Dear Dr. Fantasy: episode 65, with Jake from Nerd Level Rising

[@NerdLevelRising]

Thank you so much for the fantastic conversation Philip! I had such a great time, as always a combination of fun and new insights! Truly am grateful to consider you a friend and this booktube community a very real home 😊

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

It was a joy and an honor to chat with you, Jake! I am so glad you're part of this supportive community!

[@jakearmstrong3920]

Hey Jake, fellow Jake who is also 31 years old and it was so fun hearing about your early influences for reading! We share so many of them and it feels like I haven’t heard much talk about them on booktube. Artemis fowl, pendragon and so many others that helped cultivate my love for fantasy! Keep up the great work and thank you Dr Fantasy for another amazing guest!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@ Thank you for watching, Jake!

[@NerdLevelRising]

@@jakearmstrong3920 that's awesome man!! Thanks for watching!

[@Chance.Dillon]

Came for the thumbnail-staying for the conversation

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

No weirdly plastic and perfect AI thumbnails for me! I have perfected the art of making imperfect and cheesy thumbnails!

[@iSamwise]

Wow! Jake’s story about dealing with and conquering fear through the Harry Potter books is really inspired and to be honest, seems deeply symbolic.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Given the story, it seems highly appropriate that the Harry Potter books would have been part of that process for Jake -- and millions of others, no doubt. Cheers, Sam!

[@KindlesandKicks]

This is the first DDF I've had the opportunity to watch from beginning to end and I'm so glad I did. Even though I'm an 80s baby and Jake is a 90s baby, I found his journey so relatable despite our age difference. It brought serious nostalgia vibes hearing him talk about being a kid before the internet and social media. What a time to be alive! And the last segment about "Othering" and tribalism, and humanities eventual demise if things don't change resonated with me so deeply. All around great discussion. Thanks to you both!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@KindlesandKicks Thank you, Dark-o! I’m glad the discussion resonated with you in those ways. If you ever would like to be a guest for DDF, I’d love to chat with you!

[@KindlesandKicks]

@ 😲 OMG would I ever! Just let me know what you need from me to get it on the books.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@ Fantastic! When you get a chance, shoot me an email. My email is a gmail account: philipchase90 If I write the whole thing, it’s likely to disappear, the rest is the standard gmail address starting with @. Once I hear from you, we can nail down a date and time. Cheers!

[@Chance.Dillon]

What a fantastic episode! Thanks for doing this guys-always love hearing the insight

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Thank you, Chance! It's always fun to see what insights come along when we get together. All the best!

[@Johanna_reads]

Wonderful discussion! I loved hearing about Jake’s reading journey and his pure joy for the fantasy genre. What you said about transcending tribalism among all creatures resonates with me so much. I can think of no better way of opening to that possibility than reading stories and discussing them! 💜

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@Johanna_reads Thank you, Johanna! It appears that we were watching and commenting on each other’s videos at the same time! 😊

[@arabellawillow]

I totally agree! Hearing people discuss these topics reminds me why I'm here on booktube 😊

[@valliyarnl]

great conversation! loved learning about how Jake got into reading!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@valliyarnl Thank you, Wera! I find it fun, insightful, and encouraging to hear about how people get into reading. All the best!

[@valliyarnl]

@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy You slayed the thumbnail too!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@ Thanks! If you were to be a guest on DDF, who would you like to be in the thumbnail?

[@valliyarnl]

@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy haha of course!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@valliyarnl Great! I see that the only platform we have in common other than this one is Goodreads. Can I DM you there? Or, if you prefer email, mine is a gmail account beginning with philipchase90 (if I write out the whole email address, the comment often disappears).

[@Shelf-Esteem]

One of my favorite DDF episodes! Thanks for the great chat you guys. I too remember the time before the smart phone social media juggernaut took over our lives lol! I sometimes watch candid camera footage from the 60s and 70s, at high schools, in daily life etc. it’s such a stark contrast how differently people interacted with each other!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@Shelf-Esteem Well said, Nikhil! We have definitely had many gains through technology, but I often wonder if we think about the losses enough. Thanks so much for watching, my friend!

[@Shelf-Esteem]

@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy completely agree! on the one hand, we wouldn't have booktube and the wonderful virtual communities that come with technological progression which I couldn't imagine life without, but doesn't need to come at the cost of an AI apocalypse lol!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@Shelf-Esteem Exactly!

[@N.A.Summur]

Awesome chat!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@N.A.Summur Thank you for watching!

[@N.A.Summur]

@ of course! I enjoyed hearing Jake’s journey and where it is similar to my own, but also the differences, of course.

[@arabellawillow]

Wow this conversation got so deep at the end .. evolutionary psychology and the need to "transcend" our tribal instincts is always a fascinating topic to me. Philip, I want to read the Edan trilogy more and more as I listen to your discussions! Ps. Jake is so interesting! I'm endlessly grateful that he was a guest here 😊 I know he was so excited for it.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Thank you, Arabella! Jake is a wonderful person with true depth to him, and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with him. All the best!

[@mariozakall]

Great conversation! I think AI is another tool that can be useful in a lot of ways, but like with other tools, the human input very much determines the output. I guess that back in the day a lot of classic painters were not happy and skeptical when photography came around, and later analog photographers were skeptical when Photoshop and digital photography came around... it will be interesting to see how it all develops further.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@mariozakall Well said! Cheers!

[@MrRorosuri]

A chat with jake . Yaay 😊

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Cheers, Mr. Rorosuri!

[@Ribshack2012]

Pendragon!! One of my absolute favorite series growing up. I recently just found the last book I needed to complete the full set. I'm curious to re-read them but I'm not sure how they'll hold up in my 30s and I don't want to tarnish the nostalgia

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

I know the feeling! I have a similar feeling about Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

[@kcsubotai]

Team Replay here for the show. New subscriber.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@kcsubotai Welcome! Thanks so much for watching and subbing! 😊

[@masonmclaughlin7905]

Jake has a very similar story to me. I dove in head first into reading at 24 and basically decided i wanted to read similar stories to the ones i liked on tv and in movies.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

I will never tire of hearing how people come to love reading!

[@DoUnicornsRead]

Great episode! DDF is always a pleasure especially if the conversation touches on so many fascinating topics. Those literacy statistics are shocking. And don't get me started on AI -- not a fan as you can imagine. Thank you, Philip, for a pleasant extended hour from a fellow dinosaur!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

I knew that literacy was low, but those numbers were a big surprise to even me. I am taking a "no AI in creative realms" stance, even if the rest of the world jumps off the AI cliff in the meantime. Hooray for us dinosaurs! Cheers, Angela!

[@DoUnicornsRead]

@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy In my more optimistic moments I'm hoping that 'made by a human' will become a mark of quality and excellence and we human creatives will be able to ask for more money. The dinosaurs evolved into birds. We will fly, Philip!

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@ I love that perspective and optimism!

[@KalleVilenius]

Did I hear you're planning to read Akira? Katsuhiro Otomo deserves endless praise for artistic ability. Future anime director Satoshi Kon worked as his assitant, helping draw all those elaborate cityscapes. Akira and Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind are interesting cases where you have the same person who wrote and drew the manga also directing the anime adaptation and then continuing to make the manga afterwards, expanding the story beyond the film version. That's pretty neat.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Yes! I'd like to try Akira -- I love going back to the beginnings of things, and it would be cool to have a better understanding of where manga came from. I'm looking forward to it! Cheers, Kalle!

[@liamschulzrules]

As an older weeb I'm looking forward to you reading Akira. Phillip Chase is about to explode.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@@liamschulzrules By “explode,” I hope you mean in the way the kids these days use the word . . . 😁 Cheers, Liam!

[@liamschulzrules]

@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy I'm not really caught up with the kids these days but I have no doubt they are wrong

[@sjoerdth]

Ah yes, Akira! I feel like my comment about Akira on one of your previous videos gave you a little nudge in that direction. 😉 If you end up reading it sometime in 2025, count me in for a read-along. As for The Lord of the Rings, isn't its "difficulty" a bit overstated? It might be a generational thing, but most people I know around my age read it in their early teens. Back before the movies, it was often seen as a kids' book simply because it was fantasy-which, in hindsight, is ridiculous. But it also meant younger readers were exposed to it early, broadening their horizons in the process.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Very cool if you'd like to join me as I read Akira! As for LOTR, I read it when I was around 12, and so did my daughter. So, I don't think it's really all that "difficult," except that readers' expectations have changed since it was written due to the influence of television, films, and the internet. There is far less tolerance for description than there used to be, for example. In that sense, I think some modern readers find LOTR difficult to read, which is unfortunate.

[@sjoerdth]

@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy I'm not so sure about that. I grew up on 80's cartoons, The A-Team, MacGyver, Airwolf, and the like-all episodic content. Nothing long-form or slow about that. Videogames, on the other hand, were much shorter back then than they are now. If people today can sink 100 hours into exploring Hyrule in Zelda, that longing for the magical and wonderful, the stuff that tickles the imagination, must still be alive and well. I don’t think that can ever lose its appeal. I realize this isn't anything like a fully formed thought/opinion, but it's what comes to my mind atm, probably too complicated a discussion for a YT comment 😅

[@Zivilin]

Maybe it's a cultural difference or because i'm a non-native english speaker, but i first read lotr and the hobbit when i was an adult.I loved it though and didn't find it difficult either. I think Tolkien's prose actually helped ease me into english literature. It was a good starting point, in my opinion. Before that i had only read fantasy translated into danish, or english game manuals. Fantasy books being considered for kids seem to be an universal problem. That perception has only slowly changed here, in Denmark, in the last 25 years.

[@MagnenoAlexWilkins]

Dragon Ball z mention that's awesome 😎.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

You never know what will come up on DDF!

[@Eluarelon]

So now that I've watched the video, I kinda feel dumb about that comment I made regarding the length of the Dear Dr. Fantasy episodes, because If you had spent another hour talking, I don't think I would have stopped watching it. I was captivated until the end, so I hope you'll be able to forgive this Thomas (not really my name^^) doubting that it would. Next thing I have to get off my chest is can you please stop gushing about One Piece already!!!??? My son has tried to convert me for years now, and I always declined just because of the sheer amount of what I would have to get through now, but now that my two most favorite Booktubers can't shut up about it, the need to give in grows stronger and stronger (in fact, I already started with the anime and enjoy it more than I would have thought before). Ok, seriously, I'm generally more into the more serious stuff like Berzerk or the later Trigun, and I never liked the slapstick aspect of a lot of popular Manga and Anime (like early Trigun^^) too much, but even only 12 episodes in, I already saw hints of what everyone is talking about, though I am willing to go on that journey, I just feel that I'll never see the end of it. An early thingin your discussion that piqued my interest was the increasing lack of literacy in todays society. One aspect I'd like to add is the responsibility of the parents regarding that development. When I tutored school children during my study years (between 2002 and 2015), there were quite a few of them with problems in reading, and everytime I talked to their parents about it, I found out that the parents themselves basically didn't read and most of them didn't even have more than a few books in their house at all. Now I grew up in a house full of books, my mom used to read us Grimms Fairy Tales as good-night stories (I don't know what that says about my brother and me, but we were never scared by any of those^^), and that made me so interested in reading myself, that I learned to read and write before I went to school. So when I got kids myself , I did exactly the same thing my mother did for us, read them good night stories (and let me tell you, my daughter didn't appreciate me reading to her the disney version of Grimms Fairy Tales, she wanted the bloody original^^) and always encouraged them to ask questions about reading and writing, which they had tons of. Same result, all three are avid readers in a way that sometimes really astounds me. My youngest son blew through the whole Harry Potter series so fast that we suspected he only pretended to have read them. Turns out, he knew the content of those books better than his parents, who had already reread them once or twice. So long story short, I think its a bit too easy to blame social media , especially when I see a lot of parents even of my generation (which is still pretty much Gen X) hiding behind their Iphones and sending their kids to watch TV or playing video games instead of taking the time to show them how awesome reading can be. Last thing regarding the X-Men: They are still very much alive and kicking, and there are several good entry points to their canon. If you don't want to start right at the beginning, Giant X-Men #1 (1975) is basically the reboot that lead to the famous Claremont run with the Dark Phoenix saga and probably is nearest to what you see as the essential X-Men roster. Then there is Gran Morrisons New X-Men run starting with #114 in 2001, written by one of the giants of the comic book scene and while more of a soft reboot, introduces new storylines, so you don't need to have much knowledge about what came before. More recently, there were the House ofX/Powers of X reboot by Jonathan Hickman that started in 2019 and set a complete new status quo for the X-Men, basically turning the tables and asking the question of what if the X-Men realized that they had enough with all the persecution and constant tries to eradicate them and started to negotiate with human sapiens from a position of strength. And again, that storyline just ended in 2024 with a follow-up soft reboot with X-Men: From the Ashes. You might have guessed by now that I am a HUGE fan of all-things X-Men, and that kinda extends to the rest of the Marvel Universe as well as the DC one. By the way both have online subscriptions (Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe Infinite), that grant you access to a huge part of their comic archives as well as to the new comics (those get released a bit later, off course). I only have Marvel Unlimited because until recently DC wasn't available on the German market, though I just found out just now that this seem to have changed. It's relatively cheap and you can do monthly payments, so if you want to read all X-Men comics, there's probably no easier way than to do it there. And at least with Marvel, the reading experience is really great, so as a fan, it's totally worth it.

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

Ha ha! I'm glad the discussion kept your interest -- I think it was most interesting at the end. Sorry about the One Piece temptation! I'm surprised at how much I enjoy it, but then again, I loved comics as a kid, and I've remarked how the goofiness of One Piece reminds me of the best of the Asterix comics that I devoured as a kid as well. I could not agree with you more in regard to the responsibility of a parent to instill a love of reading and learning in their child. Like you, I read to my daughters constantly (even when they were still in the womb -- I guess I couldn't wait!), and I think it really helped to set them up in some good ways. The statistics reveal, however, that many American adults actually can't read, so that's something we clearly need to address in the most dedicated way if we're going to help the children of those adults become literate members of society. And I am delighted to hear that the X-Men are alive and well, though they likely look very different from the heroes I knew and loved back in the early 80s. Times stops for no one, I suppose. All the best!

[@Eluarelon]

@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy Interesting comparison between One Piece and Asterix. Asterix and Tin Tin was basically was what I was learning to read with (and I pretty much destroyed my dad's collection while doing so, because I was still too young to treat them with the care they would have deserved; luckily he never held it against me). And while I can see that comparison regarding the goofiness, I think my problem with One Piece (and Manga in general) compared to Asterix is how over the top they go with it. I mean I can accept Luffy's powers coming from the gum gum fruit as easy as I can the gauls' power coming from a magic potion Miraculix brewed. But as ridiculous it is when Obelix takes on a whole Roman legion all by himself, with legionnaires flying and all, it's still drawn in a way that seems realistic enough as to not break my sense of verismilitude. It's not the same with the fight between Luffy and Buggy the Clown , as funny as it is, to me it's completely unbelievable. I've always loved Japanese culture and that includes Manga and Anime, but to go with Obelix, when it comes to the way they draw those slapstick moments, I have to say that "Ils sont fous, ces Japonais." 😁

[@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy]

@ I’m sure that Luffy would enjoy tossing menhirs at his adversaries, though!