His Sports (Episode 15) Transcript
The audio version of this episode can be found here.
Hannah: On Christmas, a vampire starts shooting at him and in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels.
Jennie: Somebody write this.
Hannah: Hi, welcome to Somebody Write This, where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea. And then we brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And to help us with our brainstorming today, we have a guest. Welcome, Nat Chan.
Nat: Hello, I'm a Nat.
Hannah: We're so glad that you could be here with us. As we were talking before the podcast about what we might want to talk about in our interview up front, you mentioned the connection between storytelling and specifically science education, which is something that I know you have some experience with. So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit of your thoughts on that. On stuff you've seen, stuff that's been effective, stuff you've used yourself.
Nat: Yes. So for background, I'm currently still a university student. I'm doing my degree in geochemistry with a minor in archaeology. So I have a lot of breadth when it comes to different topics and I wouldn't have it any other way. But I do a lot of volunteering with various activities on campus, getting younger generations interested in various sciences.
Jennie: Cool.
Hannah: We were talking about how ... Especially archaeology in particular, that is the story. That's the story of our past. And so bringing that today, what have been some ways that you've seen people use storytelling or narrative or other art forms to bring science and make it really appealing and get these younger generations interested?
Nat: Yeah. So a lot of that comes down to trying to sell a narrative for things like objects. So a lot of the research stuff that I do involves looking at various rocks and finding ways to tell stories about the rocks. So most of my writing prowess has been used these days to write interesting stories about rocks, which is not my favorite topic to write about, but at the same time kind of is.
So a lot of science involves exploring various aspects of the physical world. And the journey that objects go through leave marks on them. So for example, if I'm on a dig and you find a roof tile from somebody's house. That in and of itself has a lot of information buried in it because it has to have gone through a number of processes to get to us. The tile had to have been made at some point. The material has to be sourced from somewhere. Somebody must have transported that material. They must have put it on a house and something must have happened to the house for a tile to fall off and then get buried underground. A lot of archaeology is about trying to find the information hidden within an object. So if you look at the bits and pieces we have, you can put together a little bits.
So the stuff that I specialize in, rocks, lets you tell where you have sourced various rocks from. So again, let's say that this house tile was found in a Roman villa. The tile is composed of certain clays. And if you look at the specific chemistry of what that clay has made out of, that can tell you which rock groups it's likely from. Because depending on where the rock was formed, there will be little trace differences in chemical composition. It doesn't affect the larger aspects of the rock. So it'll still be the same type of rock, but it will have little trace differences that lets you identify exactly where it might've come from. That lets you figure out things like trade routes. So it means that the person who had access to this house had some sort of connection to this rock quarry over ... Sometimes it can be like two entire countries over that this rock has been shipped from. And then somebody has to have taken that rock and crushed it up and turned it into a tile or a brick. And usually people will make physical marks on things. So like a maker's mark and that's another piece of information to the story of this tile. The rock was harvested in one place, crushed up by somebody, sent to a different place. Somebody transformed it into an object that somebody used and then sent it to a different destination for it to be used.
And then there's that last piece where the context around it. So for example, again, saying at some sort of Roman villa, we know that say, if we find it packed by volcanic ash, we can tell that what actually happened to the final fate of the house, if it was suddenly buried by volcanic rocks. And all that kind of serves to tell an interesting story of how people lived long ago.
I don't know if any of you have seen the series Walking with Dinosaurs or other sort of nature documentaries. But I find the most compelling stories in nature documentaries, ones where you can kind of follow individuals and see what it might be like to grow up as a young snake and the hardships that you might face. Because that's something that humans connect to. It takes something very abstract like ecosystems and food webs and how different animals live their lives. And it puts it in terms that humans have an easier time grasping, which also gives us a greater connection to set environments.
Jennie: Oh, sure. The story makes you want to know more as opposed to just listing a bunch of chemicals or ...
Nat: Exactly. Yeah. So I keep joking that I'm not the best at writing the report aspect, the paper aspect because I like playing with lasers and stuff. But the reason people care about the stuff that I blast with lasers is because you can tell is by trying to find evidence for the story of this individual object. I know a lot of people give academic papers flack for being pretty dry. And I cannot agree with them more. I think that a lot of papers would be a lot more readable if people just learned how to write some very basic prose.
Jennie: Yes. You can put the technical stuff in there, but have at least part of it accessible for the lay person.
Nat: Yeah. Having context for those numbers is vitally important in terms of actually engaging your audience.
Jennie: Well, that's what I always say about his ... I love history as a subject, but I hated history class because they're always just throwing lists of dates at me. It took me years before I realized that Victorian England, like Sherlock Holmes time was the same as old West time in the Americas. I had no clue they were concurrent because they didn't teach history that way.
Nat: But when you get into stuff like that, you can see all these interesting interesting things.
Hannah: Thank you so much for sharing this. This is so fascinating to me and Jennie. I know we really could talk about this all day long about how to connect this to people. But we are on a time limit. So we are going to move ahead to our actual brainstorming, but thank you so much for sharing that and that unique perspective with us. We haven't really talked about that on the show yet. About the connection between the arts and sciences. So that's really cool. So as a reminder, our plot today is "On Christmas, a vampire starts shooting at him and in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels."
Jennie: So many questions. Let me throw out a few basic ones just to get us started. The first question, who is the vampire and who are they shooting at?
Nat: This is important.
Jennie: And then the second question is who is knowing about angels? And thirdly, why does shooting this person teach them about angels?
Nat: Okay. Because I'm actually thinking, I'm thinking about the ambiguity of the word shooting. Like is the vampire taking pictures? Is the vampire shooting a gun? Or is the vampire shooting hoops?
Hannah: Yes. Basketball Christmas ...
Jennie: Because it's true. Because it does say, "Starts shooting at him," which implies that the shooting at takes place over an extended period of time.
Hannah: Or that it's interrupted. That it begins and then somehow knowledge about angels happens and that stops it.
Nat: Maybe that's the whole point then. Because maybe it's like an entire thing, like with supernatural characters and they're all just playing basketball. So the vampire starts shooting at him. Maybe it's sort of like an interview with a vampire kind of thing where this one person is allowed an insight into the secret world of angels and vampires. And the only way that he could get the scoop was if he agreed to play in the Christmas basketball tournament. Because team vampire ... No. Wait, no. The vampire's doing the shooting. So maybe it's because team angel is actually down a member and they're like ...
Jennie: Team vampire and team angel.
Nat: Yeah, exactly.
Jennie: I love it.
Nat: In fact, it could be a sequel to Space Jam if we want to do that. Just throwing it out there. This may or may not be canon in Space Jam.
Hannah: So is the knowledge of the angels, is that a tactic to help one of the teams win? Are they hoping that by giving this person, this lay person knowledge of angels ... Or is this just a natural off shoot? Like there's something about playing basketball with vampires and angels that gives you insight into-
Jennie: But the thing that's tickling in my brain-
Hannah: Into only the angels?
Jennie: Is the "in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels." Not that he learns a lot. What if he realizes that he already knows a lot, but he didn't know that it applied to angels? What do you think?
Hannah: Or maybe there are memories. Maybe he used to be an angel and has lost that. And maybe the vampire doesn't know he used to be an angel, but maybe the vampires are having their own Christmas basketball tournament. And it starts jogging memories about his past angel life. Like in him trying to figure out, was he kicked out? Did he leave of his own free will? Did something happen and so he joins forces with the vampires maybe to solve his mystery? And kind of trying to figure out is he on the vampire side, sort of the fallen creatures or on the angel side? I don't know. There could be ... I don't know.
Jennie: I feel like he's in the middle, because he didn't remember that he was a fallen angel.
Hannah: Right. And so you could have this thing, not only like an identity crisis, like "who am I," but also like an ethical identity crisis. Like "am I," in his mind, "one of the good guys or one of the bad guys"?
Nat: There's an idea.
Hannah: And doesn't actually know.
Jennie: What does that even mean? Because they're obviously getting together to shoot hoops.
Nat: And it's on Christmas. So maybe this person ... Yeah. I like that idea that this person has some sort of draw towards the supernatural. And on Christmas, which is a very spiritual time for a lot of people. Again, he's beginning to feel this pull towards this. And again, this basketball game is his one shot at learning about his true identity as an angel.
Hannah: So does he have some of this knowledge before he goes into play basketball or does this-
Jennie: Like maybe he's already been investigating angels and vampires and then finds out the basketball game?
Nat: Yeah. I like that idea.
Hannah: My initial thought was, yeah, that he's been looking into this. And so he meets this vampire and the vampire invites him to play basketball on Christmas. And that jogs memories that he did not realize he had. And all of a sudden, he has all this past opening up to him and he has to figure out what to do with that.
Jennie: Like maybe it's knocked in the noggin by a basketball and then it's like, oh, flash memory.
Hannah: Yeah. Or maybe there's in a sense, almost in like hypnosis where it's like the word that brings people out or sends people in. Like maybe the-
Jennie: A trigger.
Hannah: But it could be like a specific supernatural connected word. It can be something that like the vampire uses. Maybe they use it as a curse and it means something to the angels or something. But it's not something that the angels put use that because, or whoever put this on him and crowded and closed down his memory used that because they thought it wouldn't be something he would encounter just walking around in everyday life. And then the vampires use it because they have this supernatural knowledge and all of a sudden he has all these memories, but doesn't know what they mean or what ... Yeah.
Jennie: Okay. Okay. Oh, so did the vampires know that our main character used to be an angel? What if they invited him on his terms so that he knew, but because him figuring out who he was would be bad for the angels sometimes because he felt for a reason.
Hannah: Yeah. He's not an angel anymore for a reason.
Nat: And it does stay somehow. So yeah. So I don't know. I like the idea that both sides are kind of in over their heads. Like maybe the vampires were also investigating him while he was just like ... Maybe it's one of those cases where the vampires were thinking about turning him because there's something special about him. And so they want to learn a little bit more. So they invite to this basketball game.
Jennie: Is it even possible to turn a fallen angel? And what kind of vampire would that be? Maybe they have a myth about or something.
Nat: Exactly. And so maybe they don't know what they're getting into just as our protagonist does.
Hannah: You can have a really interesting friendship dynamic between maybe like the vampire who first reached out to him who realizes there's something more about this guy and him. And you can have this really interesting dynamic where they're both kind of not sure where he's going to fall. Like not sure which camp he's going to end up being part of.
Jennie: This is really fascinating.
Hannah: Right? I am going to pause real quick. Oh, okay. We have a title. Our title is, for once it is beautifully connected to the direction we've gone. But our title is His Sports. As in the sports that belong to them. So ...
Nat: And it's still generic because it's still a mysterious him.
Hannah: That makes the basketball more significant, clearly. Rather than just a sideways medium.
Jennie: Okay. So maybe this guy, our main character is a graduate student and their dissertation is studying the effects of human culture on supernatural beings. Because here there are angels and vampires playing basketball.
Nat: Yes. So again, bringing sort of my student ideas into this, where did he get the funding from? Obviously he's a sports athlete, which is why the vampires want him. He probably trained under Charles Barkley or something like that.
Hannah: Maybe they do not know that he has a supernatural thing until he gets all -- They just want him because he's good at basketball. And so they recruit him for their basketball game. They don't tell him necessarily right away that they're vampires. They just invite him to their Christmas tournament. And then all of a sudden, he gets all these memories. They realize, oh my gosh, something crazy is happening. Maybe most of them are like, we can't do have anything to do with this. And they run. The one main vampire who invited him is like, "I'm going to follow along with them and see if we can figure out what's up. Because, oh my gosh, if we could make him a vampire and he, as a former angel. We would definitely win all our championships. Or maybe higher stakes as well."
Jennie: First I feel like he and the vampire already knew each other. Maybe they played basketball together in the same neighborhood. They just friendly neighborhood games and that's how they got to be friends and why he knows he's so good. So what stakes are the angels and vampires playing for? Is this just a casual, supernatural intramurals? Or is it for some to decide what happens over the next year? Like who gets a territory or something.
Hannah: Maybe it was casual to begin with and then he becomes the stakes.
Nat: It's like a team transfer and also a mystery.
Hannah: So, yeah. Maybe-
Jennie: And he's like keep switching teams. They say, "Okay, you go play with angels. Okay, now you play with the vampires."
Hannah: Yeah. I think our final climactic scene has to be a basketball game where he's playing for both teams and whichever team ... He just alternates.
Jennie: He's on both teams and he has to decide while he's playing, which team wins. Whoa.
Nat: Yeah. I like this idea. There's a lot of potential here.
Jennie: Imagine the cinematics. The basketball game going and then it keeps like time freezing while this guy has a flashback or a talking to himself or ...
Hannah: Yeah, I think we have two Christmas basketball games. One that opens it, that opens all his knowledge. And the one that closes it out. And that's the one that helps decide his fate. And you can play with this idea of creatures that are destined to be good or destined to be evil. And play with the idea that maybe whichever one wins is the one that he has to be part of. You could play within the idea of whether he has the ability to choose for himself and to make his own decisions. And not have to go with just whatever, wherever the basketball falls, is what determines his inner goodness or badness or his inner ethic. I don't know. There's some really, really interesting stuff you can do with that.
Jennie: Or what that even means.
Nat: And this is just a personal favor to me. You don't have to include this in the writing itself, but I at least want to see an appendices of how supernatural powers affect the rules of basketball. Like is it traveling if an angel uses their wings? This is important information. And I think it would very much affect things like dumping mechanics.
Jennie: Right. Like no flying allowed. No super speed. No hypnotizing.
Hannah: Yeah. No hypnotizing, no trances.
Nat: You don't necessarily have to include it in the body itself, but I personally would love an appendices.
Jennie: No blood doping.
Nat: Oh yeah. I mean, obviously you can't eat your opponent. That's cheating.
Jennie: No miracles allowed.
Nat: Or maybe it depends on who's playing whom. Like vampires are allowed to use super speed, but angels can fly, but only for a certain amount. Or maybe if there are werewolves in the mix, they can't play during the full moon. Because then they get a huge advantage.
Jennie: The world would be fascinating. And like I said, the implications of human culture on supernatural beings is ... Like they have in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How they have the vampires all chill on Halloween. Because they're like, "Whatever, this is our day off." And they just kind of go with the Halloween fun.
Nat: We don't have to worry about wearing masks or anything. Because we already kind of look weird.
Hannah: There is so much to go with. And I think we are going to pass that off to our listeners because I would love to hear something from this. This went such a different direction than I initially expected it. And I'm so happy for it. Before we close out today, we will go ahead and we'll take a second to each shout out a story we think our listeners should check out. Mine, I realized in the last two minutes what I had to share. And it's a podcast called Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. It is delightful. It is a pretend call in a relationship advice show where all the questions involve supernatural creatures. So I just started listening to it. And the first episode was like, somebody who is recently a ghost. And is still with the person that they were with when they died. And they're trying to figure out, they're trying to get over the hurdles of physical connection in that relationship when she's mostly non corporeal. Yeah. And there's one about somebody who's a vampire reconnecting with somebody they were with when they were younger. But they still look the same. They look the same as they were when they first met. And so they're trying to ... The advice is actually all really solid advice. I was like, this is actually just good. It's a little quirky--
Nat: I'm sorry, I need to write this one down. What was that called again?
Hannah: Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. It's a relatively new one. I think it started about six months ago. But it's so delightful and it is right in the pocket of this particular episode. So I figured I had to incorporate.
Nat: I would consider that recommendation a slam dunk.
Hannah: All right, Jennie, we'll toss it over to you. What are you going to share with us this week?
Jennie: Well, I'm going to recommend something a little more well known. So I like cultural relevance. We had a discussion about this earlier in the week, me and Hannah. But I'm going to recommend if you haven't been watching it already, you need to watch Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. this show is so much fun. It's about this gal who works in programming and she wakes up one day to find out that she has the ability to hear people's inner thoughts in the form of songs. So she's walking down the street and all of a sudden, somebody singing a song about being lonely. And they're all like a pop culture songs that you'd mostly recognize. And then all the trouble she gets into hearing people's secret thoughts. The thoughts behind the words they're actually saying. And it's not only fun in that sense, lots of dance numbers and whatnot, but it's also incredibly emotional and poignant in places. And it's just one of my favorite shows currently going on right now. And I hope they do another season.
Hannah: All right. Nat, we're going to toss it to you. What would you like to share with our listeners?
Nat: Okay. So I've thought a lot about this. And I'm glad that we kind of stuck to sort of a supernatural theme because the book I'd like to recommend, and it is a book, is called Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. It's in the Discworld series, if you're familiar with that. But you shouldn't have to worry about catching up on them because it's kind of a standalone book. It's not part of ... Well, it's part of the series and the universe. It doesn't follow any one particular plot line. It's its own self contained story.
I haven't finished it yet, so no spoilers. But it's a book about a great and powerful God of a very large monotheistic religion. But the way deities work in Terry Pratchett's world is gods get their powers from a true believers. The problem is the religion has spread well, but the actual teachings of the God and while the religion of the God has spread far and wide, the actual spiritual concerns have not so much. So when he tries to take on an avatar, the only thing he can muster is a small turtle. Because there's only one true follower and people don't really pay much attention to him because they think he's not very smart. But he's a very good listener. And it's basically these adventures of this super powerful deity trapped in a tiny turtle body and his friend who wants to like ... He's just like, "Can we just be like nice to each other?"
Jennie: That sounds so fun.
Nat: It is. Yeah. It's an interesting take on religion and spirituality without necessarily picking any one side, if that makes sense. It examines-
Jennie: Kind of exploring the-
Nat: Yeah. That's my pick.
Hannah: Awesome. I really need to read more Terry Pratchett. I have not read nearly enough for being as big of a genre fiction fan as I am. All right. Before we close out a final thing Nat, is there anything that you'd like to plug for yourself or for a friend that you'd like to just get some self promotion stuff out?
Nat: Yes. So I do have an Instagram, but it's mostly filled with pictures of cats and hopefully soon, hopefully soon, maybe some pictures of rocks and fossils as well. If I can clear that. So if you want to follow me, it's @knatkat44 on Instagram. K-N-A-T-K-A-T 44. But in terms of my writing stuff, I am currently not writing a whole lot because I'm mostly writing about rocks. But I do have a friend who in addition to collecting short stories, is a freelance editor. So if you're interested and maybe trying to get your writing published, I would recommend you check out scribecat.ca. My friend Ash Lachance runs that website. Her rates are very reasonable. I use her for editing my academic papers quite often because again, academic papers tend to drag. And so, yeah. So if you're looking for that. And I also plug it because I hope to one day be able to write for one of her anthologies at some point. So hopefully I'll be featured there one day, but even still, I recommend you check out scribecat.ca.
Jennie: That's C-R-I-B-T-K-A-T or C-A-T?
Nat: C-A-T. I only spell my name with K's because I like K's.
Hannah: I just liked that both things you recommend have "cat" in them, which is fun. All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us and unpacking this real wacky story with us. I really appreciate it. That was awesome.
Nat: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's super fun.
Hannah: That is our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
Jennie: Follow us on Twitter @writethispod. And if you've been inspired by this episode and have questions or comments or a story or anything else, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Hannah: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. We'll see you then.
Jennie: And that's they say, he who was sick will lie down.
Hannah: On Christmas, a vampire starts shooting at him and in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels.
Jennie: Somebody write this.
Hannah: Hi, welcome to Somebody Write This, where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea. And then we brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And to help us with our brainstorming today, we have a guest. Welcome, Nat Chan.
Nat: Hello, I'm a Nat.
Hannah: We're so glad that you could be here with us. As we were talking before the podcast about what we might want to talk about in our interview up front, you mentioned the connection between storytelling and specifically science education, which is something that I know you have some experience with. So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit of your thoughts on that. On stuff you've seen, stuff that's been effective, stuff you've used yourself.
Nat: Yes. So for background, I'm currently still a university student. I'm doing my degree in geochemistry with a minor in archaeology. So I have a lot of breadth when it comes to different topics and I wouldn't have it any other way. But I do a lot of volunteering with various activities on campus, getting younger generations interested in various sciences.
Jennie: Cool.
Hannah: We were talking about how ... Especially archaeology in particular, that is the story. That's the story of our past. And so bringing that today, what have been some ways that you've seen people use storytelling or narrative or other art forms to bring science and make it really appealing and get these younger generations interested?
Nat: Yeah. So a lot of that comes down to trying to sell a narrative for things like objects. So a lot of the research stuff that I do involves looking at various rocks and finding ways to tell stories about the rocks. So most of my writing prowess has been used these days to write interesting stories about rocks, which is not my favorite topic to write about, but at the same time kind of is.
So a lot of science involves exploring various aspects of the physical world. And the journey that objects go through leave marks on them. So for example, if I'm on a dig and you find a roof tile from somebody's house. That in and of itself has a lot of information buried in it because it has to have gone through a number of processes to get to us. The tile had to have been made at some point. The material has to be sourced from somewhere. Somebody must have transported that material. They must have put it on a house and something must have happened to the house for a tile to fall off and then get buried underground. A lot of archaeology is about trying to find the information hidden within an object. So if you look at the bits and pieces we have, you can put together a little bits.
So the stuff that I specialize in, rocks, lets you tell where you have sourced various rocks from. So again, let's say that this house tile was found in a Roman villa. The tile is composed of certain clays. And if you look at the specific chemistry of what that clay has made out of, that can tell you which rock groups it's likely from. Because depending on where the rock was formed, there will be little trace differences in chemical composition. It doesn't affect the larger aspects of the rock. So it'll still be the same type of rock, but it will have little trace differences that lets you identify exactly where it might've come from. That lets you figure out things like trade routes. So it means that the person who had access to this house had some sort of connection to this rock quarry over ... Sometimes it can be like two entire countries over that this rock has been shipped from. And then somebody has to have taken that rock and crushed it up and turned it into a tile or a brick. And usually people will make physical marks on things. So like a maker's mark and that's another piece of information to the story of this tile. The rock was harvested in one place, crushed up by somebody, sent to a different place. Somebody transformed it into an object that somebody used and then sent it to a different destination for it to be used.
And then there's that last piece where the context around it. So for example, again, saying at some sort of Roman villa, we know that say, if we find it packed by volcanic ash, we can tell that what actually happened to the final fate of the house, if it was suddenly buried by volcanic rocks. And all that kind of serves to tell an interesting story of how people lived long ago.
I don't know if any of you have seen the series Walking with Dinosaurs or other sort of nature documentaries. But I find the most compelling stories in nature documentaries, ones where you can kind of follow individuals and see what it might be like to grow up as a young snake and the hardships that you might face. Because that's something that humans connect to. It takes something very abstract like ecosystems and food webs and how different animals live their lives. And it puts it in terms that humans have an easier time grasping, which also gives us a greater connection to set environments.
Jennie: Oh, sure. The story makes you want to know more as opposed to just listing a bunch of chemicals or ...
Nat: Exactly. Yeah. So I keep joking that I'm not the best at writing the report aspect, the paper aspect because I like playing with lasers and stuff. But the reason people care about the stuff that I blast with lasers is because you can tell is by trying to find evidence for the story of this individual object. I know a lot of people give academic papers flack for being pretty dry. And I cannot agree with them more. I think that a lot of papers would be a lot more readable if people just learned how to write some very basic prose.
Jennie: Yes. You can put the technical stuff in there, but have at least part of it accessible for the lay person.
Nat: Yeah. Having context for those numbers is vitally important in terms of actually engaging your audience.
Jennie: Well, that's what I always say about his ... I love history as a subject, but I hated history class because they're always just throwing lists of dates at me. It took me years before I realized that Victorian England, like Sherlock Holmes time was the same as old West time in the Americas. I had no clue they were concurrent because they didn't teach history that way.
Nat: But when you get into stuff like that, you can see all these interesting interesting things.
Hannah: Thank you so much for sharing this. This is so fascinating to me and Jennie. I know we really could talk about this all day long about how to connect this to people. But we are on a time limit. So we are going to move ahead to our actual brainstorming, but thank you so much for sharing that and that unique perspective with us. We haven't really talked about that on the show yet. About the connection between the arts and sciences. So that's really cool. So as a reminder, our plot today is "On Christmas, a vampire starts shooting at him and in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels."
Jennie: So many questions. Let me throw out a few basic ones just to get us started. The first question, who is the vampire and who are they shooting at?
Nat: This is important.
Jennie: And then the second question is who is knowing about angels? And thirdly, why does shooting this person teach them about angels?
Nat: Okay. Because I'm actually thinking, I'm thinking about the ambiguity of the word shooting. Like is the vampire taking pictures? Is the vampire shooting a gun? Or is the vampire shooting hoops?
Hannah: Yes. Basketball Christmas ...
Jennie: Because it's true. Because it does say, "Starts shooting at him," which implies that the shooting at takes place over an extended period of time.
Hannah: Or that it's interrupted. That it begins and then somehow knowledge about angels happens and that stops it.
Nat: Maybe that's the whole point then. Because maybe it's like an entire thing, like with supernatural characters and they're all just playing basketball. So the vampire starts shooting at him. Maybe it's sort of like an interview with a vampire kind of thing where this one person is allowed an insight into the secret world of angels and vampires. And the only way that he could get the scoop was if he agreed to play in the Christmas basketball tournament. Because team vampire ... No. Wait, no. The vampire's doing the shooting. So maybe it's because team angel is actually down a member and they're like ...
Jennie: Team vampire and team angel.
Nat: Yeah, exactly.
Jennie: I love it.
Nat: In fact, it could be a sequel to Space Jam if we want to do that. Just throwing it out there. This may or may not be canon in Space Jam.
Hannah: So is the knowledge of the angels, is that a tactic to help one of the teams win? Are they hoping that by giving this person, this lay person knowledge of angels ... Or is this just a natural off shoot? Like there's something about playing basketball with vampires and angels that gives you insight into-
Jennie: But the thing that's tickling in my brain-
Hannah: Into only the angels?
Jennie: Is the "in doing so, somehow knows a lot about angels." Not that he learns a lot. What if he realizes that he already knows a lot, but he didn't know that it applied to angels? What do you think?
Hannah: Or maybe there are memories. Maybe he used to be an angel and has lost that. And maybe the vampire doesn't know he used to be an angel, but maybe the vampires are having their own Christmas basketball tournament. And it starts jogging memories about his past angel life. Like in him trying to figure out, was he kicked out? Did he leave of his own free will? Did something happen and so he joins forces with the vampires maybe to solve his mystery? And kind of trying to figure out is he on the vampire side, sort of the fallen creatures or on the angel side? I don't know. There could be ... I don't know.
Jennie: I feel like he's in the middle, because he didn't remember that he was a fallen angel.
Hannah: Right. And so you could have this thing, not only like an identity crisis, like "who am I," but also like an ethical identity crisis. Like "am I," in his mind, "one of the good guys or one of the bad guys"?
Nat: There's an idea.
Hannah: And doesn't actually know.
Jennie: What does that even mean? Because they're obviously getting together to shoot hoops.
Nat: And it's on Christmas. So maybe this person ... Yeah. I like that idea that this person has some sort of draw towards the supernatural. And on Christmas, which is a very spiritual time for a lot of people. Again, he's beginning to feel this pull towards this. And again, this basketball game is his one shot at learning about his true identity as an angel.
Hannah: So does he have some of this knowledge before he goes into play basketball or does this-
Jennie: Like maybe he's already been investigating angels and vampires and then finds out the basketball game?
Nat: Yeah. I like that idea.
Hannah: My initial thought was, yeah, that he's been looking into this. And so he meets this vampire and the vampire invites him to play basketball on Christmas. And that jogs memories that he did not realize he had. And all of a sudden, he has all this past opening up to him and he has to figure out what to do with that.
Jennie: Like maybe it's knocked in the noggin by a basketball and then it's like, oh, flash memory.
Hannah: Yeah. Or maybe there's in a sense, almost in like hypnosis where it's like the word that brings people out or sends people in. Like maybe the-
Jennie: A trigger.
Hannah: But it could be like a specific supernatural connected word. It can be something that like the vampire uses. Maybe they use it as a curse and it means something to the angels or something. But it's not something that the angels put use that because, or whoever put this on him and crowded and closed down his memory used that because they thought it wouldn't be something he would encounter just walking around in everyday life. And then the vampires use it because they have this supernatural knowledge and all of a sudden he has all these memories, but doesn't know what they mean or what ... Yeah.
Jennie: Okay. Okay. Oh, so did the vampires know that our main character used to be an angel? What if they invited him on his terms so that he knew, but because him figuring out who he was would be bad for the angels sometimes because he felt for a reason.
Hannah: Yeah. He's not an angel anymore for a reason.
Nat: And it does stay somehow. So yeah. So I don't know. I like the idea that both sides are kind of in over their heads. Like maybe the vampires were also investigating him while he was just like ... Maybe it's one of those cases where the vampires were thinking about turning him because there's something special about him. And so they want to learn a little bit more. So they invite to this basketball game.
Jennie: Is it even possible to turn a fallen angel? And what kind of vampire would that be? Maybe they have a myth about or something.
Nat: Exactly. And so maybe they don't know what they're getting into just as our protagonist does.
Hannah: You can have a really interesting friendship dynamic between maybe like the vampire who first reached out to him who realizes there's something more about this guy and him. And you can have this really interesting dynamic where they're both kind of not sure where he's going to fall. Like not sure which camp he's going to end up being part of.
Jennie: This is really fascinating.
Hannah: Right? I am going to pause real quick. Oh, okay. We have a title. Our title is, for once it is beautifully connected to the direction we've gone. But our title is His Sports. As in the sports that belong to them. So ...
Nat: And it's still generic because it's still a mysterious him.
Hannah: That makes the basketball more significant, clearly. Rather than just a sideways medium.
Jennie: Okay. So maybe this guy, our main character is a graduate student and their dissertation is studying the effects of human culture on supernatural beings. Because here there are angels and vampires playing basketball.
Nat: Yes. So again, bringing sort of my student ideas into this, where did he get the funding from? Obviously he's a sports athlete, which is why the vampires want him. He probably trained under Charles Barkley or something like that.
Hannah: Maybe they do not know that he has a supernatural thing until he gets all -- They just want him because he's good at basketball. And so they recruit him for their basketball game. They don't tell him necessarily right away that they're vampires. They just invite him to their Christmas tournament. And then all of a sudden, he gets all these memories. They realize, oh my gosh, something crazy is happening. Maybe most of them are like, we can't do have anything to do with this. And they run. The one main vampire who invited him is like, "I'm going to follow along with them and see if we can figure out what's up. Because, oh my gosh, if we could make him a vampire and he, as a former angel. We would definitely win all our championships. Or maybe higher stakes as well."
Jennie: First I feel like he and the vampire already knew each other. Maybe they played basketball together in the same neighborhood. They just friendly neighborhood games and that's how they got to be friends and why he knows he's so good. So what stakes are the angels and vampires playing for? Is this just a casual, supernatural intramurals? Or is it for some to decide what happens over the next year? Like who gets a territory or something.
Hannah: Maybe it was casual to begin with and then he becomes the stakes.
Nat: It's like a team transfer and also a mystery.
Hannah: So, yeah. Maybe-
Jennie: And he's like keep switching teams. They say, "Okay, you go play with angels. Okay, now you play with the vampires."
Hannah: Yeah. I think our final climactic scene has to be a basketball game where he's playing for both teams and whichever team ... He just alternates.
Jennie: He's on both teams and he has to decide while he's playing, which team wins. Whoa.
Nat: Yeah. I like this idea. There's a lot of potential here.
Jennie: Imagine the cinematics. The basketball game going and then it keeps like time freezing while this guy has a flashback or a talking to himself or ...
Hannah: Yeah, I think we have two Christmas basketball games. One that opens it, that opens all his knowledge. And the one that closes it out. And that's the one that helps decide his fate. And you can play with this idea of creatures that are destined to be good or destined to be evil. And play with the idea that maybe whichever one wins is the one that he has to be part of. You could play within the idea of whether he has the ability to choose for himself and to make his own decisions. And not have to go with just whatever, wherever the basketball falls, is what determines his inner goodness or badness or his inner ethic. I don't know. There's some really, really interesting stuff you can do with that.
Jennie: Or what that even means.
Nat: And this is just a personal favor to me. You don't have to include this in the writing itself, but I at least want to see an appendices of how supernatural powers affect the rules of basketball. Like is it traveling if an angel uses their wings? This is important information. And I think it would very much affect things like dumping mechanics.
Jennie: Right. Like no flying allowed. No super speed. No hypnotizing.
Hannah: Yeah. No hypnotizing, no trances.
Nat: You don't necessarily have to include it in the body itself, but I personally would love an appendices.
Jennie: No blood doping.
Nat: Oh yeah. I mean, obviously you can't eat your opponent. That's cheating.
Jennie: No miracles allowed.
Nat: Or maybe it depends on who's playing whom. Like vampires are allowed to use super speed, but angels can fly, but only for a certain amount. Or maybe if there are werewolves in the mix, they can't play during the full moon. Because then they get a huge advantage.
Jennie: The world would be fascinating. And like I said, the implications of human culture on supernatural beings is ... Like they have in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How they have the vampires all chill on Halloween. Because they're like, "Whatever, this is our day off." And they just kind of go with the Halloween fun.
Nat: We don't have to worry about wearing masks or anything. Because we already kind of look weird.
Hannah: There is so much to go with. And I think we are going to pass that off to our listeners because I would love to hear something from this. This went such a different direction than I initially expected it. And I'm so happy for it. Before we close out today, we will go ahead and we'll take a second to each shout out a story we think our listeners should check out. Mine, I realized in the last two minutes what I had to share. And it's a podcast called Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. It is delightful. It is a pretend call in a relationship advice show where all the questions involve supernatural creatures. So I just started listening to it. And the first episode was like, somebody who is recently a ghost. And is still with the person that they were with when they died. And they're trying to figure out, they're trying to get over the hurdles of physical connection in that relationship when she's mostly non corporeal. Yeah. And there's one about somebody who's a vampire reconnecting with somebody they were with when they were younger. But they still look the same. They look the same as they were when they first met. And so they're trying to ... The advice is actually all really solid advice. I was like, this is actually just good. It's a little quirky--
Nat: I'm sorry, I need to write this one down. What was that called again?
Hannah: Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. It's a relatively new one. I think it started about six months ago. But it's so delightful and it is right in the pocket of this particular episode. So I figured I had to incorporate.
Nat: I would consider that recommendation a slam dunk.
Hannah: All right, Jennie, we'll toss it over to you. What are you going to share with us this week?
Jennie: Well, I'm going to recommend something a little more well known. So I like cultural relevance. We had a discussion about this earlier in the week, me and Hannah. But I'm going to recommend if you haven't been watching it already, you need to watch Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. this show is so much fun. It's about this gal who works in programming and she wakes up one day to find out that she has the ability to hear people's inner thoughts in the form of songs. So she's walking down the street and all of a sudden, somebody singing a song about being lonely. And they're all like a pop culture songs that you'd mostly recognize. And then all the trouble she gets into hearing people's secret thoughts. The thoughts behind the words they're actually saying. And it's not only fun in that sense, lots of dance numbers and whatnot, but it's also incredibly emotional and poignant in places. And it's just one of my favorite shows currently going on right now. And I hope they do another season.
Hannah: All right. Nat, we're going to toss it to you. What would you like to share with our listeners?
Nat: Okay. So I've thought a lot about this. And I'm glad that we kind of stuck to sort of a supernatural theme because the book I'd like to recommend, and it is a book, is called Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. It's in the Discworld series, if you're familiar with that. But you shouldn't have to worry about catching up on them because it's kind of a standalone book. It's not part of ... Well, it's part of the series and the universe. It doesn't follow any one particular plot line. It's its own self contained story.
I haven't finished it yet, so no spoilers. But it's a book about a great and powerful God of a very large monotheistic religion. But the way deities work in Terry Pratchett's world is gods get their powers from a true believers. The problem is the religion has spread well, but the actual teachings of the God and while the religion of the God has spread far and wide, the actual spiritual concerns have not so much. So when he tries to take on an avatar, the only thing he can muster is a small turtle. Because there's only one true follower and people don't really pay much attention to him because they think he's not very smart. But he's a very good listener. And it's basically these adventures of this super powerful deity trapped in a tiny turtle body and his friend who wants to like ... He's just like, "Can we just be like nice to each other?"
Jennie: That sounds so fun.
Nat: It is. Yeah. It's an interesting take on religion and spirituality without necessarily picking any one side, if that makes sense. It examines-
Jennie: Kind of exploring the-
Nat: Yeah. That's my pick.
Hannah: Awesome. I really need to read more Terry Pratchett. I have not read nearly enough for being as big of a genre fiction fan as I am. All right. Before we close out a final thing Nat, is there anything that you'd like to plug for yourself or for a friend that you'd like to just get some self promotion stuff out?
Nat: Yes. So I do have an Instagram, but it's mostly filled with pictures of cats and hopefully soon, hopefully soon, maybe some pictures of rocks and fossils as well. If I can clear that. So if you want to follow me, it's @knatkat44 on Instagram. K-N-A-T-K-A-T 44. But in terms of my writing stuff, I am currently not writing a whole lot because I'm mostly writing about rocks. But I do have a friend who in addition to collecting short stories, is a freelance editor. So if you're interested and maybe trying to get your writing published, I would recommend you check out scribecat.ca. My friend Ash Lachance runs that website. Her rates are very reasonable. I use her for editing my academic papers quite often because again, academic papers tend to drag. And so, yeah. So if you're looking for that. And I also plug it because I hope to one day be able to write for one of her anthologies at some point. So hopefully I'll be featured there one day, but even still, I recommend you check out scribecat.ca.
Jennie: That's C-R-I-B-T-K-A-T or C-A-T?
Nat: C-A-T. I only spell my name with K's because I like K's.
Hannah: I just liked that both things you recommend have "cat" in them, which is fun. All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us and unpacking this real wacky story with us. I really appreciate it. That was awesome.
Nat: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's super fun.
Hannah: That is our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
Jennie: Follow us on Twitter @writethispod. And if you've been inspired by this episode and have questions or comments or a story or anything else, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Hannah: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. We'll see you then.
Jennie: And that's they say, he who was sick will lie down.
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