Episode 90: Unraveling the Threads of AI Art and Identity

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What if the secrets to an unpredictable career path lie in drive-thru legal advice or romantic texting tips? Join us on a whimsical journey as we explore the quirks of our modern lives, from the enduring existence of podcasts across galaxies to the peculiar absence of internal monologues in some people's minds. We share anecdotes from our bustling work lives, with tales of open houses, creative writing endeavors, and hilarious encounters with students. As we ponder the increasing unpredictability of career paths, we also touch on the amusing contrast between personal experiences and perceptions of writing abilities.

Step into our colorful workplace, where colleagues with monikers like Angry Bird, Psyduck, Iago, and Baby Mario navigate the tumultuous waters of political tensions and social issues. In the wake of a heated U.S. election, we tackle sensitive topics like racism and gender identity, exploring how personal beliefs spill into professional life. With a dash of humor, we emphasize the need for maintaining professional boundaries while examining broader implications of media portrayal and respecting individual identities.

Unleash your creativity as we journey through the challenges and joys of logo design, copyright considerations, and the fascinating world of AI art. From playful debates on whether a warlock or bard is more fitting for a project, to exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI-generated content, we advocate for cultural diversity and the value of human creativity. Along the way, we offer insights into character development in tabletop RPGs, the importance of thematic consistency, and even indulge in a fun debate over which anime character would excel in an Iron Chef competition.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello entire internet .
I am Richard of the esteemedpodcast radio show type thing
known as Deep Space and Dragons,and if you're listening to this
in Alpha Centauri, podcasts arestill totally a thing.
I'm Richard.
I think I said that already.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You definitely did say that I'm Carl, did say that
I'm carl um, and I mean, I don'treally know how you can claim
that podcasts will still be athing by the time this uh beacon
of data reaches, reaches it, Imean like that's, that's like
what?
Several hundred million lightyears away.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Oh, it's pretty straightforward, because this
beacon is the podcast, so by thefact, they're listening to it.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
That is what makes the podcast still exist yeah,
okay, podcasts are totally athing, until people stop
listening to them exactly,although I am deeply horrified
that 20 of people don't haveinternal monologues.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
But that's unrelated don't have internal monologues
no, there's just nothing goingon in there at all.
And to follow that up with anot-at-all-subtle jab what's new
in the Carlverse?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh well, you see, I actually have three things I
want to talk about, each oneending with a question more
nerdy than the last, so youshould go first.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, I guess what's new in the Richardverse or the
Vladverse, if you're feelingsaucy.
So, due to the power of openhouses at Redacted School, where
I work at Redacted, which iseasily figureoutable if you
click on my LinkedIn, that'sattached to my link tree Come on
, stalkers, put in a littleeffort.
I can't do it all for you.

(01:46):
So because of that, I haven'tlike had like a day off in like
nine days, so at some point Iget to cash this in for like a
five-day weekend but, like I'mslowly sleeping into sleep
deprivation on account of, like,writing new chapters and
submitting to literary magazinesand work copy and all this
stuff, and like one of my jobroles today was literally to go

(02:09):
in the hallways and ask studentshow they're doing.
Oh, that's great, it's likegetting paid.
To be like how are you feelingtoday is pretty excellent,
although we found like a circlethat had just gotten out of a
class Like how are you feeling?
It's like, would you believe wesaid we're all pissed off and
angry.
I'm like, yes, give us thisfeedback so we can plan events
for the angry, anxious studentsthat are.
You See, we go around.

(02:32):
See, it's kind of a catch-22.
So, while working at RedactedJob doing something, one of the
things that well played is thatwe ask people how they're doing
on this trademark emotion checkthing, trademark and the.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Thing is.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
It's.
It's weird, but we kind of wantpeople to be doing bad so we
can help them.
It's like we can't helpsomebody build up their mental
resilience if they're alreadygood right.
So it's like technically for usif we go, how are you?
And they're like cripplinganxiety.
For us that's kind of greatnews because then we can do

(03:13):
something about it and I'm likeI'm not being evil here, we're
just more helpful to the oneswho are doing good that is.
That is kind of uh interestingit's one of those ideas like if
you're a firefighter going to aburning building, you kind of

(03:33):
need to find the people who arelike in peril, not the ones
hanging out outside but like doI feel bad for being like?
Yes, they're on fire, now I canput the fire out.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I don't know those ambulance chasing lawyers.
They make a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
I don't really want to be an ambulance chasing
lawyer.
Well, the thing is, the odds ofthat happening are
substantially higher than theywere last year and are
concerningly like at like asolid percentage, like, instead
of this being a hypotheticalnonsense career, it's like a no,
that's like a one or twopercentage chance now.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, I mean, I imagine you probably wouldn't be
literally chasing downambulances like you see in
classic movies.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
but no, I would get speed bumps installed in front
of my office.
I'm not a chump.
This isn't my first day.
I just put up some like orangecodes and redirect them through
my drive-thru.
Drive-thru legal advice.
Please tap card for yourdrive-thru lawyer.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
That would be pretty excellent.
Well, actually no, it wouldprobably be mediocre advice.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
but I don't know Like you can be pretty efficient
these days.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
And I guess the last thing that's new with me is One
of my co-workers today wasasking me for romantic advice
For how to craft text messagesfor a person they're seeing, and
I'm just like something aboutthat's just deeply funny.
That, yes, excellent writerRichard Kivas Would
theoretically be good atcrafting romantic texts, but
also this person has no ideawhat my life has been up to this

(05:07):
point to see how deeply funnythe concept of me helping in
this scenario is, because it'slike, yeah, in a vacuum.
I absolutely have the skill setfor it.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
That's definitely true.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, hiring a romance writer to help with your
text is a solid strategy.
Are you a romance writer?
I mean not with this name,those ones I've done for private
commissions.
Good luck hunting those down.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Oh, right, right, right, your Fiverr commissions.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, people can request what they request, and
that's all I can legally say onthat.
I like balanced media right.
So there's usually a romanticsubplot in my work or a romantic
main plot.
Because I like romance, so doesmost fiction.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Like Naruto and Sasuke, greatest love story ever
told.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
If only they could just commit to the either
swapping genders or the same-sexcouples.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
I'm sure they would honestly Like.
Nothing about the studio genrein magazine would prevent them.
You know, the only author thatI've been reading that I could
see actually do something likethere's two authors that could
actually pull that card and getaway with it.
So the author of One Piececould absolutely pull that card.
What are you going to do atthis point?

(06:36):
Nothing.
And the author of the Chainsawman is just such unpredictable
chaos, energy.
You can't.
It's impossible.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, it is unpredictable.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
He has no fear of being cancelled At all.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
He does not.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Alright, so that's pretty much my updates.
My sanity is starting to slowlycrumble away as I workaholic
for the next few months, but ina good way.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
In a good way.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
I have my best writing ability when I've lost
all sense of reality.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Fair enough, you can tap into that manic energy.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Oh no, I think I might actually just be a manic
pixie dream girl, likepersonality-wise that tracks.
So what's new with you?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Okay, well, okay.
So question the first.
That has a little bit of alead-up here.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yes, this is the content I live for, and our
surprisingly large dedicated fanbase allegedly lives for it.
See, the funniest thing is weget feedback, but we rarely get.
People don't typically give youfeedback on things they enjoy
in context, so we have no idea.
What about our podcast works.
So then we're just kind ofcommitted to doing all of it

(07:52):
forever.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Okay, so we've talked before in our podcast about how
people in kitchens,specifically, are often able to
say outlandish and potentiallyoffensive things.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Ooh, I need to stop you right here.
I have a question for you, Okay.
So you mentioned we've said alot of things in our podcast and
this just kind of came to meand it's like I'm curious your
thoughts.
Do you think we've said all ofthe words to Romeo and Juliet
across our episodes?
That someone could find thosesound bites and reconstruct it?

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Well, I mean, there's definitely one I can think of
right now that, no, we have not.
We have not used it yet.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Go for it.
Add it in here.
This will be a sub goal Ethiope.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
OK, that's fair.
We never used it.
Why would it come up in context?
I've also used Doth.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I've absolutely used Doth loving thy aunt.
There's a lot we've used.
We've used Capulets andMontagues in Sentence absolutely
.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Anyway, but so I have four employees.
I have more, have fouremployees, I have more than four
employees, but there are fourthat are important for the story
and they are Angry Bird Got itSocial.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Commentary Guy.
Oh, I thought they were goingto give them all code names, but
all right, just use definitions.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's probably easier to follow.
Well, I don't really have abetter code name for Social
Commentary Guy.
He just really loves to talkabout social issues like
education healthcare politics,my instincts was Polly Parrot
for him.
Polly Parrot.
Okay, angry Bird Polly.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Psy, parrot.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Polly Psy Parrot.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, why don't we just go with Psyduck?
All right, I'll take Psyduck.
Okay, so we got Angry Bird likePsyduck.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Alright, I'll take Psyduck.
Okay, so we got Angry Bird, wegot Psyduck.
We have I need to think of abetter name, but Nice Guy.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Flamingo.
He is foreign, he has a funaccent.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Iago.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I don't know, iago, okay, okay, I mean Iago's not a
nice guy, but we'll go with it.
And Baby Mario, which?

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Anyways.
So Angry Bird comes into work,and he is unhappy with the
results of the US election, andso he says a moderately
offensive comment to the effectof all Americans must be racist
and bigots because of how theelection turned out.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Unrelated side tangent.
We brought candy into my officeto counsel everybody after that
election to counsel everybodyafter that election, okay.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
But so then Psyduck, he's like, well you know, maybe
the other party lost becausethey didn't really campaign
their platform.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
I mean there's a lot of theories Like every pundit
has a theory but a lot of peoplealso predicted a different
outcome.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
That's definitely true, but so you know, I mean
that seems like a prettyrational argument.
Angry Bird he just gets mad andcalls everybody racist and
storms out.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Also a fair response.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right, right, but unfortunately it's almost
impossible to talk aboutpolitics without also bringing
up gender identity.
They've just kind of becomeinextricably linked.
I hope this episode ends upbeing called Richard and Carl

(11:42):
Get Cancelled.
So Baby Mario keeps theconversation going and he says
something about gender identitythat offends Iago.
Nice guy, iago.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm not exactly sure what was said, but Iago comes to
me and he's like I'm very upsetby what Baby Mario said and I
just don't feel comfortable andwhat can we do about this?
And so I send a note thatbasically says you're welcome to
your own opinion and you candiscuss it freely on your own
time, but we don't want to talkabout politics or gender
identity in the workplacebecause we don't want people

(12:31):
feeling uncomfortable orpotentially getting into heated
arguments.
But so I mean that's basicallythe end of that.
I'm fairly certain that Iagoand Baby Mario have worked out
their differences and politicsand gender identity haven't
really come up since I sent outthis note.

(12:51):
But purely out of personalcuriosity, I am curious as to
why Iago was offended.
Is he part of the LGBTQ pluscommunity?
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
The temptation to say the LGBTQ plus ultra gets me
every time.
Sometimes I get the two S's inthere, but I've just watched so
much anime, I just want to putplus ultra at the end want to
put plus ultra at the end, butso, um.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
So the the first question.
Uh, I'm looking for more of alike a academic perspective.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Uh, I mean, I was promised increasingly nerdy
questions and now I'm in actualissues.
How dare you?

Speaker 2 (13:39):
but please continue well, some sexual conversations
with Iago have basicallyconfirmed that he's gay okay,
which is why he was offendedwithout him on this podcast oh
sorry, the bird from Aladdin isgay.
Sorry for you know what'shilarious?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
about me picking this name out.
It's like yeah, I know thattracks wasn't like didn't Disney
go their way to like queer codeevery villain in that era,
because they're Disney, okay.
But, See, their plan was toqueer code all their villains to
like encourage people not to begay.
Instead, they just made a bunchof gay villains in real life.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Instead they just made a bunch of gay villains in
real life.
No-transcript, like it's justfor personal edification.

(14:44):
Like I like Iago.
He is a nice guy and he has agood work ethic.
He's funny, he has a coolaccent and his gender identity
or sexual identity have nothingto do with our relationship.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
But I'm personally curious say on here is meant to
be legally binding or actually.
I need this clarificationbecause I deal with people,
confidential information, and itis a serious topic, so I'm
going to tell you what I wouldtell a student in this
circumstance yeah, okay, okay,that's kind of what I'm going

(15:18):
for they will tell you ifthey're comfortable to tell you.
Do not pry at all in any way,shape or form.
They will tell you if they'recomfortable telling you.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, okay, I mean I kind of figured that was the
quote-unquote correct response.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
And for the comedy version of Richard on a podcast.
There's no good way that'll go.
Just don't fucking do it, man.
I'm using my F-bomb early, Justdon't Like just don't.
Even if you tried that on me, itwouldn't end well for you
because but you're so flamboyant, exactly like.
If you're like, hey, maybe 10years ago you could have just

(15:58):
walked up, but right now, no, asan employer, absolutely not.
I mean, unless you want tostart doing what colleges do,
where they are determined theynever pressure anybody, but then
they put an anonymous checkboxat the bottom of the thing to
identify, and then thatanonymous identification is
attached to your file for grantsand bursaries.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well see, that's kind of why I was a little bit
curious about your perspective.
Intellectually, I know youshould just never ask, but
emotionally I'm just so curious.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
What's really funny, too, is in the college
environment where everyone's soopen.
I've never been in a situationwhere I would have to ask in the
first place over the last Xnumber of years.
People just come up to me, I'llbe sitting there eating a mango
, They'll be like.
So here's my entire traumaticlife story.
I'm like I no longer want thismango.
Thanks, If you create a safeenough space and you share about

(17:01):
yourself, people are morelikely to open up.
That would be my actualapproach you would never ask.
Just create as many comfortableone-on-one chill sessions as
possible to get to know thisperson better, and maybe this
information will come up.
Or maybe you'll never know, butthere's no way to acquire this
information except for findingthe two tiny marble-sized Dragon

(17:24):
Balls and wishing on off-brandChonky Shenron to get this
information.
Okay, so, tldr, don't go up toasking people about this thing,
especially right now when, likefor all they know, you're trying
to make a mass deportation list.
I'm pretty sure if you're justlike hey Redacted, can I ask you

(17:50):
about Redacted?
He just sues you and wins andshould win Fair, because there's
also a power imbalance.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, that's true.
So question in a second.
Again, probably has anunnecessary buildup, but here's
where it goes Ba-ba-ba.
Eons ago, when you and I livedtogether in the frozen hellscape
known as Saskatchewan, Lookssuspiciously like Hondo Mooko at

(18:21):
winter with the giant whitesand dunes of snow in the moon.
But so you.
When you moved, I inheritedyour TV stand.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Now that was not allegedly that actually just
happened Okay.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely did move and I
definitely did inherit your TVstand, allegedly Okay, okay, but
so, um, the bottom two shelvesof this tv stand are just panes
of glass on a on a metal frame.
I'm shocked how well I'mmentally picturing this tv stand
oh, I think it's still actuallyavailable for sale at walmart

(19:00):
to this day.
It's the same design.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Well it's more like I'm like.
I'm just shocked at how firmlyI remember this thing.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Okay, but so one day I decide that I want to build a
light table, because I need tobe able to do my own graphic
design and light tables would beuseful for doing it by hand at
the very least.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know what would also be useful Just going to
school for it.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Screw going to school for it, screw going to school
for it.
I'll just pick it up as I go.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
As I like, spent the day working with two graphics
designers.
I'm like okay, boomer.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Side note, my boss asked me if I've ever used
CorelDRAW, which I haven't.
But the graphic designer thatwe use for our pizza store.
It's a local business, hebasically runs it by himself and
he doesn't have money to hiremore people, but he feels

(20:01):
overworked.
And so then my boss is like oh,you should just train Carl how
to do what you're doing, andthen you can have a day off and
get him to work for you.
Hiss, anyways.
So I take the bottom pane ofglass out of this TV stand and I

(20:22):
build my box.
I get it wrapped in thealuminum tape and I have the LED
strip lights.
And I build my box, I get itwrapped in aluminum tape and I
have the LED strip lights.
I'm just about to startpainting this piece of glass.
I'm holding it in my hands.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
You know you could just use equipment at libraries,
right?
Please continue, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
I'm just about ready to start painting and frosting
the glass and I carefully set itdown on the tiniest pebble that
hits the exact point and itcompletely shatters in my hands.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
So this story, at least in some form, has
absolutely been into our podcastbefore, but it makes me happy
because it's such a like, it'ssuch a futurama-esque bit to
like be holding the pane ofglass and then just set it down
and then it just explodesafterward like that's some
classic looney tunes injury um,right, but so I ended up buying

(21:19):
a new pane of glass and I endedup, uh, building my, my light
table.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
But unfortunately, wherever there's space to place
stuff, stuff gets placed, and somy poor light table has sat
unused for far too long, andit's very sad.
But so then I was thinkingabout how you said that talking

(21:45):
about movies isn't, carl core,enough for for our audience.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yet again, as I mentioned earlier this episode,
I have no way of confirmingwhat's Carl core enough.
What brings in our audience.
People are not filling outsurveys.
I'm not bothering to make asurvey, however.
However, I just.
The main reason I pointed itout is we had spent I don't know
about a fifth of each episodeon horror movies over the last

(22:10):
20 episodes.
So I thought you know, let'smix it up a bit it was October.
Yeah, you did nothing wronghere.
Not all quips I make mean youchange your life.
Sometimes they're just quips.
I really need to get more usedto how much power I apparently
have where I'll say somethinglike hey, you shouldn't jaywalk.
It just geasses somebody andtheir body goes into convulsions

(22:33):
against it.
You see, I thought I was awarlock this whole time.
But what if I've just been somesuper powerful bard?

Speaker 2 (22:43):
using vicious mockery .
That would be your number oneskill, for sure yeah, my vicious
mockeries are savage too bad.
I mostly use them on myself butso, um, uh, I was thinking
about how my light table justsits unused and I'm like you
know what we've talked about.

(23:04):
Uh, our, my paper scissors cardgame project before, and I'm
really close to actually beingable to like play test it.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Nice, nice, make it easy, but.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
I just I just need to actually design the cards, um,
and so now I'm like okay, so Ineed like a wizard hat, a
rogue's cowl and a warrior'shelm, cause those were the rock
paper scissors elements that Iwas going for.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
I mean I would have went staff dagger axe, but this
is legit.
Okay, I can get behind it.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
But I'm like, okay, where do I find a logo design of
each of these?
So you know.
Turn to the internet.
Well, see, if I actually wantedto spend money, yes, I would go
to Fiverr.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
How much have you spent on burgers this week?

Speaker 2 (23:53):
On burgers this week?
Yeah, zero dollars.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Okay On fried chicken this week.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Also zero.
I've ate at home so far thisweek.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Good job, I was going to make a point that for the
$40 you could spend online foran artist to draw these.
Most people spend more thanthat on like takeout in a week,
but instead you're like now I'mon a wellness kick.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Vlad, you're not going to impale me on my hubris
uh, the whole point is that Ihave the light table to be able
to do it myself.
I just have to get a design tobe able to trace.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
I love how many steps this is more than uses computer
With drawing tablet, becausethere's a version of this which
is just Photoshop and a drawingtablet.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, this is respect by the way I respect the game
here.
I don't pay for very the way Irespect the game here.
I don't pay for very muchsoftware.
I really should support peoplethat are designing useful tools.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Nah screw Adobe.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
I use Inkscape, I use GIMP.
Yeah, no, you're supportinggood software.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Because I want to be very clear here Adobe can go to
hell right now With thembackdating striking in an
agreement to swipe contract datato train AIs.
Adobe, if you want to sponsorthis episode, bite me.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Well, ironically, that's kind of where this is
heading, because a wizard hatwas pretty easy to find, A
warrior's helm logo wasn't toohard to find, but a decent
rogue's cowl logo that was hardto find.
I couldn't find one.
Then I was like, wait a second,I could just like AI generate
this.

(25:38):
Oh no, so then I AI generate arogue's cowl.
This was like a rogue's Cowl.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
A Rogue's Cowl, Just for anyone listening right now.
A great source of stock imagesis a lot of museum databases.
We'll have tons of them.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Hmm, that might actually have been a great place
to start, but I turned to Idon't remember which AI service
I used.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Skynet, the Matrix.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Rogue's Cowl and for whatever reason they're, just
like every rogues cowl has tohave a face.
No, I don't want a face.
So I say, rogues cowl on astyrofoam mannequin, faceless
styrofoam mannequin, and it'slike oh, so you want it to have
eye holes and a mask.
I'm like, no, I don't want that.

(26:30):
And I just couldn't get ai togenerate the right logo, so I
just took one and I just paintedout the face and I got the
outline.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Um, and I'm gonna like try to make it more, try to
make each of these logos morestylistically I mean, I kind of
want to pause you because I justkind of like had a idea what if
the rogue logo was those dramamasks Like the smiley drama mask
and the frowny drama mask wasthe rogue logo?

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Ooh, I don't know if people would get it, but it's
cool.
It is cool.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Or like some kind of opera mask, or like.
The Phantom Renegade from MetaBlast, huh yeah, the Phantom of
like Opera Mask, or like thePhantom Renegade from Metabots,
huh.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, the Phantom of the Opera Mask.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Or the V for Vedetta Mask was more.
What I like was more the energy.
That would make sense.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Ah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
I mean I want Phantom Renegades from Metabots, but
like that's a deep cut even bymy standards.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Okay, but so the more nerdy than the last question is
um, how so does does anyone own?
Like the ai generated images,like is it just plagiarism?
To just straight up, use it.
Not that I'm going to, I'mgoing to edit it to be, like I

(27:45):
said, more stylistically unified, but like.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
I wrote a term paper on this.
I'm feeling weirdly qualifiedto answer this question on this
comedy show Like this is like athing I explained on like a law
school application.
So copyright isn't somethingyou get done.
You don't copyright something.
It's literally your right whenyou create the copy is you have
the right to that individualcreation.
Right so right.

(28:09):
You write a book, you own thatbook and you really only have to
prove you own that book whenownership of it's disputed
generative ai does not providecopyright, meaning if you put
these logos out in their aigenerated, I can just steal
those and they're AI generated.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I can just steal those.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Oh, they're just mine now because they don't belong
to you.
So if your game used rules thatuse ChatGPT to help generate
those rules, you don't own thecopyright to that.
No one does, so I can just takeit.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I see.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
And that's where companies are being had in court
is because these databasesweren't legal to begin with.
They just scraped data offwithout consent.
So many lawsuits happeningright now it's not even
fathomable.
The only thing that makes themeven arguably legal to exist is
that ChatGPT does not.
Well, openai does not own thecontent on ChatGPT, or they'd

(29:06):
all be in jail until they diedbecause it's all stolen.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
So if you use, ChatGPT.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
No one owns that content.
That's the argument.
So that's what makes it reallyinteresting is that these
artists can sue OpenAI fromtheft, and if you use this image
, you can't be sued for theft,but they can take it.
However, they own the copyrightto their design.
So if the ai generated one'stoo close, they can still sue

(29:31):
you for using it, because theyown it and you own nothing right
?

Speaker 2 (29:37):
well, I mean, like I said, the whole, the whole point
of this experiment is to usethe light table.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Uh, so I feel like I am going to put in enough, uh,
changes and physical effort tomake something uniquely mine
that is, in fact, copyrightableand that's where it gets
interesting right, because ifyou start with a stock photo,
technically you have to like,cite that as one of your sources
or inspirations, but like, yes,if you just draw something and
it's yours, it's not based on anexisting ip you're good to.

(30:04):
But here's where it's reallyfunny Is if that mask image, for
example, you go with Richard'smask suggestion and it's too
close to Vita Vendetta, they canargue that you copied Vita for
Vendetta in your artwork andyou'd have a hell of a time
proving you didn't.
When you're like oh no, I drewthis AI-generated thing that
ripped your data.
Oh, so I guess I did just stealit.

(30:26):
There's just extra stepsinvolved.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Well, I'm doubtful that this is going to be the
final version.
Like I said, I really just needto get cards printed to use my
garbage magic cards, because Ihave tons of literal garbage
cards.
When I came to visit you, Ibought a dollar pack of magic
cards.
Ah, yes, you did and, as youpointed out, there's no value in

(30:52):
there but it's fun.
I can't help myself.
I go to dollarama.
I see it it's $1.50.
It's like, oh, that's morecards than what are in a normal
pack nowadays not only that, butit's like cheaper than the
cardboard's worth.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's kind of wild, you know one of the best uses of
those, though, is using a holepunch to use them as D&D minis,
because all you do is you buy astack of washers, hole punch out
the artwork and then glue themon a washer, and you got sick
tokens, or like make, or if youuse like little plastic standees
for them, like you know likewedding place card holder
standees that are like 50 centsat the dollar store.
You just kind of cut out yourartwork on the card.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
I.
That is a great idea, but ITalking about garbage cards.
For some reason, the DollaramaMagic Packs have started
including cards from Unfinity.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
That is hilarious and that makes me sad.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
That makes me sad, because those ones are literally
garbage.
They're not useful in anycapacity, and thus I have
collected well over 200 tokensand or other garbage cards that
I can fill sleeves and then justsleeve my Rock Paper Scissors
game using garbage magic cards.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
So you know.
What's really fun about doingthat, though, is sticker paper's
not that expensive, so you canliterally use a regular printer,
print them, size them stickerpaper, peel them off and stick
them on the magic cards.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Ooh Huh, I'll have to look into that sticker paper
Cause that was just fun.
Uh, but so uh, I guess theother half of of the AI
generator AI question is um Doyou think it's all right for

(32:45):
artists to use AI as a tool inthat kind of capacity?

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Nope.
So in Canada, part of our,there is no fair use clause that
America clings to right.
So we don't actually have thelegal protection of parody or
inspiration that America doesthat builds a lot of other
things.
We also don't have the.
You can't copyright games ruleslaw at all.

(33:08):
So if you use AI as part ofyour process, not only do you
not own it, you are tactlygiving someone revenue for theft
.
So I know people whose art hasbeen wiped by the machine.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
The fact that open.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
AI just isn't straight up in jail.
Note this is a comedy show,don't sue me.
Is baffling to me Because it'sjust theft.
So like if you were toliterally be like oh I'm an
artist so I want to look at somepaintings.
So they see a bunch of artworkin the back of a truck and some
dude sells you it for 50 bucksthat.
So they see a bunch of artworkin the back of a truck and some

(33:46):
dude sells you it for 50 bucks.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
That feels questionable, right, like even
if you're using that to thentrace that's sketchy.
It's like how people would goto artist alleys at anime
conventions and do up prints ofother people's artwork and sell
them.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
And they'd be like well, no one owns the artwork,
man, because they posted it onthe internet.
I'm like no, no, no someoneowns that.
They made it so, legally it'stheirs.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
So it's weird because for writing, for artwork, for
all these AI tools a lot ofpeople talk about oh, this
workflow, productivity.
I've heard people makearguments for equity, but the
people who are usually pro-AIare trying to sell your data.
It's almost always, AI is good,so you should use my tool Also.

(34:34):
It says here that my toolsteals your data and sells it to
AI.
So it's like Just go on Fiverrand pay a dude 30 bucks.
That's kind of where I'm at.
If you're going to use it foranything other than like
personal use like I used an aigen to show you a picture of a
three eyed raccoon the otherday- right, because it had to be

(34:54):
biblically, biblically after itcorrect so for just looking at
a concept, it's fine.
But if you're to publish that orput it in a book and and I
can't stress this enough as anartist just pay someone the 30
bucks, like, come on, thinkabout how long you spent.
Okay, here's some girl math foryou, or guy math, or non-binary

(35:16):
babe math for you.
Okay.
So you make about $20 an hour,I'm guessing to $30 an hour.
Let's say let's go Stevie,let's go Stevie.
I'll make a fictional characternamed Stevie for this.
Stevie to $30 an hour.
Let's say let's go Stevie one,let's go Stevie.
I'll make a fictional characternamed Stevie for this.
Stevie makes $20 an hour, let'ssay right, stevie is a prompt
engineer and really wants to useChatGPT to bring his vision of

(35:37):
a robot to life.
So Stevie spends five hoursreiterating, reiterating,
reiterating on Midjourney, givesmid-journey 20 bucks to keep
doing it and makes this robotartwork.
That's kind of what he wants.
Had Stevie went and worked athis job for three hours instead,
that was enough money to pay anactual artist to make exactly

(35:59):
what he wanted.
So people have this fallacy whenthey think something's free,
they forget about time cost.
So if you have an AI, writeyour book like, say you're like
oh, I'm going to fiddle withprops until the text nearly
matches what I want for mymonster investigation story,

(36:20):
right tools and then you wouldnow know the tools.
Or you could have turned thattime into labor and paid
somebody for it and then made anartist, not homeless, who then
future ais can then steal theirartwork from and humans.
Cultural capital can continuebecause every piece of content
on the internet before 2016 isgoing to become one of the most
valuable historical artifacts.

(36:41):
Because the ai is just going tohit like a synesthesia point
where everything looks the same,because it all generates
average content and then novelcontent will be necessary.
It's kind of like herd immunity.
We're like ai is slowly goingto poison all dialogue.
To be the same, we're actuallyhitting the point where people
are using chat gpt to make anemail look fancier and then the
person on the other end is usingchat gpt to turn it back into

(37:03):
plain language.
So it starts with sub Carl,puts it through AI, then Carl
reads the AI message, puts thatthrough AI to make it include
text and it turns back into subCarl.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
That's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Where it's like yeah, no, it turns out like a typo
riddle.
Richard message is easier toread than if I use a machine to
do it nicely, because it justfills it with pointless bullshit
.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Ah yeah, you did send me that one AI-generated
message that sounded like it wasan advert.
I was like is this anadvertisement for Dragon Ball Z?
Like what, why?

Speaker 1 (37:40):
See, that proves my point pretty perfectly, doesn't
it?
That it just comes off ascorporate soulless copy when
literally just me going yo, whatdo you think would be a good
anime for branching storylines?
And with my disability, mytexts are not great, but
apparently the correct,grammatically perfect piece of

(38:01):
internet copy was just lessappealing to you.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
It was very jarring, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
And that's what all communication is going to be.
Everything's going to soundlike a commercial, because
that's what most content is, andpeople are just going to
commercialize each other until agiant cube alien decides
mankind's not worth it.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, well, maybe I'll have the right answer this
time 10 out of 10.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
AI never would have made that quip.
Did I answer your question,though, because you got me in
like one of my special interestramble topics.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Well, I mean kind of sort of Because like well, I
mean kind of sort of like that,because like, uh, copyrighted is
obviously much more difficultin canada because of the lack of
fair use, but like um, well,it's more like if you draw your
thing on a light table and youbase it off a piece of art

(39:04):
that's not no one alive ownsright good to copyright and
trademark that forever if you

Speaker 1 (39:11):
tried an inkscape, you're good to copyright it.
The human flaws make it lesslikely to be plagiarism because
a person did it right.
But when you use the machine,that means that this image that
you copied off of now exists andbelongs to no one in its fair
use, which means if someonesteals it you can't really point

(39:31):
to your source.
So, ignoring all the ethicalramifications, it's just not a
good practice to get into,because a lot of companies are
going to find that they'remaking new products that don't
actually belong to them.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Ah, yes, yeah, Okay, that makes sense, so like.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
But so then I wrote a book and Disney just took it
because AI content meant no oneowned my book.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
But so moving on to the nerdiest question.
Okay, so you said that you haveplayed Vampire the Masquerade.
Yes, so I mean I don't know ifyou said this on the stream but
you also said that you're not ahuge fan of play-by-post.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Not that that is exactly relevant, but Well, to
defend that statement a bit,it's ironic to be an author
that's not a fan of play-by-post, but my brain is constantly
running at a super-fastADHD-inspired death spiral.
I will not remember.
Well, let me rephrase that Iwill not have object permanence

(40:41):
to post a play-by-post gamebecause I'm going to get bored
between the play-by-post game,because I'm going to get bored
between the play-by-posts andI'm going to lose interest
because my brain's already toldan entire epic fantasy story
between two players' moves.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Right, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
So I could either write a novella to explain what
I imagined during the 12 hoursit took someone to be like and I
have a spear, or I could justwrite a novel at this point, and
then I did that like all right,but um, but conceptually I'm
not against it.
It just doesn't work for me,doesn't have enough immersion

(41:18):
for me that's fair, uh.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
But so I got invited by a co-worker to join this
play-by-post Vampire theMasquerade game and honestly I'm
feeling okay now.
But at the beginning I feltlike I was in over my head
because the character sheetseemed straightforward enough.

(41:42):
But then the touchstones andconvictions are mechanically
important, but you just kind ofmake them up, your ambition and
your goal mechanically important, but you just actually just
kind of make them up, uh, andand like then there's you, get

(42:03):
your, your disciplines, and it'slike, okay, I'm gonna choose a
discipline.
It's like, okay, I'm going tochoose a discipline.
It's like, okay, well, you havelevel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you
have to choose one from eachlevel for each dot, and there
are just so many seeminglymechanically important choices
to make before I even start thegame.
And I really appreciate thelevel of customization you give

(42:30):
to this character.
But I'm wondering if there's amore simplistic way to give that
character customization whilenot forcing you to make so many
mechanically important choicesbefore you even play.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
So what's interesting is degrees of game crunchiness
have been a big discussion pointwhen I was doing a lot of my
ttrpg club things right, like,for example, ninth level games,
polymorph system.
You literally just pick yoursize of dice and that determines
your odds of rolling forstrength, intelligence, what
have you?
So the size of your dice isbasically your character class.

(43:07):
And then your edges are youliterally just write three
things that give you advantage.
So you could really be like I'ma helicopter sniper and then
you'd get advantage when doinghelicopter sniper things.
So it's a very straightforwardbasic game.
And likewise, like the FateCore system, you can light
whatever you want for your edgesand boosts and abilities and

(43:27):
then when you use those things,you those things.
So those are like the more softflowing games and then the more
crunchy, hard flowing games likefifth edition, which is people
are like, oh, it's not thatcrunchy.
I'm like, oh, it really is.
You're basically doing war gamesimulating.
If you go any crunchier, whichis like, okay the thing, nothing
you make up in 5e ismechanically impactful.

(43:49):
It's almost always flavor rightlike, but they don't.
They decide that, oh, we'lljust use dcs and skill checks
rather than figuring out exactmovement, distance and
mathematics and what have youright.
So I ran into a similar issuewith Critical Role's Daggerheart
game.
So lots of Daggerheart is 5elevel of precise right Like, oh,

(44:11):
I have my dice, my weaponproficiencies, my skills, my
domain cards that have specificeffects written on them.
There's just a box where youwrite an experience and you just
list a thing that happened toyour character to give yourself
a plus two bonus on when you dothe thing.
And I always get kind of saltyfor those where like, oh, if

(44:34):
you're playing with fun, peoplewho just want to be chill about
it, people put reasonable thingsthere, right Like, oh, in my
experience fighting a minotaur,I became a bull wrangler.
So anything that's bull wrangly,I would get that benefit.
But when I was doing casualdrop-ins I have people be like
well, the game doesn't say Ican't have a minimum size, so
I'm going to be the size of anant and I'm going to be good at

(44:56):
everything is my experience.
So like it's like, the moreyour player goes along with
power gaming scale, the more arules-like game kind of enables
them to derail the fiction andjust be tacky, like a player
would be.
Like I'm three kobolds in atrench coat so I should roll
three sets of dice.
No, most of these things I sayabout hypothetical bad players

(45:19):
are things that have happened inone of the games I ran for
drop-ins.
So like Vampire, the Masquerade, those two boxes that are like
mechanically impactful but veryvague is actually a way more
common mechanic than you wouldthink among very many games.
Like even Critical Role'sDaggerheart is like oh yeah, no,

(45:41):
this is a brand new game builtby people who played D&D for the
last 10 years.
And like oh yeah, no, we is abrand new game built by people
who play D&D for the last 10years.
And like oh yeah, no, we're justgoing to let you write what you
want in this experience box,and I hate it.
Personally, I find thatlimitations actually breed
creativity, right?
So you're like, oh yeah, myrace can be whatever I want it
to be and my magic is whateverand my abilities are.

(46:02):
Whatever is whatever and myabilities are whatever.
Players tend, at least in myexperience, to either get choice
paralysis or commit tosomething that either they
think's really funny but isn't,or something that would give
them a mechanical advantage insomething that's now turned into
a storytelling experiencerather than a game.
So that's kind of where I fallwith that one is.

(46:27):
It almost feels like a hole inthe rules when I'm playing a
game.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Like in 5D.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
They're like name your bonds, your flaws, your
da-da-da-da-da.
But they almost wanted a way tomake none of those things
actually do anything.
And it's like, yeah, you cancreate your own background, but
then you just kind of pick abackground feature.
I'm like okay, I see what youguys are doing here right so
it's interesting, I guess, isthe best way to put it.

(46:56):
It depends how far are, becausein theory, someone like me and
you, if we were playing a ttrpgtogether, really could play
something like ninth level gamesas mazes, where you're just
picking your dnd class, choosingyour weapons, and effectively,
if you roll a one and it'ssomething your class could do,
you succeed.
If you roll a two or three,it's.
If it's something intelligence,you succeed.

(47:18):
Four or five.
If it's something strength,yada, yada.
Maybe it would do great becausewe wouldn't turn it into power
scaling, right.
We would just play the game,like, for example, the Fate Core
games are all.
You roll these plus minus diceand add them to the different
attributes.
But the rules are like.

(47:38):
It's like a game making gamewhere I used it to run a Hunter
Hunter one shot and a DragonBall one shot and it functioned
very well when I played withcreatives.
But then people showed up withmy nine-winged angel with a
hollow mask and a scythe whosespecial ability is to instantly
slash through space time to killyou not a hypothetical.

(47:59):
It was like the cringiest animeOC character I'd ever seen.
It looked like something out ofDragon Ball AF or Dragon Ball
Super Super Heroes and I'm likeoh, because I know like Carl,
the Person when Zamasu's likethis is my scythe and I don't
even know what my powers doanymore died a little inside.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
And it's Dragon Ball you know Dragon Ball's stupid.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
You're fine with being stupid.
That was apparently yourbreaking point.
For stupid was the characterliterally saying I don't even
know what my powers do anymore,they're so awesome yeah, oh but
like if I told you we wererunning a bleach session.
We probably wouldn't even needdice.
We would just pretend to bebleach characters and run around

(48:45):
in the backyard yelling at whatour Zompakdos do at 30 with no
regrets.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Well, we'd probably have Kendo sticks.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yep, Like zero regrets, Like there's a decent
chance I bring Kendo sticks toyour wedding, like your bachelor
party, Like come on.
So that's kind of I hope Ianswered your questions that,
depending on the group, thosemechanically relevant flavor
situations, some games, theyalmost feel like they don't
quite match because the game'salready really mechanical Right.

(49:19):
So for me if I'm playingsomething like Vampire, the
Masquerade, I'm thinking aboutit from a character point of
view, not a skill point of view.
I pick the skills to fit thecharacter, not the character to
fit the skills.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
So when.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I play D&D, I figure out what funny bits I want to do
and then build a character thatlets me do those bits.
So I would have no problembeing like, oh, these are what
these boxes are for.
But I definitely know playerswho'd be like.
This doesn't make sense from agame point of view and it's
going too much into a storypoint of view, so it's like an
impasse almost.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, so it's like the goal.
I think I have a reasonablegoal in mind now for my
character, Because he's his nameis Philip Marlowe and he's a
hard-boiled detective.
I don't know exactly what he'sbeen doing since the end of

(50:15):
World War I, completelysemi-related your D&D character,
philip.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
They found his stone statue on another continent,
with people praying around itand the lizard dead, because
they thought it was an idolstatue that's pretty funny you
know that thing where you meltthem bolted gold to like piece
together pottery, and they didthat to assemble, reassemble the
Philip statue oh, so Philipcouldn't live oh no, he's still

(50:45):
very much just dead.
It's just some statue of someguy and it's like here lies
philip, and they had no furtherquestions.
But cassie gave me the evilestlook I've ever seen.
It was great uh.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
But so, uh, sometime between world war one, world war
two, philip comes back fromfrom the war and becomes a
detective, trying to root outevil in the seedy underbelly of
New York, nice, and he comesacross a crime that was
committed by a vampire, a murdercommitted by a vampire, and
ends up killing said vampirebecause that's the only logical

(51:23):
way to stop this from happeningagain.
But then another vampire turnshim, because obviously he is
quite skilled as a mortal andhis intellect is useful to the
vampire clan or whatever.
And so then, the current daywe're in quarantine.

(51:43):
New York COVID-19 was evenworse than it was in reality,
and somehow, through thepandemic, it became apparent
that there are vampires.
And now there's someorganization hunting vampires,
and I'm not sure what ourmeeting is about, but I think
Philip's goal would be toinvestigate someone or something

(52:07):
that went missing due to thesehunters.
But I'm having a hard timefiguring out his ambition, which
is going to be relevant,because you have to act
according to your ambition torestore humanity or something
along those lines.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
My first thought when looking at those boxes is I
always go back to the narrativetrope of the want and the need,
where what the characteractually needs for their story
arc versus what they think theyneed for their story arc.
And that's how I would go withthe ambition and the desire.
So the desire would besomething like wants to be human
again, like whatever his biggoal is would be the ambition,

(52:49):
and then the desire would belike what he actually needs to
achieve that.
So if we did Fire Lord Zico,for example, his ambition would
be to restore his honor and hisdesire would be to be loved by
his daddy Right.
It's how I'd go about it, butmake it more vampire themed and
almost invert it.
Right, it's how I'd go about it, but make it more vampire
themed and almost invert it.
So if Philip's ambition is tobreak free of vampire servitude,

(53:18):
then his desire would befreedom.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, see, I'm just not really sure.
The character Philip Marlowethe only book in the series that
I read is called the Big Sleepand it was quite a good book.
But he doesn't.
His goal is prettystraightforward he just wants to
solve the crime.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Well, you gotta kind of go a layer deeper from that.
What is it internally thatsolving the crime would help him
realize internally that solvingthe crime would help him
realize.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Hmm, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Okay, and, like I said, for a person like me this
is like let's see.
So, yeah, like talking aboutthe want which drives their
external, external decisions,like solving a case or a mystery
is a want, but like the need islike trying to find that desire

(54:14):
for the truth, learning totrust others, et cetera, et
cetera.
So that's the way I would tryand frame it for this, but also
part of it comes to your playerbase too.
But also part of it comes toyour player base too.
So one thing I often notice,like for the often cited Water's
Deep Dragon Heist campaign iswhen players make characters
whose wants and needs don't feedinto the other party members,

(54:37):
you end up with five games ofSolitaire right, I totally
wanted to solve some mysteries,but we were busy building a
bakery which is fine, but likeif you knew you were playing the
bakery campaign, you would havebeen Cedric the baker, like you

(54:58):
, that's true your latercharacter, who is like a weird
gourmand, fit better yeah, Ilike that guy.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
later, character who is like a weird Gormond fit
better.
Ah, yeah, I like that guy.
I can't even Kalidor.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
Kalidor, where it's like, yeah, I ate my arm.
What Like fit the level ofweird that the group was going
for because their campaign endedup more delicious in Dungeon
than Dungeon and Dragon,although, to be fair, most of
their campaigns end up deliciousin the Dungeon instead, which

(55:34):
is good that I like delicious inthe Dungeon.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Well, I mean, it's still a fun experience.
It's just like not at all whatI was expecting based on Session
Zero.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Like not at all what I was expecting, based on
session zero.
So that's why I'm kind ofthinking that, like for your
current situation with theplayers I can imagine for your
play-by-post absolutely ask whattheir wants and needs are to
kind of get a sense of scope.
Because if it's like wantsmurder needs the blood of

(56:07):
chickens, then maybe hard worlddetectives might need.
Wants booze needs therapy.
Like you might want to lowerthe depth a bit to fit the story
being told right, right.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Okay, I should read what their ambitions and desires
are, to be able to figure outwhat their scope is.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Well, I'm kind of thinking, like a thought that
comes to mind, about like whenthat dissonance gets.
Weird is when you put acharacter doesn't quite fit in a
piece of fiction.
So like let's take Uehara andAizen, for example.
Uehara and Aizen are like, lookat our deep philosophical
objectives and it's like likethis is a show about punching

(56:48):
each other with swords right noone's really like.
Aizen's objective made no sensebecause he weren't doing a
philosophical enough thing.
Where it's like, ooh, his swordreflects his loneliness as he
struggles with his burden ofgreatness, I'm like, yeah, cool,
these themes don't match theshow at all.
We don't care right we'reactually more likely to root for

(57:09):
crazy scientist guy with hisburden of greatness.
I'm like, yeah, cool, thesethemes don't match the show at
all.
We don't care, right, we'reactually more likely to root for
crazy scientist guy Shoots upzombies to fight master hand.
Master hand made more sense inbleach than Eisen did.
Yeah, that's true.
So that's kind of I'm trying tothink.
Can you actually?
I'm going to flip the questionto a random question back to you
what characters?

(57:29):
Just felt like they werewritten for a different show.
Like what characters fromthings you've seen just feel
like they would have belongedbetter in something else hmm,
okay.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh man, now I have to like think around.
So there's this anime.
It's called Rankings of Kings.
Yes, I've seen that one, yeah,I mean so.

(58:05):
So, uh, boji, the maincharacter, uh, he's this
adorable, happy-go-lucky, deafkid and it's like I know the
whole story is like around himand there's a reason for him
being like tiny and weak anddeaf, uh, but he's just like, so
not the like shonen protagonistthat he's become.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
It's just, it's kind of like a dissonance.
I love the series and I thinkit's a great show, but it's just
like it's just such a weirdlike.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
So another one.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Like the superpower character.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
yeah, what kind of comes to mind is the way they
wrote Deku where.
So they write Deku from Episode1 of my Hero.
I study my enemies' quirks, Iwrite them down in notebooks.
I'm going to be the strategist,even though I'm whippy and cry
a lot and they get the power topunch things real hard and break
his body and it's like you gavehim the least creative power in

(59:09):
your entire cast for thecreative character, to the point
where people are like wouldn'tthis show have been better if he
just never had a superpower?

Speaker 2 (59:19):
So um Jujutsu Kaisen.
I reread, sort of reread, allof it.
I kind of skipped all thestrategy part for doing the
Tsukuna boss gauntlet, butIsidori again as a main
character.
I don't know if it necessarilydoesn't fit for the show, but

(59:41):
it's like, why is his?
I can punch real good power,it's such a bad power for the
show and yet he's like, why ishis?
I can punch real good power,like it's such a bad power for
the show and yet he's like totedas this extremely powerful and
talented jujutsu sorcerer.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
So I'm going to actually take that as saying and
be like no, I don't thinkItadori did fit the theme of
that show at all.
So I would very comfortably sayif Itadori wasn't in it as the
main character and instead wewent with their actual main
character of my first girlfriend, died at 12 and became a ghost
who haunts me.
Yuta made way more sense for howthat show felt.

(01:00:20):
And like Itadori would havebeen a great Sasuke for Yuta to
be like.
Oh, my happy-go-lucky friend,ate this demon and now I have to
fight against him.
But yeah, yuji, even though hewas like, yuji felt like a
Bleach character that wanderedinto a show that was trying to
be darker than Bleach.
And then Dragon Ball has aweird magical power where,

(01:00:47):
because it's a comedy, it canget away with jarring tone
shifts, that kind of causewhiplash, where it's like I'm
Trunks All my family died infront of me in my
post-apocalyptic wasteland andI'm time traveling to fight
murderous cyborgs and you'relike this is a show where people
can do a jazz dance to take twodudes become one dude you know

(01:01:09):
I I know we've dunked on jjk alot in this, in this podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
It's topical, but oh, man, haven't reread it all um.
Firstly, my first observationis that Isidore probably does
have a sorcery.
Yeah, because there's at leastlike three times in the series

(01:01:38):
where he inserts himself intopeople's backstories.
Which is funny for mespecifically, for many reasons
yeah, it was like um toto, theguy that claps his hands moves
people around.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Oh yeah toto is a naruto character in jjk, but
he's so broken that it works injjk because it's like he's a
shonen protagonist, but the showkind of plays it like he's so
smart that he's literally insane.
That guy is actually crazy andthat's why he's trying to be all
might in a show that chops offyour hands without a second

(01:02:14):
thought and gets away with it Ishe's just broken?

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
But yeah, he like he inserts himself into that guy's
backstory.
You know, it's like someoneasks him a question, responds
and suddenly they have memoriesof things that never happened
and call him brother.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
And they vaguely explain that in the final fight,
where he does that to Sukuna,where it's like some sort of
soul resident, I'm like just sayit was his personal power.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Yeah, just say it was his sorcery.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Before this turns into a full JJK episode at the
one hour mark, because thatwould be a misplay.
I do have to say, though, whilewe're on the topic of JJK, he's
set up like if JJK Shippudencame out next week.
I'd be happier of JJK as a whole, because this feels more like a
midpoint than an ending,because, like, what was the

(01:03:03):
point of Kenjaku being Yuji'smom?
What did it do?
Because, like it was in theplot, but he never learns about
it or reacts to it.
No one does.
So it's just kind of a detail,because if you put a piece of
plot in but no characters in thestory have emotional reaction
to it, it didn't do anything.
Also has nothing to do withanything at all, but me and my

(01:03:29):
brother recently went throughall of Gundam Sea and Sea
Destiny again and somethingbroke me that I didn't think was
going to break me.
So they have this weapon calledRequiem, which is a giant cannon
mounted on the moon that shootsup and uses space colonies to
redirect the laser.
So they basically set up abunch of arrays and it shoots
from anywhere.
We bend it with these old,dilapidated colonies and arc it

(01:03:50):
around to hit places.
And then I Something importantstruck my brain.
The moon moves, so a lot ofanimes will have moon bases and
moon lasers and moon cannons.
The moon orbits the earth, it'snot stationary.
So your moon base is not goingto be in the same spot in three

(01:04:11):
hours as it was three hours ago,which is terrible for so many
reasons, because if you build asuper weapon on the moon, it's
never pointing in the samedirection.
Also, the earth's also moving.
It's all moving, so a gun onthe moon would be useless, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yeah, so I mean, I guess maybe we should move on to
our random question?

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Absolutely we should.
So I'm pulling up the list.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Ah, the list is being pulled up.
Okay, I got a random questionfor you.
First, though.
All right, if one appliance inyour house was replaced by a
cardboard cutout of thatappliance, how long would it
take you to notice?

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Oh, my house with my roommate, where we found a
skateboard on top of themicrowave Never.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
You would never notice, you would never like go
to make some toast and realizethat your toaster is just a
cardboard cutout.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
No, I'm just so used to weird things like that.
My toaster would be gone andreplaced by a cardboard cutout
Like huh Wonder why thathappened.
Like it wouldn't, I wouldacknowledge the toaster was gone
, but I wouldn't be sure if thetoaster was gone, but I wouldn't
be sure if the toaster was everthere.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Okay, was that enough time to help you find a random
question?

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Yes, it was.
So what food have you seen inan anime that looked so much
better in the show than itturned out to be when you ate it
in real life?

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
That looked so much better in the show Than it
turned out to be when you ate itin real life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
That looked better.
Yes, so my answer is the timeGermany actually brought back
those Red bean paste buns andI'm like this sounds delicious
on anime, like it's a dessert,and then it I was not a fan,
tasted like sand Was verydisappointed.
My palate was just not refinedenough for this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Well, you know, ice cream always looks so luscious
and sparkly.
Anyway, ice cream is still good, but it never quite compares to
that anime representation ofice cream.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
That's fair.
And our second question isanother anime question Seemed on
point for today.
This one actually makes mehappy.
Which anime character are youentering on Iron Chef?

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Which anime character am I entering on Iron Chef?
Yep.
Which anime character am Ientering on Iron Chef?
Yep.
Wow, I mean, like there's thelow-hanging fruit, like Sanji.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Like Sanji was first thought, or like Soma from Food
Wars.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Yeah, I was going to say the protagonist of Food Wars
is also quite excellent.
There's uh, toriko would be afun one.
Well, yeah, Toriko would be afun one.
Toriko would be a fun one.
There's that new housekeepingmanga.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
He seems like he's not going to handle the Iron
Chef mystery ingredientparticularly well.
I know who I'm entering becauseit's kind of a hot take.
So I'm entering chichi, theperson who cooks for zon goku on
a daily basis.
Nothing that happens at ironchef will compete with cooking

(01:07:37):
for three saiyans yeah, that'strue, but plus, like Goku, like
will eat bugs and things Like.
Yeah, no, like there's noingredient.
I'm confident that Chi-Chiwouldn't be able to cook
successfully, that is true,including meals for a literal

(01:08:00):
god that'll destroy all lifeeverywhere if they're bad.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
Hmm Well, who I'm looking, looking, looking,
looking.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
hmm well, who I'm looking, looking, looking,
looking like, I'm hoping for awild pick from you well, lloyd
from Spy Family.
I mean, yeah, I guess likeyou're right, but like see, the
problem is we started with Sanji.
We're both like, eh, neither ofus gonna going to pick Sanji,
sanji would beat Lloyd.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
I don't know, Because Lloyd would already have intel
on all of his opponents and hewould already know what the
secret ingredient was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
Yeah, but Lloyd's intel on Sanji, where it's like
you mean he was a geneticallyengineered super soldier that
likes to cook.
I don't know if facts help youin a one-piece fight, they might
hurt you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
This is an Iron Chef fight, and I mean, Sanji is
supposedly a great cook.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
We're like I'm confident.
Gigi would beat Sanji atcooking just due to power
scaling alone.
Like Iron Chef's like you gotone hour, debone that fish.
So, sanji at cooking, just dueto power scaling alone, iron
Chef's like you've got one hour,debone that fish.
So Sanji's kicking a fish inhalf so the bones separate and
then Chi-Chi's moving so fastthat the bones turn into dust
Because by power scaling logic,chi-chi's, like You're right,

(01:09:22):
lloyd is actually just a normalhuman.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
He's incredibly skilled, but he actually just a
normal human.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
he's incredibly skilled, but he's just a normal
human like if I wanted to beatSanji, I'd probably go with the
butler from Black Butler oh yeahlike literal demon from hell is
your best bet okay, let's see.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Looking through, looking through, looking through
.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
I've run out of options and my final thing is
ramen guy from Naruto ramen guyfrom Naruto alright, and we have
one final random question sothis one is what is the most
hilarious and practical weaponyou've seen recently.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Hilarious, impractical weapon Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
My default is always the arm-mounted gunpowder
pilebunker weapon, where insteadof just shooting a spike, he
uses gunpowder to use the spikeso the spike has more kinetic
impact, going like an inch.
It's just such a dumb conceptbecause everyone would be like
why would you bother making astopper to stop the spike?
That's not how anything wouldwork.
I'm like a revolver that'shooked to a jackhammer.

(01:10:36):
Spike is cool and you know it.
My editor for my first novel islike no, you can't just give
your main character theimpractical anime spike weapon.
But he has super strength.
He actually totally could workit.
But it's stupid.
They couldn't visualize how Iwas describing this weapon,
which I guess if you've neverseen one in anime, it would make

(01:10:56):
no sense.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Oh man, oh man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Now I gotta think your worst part is you want to
be like the switchaxe forMonster Hunter, but you can't
bring yourself to admit thatit's impractical.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Oh, the switchaxe is Well, all of the weapons for
Monster Hunter are extremelyimpractical.
They're way too big, Even asstyrofoam models.
You can hardly carry them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
You're just not trying hard enough.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
But I mean, the gun lance is actually pretty
hilariously impractical that isfair, also because it keeps
coming up in anime.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
I have to say it boomerangs only come back when
you miss, and as soon as youapply that rule, every anime
boomerang becomes a terribleweapon, Like Son Go Sarai Coast
if it hits the thing it's tryingto hit, doesn't come back.
It's like the idea of youthrowing a giant boomerang on a
flying cat so you can catch itis cool, provided it's

(01:11:57):
sufficiently magical.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Giant boomerang is pretty impractical and common.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Giant boomerangs are a staple of uselessness.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Yeah, but you know what else is a staple of
uselessness?
Sharks with freaking lasers ontheir head.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
How dare you?
However, I want you to know Ionce played an FPS game for PC
that one of the weapons was ashark gun, where it was a laser
pointer and then land sharkscame up and ate the target at
the end of the pointer.
You want to say it'simpractical, but you love it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Oh, I love it, but I mean I did.
I did have a random question,um a different random questions
besides the cardboard cutout,one which was uh, what would you
do if you could swim throughrocks like a, like a land shark?
Tax evasion tax evasion taxevasion you're just gonna like

(01:13:05):
swim through a wall to get awayfrom whoever's trying to tax you
, or like I don't know what Iwould do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Like the thing about that power is I'm not
particularly good swimmer andlike, yeah, I can break into
places but it's like it was aline that some atheist TED talk
gave a while back.
That was like, without a code ofrules to enforce, what's to
stop you from going around andmurdering and crime all you want

(01:13:30):
?
I'm like I do go around andmurder and crime as much as I
like, which is none because Ihave no desire to do that.
That's kind of my thought, likeyeah, I can swim through stone
to like commit crime, I guess.
But like I'm not interested indoing that.
Normally I have some sort offun gimmick use where you're
like what would you do with thisweird power?

(01:13:50):
And I'm like honestly not awhole lot.
Like if I could swim througheverything, I don't know how
much that would increase myswimming content.
And it was just rocks.
What happens if I hit a metalpipe?
Does it just go through my armand kill me?
Ha ha, ha, ha ha.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Well, see, rocks, what happens when I hit a metal
pipe?
Does it just go through my armand kill me?
Well see, when you play MonsterHunter and like, the monsters
are just like swimming throughthe ground and then jumping up.
They're not burrowing, they'renot displacing the dirt, they're
not leaving a hole behind, theyjust jump up and they can

(01:14:25):
immediately stand on solidground.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
I ran into that problem running D&D last weekend
.
I learned dragons have burrowspeeds so they went to this
death.
Mine, which was a bunch of it,was a blue dragon painted red.
So, they'd get all theiranti-fire gear and then, haha,
surprise, lightning bolt.
There was water at the bottom ofthis and a bunch of minecarts

(01:14:49):
like think Donkey Kong Countrystyle minecart tracks, and the
idea was that when it shotlightning, if you're standing on
one of the tracks it'd zap youbecause I don't know, I just
kind of wanted to kill thisparty.
It was the B team party and Ithought I could get away with
killing it without any longlasting emotional reper
repercussions.
So the strike ends with BurrowSpeed.
I'm like, oh, I know what I'mgoing to do.
I'm going to have a fire,lightning bolt and burrow
underground and come up.
But then my players start askingquestions like can I follow the

(01:15:11):
tunnel behind it?
I should be able to see thedisturbed ground.
Is it rough terrain where itdug before?
And I'm like, man, burrowSpeeds don't work.
No, they no, they don't,because things don't actually
burrow like that, like they dig,like for something to dig fast
enough that just digs under youwould just be structural damage.

(01:15:35):
And like you can't just digunder someone.
Then jump up and be like, wellhuh, monster hunter style, it
doesn't actually work.
So I wanted to let you know I'mright there with you because
I'm like, ooh, jump up and belike, well huh, monster Hunter
style, it doesn't actually work.
I want to let you know I'm rightthere with you because I'm like
, ooh, I have this scheme.
And then they asked obviousquestions about it.
I wasn't prepared as much as Ithought I would be.
I should have just said magic.
Anywho, I did not get a TPK,although I did have five out of

(01:15:59):
six people down at one pointbecause they stood in a line and
got lightning bolt.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
That's super funny, but well, thank you for
indulging my three questions inincreasingly nerdy order.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
You say that, like the first one wasn't a poli-sci
question.
Like what the crap?
I was promised nerdy topics.
You're like now, how do I dealwith the serious interpersonal
situation with my friend who'salso a co worker?
And I'm like you don't, youdon't, that's what you do.
You clock out and go home.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Well, yeah, personally, I think I handled
that situation as best I could,and I believe I handled that
situation as best I could and Ibelieve I resolved the issue
just do what I do sit on a benchcross-legged, and they'll just
come up and tell you becausethey're assuming your gender
identity men, don't sitcross-legged to be fair, I trip

(01:17:05):
a lot of various beige flags, soI'm not surprised when people
reach the conclusions they reach.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
But I digress.
Thank you everybody for tuningin and deep, serious
conversations on polysolidicaltopics about presidential
campaigns is absolutely what Iwas going for, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Yeah, and we promote self-care.
You know, go hydrate, exercise,maybe build a snow fort if it
snows where you live.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
Oh, and post in the comments who you think would be
the best anime cook to win IronChef, because I'd love if we had
enough contenders to do afuture episode where we're just
like here's who people thinkwould win anime Iron Chef.
It's not Meliodas, no, no.
It's very specifically a plotpoint that his food is terrible

(01:18:02):
and will kill you.
Bye, bye, bye.
Like me, like me, oh, butseriously, nerd question the
first.
So I'm in this very complexsituation.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
I said that the questions Would get increasingly
nerdy.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
I mean you didn't lie to me, but much like a box of
chocolates and you open it andthere's no chocolates in it and
you just said I didn't say I gotyou chocolates, I said I got
you a box, laughing.