sports bar. Brad so this this and that's right. Okay. And this was why I remember here looking at okay, actually, I don't know if you looked at the Polly Pocket games, but I looked at a lot of the Polly Pocket games trying to figure out which one we were going to.

01:05:32:03 - 01:05:52:25
Gabe
We were going to do. But then I was also thinking about at preschool, we will sometimes let the kids play for 10 minutes on the computer, but they can only play on PBS kids. So I've seen a lot of the PBS kids games. Mm hmm. Okay. So if we have. Right. So let's say we have a sports brat doll.

01:05:53:02 - 01:06:22:02
Gabe
Okay. Right. Why couldn't they make a flash game where she's as some kind of sporty thing, right. How does that how can that not be a promotional sale for her? Well, you know, you can show some new gear in that and stuff the like. Why couldn't we have like that? So she could have a sports game. And then I was thinking because I was trying to compare it to Barbie and I was thinking about the fact that Barbie has all these different professions they could have had like a nurse game.

01:06:22:02 - 01:06:42:29
Gabe
I don't know why. I can only think of nurse and teacher Barbie. I know there's more than that, like hours Barbie or something, but that's the ones I keep thinking about, right? So why couldn't they have used those niche interests beyond just the fashion and stuff of those dolls to to make more diverse games like that now?

01:06:43:03 - 01:06:44:00
Lauren
Oh, I totally agree.

01:06:44:01 - 01:06:58:15
Gabe
I know you're right. It's all marketing, so I get why, but it just feels like they think that's the only way they'll get the sales. Like that's all girls are in it. Oh yeah. And they're not.

01:06:58:15 - 01:07:20:26
Lauren
Totally know there was so much of like I mean, I'm looking at the Bratz games right now and yeah, it's all like makeovers. Love meters, perfect dates, racing, racing stars. Okay, there's several Bratz car parking. Wait, hold on.

01:07:20:26 - 01:07:22:17
Gabe
Okay, racing stars. Fun.

01:07:22:19 - 01:07:24:02
Lauren
We have a must investigate.

01:07:24:04 - 01:07:46:15
Gabe
Race, car, Bratz. Why can't we have a Bratz? Saw that? Like is obsessed with swimming and scuba diving. And then why couldn't we have a game where like that that Polly Pocket game, right. Where she's holding on to the dolphin. Okay, why can't Bratz doll hold on to some sea creature, maybe make it a little more complicated than the Polly Pocket one, us boy, something like that.

01:07:46:22 - 01:08:13:20
Gabe
Yeah. Okay, go ahead. I don't know why I got so passionate about this, but tell us, is it is a more than just fashion? Is it something that isn't just fashion or cooking? Also, I think I hate the sexism of it all being cooking games like that's all. I just hear the guys in my games being like, Shouldn't you be in the kitchen?

01:08:13:22 - 01:08:37:12
Gabe
Why don't you go back to the kitchen where you came from? Make me a sandwich. I think that's what was really triggering me yesterday, seeing all those cooking games and them like going towards girls, young girls like that is all I could hear was every time a toxic male gamer said that crap to me, shouldn't you be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen?

01:08:37:13 - 01:08:42:01
Gabe
Oh, my God. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm ready now.

01:08:42:01 - 01:08:45:23
Lauren
That's fine. It's my screen loaded. Oh, here we go. So it.

01:08:45:23 - 01:08:46:05
Gabe
Is.

01:08:46:24 - 01:08:51:26
Lauren
There is a Bratz game where you have to park your car.

01:08:53:15 - 01:09:26:07
Gabe
Is this because of this, the sexist stereotype that women can't drive? Stop. This is so bad. And you're. My God, I hate it. At first looking at this, I was thinking of that child game where you had the square and you had all the different cars in it and you had to try and move the cars to get one car all the way across.

01:09:26:15 - 01:09:28:20
Gabe
This is what this makes me think of. But like.

01:09:29:03 - 01:09:33:16
Lauren
Okay, it's the entire game and there are different levels.

01:09:33:16 - 01:09:33:23
Gabe
Oh.

01:09:34:23 - 01:09:36:10
Lauren
I can't. It's not a crash.

01:09:37:28 - 01:09:43:12
Gabe
So only. Only a woman would ride the curb. She's so.

01:09:44:14 - 01:09:57:19
Lauren
I did not crash Lord on me. Okay, so this entire game, like you're in a car and you are physically driving around at this in parking.

01:09:57:19 - 01:10:01:01
Gabe
Lots and oh, God, where by.

01:10:01:01 - 01:10:11:20
Lauren
The crunch of just other cars that are like around and you have to like maneuver through them and try not to hit anything and then parking.

01:10:11:20 - 01:10:17:07
Gabe
Your backwards parking, can you do a 90 degree back in, mama?

01:10:17:21 - 01:10:21:26
Lauren
What do you think? I think you tell me. Congratulations.

01:10:21:29 - 01:10:25:01
Gabe
How is that how you.

01:10:25:01 - 01:10:30:24
Lauren
That was in the slide and hit anything. This is great. I love this. All right.

01:10:30:29 - 01:10:34:28
Gabe
Sorry. I don't know how I feel about that one. I still.

01:10:34:28 - 01:10:36:01
Lauren
Okay, it's very.

01:10:36:04 - 01:10:47:04
Gabe
Well, it is a variety, so. Okay. But it just makes me think of all the all the men who who say this stereotypical sexist thinking of women can't drive.

01:10:48:02 - 01:10:50:06
Lauren
Oh, I know. That's why it's so. It's so.

01:10:50:15 - 01:10:51:21
Gabe
It's not. It's just.

01:10:51:21 - 01:10:55:19
Lauren
Like, oh, no, this game is just about parking your.

01:10:55:19 - 01:11:13:24
Gabe
Car. It's like, I care. Just tell me what I care. And basically, the thing is, is that is upset that little girls didn't get a bigger diversity. Okay.

01:11:13:24 - 01:11:14:20
Lauren
At the time.

01:11:16:00 - 01:11:40:20
Gabe
At the time. Well, still a little bit now. But yes, at the time, I feel like they were way more targeted, like this is the only thing women would be or girls would be interested. And I would just like to say, okay, one, I'm a little biased in that I was definitely raised, I think as a tomboy. I hung out a lot with my dad and his guy friends.

01:11:40:20 - 01:12:06:04
Gabe
Okay. But also, I think even if that hadn't been the case, I think I would still be like how I am. I would say I'm a very sexually fluid person. I can have male energy just as much as I can have female energy, and I can easily switch between them and it doesn't matter. I was never quite a fan of Dolls, but that was also because when I was very little like toddler and stuff, I watched Chucky with my dad.

01:12:06:04 - 01:12:33:15
Gabe
I didn't trust those hoes. I knew them Barbies were plotting my demise. However, my Barbies were my best friends during bath time. Okay, they were held the tests of time and water. I also had a mermaid Barbie, and I really wanted to be a mermaid as obsessed swimming so I could totally get behind her back. My Barbie. So I told you this.

01:12:33:15 - 01:12:55:08
Gabe
My Polly pockets rode my dinosaurs and my Barbies were the food I did have. Okay, I will say the one doll I unequivocally loved had no feelings against. And I could say I'm a doll lover is because I had every single winks girl doll. I should have brought those out. That would have been so that I had every single scroll doll.

01:12:55:27 - 01:13:24:26
Gabe
Yeah. And I loved those the best, probably because they were magical. They're fairies and they could fly. And I really wanted to have wings and could fly. And, you know, my obsession with dragons and that was like, okay, but I mean, I had dinosaurs, I had Hot Wheels cars, I had Legos, had Barbies, I had Polly pockets because, you know, like, like my dad's mom, she wanted to get me a more feminine gift.

01:13:24:26 - 01:13:51:19
Gabe
So she gave me a lot of pockets. However, actually loved Polly Pockets. This is another thing I'll say. I don't know why I'm outing myself this much. This is probably such a strange. I don't know how to explain this fully, but I always hated the men dolls. I hated the Ken Dolls. They freaked me out. I didn't like them and I hated the male Polly pockets, at least the ones they initially to make when they're like, Oh, let's make like boyfriends for Polly.

01:13:51:27 - 01:14:14:13
Gabe
Okay. So when I, when I looked at my dolls, they were always a blank canvas to me. I know they like boobs and like hips and stuff, but when I looked at them, it was a blank canvas and they were whatever gender and personality I told them they were. So I had one Barbie in the bathroom that was always the boy.

01:14:14:13 - 01:14:32:14
Gabe
That was just the boy Barbie. And I did not see her any other way. And I think my sister once talked to me. I think she played with her and played with it as a girl. And I was like, I'm sorry, what do you mean that's a girl, Barbie. That's that's a boy. I don't remember her name. I don't remember what his name was, but I was like, What?

01:14:32:14 - 01:14:59:21
Gabe
What do you mean that's not. No, no, no, no. And that was the same thing with my Polly Pockets. I had this one, Polly Pocket, who was like, that was the male of that household. So my point was that it makes me sad that that there's so many children, boys and girls, who didn't have the same childhood I did, where they don't feel like they could equally enjoy all of that.

01:14:59:29 - 01:15:31:26
Gabe
I loved every toy. Toys were just toys to me. I didn't as much as, you know, my guy friends and my girlfriends acted differently and told me that's not how it worked to me. They were toys, dinosaurs were dinosaurs. Barbies were Barbies. I could have. It did not matter. There was no in little and little Gabe's world. Every toy had its place and it had its where it fit in and it was possible for all of them to coexist and the like if I wish.

01:15:32:14 - 01:16:00:08
Gabe
If I had pictures of like the things I built that had all of my different stuff in it. So that's, that was my whole thing is it makes me sad how they did the games because. It didn't offer the chance for them to have this more diverse experience. I feel like I was very blessed, a child to just to just fully be a child and live an imaginary world.

01:16:01:06 - 01:16:19:26
Lauren
For people who have a young one in their life. What would you recommend they have the kid play? Or like what are what are some good starter games for children in general, do you think?

01:16:21:10 - 01:16:33:11
Gabe
Oh, you're asking me when I thought you were talking. Wait, can you repost? He posed the question. I didn't realize this was a question. Okay, Gabe, it's.

01:16:33:19 - 01:16:56:01
Lauren
For people who are who have children or youths in their lives that don't play games or the people want to introduce gaming into the child's life. Do you have any recommendations for the kind of games that they can play or kind of how to introduce kids to gaming?

01:16:56:19 - 01:17:16:07
Gabe
Okay. My first response to that would be so, right. So like you're you're saying the thing about flash games that's nice is that they are free. You don't have to pay for them. So we were talking about flash games and I've also said this before it that wasn't really where my gaming experience started. My dad was a gamer, so he bought games and he bought games for me.

01:17:16:13 - 01:17:40:11
Gabe
But obviously not everyone can do that. So I would say you start right starting with the flash games is good. It's a good gateway. But also so the PBS is really nice because they actually learn stuff while they're playing. And that's a big thing that I've learned in my teaching is. The best way to teach kids is to teach while playing because their brain.

01:17:41:21 - 01:18:17:13
Gabe
I would say it's like because their brain shields are down, you know what I mean? They're not trying to fight you learning something. They're just open in there. And I think gaming could be used the same way. So, you know, obviously at my school they play the PBS kids. I recommend those. They actually are really entertaining even if you're aren't like you don't watch a ton of PBS but then think, you know, on my childhood I'd also say you know like I played all the Disney games, the Disney Flash games and like I was saying, a lot of those were gender neutral and they weren't just focused in on one thing or the other like

01:18:17:13 - 01:18:28:29
Gabe
the possible flash games. Yeah. Or so fun. So you did have the one shopping game, but you were Parker shopping. So you were doing something girly, but at least you got to be a badass while you did it.

01:18:29:04 - 01:18:33:24
Lauren
Well, and there's no problem with having girly games if you.

01:18:33:24 - 01:18:34:20
Gabe
Yes, I too.

01:18:34:26 - 01:19:01:23
Lauren
Like so if your site has, you know, some girly games for people who do on the site, do dress up or whatever, but then also have a variety of appropriate games so that kids who do want to, you know, either just play like hardcore games, but say, oh, a dress up game, oh, maybe I'll test that out. Or vice versa.

01:19:01:23 - 01:19:22:17
Gabe
I think part of it too is just I think this is also I feel so strongly as as a child. I like to be challenged and I still like to be challenged a fashion game and I'm not saying it's not a challenge, but at least for me, it wasn't something I felt was as challenging or poses much of a challenge to me as far as like the brand new Mr. Whiskers Games too, right?

01:19:23:02 - 01:19:46:01
Lauren
So that gets back to our ever arching question of why are you playing a game? Is it to be like in a dress up game or a makeup game? You're being creative, you're playing with different things, you're experimenting. You're not necessarily doing it to achieve a goal or say.

01:19:46:04 - 01:19:46:27
Gabe
Right, not like a.

01:19:46:27 - 01:20:04:21
Lauren
Target necessarily, but you just you are able to be creative and be flexible. And, you know, it's a fun social thing. Like you and I were having a great time playing those where we were walking through and saying, Ooh, what if you try this? What if you try this? So there is that kind of interaction and social aspect as well.

01:20:04:21 - 01:20:14:10
Lauren
But it was, you know, creative. You were not trying to get a certain amount of to like do action items. It was just using your creativity.

01:20:15:16 - 01:20:41:13
Gabe
Yes. Okay. Let me amend that. I then and now I like to my brain to be stimulated in different ways so I could enjoy because I did play some of those fashion games. Right? I could enjoy them because if stimulated me one way. But then I liked like so like the two popular Disney Channel games I played with my friends was the brand new restaurants.

01:20:41:22 - 01:21:06:21
Gabe
But then there is also a Lilo and Stitch. I think it was like Tiki Bowling or something like that. So I liked them because one, they were a challenge. But also it was like the old arcade game where you could see who was my gosh, who was the best, right? Who had the highest score and like trying to beat that and to be one of those people really out there.

01:21:06:21 - 01:21:08:20
Gabe
I also enjoyed that.

01:21:08:20 - 01:21:10:17
Lauren
You know, like then competition. Okay.

01:21:12:13 - 01:21:33:10
Gabe
Yes. Well, I like the challenge of the game, but then also sometimes separately, like, right, like I play fierce games. I like the competition to show my two pit my prowess against somebody else's. Okay. So going back to your asking me, what would I recommend? Right, that Would be the starter if you don't want to spend money. I obviously would always recommend the Nancy Drew.

01:21:33:10 - 01:21:58:12
Gabe
And that's not just because our channel has an obsession with Nancy Drew, but genuinely, I think they are they're good games for kids, even though it's going to be a lot harder for your kids to play them. Their brains just aren't quite working that way. It it starts to build critical thinking and them problem solving, but they're also having fun.

01:21:58:28 - 01:22:10:15
Gabe
They're learning about a bunch of different stuff. It's a good way to connect with them because I think the beauty of those is when you, a kid playing them, the parent can be there too with them. Right? So you can have that.

01:22:10:26 - 01:22:13:21
Lauren
Or on your sibling or. Mm hmm. Yeah.

01:22:15:04 - 01:22:39:17
Gabe
I'd say those. I don't know what the equivalent would be today, but the more kid games that I played when I was younger, so I obviously played the more adult game. Zandra with my dad or Sam. Sarah We talked about that, but the kids game I played when I wasn't playing with him and was on my own was, you know, I had, I had the Harry Potter computer games.

01:22:39:17 - 01:23:00:17
Gabe
Was it called? I had a preschool game that was actually really entertaining and I played it well beyond my preschool years. I don't know what it was, though. I don't even know if I have the cover for it. I had an Arthur game that I loved to death that was a very kind of pajama Sam esque kind of game.

01:23:00:17 - 01:23:02:20
Lauren
Ready, fish. Pajama Sam. Yeah.

01:23:03:15 - 01:23:29:01
Gabe
Yes. So, like, I don't know if they still make those kinds of games for kids now, but if they do, I would recommend those. Those kinds of games were so much fun. I had a super cool Jurassic Park game that I loved the crap out of. It was so fun. It was called Danger and it was You could play by yourself or you could be multiplayer.

01:23:29:12 - 01:23:57:18
Gabe
So you had the competition and stuff in that that you were against a friend or the A.I.. I always liked being fair of fossil. That's good. And so it was a purple car and a green car. Our Jeep, their jeeps, a purple jeep in a green jeep there was a board. And you like, I think you pressed the spacebar to quote unquote, roll the dice or something.

01:23:57:28 - 01:24:25:03
Gabe
It was like a Jumanji Jurassic Park board. So you would go around like your Jeep would drive around the the the map squares, but it was like a map. And depending on where you landed, that was a certain mini game. So there's one mini game where you're trying to corral velociraptors and you have to like drive your jeep up and down and your friend or whatever has to do it to try and keep them in.

01:24:25:03 - 01:24:48:15
Gabe
So you can get as many of them in like cattle, like herding cattle or velociraptors. There's one where you had the the T-Rex had like a cone of what it could see and it like and I don't know how to describe what I'm doing. I just did the visual. Like the people listening can do it. It had like a line of sight and it rotated or moved its head and you had to like sneak.

01:24:49:01 - 01:25:08:09
Gabe
And then a lot of times you have to wait behind a rock because they would have to turn its head and then you'd do this and it had different speeds and it would change. Like it wasn't just one constant motion. So that one was really freaky and you'd have to go get something and then come back to the jeep and there, there's, there's a whole bunch of different.

01:25:08:15 - 01:25:30:19
Gabe
So I loved, I loved that one, but I also loved dinosaurs. So something like that. I feel like it's so much fun. Yeah. And then I had the Shrek game, so those are really what I played as a child. But I, I assume today they still make really fun child PC games like that. Okay, so this is what I don't know, is it?

01:25:31:01 - 01:25:57:15
Gabe
Since I've gotten older and since I started, whenever I get a game, I get it. I buy it digitally. I like online, I buy it and steam in epic. Right. I'm not and getting a CD so for kids you have to as a parent know how to use steam and get games that way or can you still go and get.

01:25:57:27 - 01:26:02:13
Lauren
I think you can see go and get CD-ROMs. You can still go buy.

01:26:02:13 - 01:26:02:26
Gabe
Okay.

01:26:03:25 - 01:26:12:19
Lauren
Yeah, but your computer has to take it has to have a CD-ROM slot. Mike talked to me, which.

01:26:12:19 - 01:26:13:01
Gabe
I still.

01:26:13:01 - 01:26:15:17
Lauren
Think one or of having a CD slot.

01:26:15:26 - 01:26:16:15
Gabe
Oh, my.

01:26:16:15 - 01:26:17:26
Lauren
Computer. And I was just like.

01:26:18:22 - 01:26:19:18
Gabe
I don't know.

01:26:20:12 - 01:26:27:17
Lauren
Anyway, he talked me out of getting one. So you so I'm going to have to in order to play any CD-ROM games, I have to like have to.

01:26:27:17 - 01:26:30:03
Gabe
Get a separate thing that you USB plug in, right?

01:26:30:09 - 01:26:38:29
Lauren
And you know, the majority of time that's fine. But like I've got some Nancy Drew games on CD-ROM, but I also have them on Steam. So it's like, does it matter?

01:26:39:22 - 01:26:59:21
Gabe
Anyway, you kind of talked me out of that. I still make sure we get a CD, but I was just thinking about that in the sense that I feel like there might still be things today that like you would have to do it through CD. They don't do. I don't know. I don't know if I'd known you. You're going to ask me this question?

01:26:59:21 - 01:27:16:13
Gabe
I was down and looked at child gaming because now I'm curious, but also I feel embarrassed. I don't have the answer because you always paint me. I feel like I kind of paint myself too, as the like gaming guru. Like, I know all this stuff, and now it's something I don't know. So now I'm.

01:27:16:19 - 01:27:16:27
Lauren
Sorry.

01:27:17:03 - 01:27:28:15
Gabe
But shame on me. How do I know? Male gaming. Female gaming? But I don't know. Children, gaming. Shame. Come on, Gabe, have them play Fortnite. Just kidding.

01:27:28:15 - 01:27:30:17
Lauren
Just go play Minecraft kids. It's fine.

01:27:30:28 - 01:28:00:14
Gabe
You know, it's crazy. I one of my preschoolers plays Minecraft. Wait. This is something I have to share because this is something that blows my mind just. And that is. And it's not the minecraft. The Minecraft is where I first thought I was mind blown and then I realized I could be mind blown beyond that. Okay. My four year olds, some of them know, my God, of course, the names are going to blank.

01:28:00:14 - 01:28:32:17
Gabe
I mean, okay, so the first one, right. Five nights are Friday. They know who what that is like. They've watched it or played it. Okay. And one of them came to Halloween dressed as a scary animatronic from five nights up. Right now they know Poppy's playtime, which is also a horror game. I don't know if Poppy's playtime comes from something that's a child, a child thing, but I know it's a horror game.

01:28:33:07 - 01:28:56:25
Gabe
And then one of them knew this new indie horror game that, like, it's childish stuff, but it's not meant for children. Like, they didn't make it for children. It's called Garden of Bamboo. And do you know what that is? Okay. Well, it's about so it has kindergarten stuff. That's okay. It has kindergarten stuff. That's why it's called the Garden of Bamboo.

01:28:56:27 - 01:29:22:11
Gabe
But it's a horror game. It's a horror kindergarten. Okay. It's not actually meant they, like, knew what that stuff was. I think they're talking about some huggy bug thing. Let me google this. I'm pretty sure Huggy Wiki is a horror game to i owned it so. Okay the poppy play time really gets me and they talk about how they've like I don't know.

01:29:22:11 - 01:29:40:25
Gabe
Yeah. How do you like guys from poppy playtime? I'm just going to say survive the evil toys waiting for you in the abandoned factory. Okay. No. Yeah, there are all these horror time stuff, and they. And I know enough about them. So these ones I've never played, but I have watched play them because I love horror games and I love horror in general.

01:29:42:18 - 01:30:07:26
Gabe
And my little four year olds are talking smack to each other about poppy playtime and about how they beat it and how fast they beat it. And like I love Huggy, why and like that. And I read stuffed animals of them. It's insane. Oh, Lord, it's insane. It blows my mind and I can't understand if, like if if it's like negligent parenting.

01:30:07:26 - 01:30:37:25
Gabe
Like, the parents just don't know what their kids are ingesting. Like, maybe they aren't actually playing it right. Maybe they get down the YouTube rabbit hole and somehow, some way YouTube recommends a let's play of someone playing those games and then they see her, right? And so then they see the stuff that like I it that too. Okay so the Friday night of Freddy one's the Halloween that's what I'm thinking that came from as a sibling for her the puppy play I don't know about playtime.

01:30:37:25 - 01:30:47:26
Gabe
But then I'm wondering like did the parents just see the stuffed animals at Target or something and think, Oh, it's just a stuffed animal? Yeah. I'm like, you know, whatever. It's Fine.

01:30:48:29 - 01:30:53:29
Lauren
And then, yeah, it's just like, Ooh, I love this toy. And the parents, like, okay, honey, whatever.

01:30:54:13 - 01:31:05:11
Gabe
Yeah, yeah. Which is still kind of because the poppy playtime toys are kind of freaky. Like, they don't look normal. They're like, very long. Like, some of them are, like, really stretched out and, like, skinny.

01:31:05:11 - 01:31:10:26
Lauren
And I'm not going to look, I guess that's going to upset me right?

01:31:10:26 - 01:31:21:23
Gabe
I'm sorry. I was so mind blown. I saw this, I, I couldn't. I, I can't. Okay. I have to stop my brain just doesn't comprehend.

01:31:21:24 - 01:31:24:13
Lauren
Now I'm concerned because now.

01:31:25:12 - 01:31:26:09
Gabe
When.

01:31:26:23 - 01:31:39:23
Lauren
Mike and I have kids, now anything thing that they'll any, any toy that they like, I'm going to have to look up and make sure it's from it's not from a horror franchise.

01:31:39:23 - 01:32:02:28
Gabe
Okay. First of all, to some extent, I feel like parents should be doing that, like maybe not feeling good, but I feel like you should know, kind of like because my parents, even if they didn't actually watch the cartoon shows with me, they knew a lot of what I liked, where it came from, what show, what franchise, what this or that, where it at the very least came from.

01:32:03:13 - 01:32:18:07
Gabe
And if that was probably child appropriate or not granted, my dad always treated me like I was an adult. Hence I watched horror movies at the age of two and then I was fine. But not all kids can do that.

01:32:18:27 - 01:32:21:09
Lauren
But against dolls because of Chucky.

01:32:21:18 - 01:32:45:29
Gabe
Okay, okay. Hear me out, though. Hear me out. This is what I would say first. This is something my before my dad started this whole thing. So obviously when I was one, one and a half, probably it two, I started to have comprehension, right? But at that point, I'm so young, I have no idea what my dad's watching.

01:32:45:29 - 01:33:08:00
Gabe
I don't give a frank. I was also very sick during that time. I so I probably wasn't very conscious very often or totally out there. I had a ton of ear infections. I was in and out of the hospital. I had a lot of sickness. Okay, so at that point in my life when my dad watched his sci fi and horror and stuff, my brain isn't going to process anything, right?

01:33:08:00 - 01:33:33:00
Gabe
So okay, so it's probably okay that I'm not a parenting expert, but I'm just saying it's not as crazy as showing a four year old where the four year old's actually going to start picking up on stuff. Right. Okay. So once I could start grasping things and the stuff I would see would actually start affecting me, my dad always had he sat me down, let me okay.

01:33:34:05 - 01:33:49:25
Gabe
My dad is always talk to me like I was an adult. He's always treating me as an adult. He treated me like I could think and respond back to him as a stop. I say that's a good thing because it forced me to think about the things before I said them. At a very young age, I thought about what I said.

01:33:50:08 - 01:34:12:19
Gabe
I also started to learn how to argue in the sense of like like the lawyer brain. Right. Okay. When we talk, when we have. Yes, he he taught me how to debate a very young age. I knew how to have critical conversations a lot earlier than most kids. And then because of that, I thought beyond myself, a lot more than most kids, too.

01:34:12:19 - 01:34:38:06
Gabe
I thought about other people. So I'd say one that was a really big thing. So then because he did that, when we started watching movies that, you probably either shouldn't show a young kid or most young kids aren't going to watch. You know, we had the various discussion of like there is good, there is evil, there is, you know, like you always do the right thing even if it's hard, do the right thing.

01:34:38:09 - 01:35:03:23
Gabe
So examples of that stand up for people don't just stand by idly and let someone be bullied or something, right? That's the right thing. Telling the truth, even if it's hard, even if it's going to hurt someone, even if you're scared, always tell the truth because you're going to get in a lot less trouble telling the truth than you are if you lie or try to hide it.

01:35:04:02 - 01:35:26:28
Gabe
Okay. And stuff like that. Right. So he taught me a very I'm not strict but more of a moral compass. And that was how I was kind of able to watch the movies. So then he also the others fundamental conversation was that good always triumphs. Okay. As an older adult, we could say, maybe that isn't always true. I kind of still believe that.

01:35:27:09 - 01:35:48:23
Gabe
But in my head that was my mindset, right? So I could watch these scary movies because I was like, well, good always triumphs. The bad guy is not going to win. So it doesn't matter how scared I get or what happens, right? That was my love of monster movies. Except for me. The good was always the monster. I always wanted the monster to win.

01:35:48:23 - 01:36:13:20
Gabe
But then we could watch. You know, I watched like Total Recall or I watched The Terminator as a child or like those kinds of things. So sometimes I'll admit I still had nightmares. Sometimes they still gave me nightmares, but the nightmares didn't make me want to stop, like I didn't care the nightmares or whatever. Because you're acting like the Chucky traumatized me as a child, right?

01:36:13:20 - 01:36:32:24
Gabe
So our kids shouldn't probably watch it. That's right this was where I was going with this whole defense, I think before Chucky Dolls probably unnerved me as a child. A little bit like, you know, some kids, for whatever reason, just don't like clowns, even before they ever have a clown experience. Okay. I think I had that with dolls before we even ever watched Chucky.

01:36:33:02 - 01:36:53:17
Gabe
And then Chucky kind of exacerbated it. And this was leading me to and the whole point I was telling you about the other stuff was I had seen so many things way more scarier than Chucky. By the time we got to Chucky, I had things that I was way more scared of than Dolls and the Oh. And then Chucky connects to Toy Story.

01:36:53:17 - 01:37:20:06
Gabe
When I watch Toy Story as a child, I got very invested in movies as a child. There was a lot of movies, I believe, full heartedly. I was very much like older people, older things, like they knew better. What they told me was the on God truth. So Toy Story, right the toys, being alive, I already kind of thought that as a child like to me my toys were alive.

01:37:20:06 - 01:37:40:28
Gabe
And then seeing this, I was like, Oh my God, my toys are alive. I knew it this whole time. My toys have feelings. Okay. And this connected to the Chucky because I was like, oh, my gosh, that's why Chucky is so evil, because he has feelings and the kids weren't nice to him. Okay. And the one thing that traumatized me from Toy Story was the little spider doll head.

01:37:41:14 - 01:38:02:18
Gabe
Hmm. Yeah, that was really creepy. Under said that. But he wasn't a bad guy, but he kind of looked like he was right. That was where that whole was like, okay, so then from then on in my head, I always was very careful how I treated my toys. I was not bad to them. They had good places. I kept them all safe.

01:38:02:18 - 01:38:23:09
Gabe
I tucked them in. I was very nice to my toys because I was afraid my toys would kill me if I wasn't because they were alive and they had feelings. Third grade, every girl at this point in my class has an American girl doll. American girl doll is the fad. And my mom is like, You know what? I'm going to get my daughter an American girl doll.

01:38:23:09 - 01:38:47:14
Gabe
So for my third grade birthday, I opened this damn present and it's an American girl doll. And I'm like, No, now this is it, this is it. I'm going to die tonight. I'm not making it through the night, Chucky. It's come true. It didn't matter how much I've taken care of my other toys, I am done for. So that night I get into my pride, get into my bed.

01:38:47:28 - 01:39:15:23
Gabe
I make a huge for my extra pillows and decorative pillows bed for my American girl doll to sleep next to me. And I Tucker and and I am trying to be really nicer and I'm like, okay, if I'm really she's not going to kill me in my sleep. It's all going to be fine. I probably took forever to fall asleep that night because I kept looking over at it and I didn't know if it was scarier to look at it and see it move or to look away like the classic horror movie.

01:39:15:23 - 01:39:35:10
Gabe
You look away and then look back and it's gone. I didn't know what was scarier. Took me forever to fall asleep. Okay. I wake up the next morning to my door being closed, like hearing my door closed because I didn't. I slept with my door open like a crack. So hearing it closed is like, why is why is my door closing?

01:39:37:00 - 01:40:17:21
Gabe
I slowly open my eyes and I'm like, Do I really want to look over to my left? Do I want to do it? Do I want to now? So I do it. I look over. She's gone. She's not there. And then as I'm looking as she's not there, I feel something at the foot of my bed, slither under my bed covers and little head grab this my ankle and I'm so frozen and petrified you're like, no, this is this is the end.

01:40:17:24 - 01:40:41:00
Gabe
I think I started to say to pray to God. And I was like thinking of all the things I've done. And I was like, I'm sorry, God, please let me go to heaven. And this little hand, as I'm saying, all these things of reviewing all my life choices is slowly going on. I'm body and I was so too afraid to look down at what it was and it's slowly coming closer.

01:40:41:25 - 01:41:02:01
Gabe
And I had my blankets up. I slept with them kind over my face are very up against my face. And it's finally getting to a point where like, I'm going to look at the doll straight in the eye. I'm going to see the doll as my baby sister first learning how to walk so she couldn't quite walk on her own.

01:41:02:01 - 01:41:22:26
Gabe
So she had come into my room, crawled, grabbed the doll, tried to go back, I think out of the room, ended up closing my door and then was like, Well, shit comes over to my bed because she can't just up, you know, she has to hold the bed. And I was laying close to that side, so she grabbed me unintentionally and is like using me for support as she's walking out.

01:41:22:26 - 01:41:50:29
Gabe
But her hands small, right. So it feels like a doll hand and it's so she's got one hand on me and my doll by the ankle in her other hand. And I'm like, You son of a bitch. So that was really where my doll fear fully cemented was that I was I really thought I was anyways. So it wasn't just because we watched Chucky, but I do worry that I do know some kids can't do all that stuff.

01:41:50:29 - 01:41:59:03
Gabe
My sister could not watch what. I could watch as a kid. It it just. It was too much for her. She would have nightmares that she just couldn't deal with.

01:41:59:03 - 01:42:22:24
Lauren
Yeah. I mean, I did not do horror movies. I had a couple of friends over for a sleepover. I like seventh grade, sixth grade, and we watched the first 5 minutes of the ring. So I felt like the first kind of first body like like reaching out that like crystal doorknob or whatever to get under the cabinet, finding her body.

01:42:23:12 - 01:42:31:04
Lauren
We turned off there, did not go back. I did not watch the ring until I was like 24. Did you see that.

01:42:31:04 - 01:42:40:24
Gabe
Was the first horror movie you ever watched? I was going to say your first mistake is Japanese. Horror is a whole nother level of horror right here as. I'm sorry, go on. I mean, that.

01:42:40:24 - 01:42:59:12
Lauren
Was kind of one of the first ones I didn't watch like I didn't watch horror. Like, that's not that. My friends and I were like, really? We watched a lot of Lord of the Rings. We watched a lot of Smallville. Yes. But like we weren't watching, like, Marvel Horror. And so that was one of the first times we were like, oh, my gosh, we're going to do it.

01:42:59:12 - 01:43:14:20
Lauren
We had, like rented the movie from the rental place. Watch. The first 5 minutes were like, no. And I had nightmares about that first 5 minutes of that movie for a while. It was really rough out there.

01:43:14:20 - 01:43:36:08
Gabe
That one was really scary movie. I think another one that really scared me as a child and honestly probably I still think is a little creepy. Was the I had two nightmares about the first. There's so many times that when I would like run up the stairs at nighttime and run as fast as I could into the bunk bed into my bed.

01:43:37:02 - 01:44:02:03
Gabe
So I was and then I kind of hated the bunk bed because there's one scene I think is the first grudge where she looks up and the grudges on the ceiling like had extended down towards her. And I'm like, I can touch the ceiling. She's going to be in me jab. I think the ring is Japanese were I'm pretty sure the grudges I Japanese horror as a whole.

01:44:02:10 - 01:44:06:22
Gabe
Mm hmm. It is quite literally. It's whole a whole nother beast of horror.

01:44:07:17 - 01:44:23:11
Lauren
See? Yes. So I love, like, campy, like slashers, you know, like scream. Oh, Friday, L13, Friday the 13th. Any of those great time, Battle Royale.

01:44:23:26 - 01:44:24:14
Gabe
Who's in it?

01:44:25:10 - 01:44:31:00
Lauren
It's a Japanese game or a Japanese movie from Teeth.

01:44:31:04 - 01:44:32:00
Gabe
Oh Oh.

01:44:32:21 - 01:44:33:10
Lauren
That is.

01:44:33:10 - 01:44:34:03
Gabe
Yeah, I.

01:44:34:06 - 01:44:57:27
Lauren
Okay, it's it's a thriller. It's not necessarily a horror. It's kind of like a slasher thriller. But I would say that's my favorite of the genre. I just think it's so classic and it's so good. Just a bunch of high schoolers on an that have to fight to the death until only one remains because there's like an overpopulation or whatever.

01:44:57:27 - 01:45:24:12
Lauren
And so that's very random. High school class gets chosen and everyone gets a little weapons and whatever and they all get to go kill each other. And the victor gets to live basically anyway. So you just get connected to the characters and you get emotionally tied in there. It's just it's it's really it's interesting.

01:45:27:15 - 01:45:42:04
Gabe
The various slashers is they're a little bit harder to become afraid of because they're kind of like you can feel the unreal in this have that if that makes sense like they're a little comical.

01:45:42:04 - 01:45:46:15
Lauren
Or inherently campy because they're unrealistic.

01:45:47:19 - 01:45:56:16
Gabe
Yeah. Yeah. So you're like, Oh, okay, this is fun. You might still get a, a scare, a jump scares, some other kinds of scares, but you're like, Whatever.

01:45:57:11 - 01:46:29:21
Lauren
I'm sorry. It's going to be a laugh, but, like, it should leave you with, you know, your final person, whatever. And while you made it to the other side, cabin in the woods is a very if you haven't seen that. I love that movie. It's so much fun because it is so campy and so ridiculous and just plays on every single trope of horror movies, but still is its own interesting story.

01:46:30:11 - 01:46:30:24
Lauren
Anyway.

01:46:31:08 - 01:46:53:27
Gabe
Those those kinds of movies, though, can start to scare me when like even if they have the can be some is the experimentation. So Cabin in the Woods was right in experimentation but that's that when it gets depending on the experimentation and where it goes into it, that starts to freak me out in the sense that that is stuff that happens in the real world.

01:46:53:27 - 01:47:25:06
Gabe
Like there are humans who are sick and who do that, who experiment on other humans and not necessarily consenting humans either, you know, like it's just it's awful. So that usually the only kinds of things that start to scare me in horror is the actual realism of that. There are humans that are monsters, that are pure evil, that do awful things and can do absolutely horrific things to you.

01:47:25:13 - 01:47:28:11
Gabe
Well, you start talking about horror. I couldn't help myself.

01:47:28:11 - 01:47:30:11
Lauren
You started talking about horror.

01:47:31:08 - 01:47:45:10
Gabe
I had to defend myself. You brought up the Chucky comment. Now that traumatized me, and I couldn't deal with dolls. I had to defend myself. I did great. Thanks. I feel like you're judging me.

01:47:46:16 - 01:47:49:06
Lauren
I just think there's a lot to unpack with that.

01:47:49:06 - 01:47:53:24
Gabe
But that's the Chucky or the whole story of that.

01:47:54:13 - 01:47:59:09
Lauren
The whole story.

01:47:59:09 - 01:48:06:10
Gabe
Why writing it, why?

01:48:06:10 - 01:48:37:14
Lauren
Because there's yes. You watched a lot of movies and you have stated that that didn't affect you or it like gave you nightmares. But it was chill, I guess. But you do have a really active imagination to the point where you were anxious about your dolls coming and attacking you. So you were very careful to like take care of that, like you were.

01:48:37:21 - 01:48:40:13
Lauren
You were acting, you were taking.

01:48:40:15 - 01:48:43:16
Gabe
Some of the psychology behind it. Okay.

01:48:44:08 - 01:48:49:06
Lauren
I can tell you are only with dolls or was there any other effects on your life?

01:48:49:21 - 01:49:16:25
Gabe
Both of my parents were very emotionally and mentally abusive my whole life. When I was really little, my dad was a raging alcoholic and alcohol would make him really, really mad. He never he never hurt me like he never beat me. But he was still really scary when he got drunk and he would scream in my face and yell at me and belittle me.

01:49:16:25 - 01:49:52:06
Gabe
And my mom had my mom's hit me, though, and they would do screaming matches. And there's always the threat of, I'm going to divorce you and my household was very unstable. It was never safe. I never felt safe at home. And then I didn't feel safe at school because I didn't really have actual friends and. I probably would have got bullied if I wasn't scary, but a lot of people didn't want to mess with me because I would do something about it.

01:49:52:06 - 01:50:12:09
Gabe
I wouldn't just sit and take it. I wasn't an easy victim. And so they wouldn't, you know, but I wasn't really I didn't feel safe at school. I didn't really feel safe anywhere. So I was home. I was always I think this is why I have a very aggressive personality now. I always was ready to defend myself, to to have to survive.

01:50:12:09 - 01:50:56:23
Gabe
I was always ready to have to survive. And so that coupled with the fact that my parents always really encouraged my imagination and my active imagination and my beliefs to believe in stuff they, you know, when I didn't feel safe, my imagination, right. So those horror movies didn't scare me because. My life. Horror was scarier than that. But my brain would use these horrors to sometimes, like, lay over the horrors of my life.

01:50:56:23 - 01:51:10:21
Gabe
So my nightmares, a lot of the time would be the scary things happening in my life that they would wear the faces of what I watched in real life. Now, granted, the whole doll thing is really unfounded. That really doesn't have anything to do.

01:51:10:25 - 01:51:23:21
Lauren
But go ahead. I would that you had control over the dolls so you could by taking care of them or whatever, therefore by protect yourself.

01:51:24:23 - 01:51:25:06
Gabe
Yes.

01:51:26:01 - 01:51:27:10
Lauren
That was something you had. Yes.

01:51:27:17 - 01:51:49:15
Gabe
Over time. So I would also say now another aspect me that I really don't like and I'm not very proud of is I am a controlling person. So a lot of it. So this is why people either like me or don't like me is I'm very aggressive. I'm very assertive when I meet new people. I you could probably attest to this too.

01:51:49:15 - 01:52:13:28
Gabe
Having known me, I set the I am the top dog. I am I am at the top here, everybody. You know your place and I'm not doing it to put people down. It's it's the control of the situation. That's how I keep myself safe. But also, I'm very protective of other people. And that's how I keep other people safe, is that people know where they are and where the line is.

01:52:13:28 - 01:52:36:19
Gabe
And if they toe the line or cross the line, I will do something about it. And so, yes, because I never felt safe. Something that I don't really know how to deal with now is I am very controlling because that's what makes me feel safe because I don't know how to feel safe. Otherwise, if if I am not in control, that is very scary to me.

01:52:37:03 - 01:52:57:24
Gabe
That is a very. Yeah, I will I will start going into fighting, I'll say fighting for example. Right. Because both of my parents used to scream and yell at me as a little child and that was really scary. And they'd like get in my face and I'd be afraid they would hurt me, even though they never did. There is always that fear.

01:52:57:24 - 01:53:21:27
Gabe
They would hurt me. Yeah. Yes, my mom did. But whatever. That's another thing. I'll have one of two responses. The abuse part of me will shut down and I will disassociate. Like I will shut everything off in my brain. I will disassociate and I will just sit there and take it and you can scream at me all you want.

01:53:21:27 - 01:53:42:03
Gabe
So I will have a complete shutdown. My other one is, is like my natural personality and my coping mechanism to that of of fighting back, of not wanting to take it, because I think I am just kind of a fighter in general, but then that as I masturbated, it exacerbated it. So I either fight or I shut down.

01:53:42:13 - 01:54:01:14
Gabe
Neither of those are healthy responses to you people out there. Let me tell you, most people will stop being my friend because of that. If we fight much because I don't know how to do it in between. And I have gone to therapy and I try to work on it, but that is definitely a big a huge character flaw about me.

01:54:01:14 - 01:54:23:09
Gabe
So, yes, this is why I would say that some kids can't do that. I could do it because it wasn't as scary as my real life. They just didn't. And I think I liked monsters because I was like, Well, the monsters will eat all the terrible things in my life, right? Like I'll just get rid of it. So obviously we'll be friends.

01:54:23:09 - 01:54:27:14
Gabe
Why would they eat me when they can eat all the bad things? And we could just be BFFs.

01:54:28:04 - 01:54:28:17
Lauren
Yeah.

01:54:28:27 - 01:54:43:15
Gabe
So, yeah, I guess that probably did, in fact, go into the doll thing. I could control that fear. I don't know. I'm sorry. Right. 2 hours. Is there any other comments you want to make?

01:54:43:15 - 01:54:45:19
Lauren
No. I think we hit a lot of topics today.

01:54:47:03 - 01:55:06:10
Gabe
We totally went way off the original topic. I feel like a lot of these end up being you psychoanalyzing me. Why can't you have psychotic childhood memories? Why does it always have to be me? Hey, where's your wolf girl story? Okay, I. I'll.

01:55:06:10 - 01:55:17:07
Lauren
I'll figure one out. That's my homework for next episode on the plane. After what wedding? That's just what I'm going to be thinking about. Been like, okay, where's. Where is my wolf?

01:55:17:07 - 01:55:17:19
Gabe
What is.

01:55:17:19 - 01:55:18:15
Lauren
Your take? My wolf?

01:55:19:29 - 01:55:39:09
Gabe
What is your traumatic event to air out of? Hey, why is it always me? I actually don't care. I hope you know I don't care. It's okay. To sum it up, I would say we had a lot of fun looking back at those games, going back to do the research before we talked about that. Sure. Yes, we did enjoy it.

01:55:39:09 - 01:56:02:03
Gabe
We actually had a lot of fun. The one thing we didn't also mention was we played the Papa Superior, which is like a business management game. That was like a whole franchise of Flash games back in the day too. That was a lot of fun. Um, I, I feel like what I picked up from those two is that we both get, say both boys and girls back then deserved a wider variety.

01:56:02:03 - 01:56:23:02
Gabe
Okay? It's okay for them to have a wider variety. Girls are more than just fashion, but it is okay for them to love that. It's okay for them to love those games and it's a good gateway. But they were they should have been able to have a wider variety. And the same goes, you know, to boys too. I think that's what we could take away.

01:56:23:07 - 01:56:42:21
Gabe
Right? I think we both agreed on that. Yeah. So I think that was my final thought. I don't know if I had anything else beyond that. That was the takeaway. I hope you enjoyed it. We should all try to remember if you don't or both of us should remember to link to the website. We used to play those flash games.

01:56:42:21 - 01:56:43:13
Lauren
Yes.

01:56:44:18 - 01:57:02:25
Gabe
There was more on it than just the girl games. We did try focus more on those because that was kind of our childhood memory and and what was more available and advertised to us. So we will link that as I saw in here.

01:57:03:04 - 01:57:03:13
Lauren
Yeah.

01:57:03:22 - 01:57:27:26
Gabe
Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I was going to things of course, if you to go check those out, relive that. We have some people in the chat who did. This is a reminder. We did stream that on the twitch. So we do have a twitch channel possibly going to upload that to you to have to look at the audio because my parents are watching Daddy in the background, but if you do want to check that out and we can't get it to YouTube, our twitch is nosidequests.

01:57:27:26 - 01:57:58:02
Gabe
So twitch dot TV, backslash or slash? whatever. Slash, no side quests. And again, as usual, if you have a developer game or side quest you want to talk about or any local anonymous gossip, you simply must tell somebody, please let us know on Twitter at @Nosidequests or email us at nosidequests at gmail.com. And if you'd like to see our lovely faces during the podcast, we post each episode this video to our I don't believe in Sidequest YouTube channel.

01:57:58:16 - 01:58:21:08
Gabe
You can find me Gabe at Nenyaadamas on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and Instagram and you can find Lauren at Sweetie_potat on Twitter, Twitch and YouTube. The one thing I want to note, I don't know when this is going to happen, but something we talked about for a future stream is my friend found an online escape room that we might try I think could be really fun.

01:58:21:08 - 01:58:39:22
Gabe
Not sure when that's going to happen. We are set to figure out our busy schedules, but that is something to look forward to. So please go follow the twitch so that you can see that when that happens. All right. I think we did it. That wraps it up. Goodbye, guys. Have a great rest of your day.