Episode Number: 79
Episode Title: Pop Culture Revenge (listen to this episode)
Transcript by: Susan the Great
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Renay: Hey friends, I’m Renay.

Ana: And I’m Ana.

Renay: And you’re listening to Fangirl Happy Hour: Question Tuesday Edition.

[Music: B-3 by BoxCat Games]

Renay: Today we’re not gonna answer any gross questions, I think.

Ana: Mm.

Renay: Ana, can you guarantee that you will not ask any gross questions and I won’t ask you any gross questions and we’ll—nobody will be grossed out?

Ana: No.

Renay: Oh god. Well this is just gonna be great.

Ana: I make no promises.

[Music: B-3 by BoxCat Games]

Renay: Our first question is from Guerric and he wants to know, “Are there any non-human animal characters that you especially enjoyed reading about in books or other contexts where the character’s visual design isn’t a big part of their appeal?”

Ana: I don’t often enjoy animal characters that much. But the first thing that popped to my head were the daemons from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

Renay: You stole my answer!

Ana: No way!

Renay: That’s the only answer I had!

Ana: Me too! This is amazing.

Renay: Wow, Guerric.

Ana: We finally converged.

Renay: Good work. Good question. You finally found the only question where we had the same answer. Yeah, cause I was thinking about it and I don’t have a lot of books where—I mean unless Care Bears… do Care Bears count? But they were also a visual thing.

Ana: Yes, exactly, yeah.

Renay: I mean I read a lot of Care Bear books when I was a kid, cause they had those little picture books, but I guess they have pictures in them so they don’t count. And Fraggles are visual so they don’t count. Are Fraggles an animal?

Ana: I have no idea. As you know, I don’t even really know what Fraggles are.

Renay: This is a shame. Oh god.

Ana: If the question had been any type of media, I would have said Appa and Momo from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Renay: I didn’t cheat here! Guerric asked us a question and I was like, “It’s gonna be pure!”

Ana: And I answered it! I answered the question, young lady.

Renay: And then you stole my answer!

Ana: How would I know!?

Renay: Well anyway, that’s my answer too, because I just realized I don’t read a lot of books with animal characters in them. Which means, Guerric: you have to rec us some books for us to read. Unless, you know, Temeraire might count because Temeraire’s a dragon. Do fake animals count?

Ana: Well of course it counts. Yeah!

Renay: Because I don’t really care so much about Temeraire—what he looks like, he’s just big and smart and I like him because he has a smart mouth. But he said non-human so I don’t even think either of our answers count.

Ana: What do you mean! The daemons are… Uh… Eh.

Renay: Non-human animal characters. Man, Guerric, you’ve just stumped us.

Ana: So then the answer is no.

Renay: Yeah, there’s not. I just don’t have any books with that.

Ana: Eh, I don’t really care about animals that much.

Renay: I’m too afraid to read narratives with animals in them because I’m always afraid the dog is gonna die.

Ana: Which happens a lot. Are unicorns animals? Do unicorns count? Because then there is Phoebe and her Unicorn.

Renay: I think non-human means they can’t talk. This question just got way too deep.

Ana: Let’s keep daemons and accept it. Accept that we have finally reached a harmonic convergence in our likes and dislikes and move onto the next question.

Renay: Well, Guerric, we gave it a shot but this was really tough. I guess you need to come and recommend us some books.

[Music: Rolling by BoxCat Games]

Renay: From Diana! Her question is two parts because apparently we’re just breaking the rules all over the place: which is the better dessert option, pie or cake? Two: is cheesecake a pie or is it a cake?

Ana: None of this is a better dessert option. Also because pies are better as savory pies.

Renay: What? [meowing in background] Even Loki disagrees!

Ana: [laughter] Even your cat was like, “What?” Yeah, savory pies, obviously.

Renay: Cake is better.

Ana: Even if I liked dessert pie is much better than cake.

Renay: Cake is so good, though.

Ana: Strawberry pie, cherry pies, peach pies, lime pies, come on. Come on, Renay.

Renay: Carrot cake! Coca-cola cake!

Ana: Wha—urgh!

Renay: What’s wrong coca-cola cake?!

Ana: Coca-cola is venom.

Renay: But it makes a great cake!

Ana: If you like venom.

Renay: Yeah, I do like venom!

Ana: Did you know that coca-cola is great to remove limescale from your toilet? The thing is so fucking acid. You should not be drinking coca-cola.

Renay: Listen, don’t shame me over my food choices, Ana. Coca-cola cake is amazing.

Ana: It’s also a poison. What does it taste like? Does it taste like coca-cola?

Renay: No, it’s a chocolate cake that has coke in it, and it changes the flavor. I can’t explain it! You just have to eat it. I just thought everybody understood what coca-cola cake was, have you never been to a Cracker Barrel?

Ana: To a where?

Renay: A Cracker Barrel! It’s a restaurant!

Ana: Of course not! Why would I—why would I be— Why would I go to a restaurant that probably doesn’t exist?

Renay: Cracker Barrel’s totally exist in the South! You just have to come to the South!

Ana: And then have coca-cola cake.

Renay: Yeah, well if they have it, it’s a seasonal thing sometimes. And maybe they won’t serve it to you because you’re not appreciative.

Ana: There’s a season for coca-cola?

Renay: It’s a seasonal dessert. Or it was back when I used to have it.

Ana: Yeah, but coca-cola is not like apples. You have a season for apples. I don’t—I don’t understand how this works, Renay. I’m very confused. Coca-cola cakes, season for coca-cola, what is happening to this world?

Renay: Anyway, carrot cake is also good. I also like yellow cake. I don’t know if that has a flavor. Does that have a flavor, yellow cake? I like yellow cake with chocolate icing.

Ana: What is yellow cake?

Renay: It’s cake that’s yellow. I don’t know what flavor it is.

Ana: Probably fake flavor. Vanilla or something.

Renay: Anyway it’s really good with like milk chocolate icing.

Ana: I still prefer pies, banana pie, apple pie.

Renay: Banana pie?

Ana: Yeah.

Renay: Zach had a pie day recently and he took a chess pie to work and even though I recommended that he take a berry monster pie. And so he showed up to work and three other people had brought chess pies.

Ana: What’s a chess pie?

Renay: It’s like a pie made of sugar and butter.

Ana: Is that it?

Renay: That’s it. Google it.

Ana: Oh my god. Is that a southern thing as well?

Renay: Pretty sure.

Ana: I’ve never heard of it at all.

Renay: You can google it and see what they look like. They look kinda like lemon pies but they’re not lemon pies.

Ana: Chess pies. I’m googling it right now. “Chess pies are a dessert characteristic of Southern US cuisine.”

Renay: They make this dessert called an ooey-gooey, and it’s kind of like that, I’m not a fan of this type of pie, I tried some and I was like, “Mm, gonna pass.” I think it’s because I don’t like bread. Pies have crust, which to me has—sometimes has a bread texture.

Ana: How interesting that you say that because I would say that it’s the other way around. I feel like cake is closer to bread.

Renay: It’s too fluffy.

Ana: There is fluffy bread.

Renay: Well, I don’t eat fluffy bread. I eat dense bread. My favorite kind of bread is called Good Seed bread and i don’t know if you’ve ever had Good Seed bread but it is a super dense bread covered in seeds.

Ana: I love seeded bread, too.

Renay: But pie crust to me has this texture that just reminds me too much of bread and I’m just like, “NOPE!”. I do like chicken pot pie. I think that is I had to pick a pie, chicken pot pie would be my favorite pie. No, no, that’s wrong, I’m wrong, I lied. Pecan pie. My favorite pie.

Ana: What’s pecan pie?

Renay: Pecan pie?

Ana: I remember When Harry Met Sally that they talk about pecan pie. “Pecan pie, pecan pie.” And that was the first time I ever learned that there was such a thing as a pecan pie because we don’t have pecans in Brazil.

Renay: Why are you saying it like that. Are you making a joke that I don’t get? Are you making a cultural, pop culture joke that I don’t get?

Ana: Did you never watch When Harry Met Sally? Oh my god.

Renay: No.

Ana: [gasp] Add that to our Vault picks because we’re gonna watch that again. I need to watch the movie, too, one more time. And in that movie Billy Crystal goes, “We should have pecan pie. Pecan pie.”

Renay: Why was he speaking whale?

Ana: What—you were—what—what mean whale?

Renay: I just made a pop culture joke you didn’t get as revenge!

Ana: [laughter] Where is that from?

Renay: Finding Nemo.

Ana: I watched Finding Nemo!

Renay: Yeah, don’t you remember Dory speaking whale?

Ana: I do! [laughter]

Renay: This went downhill fast.

Ana: We’re just culturally shaming each other now. Let’s move on and answer the actual important question of this round: is cheesecake a pie or is it a cake?

Renay: It’s a pie.

Ana: It’s neither. It’s a cheesecake. A cheesecake is a thing on its own.

Renay: It’s a pie.

Ana: It’s neither.

Renay: Diana, it’s a pie. It’s a pie.

Ana: I did google it, and there is actually a fight about whether it is a pie, a cake, or a torte.

Renay: Regular people don’t know what the fuck a torte is. It’s a pie.

Ana: I do think it’s a pie, too.

Renay: Yeah it’s a pie. So we agree on something! We can’t agree on coca-cola cake or pecan pie, but we can agree on cheesecake as a pie.

Ana: Yes.

Renay: Okay, we’re gonna leave it there otherwise we’re gonna have a fight again.

[Music: Love of my Life by BoxCat Games]

Renay: For Ana, my question: what do you think would be the hardest thing for you to give up and why would it be hard for you to lose?

Ana: Life in England. Because I feel very safe here, or I used to until Brexit. But it’s still much safer than life back home in Brazil. In Brazil, you just don’t know what’s gonna happen. You can just walk outside your house and get hit by a bullet because some people are just shooting at each other. And many people have died like this. Or in a robbery, or be raped, or other many horrible things that happen very regularly in Brazil especially in the neighborhood where I used to live. So I feel very safe in England and it would be very hard to lose that.

Renay: If you could live anywhere else, though, where would you go?

Ana: I keep dreaming about Canada. I really liked Toronto when I visited and I would like to go and visit Vancouver. But I’m told it rains a lot and I don’t know if I could deal with that.

Renay: What do you mean? You live in England.

Ana: It doesn’t rain a lot here.

Renay: What do you mean it doesn’t rain a lot there?!

Ana: Cambridge is the driest place in England. It does not rain a lot here in Cambridge. But I dunno, sometimes I think about Portugal too, because I speak the language. But I just know that I’m never going back to Brazil.

Renay: You could move to Oregon.

Ana: Except for the fact that the United States is a trash fire right now and I do not want to go there.

Renay: But Oregon is a blue state on the west coast. The west coast people, shit they’re like, “Yeah, we’re blue out here! We like human rights!”

Ana: But for how long though? How long?

Renay: Besides being safer, what is it about England that makes you like it so much, besides the weather?

Ana: It’s the sense of safety, like I said, but that sense also comes from having free health insurance that actually works. I like the people here. I don’t think you realize how horrible and unsafe Brazil feels. That the sense of safety is everything to me. Even when I go home visiting I don’t leave the house. I fear getting inside the car at the airport and then drive home because we have to drive through this road that is often beset by robbers.

Renay: Why do you even go back?

Ana: Well, my whole family’s there.

Renay: Listen, they invented Skype for a reason.

Ana: But it’s not the same as hugging my niece and my sister.

Renay: This is terrifying. I’d fly them to me, be like, “Guess what you’re getting on a plane, here you go.”

Ana: All my friends are there, too.

Renay: Well, that was a depressing question. I’m super glad I asked! On the plus side at least we didn’t end up talking about insects again.

[Music: Classics by Chuki Beats]

Ana: Well, surprise.

Renay: Surprise?

Ana: Inspired by my recent grasshopper revelation that if I ever see a grasshopper touching any part of my body I will die immediately of a heart attack: what is the animal that you fear the most? Ha-ha.

Renay: I knew it. Probably spiders. It’s a serious phobia and I don’t know where it comes from. I remember once at my old apartment I took a shower and I getting dressed and I was about to walk out and I saw a spider on the ceiling above the door, and I was like, “Oh no, oh no.” So the door was locked and I couldn’t get to the door, and I was afraid if I went underneath it would drop—fall on me. And so I sat in the bathroom and cried and cried until I started laughing hysterically as Zach tries to pick the lock to the bathroom door to help me.

Ana: Oh my god. Are there a lot of spiders where you live now?

Renay: Yes, there—yeah, mmhm, yeah, mm, yeah. A few times I have seen a spider and was gonna go do something and saw the spider and was like, “NOPE, NOT GOING THAT WAY” and totally went to the other part of the house and just didn’t do what I was gonna do until the spider left. One time in my old apartment there was a spider on my leg. It was crawling up my leg.

Ana: NO.

Renay: Yeah, I had jeans on, but it was crawling up my leg. It was pretty big, the size of a quarter, it’s big to me so shut up people who live with bigger spiders. Well, its body was the size of a quarter, but you know the legs was bigger than that. I was home alone, and I just sat there frozen. I could not move. You know like you get body paralysis? That’s exactly what happened to me.

Ana: Oh my god. That’s terrifying.

Renay: And I just sat there frozen until the spider crawled onto the ottoman, a cat saw it, and the cat chased it off. Also my cats are terrible at killing spiders. If the spider is too big they are just like, “That’s interesting. Cool,” and they don’t do anything.

Ana: [laughter]

Renay: And I’m like fuck you cat. I’m also not really a fan of like, bacteria, but that’s not really an animal, I guess.

Ana: Hm. It is a lifeform.

Renay: Well, I read too many like science books about bacteria. I’m also not a big fan of poisonous jellyfish. Listen, I will not put my foot in an ocean if there’s been a jellyfish sighting. I will be like, if I go to the beach I will be like, “When was the last time there was jellyfish here? When? I need to know, I’m gonna google it.” It terrifies me, like it terrifies me. So, spiders and poisonous jellyfish.

Ana: Okay, so spiders and grasshoppers, no-no.

[Music: Happy Summer Love by Chuki Beats]

Renay: Another Question Tuesday is in the bag! Thanks to Guerric and Diana for sending in questions, sorry that we didn’t answer them slash got into a fight.

Ana: We totally did answer them. We got into a fight because that’s who we are.

Renay: Follow us on twitter at @fangirlpodcast for more of us during the week. Email us at fangirlhappyhour@gmail.com with your vote as to whether cheesecake is a pie or a cake.

Ana: Our music is by Boxcat Games and Chuki Beats. Susan created our transcripts and you can read them on our website. Ira made our show art. Their work and links to the media we talked about today are available on fangirlhappyhour.com.

Renay: Remember to take enough breaks, drink water, and contact your representatives. And thanks for listening.

Ana: See you next episode.

Renay: Bye!

[Music: Happy Summer Love by Chuki Beats]

Renay: So almost all my fandoms have a daemon AU in them.

Ana: Oh wow!

Renay: Where the characters have daemons. It’s really nice.

[beep]

Renay: Cause I can’t read apparently. Hooked on Phonics didn’t work for me! Oops!

[beep]

Renay: Now I feel bad because this question just went off the rails from the very beginning.

Ana: What if there is only the—the problem is that there is a comma missing.

Renay: I don’t think he missed his comma.

[beep]

Renay: Although we could just pit them against each other. Problem solved.

Ana: No, that would be too horrifying, terrifying. [sighs, shudders]

[beep]

Renay: I’m so—geography is so fucking confusing.

[beep]

Renay: Charles sent us the link and I was like, “Ana’s gonna love that link!”

Ana: Fuck everything.

[beep]

Renay: Ana.

Ana: Mm-hm. You didn’t record anything.

Renay: Yes I did.

Ana: [laughs]

Renay: What? What, did you think I’m an incompetent? What’s going on?

Ana: [thump] I don’t know, the way you said Ana, after saying I’m gonna close this window, I’m like fuck, everything is lost.

[beep]

Renay: I was gonna ask you if you liked peanut butter.

Ana: I do yes. I prefer almond butter.

Renay: Okay, so would you eat grasshoppers dipped in almond butter?

Ana: Of course not! The fuck is this question. It’s not—my problem was not with the chocolate, Renay!

Renay: [laughter]

Ana: It was with the gross insect!

[beep]

Ana: [Mystery Portuguese]

[beep]

Renay: Somebody on twitter said something, I guess in Portuguese?

Ana: That was Talia, she was begging for other Portuguese people to contribute two dollars to our patreon so that they could vote for Blue Lagoon.

Renay: Oh, well thank you. I’ve seen Blue Lagoon. I’ve seen it.

Ana: Okay, I thought – she thought that the whole incest thing was a surprise to you. [laughter] She’s like, “I really want to see her reaction.”

Renay: Were they? We’re gonna have to rewatch this movie because my childhood brain does not remember this.

Ana: I did not remember this either and then she said and it was like, “Oh fuck!”

Renay: Okay, well I was just like, “I can’t read this! I don’t know what it says but it’s got my name in it!”

[beep]

Renay: Also Ness just thanked me for reccing Steve/Tony fic on the podcast so clearly somebody appreciates me.