Halloween can sometimes be a struggle for neurodiverse children. There’s costumes and candy and strangers to consider. Halloween can be adapted to fit the needs of your family. Don’t feel like it has to be the same, traditional Halloween you see in the movies. That’s not always real life, friends. And if your kid tries to poop in someone else’s house, it’s okay. We’ve been there.
In today’s episode, we’ve got a short and sweet conversation to share our pro tips for how to tackle Halloween like a badass parent of neurodiverse kids. We talk about costumes, candy, trick-or-treating, incorporating special treats like movies, recruiting reinforcements (like Grandma and Grandpa!), and more. We’ve got you covered for spooky season, don’t you worry.
Also, don’t miss The Last Word. We have a really special interview between Jameson and Rylan about Halloween (and mostly Pokemon). Enjoy!
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[06:59] Our pro tips about costumes, candy, and pooping in neighbors’ houses, so you can tackle Halloween like a badass
[24:11] The Last Word
If you just can't get enough of us, don’t forget to join our newsletter and check out our other projects.
Links mentioned in this episode…
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Transcript for "Ep 14: It’s Spooky Season: Our Top Tips on Tackling Halloween with Neurodiverse Kids"
[00:00:05] Gwen If you have an appreciation for honest and sometimes irreverent conversations about parenting and walking alongside humans with neurodiversity, you're in the right place. I'm Gwen.
[00:00:18] Kristen And I'm Kristen. And together we have decades of experience parenting fiercely amazing neurodiverse humans as well as teaching, writing, advocating and consulting. All of this has provided us with an endless supply of stories of inspiring failures and heartbreaking wins.
[00:00:35] Gwen Welcome to You Don't Want a Hug, Right? We promise to come at you each episode as our true selves, sharing the hilarity and delight in the midst of the hard of our journeys. Most importantly, though, we hope to remind you of your immense value as a human being outside of the parenting role that you play.
[00:00:56] Kristen So grab a cozy blanket and a beverage and go hide in the closet nearest you. Gwen.
[00:01:06] Gwen KK.
[00:01:06] Kristen How are you doing, friend?
[00:01:09] Gwen You know, I'm just so good. It's been 80 degrees in Michigan. And it's October and I went to sea-dooing with my husband on October 1st.
[00:01:19] Kristen You found all the pumpkins. Tell the people about your pumpkin situation.
[00:01:24] Gwen Oh, I came home with 12 pumpkins.
[00:01:28] Kristen What are you going to do with all those pumpkins?
[00:01:30] Gwen Well, I'll show you with a photo of my front porch that I think our listeners are going to be marveled by. And they're going to want to go buy 12 pumpkins for themselves.
[00:01:41] Kristen I bought one small pumpkin to put on my counter.
[00:01:46] Gwen That is utterly depressing.
[00:01:48] Kristen I just I don't have the decoration gene and me, I just don't have it.
[00:01:53] Gwen Listen, that's why pumpkins exist. Because you don't do anything. You just plop them down.
[00:02:00] Kristen But you have to. You have to arrange them ever so.
[00:02:03] Gwen Okay. I think that we need to just take a breath and stop overthinking how to decorate with.
[00:02:10] Kristen I'm stressed out. It stresses me out.
[00:02:11] Gwen Well, you don't have to decorate with pumpkins. I just think that you're doing fall a disservice as a season.
[00:02:21] Kristen Speaking of fall, this is our Halloween episode, and I was real excited about this because we're going to have a lot of fun talking about what Halloween looks like for our families and giving you the protects. But then the coolest things are going to happen because Jameson is going to interview Rylan about Halloween because they both love Halloween and there might may or may not be some Pokemon facts.
[00:02:45] Gwen Okay, I was going to say so be prepared though, that us saying it's going to be Halloween as just a blatant lie because it's so quickly it's going to turn into Pokemonboogeyman and it's going to stay right there.
[00:02:58] Kristen It's a thin cover for Rylan to share Pokemon. Yeah, you delighted by it.
[00:03:04] Gwen I hope so. He is.
[00:03:07] Kristen All right. Let's start with our Rylanism and Grahamism real quick before we get into the Halloween festivities.
[00:03:13] Gwen All right. Give us Graham first, please.
[00:03:16] Kristen Okay. Graham. Graham is very motivated and interested in all things movies, Pokemon, Nintendo. Right. But he really has a lot of things to say politically about Disney now. And there's always the question of what's Disney, What's Pixar like? He really wants to know how we feel about them as a franchise. But one of the things that he said to me that feels a little Halloweenish, I don't know, he said, Mom, you know what movie has really changed the culture? You know, the big green guy, Shrek, Come on. The memes, the merch, the memes and the merch. I just don't even go there. Well, they have shaped our culture.
[00:04:02] Gwen And really, if you disagree, I don't know where you've been. I didn't know if you were going to say Shrek or who's the little circle short green guy in with Sulley in Monster. Mike, Mike Wajowski. Mike Jajowski.
[00:04:20] Kristen I don't know. Some kind of owski. He's a Polish, one eyed green guy.
[00:04:32] Gwen All right, But we weren't. We were talking about Shrek.
[00:04:35] Kristen We were talking about Shrek. But I like how he thinks about it on a cultural scale.
[00:04:39] Gwen Yeah. And you know that he's really mulled through that.
[00:04:42] Kristen He really has spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff. Oh, well, okay, hit me with a Rylanism.
[00:04:47] Gwen Well. I was chatting with him last night in preparation for this episode, and I know that he historically loves Halloween. Like I remember as a young child, just being able to run, Tim and I being like, This might have been the best day of our year watching him experience Halloween. So we have not struggled with Halloween in the way I think probably a lot of our family's have.
[00:05:14] Kristen Don't worry, friends. We have. So we're going to inside Halloween.
[00:05:18] Gwen I mean and by struggle meaning like there's certain things that are just givens, like we have to be connected to him so that he doesn't ask to go poop at people's houses. Like, I mean.
[00:05:29] Kristen More on that later.
[00:05:30] Gwen Yeah. So struggling just means he's really enjoyed Halloween and been joyful. But I said, is Halloween your favorite holiday? And he said, Well, of course it is. I said, Oh, well, explain to me why. He goes, Well, dressing up, as long as you're not expected to act is super fun cause he hates acting. He hates theater. He thinks it's so embarrassing for the people doing the acting.
[00:05:59] Kristen Oh, yeah. Graham would have to cover his eyes if you.
[00:06:01] Gwen Oh, yeah, that's that. He can't understand why you would pretend to be somebody you're not. Okay, so with that premise, dressing up is super fun, he said, Despite being terrified by people's decorations and avoiding certain houses, I always loved Halloween. And I said, Well, do you not love like Christmas or Thanksgiving more? He goes, Thanksgiving, you just eat food. There's no creativity. I was like, Okay. Christmas? Well, it's just too calm, you know? Like it doesn't have the same hype that Halloween does. And St Patrick's Day, forget about it. It's like, Well, forget about it. How did St Patrick's Day make the list of top American holidays? We've never celebrated it outside of putting food coloring in the toilet bowl.
[00:06:56] Kristen Well, clearly, that's why forget about it.
[00:06:59] Gwen Right. So anyway, he loves some Halloween. All right. How are restructuring this? We are going to give you our top, what, three recommendations how to tackle Halloween like a bad ass boss. Yeah. What is your first tip,KK?
[00:07:20] Kristen Okay, here's my first hint. The first tip is if your kid hates to wear a costume, this is going to seem obvious. Bear with me. If they hate to wear a costume, do yourself a huge favor and don't make them wear a costume. Look, I did this for years and was disappointed every single year. Because we would go shopping, my mother in law, God bless her, she was so great. She would always want to take the kids out to buy their Halloween costumes. And Graham would be so into it. And so, like, I promise, I swear I'm going to wear a costume this year. He would swear on his life up until the day he would swear. And then there was no way on God's green earth he was wearing that costume.
[00:08:09] Gwen Would you cry?
[00:08:10] Kristen Oh, yes. Some years he would at least put it on so that we could take a picture. He'll absolutely not leave property with that costume on. And, you know, in the early years, I just felt like, oh, people are going to judge us like, oh, you can't get this kid to dress up for the candy. Is he lazy? What is going on? And of course, none of that happened. Everybody was wonderful.
[00:08:37] Gwen Well, you really believed that people would judge you?
[00:08:41] Kristen I really did.
[00:08:43] Gwen So was it more about being sad that he wasn't wearing it or was it more about people's impression?
[00:08:49] Kristen I think it was both, because it just tried to make it festive. Right. Even though I didn't have pumpkins, I did make chili, we did have a jack o lantern like everyone made a jack o lantern.
[00:09:03] Gwen Hold on. They put their hands inside pumpkins?
[00:09:07] Kristen Well, there was some assistance.
[00:09:09] Gwen Oh, like meaning you did the whole thing?
[00:09:12] Kristen Kind of. Okay. And they sat in front of the pumpkins, but. Right. Right. But, yeah, like, I would try and make it festive. And, you know, I had candles lit and I made chili, and then the grandparents would come over, and I just felt sad for Graham feeling like, Oh, I just wish this was more fun for you. Yeah, but that the reality is, like, it's a really strange thing to ask a kid to do who doesn't understand social norms or drive social norms. Do it.
[00:09:42] Gwen Why? Why is Halloween a strange thing? Because we work so hard to tell our kids not to walk into people's houses randomly, to go poop.
[00:09:53] Kristen Or to ask for candy.
[00:09:54] Gwen A lot of candy. Yeah. Or we try to encourage some of that to wear their cast the same costume to school every day for the entire school year that they're obsessed with. Right. Yeah.
[00:10:06] Kristen So there's a lot embedded behind this beloved holiday that makes it hard for our kids. So eventually I came to accept that this was not Graham's holiday and that we were just going to add an expensive item to the dress up box for the year.
[00:10:25] Gwen Yeah, because he deserves to pick one out as much as anybody else.
[00:10:29] Kristen Sure does. I also think part of it is a sensory thing. Right. Because costumes don't tend to be made of the best material.
[00:10:37] Gwen Oh, well, $75 costumes might. And I can't say I've ever spent that much on a costume.
[00:10:43] Kristen It's just the whole thing, that's all.
[00:10:47] Gwen Did he go trick or treating in his clothes and enjoy that?
[00:10:50] Kristen He did. And he would make it down the street about five houses before we had to bust into somebody's house. He needed a cold drink of water, potentially a significant bathroom stop and he needed to sit down on their couch and just be like, Oh, that was a bad thing. I'm all done.
[00:11:12] Gwen Would you have to time it so that you went to somebody's house you knew about that time?
[00:11:16] Kristen It's funny because one of the people that has become one of my closest friends is that the woman whose house we would stop at every year and she would just be like, Come on in. But then eventually she started inviting us over.
[00:11:32] Gwen Come on, little boy in your street clothes. Have a seat on my sofa.
[00:11:36] Kristen Come on into my bathroom.
[00:11:37] Gwen Would you like a bowl of candy, some ice water and an apple?
[00:11:43] Kristen Oh, my gosh. Oh, fantastic. Give us your pro tip.
[00:11:47] Gwen All right. That's a really good one. We didn't ever have to do that. Rylan voluntarily wore his costumes, but he was never a sensory kid with clothing. Everything else. But not the clothing. Yeah. All right, my number one pro tip. So this might seem ridiculous, but the obsession that we would have with the candy after Halloween was enough to make me want to throw it away. But I knew that that wouldn't go well either. So we came up with a plan with our dentist that the dentist would buy candy from the kids. And they actually did this as like a program. But we had a kind of it specialty radius of the dentist. So leading up to Halloween, we made a plan of like, what is something you're saving up to buy that would be really special because you can keep 20 pieces of candy, and if you sell the rest to the dentist, we can go right to Target and get said item. And it worked three years in a row. And then it didn't. Wow, the three years in a row both of my kids would lay their candy out, take their top 20 pieces, and then they just knew when their lunch every day for 20 days they had candy and it solved the problem. Wow. So I don't know if that's your dentist or your next door neighbor or your mailman, mailwoman, mailperson. Find somebody to buy candy from your kids and make it like this big thing if you can get that to happen.
[00:13:24] Kristen So we had a different approach. We let them go bananas for like 24 to 48 hours, like just in my opinion, with all of the social bizarreness you just experienced, you just eat as much candy as you possibly can. And then we take it and we hid it and we only used it for movies.
[00:13:47] Gwen Oh, and did their teachers super appreciate that approach for a day or two?
[00:13:54] Kristen Not so much. Okay. But you know. Yeah. And it was over.
[00:13:59] Gwen Okay. Maybe a warning conversation with them beforehand.
[00:14:03] Kristen A little email.
[00:14:05] Gwen And a bottle of wine in their teacher mailbox. All right. Those are good. Those are good. What is your second pro tip?
[00:14:14] Kristen My second pro tip is to ask your family that's coming over for said candles and chili and nice holiday to take. Sure. Yes. To not comment on said costumes for fear of making that child feel like they're in the limelight. Oh, because one of my kids would cry and not want to come out of the bedroom for fear of a grandparent's absolute delight at their costume. It was so much pressure and I had to top that child out of the bedroom every year. So finally my wonderful in-laws, who thank God they came over because somebody had to walk back with Graham after the five houses. Right. So we keep trick or treating, right. But, you know, they would they would, of course, be just so excited to see the kids costumes and Jameson would just lose his mind. He just felt like the pressure was all consuming.
[00:15:17] Gwen But the other two probably liked, well the other one, because Graham would be in this costume, stayed in it.
[00:15:23] Kristen He was the only one that was excited to show off this costume, which many years was like, I think one year he had just a big chicken head. Of course he did a big chicken with a with a walking stick.
[00:15:36] Gwen Oh, good. Can you please post that photo?
[00:15:39] Kristen Just a chicken with regular clothes and a walking stick.
[00:15:45] Gwen So would you have a staged approach to the entrance of your in-laws? Like. Okay, first you're going to greet Hayden and outside and compliment his random.
[00:15:55] Kristen He'll meet you at the car, he's so excited.
[00:15:58] Gwen And then you're just going to say hello to the next child at the time, Cora, saying Hello. So nice to see you. That's it.
[00:16:07] Kristen And then with no eye contact.
[00:16:09] Gwen And then the third child, you will just say, I'm so excited to be here. And I really like your outfit.
[00:16:16] Kristen I really love your sweatshirt.
[00:16:17] Gwen Okay. Okay. Bless your in-laws, man.
[00:16:21] Kristen They're all amazing. They are the best.
[00:16:24] Gwen And neuro typical families wonder why we can't just join them for activities.
[00:16:31] Kristen Jaunt around the neighborhood. Okay. Give us one more pro tip.
[00:16:39] Gwen Let's see. I would love to just put aside any thought of being the parents that hang out at the curb, you know, while your kids run up to the door.
[00:16:52] Kristen Oh, and chat with the other parents that are walking by?
[00:16:56] Gwen Just know that that's probably never going to happen, even when they're like 14, because we had to be within arm's shot of the joyful child to be able to quickly yank or quickly go, Uh oh, remember the rules? Pretty much every house like, Oh, what do we say? Not how many pieces can I have? Like, every single house was just a repeat ready to yank. Nope, they don't have root beer. No, no. You can't ask for a soda. No, we don't have to pee.
[00:17:34] Kristen You can't go inside. And don't shove the little child in front of you out of the way.
[00:17:42] Gwen Oh, correct. Right. The one year old who's just toddling that you don't you're annoyed with because why are they walking so slow?
[00:17:52] Kristen Right. Don't box them out. Right. Don't check against the boards.
[00:17:58] Gwen Let go of any thoughts of being the sidewalk, curbside, Halloween parents.
[00:18:05] Kristen That's a great one.
[00:18:07] Gwen Okay. What's your last one?
[00:18:09] Kristen I don't really have a last one. Because I think they were woven in.
[00:18:13] Gwen Okay, well, how about just some random ones? Like, definitely put reflectors, glow jewelry all over them because they will run and you're not going to be able to catch them. And by that time, they're probably in someone's home and you're really not going to find them. Yeah. So reflectors are good. You can just buy them like little stickers. And another one that worked well for us was holding his bag of candy for him and having a rule that you have to have the bag with you in order to get the candy. So that kept him more tied to us. So that's a greatidea. I knew he needed to get the bag in order to go to the next house. So if we carried it, I mean, he would still forget, but then he'd put his hands out and be like, Uh oh, I don't have my bag hold up. And then here I go, Yeah, it's great. So that could be a good one. And eat before you head out. Yeah, for sure. Like a lot of food. Yeah. And bring more food that's not candy in your person because snacks go real long way, especially when they're wanting to eat all the candy the entire night. Yeah. Which the Kaiser children were just allowed to.
[00:19:34] Kristen Which they were, there's no doubt. They sure were. I also think it's helpful. Once I wrapped my head around that, like this wasn't really ever going to be a great situation for Graham to have a lot of fun with planning Halloween outside of the trick or treating. Like if we're going to trick or treat to five houses, what are we doing? We're going to watch a special movie. We're going to have special a special blanket with us. We're going to have special people with us like Grandma and Grandpa are going to stay and watch the movie. And I think having a schedule of what's happening when we're done trick or treating really helped with the comedown. Yeah, with the crash after the whole event.
[00:20:20] Gwen And Halloween doesn't have to look any certain way. And it's easy for us to assume that it does because culturally it does. But Halloween and for some years for us was making a list of eight houses that we wanted to go to and we would drive and that would be it, yeah. And that worked really well some some years when we didn't if the weather was bad or we didn't feel like he was in a great mood. So we just have to shift these things and create our own rhythms of how we want these things to work.
[00:20:56] Kristen And I think for parents that are parenting alone, it's important to think about if you don't have family nearby, like growing up, then bring somebody so that you don't have to do this situation by yourself because it really is stressful and you may have to if you have more than one kid, you know, not everybody's going to be able to handle it the same way. So don't be afraid to call in the reinforcements, whoever they might be for sure.
[00:21:23] Gwen Yeah, single parents on any holiday, you just have to reshape your own narratives. And we've we can't speak to that personally, but we certainly understand how overwhelming any sort of change in schedule can be. And these holidays that are readily approaching are probably the hardest time of year for all of us, and especially for parents doing this journey alone. So we see you. We do. We see you.
[00:21:55] Kristen So we're doing a short one today because we really want you to be able to hear from our kids. It's going to be very busy. But also we thought it could be really cool. Since Halloween kind of kicks off this whole holiday season. The holiday hilarity, the holiday horror, holiday hysteria. We're coming up with my h words as we can think of. Yes. But we really want you to call in and tell us one of your favorite funny stories of what the holidays look like for your neurodiverse families.
[00:22:29] Gwen Funny or horrible or totally horrible or but which which we inevitably just choose and have to laugh at. Yep. So there's a phone number for you to call and you can find it on our website, too. And it is just a voicemail box. We're not going to answer, but we are going to listen to every single message. And it's possible that we will use them in future episodes, disclaimer. And if you're watching our podcast right now, you can see that Kristen silently waving someone away. Who could it be, Kristen. Well, could it be Well, who wants in?
[00:23:07] Kristen Well. It's Graham asking me if it's this or this. Thumbs up or thumbs down. And I'm like, violently saying down. And you just looking at me like, what? What do you mean I can't come in? I mean, that's not what I was hoping you would do. Are you sure? All right. Maybe if I just do the thumbs up at you enough times, you'll let me come in? Nope. Don't try. Or crowds, friends.
[00:23:38] Gwen These are the kind of stories we would love for you to share with us about your holidays. The phone number for you to call and leave a voicemail is 616-419-8589. That 616-419-8589. And it's on our website under the Contact Us page. Please call in and leave us your messages and now we give to you Jameson and Rylan.
[00:24:08] Kristen Happy Halloween.
[00:24:11] Reagan We know, our moms are amazing, but they don't know everything. We think that you deserve to hear from the real experts, their kids. We believe in nothing about us without us. So here it is. The last word.
[00:24:29] Kristen Jameson and Rylan, thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:24:32] Jameson Not a problem.
[00:24:33] Kristen And we just recorded some fun memories of Halloween and some pro tips on that for parents on how to do Halloween. So we thought it would be really fun if Jameson, if you interviewed Rylan about your shared love of Halloween. So take it away.
[00:24:51] Jameson All right. So, Rylan, I heard that you love Halloween. What are you going to be this year?
[00:24:58] Rylan I kind of forgot, like, the specifics about what the costume is, but it's basically a sorcerer, DND sorcerer. That's about it.
[00:25:08] Jameson Oh, nice. So, like the class sorcerer or is there, like, a specific race or is it just kind of like.
[00:25:14] Rylan Well, I have a character sheet to go with it, so I'm an elf sorcercer.
[00:25:20] Jameson Elf sorcerer?
[00:25:21] Rylan Yeah.
[00:25:22] Jameson Yeah. No, I've got to play DND again. It's been like a good year since I've been the last campaign. But anyways. So what do you like about DND?
[00:25:30] Rylan Adventure and other stuff? Yeah, it's fun.
[00:25:37] Jameson Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
[00:25:39] Rylan Also, I have this.
[00:25:41] Jameson Oyo. Okay.
[00:25:43] Rylan It's a copper dragon. Yeah.
[00:25:45] Jameson One of my first campaigns with Daddy, I had a half orc, druid, and I had this, like, stupid rule that I thought was really funny at the time, but made the campaign absolutely miserable for me. So he could only enter through windows. So I couldn't enter through doors because I thought it was funny. I was like, Who would it be? You know, like, like, you know, couldn't enter the doors. And it became like a nightmare of a campaign after that.
[00:26:17] Rylan I think my first ever character was an elf druid. And like, I've kind of sort of made all my characters druids because that's like my favorite class.
[00:26:29] Jameson That's my favorite class. Get out of here.
[00:26:29] Rylan I mean, who wouldn't want to turn into a I don't know. And it's and who wouldn't trade exactly what these it's like a fly.
[00:26:42] Jameson Me. I would. All right. Did you know that Minecraft just incorporated DND and Pokemon worlds?
[00:26:50] Rylan I didn't see anything about Pokemon but I've been playing the DND pack before I did this, I played it and pray for Foreign story but haven't heard anything about Pokemon.
[00:27:02] Jameson I have not. I mean, I heard about the DND thing too, but the Pokemon one was like brand new to me. So I mean, you know, I hope I'm hoping it's good.
[00:27:11] Rylan Yeah, I just haven't seen it as like the marketplace art.
[00:27:16] Jameson Yeah, I know what you mean. All right. On the topic of Halloween, which is once like, I got to do the I'm not even gonna do math. My head. Never mind.
[00:27:25] Rylan End of the month.
[00:27:26] Jameson Yeah. Yeah. Mathematically, the end of the month. Yes. Back on the topic. Like, I love Halloween. Like it's my. I got to see if I can, like, I got a Sorry, it's upside down. I got a ghost tattoo and I got a Ouija board planchette. So, love spooky month, I love it so much. All right. But anyways, kind of like on the topic of it, what is your favorite candy?
[00:27:56] Rylan Uh, 100 grand bars first and Reese's cup second.
[00:27:59] Jameson Reese's cups are like a pretty, pretty solid second for me as well. I got that. My favorite candy. My friends tell me that I'm an old man for this, but I like York peppermint patties.
[00:28:12] Rylan That kind of sort of. Well, I would say to a lot of people's maybe. I don't know. I heard about it. Good. Tend to like it. Yeah.
[00:28:24] Jameson All right. What is the grossest candy you think you've had?
[00:28:28] Rylan I don't know. I haven't had a gross candy, but I guess, I don't know, just like a I don't, I guess like we say, Candy is maybe, like, maybe Jolly Ranchers. But, I mean, it's not like they don't like them. It's just they're just not my favorite.
[00:28:49] Jameson Yeah. No, I personally, whenever I see Jolly Ranchers, they always find a way to get, like, stuck in the very, very back of my mouth, which is literally like a nightmare because I can't, like, just, you know, put my hand in my mouth or I'll look like a psychopath. And then my tongue is clearly not strong enough to, like, get it out. So now I'm just stuck with it. Yeah, but if so, the Jolly Rancher argument is valid.
[00:29:17] Rylan One time it's about candy, but it's about Jolly Ranchers like I chomped on two Starbursts at once, you know, and I unchewed eight ripped tooth out but it's quite a it was painful but it still was it was like an insult. No it's a long one. Go a long ago.
[00:29:43] Jameson The time has passed. Yes I everything is fine. I.
[00:29:47] Rylan Yeah. That it's fun every day. It's everything is what? It's. Yeah.
[00:29:58] Jameson What is it that you really like about Halloween?
[00:30:00] Rylan I'm not sure it's this. I don't really have another holiday that really tops it. I guess.
[00:30:08] Jameson Amen to that. I love Halloween a lot. It's like, because it's just. It's an excuse to get scared about everything. And as emo as that sounds, it's excellent because you get to, like, really kind of think about why is it that this is scary to me and such? Yeah, but yeah, Halloween, like it's the best time of the year. And you know, with that, you know, like, just kind of can't top it, you know? Is that why you think you maybe you like Pokemon so much or.
[00:30:42] Rylan Yeah, I mean, I kind of grew up with Pokemon. I just that kind of getting more deep into it, you know, like Valley of Cards collecting that sort of thing. Yeah.
[00:30:56] Jameson You have cards, I believe, right? The entire gang is here.
[00:31:04] Rylan I may or may not have the standard collection of shiny face in this binder.
[00:31:09] Jameson Jesus, that's a lot.
[00:31:11] Rylan Yeah. And right now I'm collecting another set out in flames. Have you heard of that one?
[00:31:17] Jameson Oh, my God. Yeah. You're like, getting. You're getting your anthology together.
[00:31:21] Rylan My favorite card in this set has got to be this card is kind of hard to pull out, but now you're good.
[00:31:31] Jameson Oh, my God. I love the color palette.
[00:31:33] Rylan It's shiny charizard.
[00:31:36] Jameson Shiny charizard! I was like charizard but shiny.
[00:31:39] Rylan Yeah. This is actually the most expensive card in the set. Okay.
[00:31:45] Jameson Dang, I mean. So keep it close, keep it quiet.
[00:31:50] Rylan That's why I keep it in this binder.
[00:31:52] Jameson Oh, yeah. I have a, like, tiny chicorita plush in my room back at my parents' house that I immediately just thought of. It likes to watch me sleep at night. So.
[00:32:07] Rylan I also have, like, another interesting card that's, like, really old. Have you seen this one before? Ancient mew?
[00:32:14] Jameson Mew? Yeah. Yes, I have seen that one.
[00:32:18] Rylan It's. It's really cool. I love it. I look back and it's all I'll try to be super careful. It's I could show you the backing, but it looks really cool.
[00:32:29] Jameson Jeez, the colors. I love the colors. They complement each other so well. But on the topic of Pokemon, what is it about Pokemon that has kept you so interested and passionate? Like, what makes you like what makes it like what makes you tick in that way? You know, like.
[00:32:47] Rylan Probably because like the message there, your companions also like how they add more and the war and so much stuff, and yeah, they always make you excited about stuff like, like Pocahontas guys I recently had the DLC release and like soulmate Pokemon theories has just gotten me so excited because like they say, like what's going to happen and stuff like there's Pokémon that no one has, you know, it's just like on and on and on and on. And there's this way and, and sorry to offer any spoilers, but it like, ends on a cliffhanger. Have you played the DLC?
[00:33:29] Jameson I've seen like one of my roommates is like absolutely obsessed with that kind of stuff. So I've seen it. So I haven't played it, but I've seen it. Yeah, close enough.
[00:33:38] Rylan At the very end. It's like a huge cliffhanger that just, yeah, everyone's excited about, I guess. I don't know. I'm just excited because it's January 22nd that.
[00:33:52] Jameson Oh nice. And then it just kind of like nicely ties in everything. Yeah. Yeah. In what ways has Pokemon helped you in your life? You think like, you know, just driving it forward, just, you know, marching on.
[00:34:05] Rylan I guess like stuff to talk about and, and just like, stuff to do. I don't know.
[00:34:13] Jameson No, that's fair. That's you know, I think it's about the little things that really empower you to get through, like, you know, through it and such. Like I had a brief obsession. No, not really brief. It was like couple of years and one tattoo later. But with this old seventies, like crime themed show called Lupin the Third. And every time, like, I felt, like, awful, I turn it on and being able to get myself back into the lords of the characters, into the, ah, into the music, especially. It like it really helped me to be like, Wow, I don't feel like that anymore. So is that kind of like the same with you and Pokemon where you're like, Oh, I can immerse myself in this lore. You know, something that I love, something I've memorized, something that, you know. Do you think it's just kind of like helped guide you?
[00:35:03] Rylan The memory part is kind of on track because I may not have already memorized all the Pokemon and even the ones that haven't been released into the game.
[00:35:16] Jameson Yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah. No I that that's honestly me right now with Red Dead Redemption two, I have the entire videogame and the entire map like memorized. At this point it's, it's like I need more friends. No, I don't. But yeah that's really cool that you have, like, all that memorized and such.
[00:35:36] Rylan Yeah. If you want to play DND, I mean, you could do like, next D Club. Either you can, like, come in on Zoom or something.
[00:35:46] Jameson That'll be awesome. I got to get, I appreciate the invite. I got to I definitely got to, you know, like check it out. And I don't know, do I have to have like a character sheet ready?
[00:35:57] Rylan I mean, it would be good, but you can, like, print, like premade character sheets and so.
[00:36:04] Jameson No, no, I'm going to make my own character sheet. The pre-made ones are boring in my experience.
[00:36:10] Rylan Okay. What I would recommend is using DND beyond because.
[00:36:15] Jameson Oh, love DND beyond that I use with my campaign. Excellent. It is excellent.
[00:36:22] Rylan Sadly, there's not things for like the characters I want do. Like I've been getting into putting my characters race as merfolk.
[00:36:33] Jameson Oh yo.
[00:36:34] Rylan So I can like, breathe underwater, which is cool. So, like, it's pretty crazy. Everyone's yelling and screaming. All of the room feels like a chill in the background. Feel like me, like a water heater or whatever. I don't care.
[00:36:51] Jameson Nah, man. I ain't bothered.
[00:36:53] Rylan The room is full of water, I can breathe water just fine.
[00:36:58] Jameson I know. You know, like sucks to be you right now. I'm chilling here. Exactly. But yeah, I appreciate you. You know, like chillin with me Rylan, it really seems that, you know, you're very passionate like I am. I hope that you continue to grow your collection of Pokemon cards. I'm sure you will.
[00:37:18] Rylan Yeah. Especially because there's another set that I want to collect that's coming out, it's shining treasures. It comes out this December and it's next shiny subset. So awesome. I collect it by collected this shiny subset. Yeah. I mean, you got it. Sadly, I got to collect hidden fates. So stick that. And now it's way too expensive.
[00:37:41] Jameson Now it's way too expensive. Gosh darn it. All right. But yeah, before we get down to another rabbit hole, you know, just wanted to say, you know, thank you again, and I hope you know that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, is that a fidget?
[00:37:55] Rylan I guess so, yeah.
[00:37:56] Jameson I like the color palette. Yeah, I'm very color palette oriented. I see something and I'll be like, Sure. But yeah, no, appreciate you coming on here. And then, I mean, I appreciate my mom letting I don't know why I'm inclined that I was like, let in or something. Like, I don't know, but. But yeah, I appreciate you letting me, you know, talk about all that. And hopefully you have a good Halloween and you know, you can get, you know, score some good candy.
[00:38:23] Rylan Yeah, I know. Like one house that's really close at the end of the night, they say, like, grab whatever you want. They only put king size stuff. Yeah I like that. Good stuff as well. Good stuff. If it's free for to take you out to take it, if they're free to take on taking it, if they're letting you say it it might as well.
[00:38:51] Jameson My way or the highway.
[00:38:53] Rylan Yeah.
[00:38:55] Gwen Thanks for joining us for this episode. We appreciate you so very much. We sure love it. If you'd subscribe to our show in your favorite podcast app and rate us preferably with five stars. We love hearing from our listeners. So visit our website to reach out via email or through our voicemail box. You can sign up for our free newsletter. Get on in there by visiting youdontwantahug.com. See you next time.