The Ethics of AI: Creative Ownership in the Digital Age

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Richard and Karl dive into the ethical complexities of AI-generated content, workplace dynamics, and character creation in tabletop RPGs while sharing personal updates and anime observations.

• Richard balances multiple jobs while helping students with their emotional wellbeing
• Karl works on his rock-paper-scissors card game using light table technology
• The legal implications of AI-generated art mean no one truly owns the copyright
• Using AI in creative processes raises ethical questions about supporting actual artists
• Character creation in Vampire the Masquerade requires thoughtful consideration of motivations
• Anime characters sometimes feel like they belong in completely different shows
• Chi-Chi from Dragon Ball would dominate Iron Chef competition due to her experience feeding Saiyans
• Impractical weapons in anime like returning boomerangs defy real-world physics

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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 like getting paid to be.
Like how are you feeling today?
It's pretty excellent, althoughwe found like a circle that had
just gotten out of a class Likehow are you feeling it's like?
Would you believe?
We said we're all pissed off atEdgar now in the class.
Like how are you feeling it'slike?
Would you believe?
We said we're all pissed offand 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 thing,
is.
It's.
It's weird, but we kind of wantpeople to be doing bad so we

(02:55):
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
something about it and I'm likeI'm not being evil here, we're

(03:17):
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
need to find the people who arelike in peril, not the ones
hanging out outside.
But I'm like, do I feel bad forbeing like, yes, they're on

(03:42):
fire, now I can put 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, fair enough.
And I guess the last thingthat's new with me is One of my
co-workers today was asking mefor romantic advice For how to
craft text messages for a personthey're seeing, and I'm just
like something about that's justdeeply funny that, yes,
excellent writer Richard KivasWould theoretically be good at

(05:02):
crafting romantic texts, butalso this person has no idea
what my life has been up to thispoint to see how deeply funny
the concept of me helping inthis scenario is, because it's
like yeah, in a vacuum.
I absolutely have the skill setfor it.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
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.
Is my sanity starting to slowlycrumble away as I work a holic
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.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
So question the first has a little bit of a lead up
here yes, this is the content Ilive for and our surprisingly
large dedicated fan baseallegedly lives for, because no
one see.
The funniest thing is we getfeedback, but we rarely like
people don't typically give youfeedback on things they enjoy in
context, so we have no idea.

(07:48):
What about our podcast works.
So then we're just kind ofcommitted to doing all of it
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):
I need to stop you right here.
I have a question for you.
Okay, you mentioned we've saida lot of things in our podcast
and this just kind of came to meand it's like it's I curious
your thoughts.
Do you think we've said all ofthe words to Romeo and Juliet
across our episodes, thatsomeone could find those sound
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.
Alright, I'll take Psyduck.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, so we got Angry Bird, we got Psyduck, we have.
I need to think of a bettername, but Nice Guy.

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

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

(10:14):
So Angry Bird comes into workand 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 ofpeople also 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 some sexual conversations with
Iago have basically confirmedthat he's gay Okay, which is why
he was offended.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Why did you out him on this podcast?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Hmm, oh sorry, the bird from Aladdin is gay.
Sorry for ruining yourchildhood, it's about me picking
this name out.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
It's like, yeah, I know that tracks.
Was it like hilarious about mepicking this name out?
It's like, yeah, I know thattracks.
Didn't Disney go their way toqueer code?

Speaker 2 (14:10):
every villain in that era because they're Disney,
okay, but See.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Their plan was to queer code all their villains to
encourage people not to be gay.
Instead, they just made a bunchof gay villains in real life.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
But so my question is I mean, I'm looking for your
academic expertise, but is therea tactful way to ask someone
about their gender identitywithout like, like it's just for
personal edification, like I?
I like iago.
He is a nice guy and he has agood work ethic, he's funny, he
has cool accent, uh, and hisgender identity or sexual
identity have nothing to do withour relationship, but I'm
personally curious.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
So first disclaimer this is a comedy podcast and
nothing I say on here is meantto 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 Iwould tell a student in this
circumstance.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, okay, okay.
That's kind of what I'm goingfor.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
They will tell you if they're comfortable to tell you
do not pry at all in any way,shape or form.
They will tell you if they'recomfortable to tell you do not
pry at all in any way, shape orform.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
They will tell you if they're comfortable telling you
yeah, okay, I mean I kind offigured that was the, uh, the
quote-unquote correct for thecomedy version of richard on a
podcast.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
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,it wouldn't end well for you,
because but you're so flamboyant, exactly like you're like hey,
maybe 10 years ago you couldhave just walked up, but right

(15:59):
now, no, as an employer,absolutely not, I mean unless
you want to start doing whatcolleges do where they are
determined.
They never pressure anybody.
But then they put an anonymouscheckbox at the bottom of the
thing to identify.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
And then that anonymous identification is
attached to your file for grantsand bursaries.
Well see, that's kind of why Iwas a little bit curious about,
about your perspective, likeit's just like intellectually I
know you should just never ask,but like emotionally I'm just so
curious well, it's really funnytoo.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's like in the college environment where
everyone's so open.
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 I'll besitting there eating a mango.
So here's my entire traumaticlife story.
I'm like I no longer want thismango, thanks.

(16:57):
So if you create a safe enoughspace and you share about
yourself, people are more likelyto 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

(17:19):
information except for findingthe two tiny marble-sized Dragon
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

(17:40):
to make a mass deportation list.
I'm pretty sure if you're justlike hey Redacted, can I ask you
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 an unnecessary
build-up, but here's where itgoes.
Um eons ago, uh, when you and Ilived together in the frozen
hellscape known as saskatchewanlooks suspicious like hondo muko

(18:20):
at winter with the giant whitesand dunes of snow in the moon.
But so you.
When you moved, I inheritedyour TV stands.

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

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, you definitely did move and I definitely did
inherit your TV stand Allegedly.
Definitely didn't hear your TVstand Allegedly Okay, but so, um
, the bottom two shelves of thisTV stand are just panes of
glass on a metal frame.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
I'm shocked how well I'm mentally picturing this TV
stand.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
I think it's still actually available for sale at
Walmart to this day.
It's the same design, it's morelike I'm just shocked at how
firmly I remember this thingokay, but so one day I decide
that I want to build a lighttable, because I need to be able
to do my own graphic design,and light tables would be useful

(19:18):
for doing it by hand, at thevery least you know what would
also be useful just going toschool for it 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.
Oh, hiss, anyways.
So I take the bottom pane ofglass out of this TV stand and I

(20:23):
build my box, I get it wrappedin aluminum tape and I have the
LED strip lights.
I'm just about to startpainting this piece of glass and
I'm holding it in my hands andI so you know you could just use
equipment at libraries, right?

Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, please continue, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
So I'm just about ready to start painting and
frosting the glass, and Icarefully set it down on the
tiniest pebble that hits theexact point and it completely
shatters in my hands.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
So this story, at least in some form, has
absolutely made it to ourpodcast before.
But it makes me happy Becauseit's such a Futurama bit to like
be holding the pane of glassand then just set it down and
then it just explodes afterwardlike that's some classic looney
tunes in re um, right, but so Iended up buying a new pane of

(21:20):
glass and I ended up, uh up,building 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 Kaurenough for our audience.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yet again, as I mentioned earlier this episode,
I have no way of confirmingwhat's Carl Kaur 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 it outis we had spent I don't know
about a fifth of each episode onhorror movies over the last 20

(22:11):
episodes.
So I thought you know, let'smix it up a bit.
Yeah, you did nothing wronghere.
Not all quips I make mean youchange your life.
Sometimes they're just quips.
Sometimes I really get moreused to how much power I
apparently have, where I'll saysomething like hey, you
shouldn't jaywalk, it justgeasses somebody and their body

(22:32):
goes into convulsions 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.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Uh yeah, my vicious mockeries are savage, too bad.
I mostly use them on myself.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
But so, um, uh, I was thinking about how my light
table just sits unused and I'mlike you know what We've talked
about my rock paper scissorscard game project before, and
I'm really close know what we'vetalked about, uh, our, my rock
paper scissors card game projectbefore, and I'm really close to
actually being able to likeplay test it nice, nice, make it
easy, but I just I just need toactually design the cards, um,

(23:17):
and so now I'm like okay, so Ineed like a wizard hat, a
rogue's cowl and a warrior'shelm, because those were the
rock paper scissors elementsthat I was 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 (23:35):
Um 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 Zero dollars.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
On fried chicken this week.

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

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Good job, because I was going to make a point that
for the $40 you could spendonline for an artist to draw
these, most people spend morethan that on takeout in a week,
but instead you're like nah, I'mon a wellness kick, vlad,
you're not going to impale me onmy hubris.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
The whole point is that I have the light table to
be able to do it myself.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
I just have to get a design to be able to trace um, I
love how many steps this ismore than uses computer with
drawing tablet, because there'sa version of this which is just
photoshop and a drawing tablet.

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

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Nah, screw, adobe I use.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
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, itwasn't too hard to find.
But a decent rogues cowl logo,uh, that was hard to find.
I couldn't, couldn't find one.
Then I was like, wait a second,I could just like ai generate
this.

(25:38):
Oh no, and so so then I Igenerate a uh uh, rogues cowl.
This was like a, a rogue's cowl.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
This was like 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 thedarkness.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
I don't remember which.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
AI service I used.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Skydance the Matrix.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
And for whatever reason they're, just like every
rogues cowl has to have 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, so you wantevery, you want it to have eye
holes and a mask.
Like, no, I, I don't want that.

(26:27):
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, um, and I'm gonna like,try to make it more, try to
make each of these logos morestylistic.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
I mean, I kind of want to pause you because I just
kind of had a cool idea.
What if the rogue logo wasthose drama masks Like the
smiley drama mask and the frownydrama mask was the rogue logo?

Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know if people would get it, but it's
cool.
It is cool.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Or like an opera mask , some kind of opera mask or
like the Phantom.
Renegade from Metabot, huh yeah, or like an opera mask, some
kind of opera mask, or like thePhantom Renegade from Metabots.
Huh, the Phantom of the OperaMask, or the V for Vedetta Mask.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Was more the energy, that would make sense.
Ah, yeah, okay.

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

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Uh, but so the the more nerdy than the last
question is um, how so does doesanyone 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
said, more stylistically unified.

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.

(28:09):
So you write a book, you ownthat book and you really only
have to prove you own that bookwhen ownership of it's disputed.
Generative AI does not providecopyright, meaning if you put
these logos out and they're AIgenerated, I can just steal
those oh, they're just mine nowbecause they don't belong to you

(28:30):
.
So if your game use rules thatuse chat gpt to help generate
those rules, you don't own thecopyright to that.
No one does, so I can just takeit I see and that's where
companies are being having incourt is because these databases
weren't legal to begin with.
They just scraped data off ofour consent.

(28:51):
Lots so many lawsuits happeningright now it's not even
fathomable.
The only thing that makes themeven like arguably legal to
exist is that chat gpt does notwell open.
Ai does not own the content onchat gpt, or they'd all be in
jail till they died because it'sall stolen so if you use gpt.
No one owns that content.

(29:13):
That's the argument so that'swhat makes it really interesting
is that these artists can sueopen ai from theft, and if you
use this image, you can't besued for theft, but they can
take it.
However, they own the copyrightto their design, so if the ai
generated one's too close, theycan still sue you for using it

(29:33):
because they own it and you ownnothing right.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Well, I mean, like I said, the whole, the whole point
of this experiment is to, uh,use the light table, uh, so I
feel like I am going to put inenough changes and physical
effort to make somethinguniquely mine that is, in fact,
copyrightable.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
And that's where it gets interesting, right.
Because if you start with astock photo, technically you'd
have to like, cite that as oneof your sources or inspirations,
but like, yes, if you just drawsomething and it's yours and
it's not based on an existing IP, you're good to go.
But here's where it's reallyfunny.
If that mask image, for example, you go with Richard's mask
suggestion and it's too close toVita Vendetta, they can argue

(30:13):
that you copied Vita forVendetta in your artwork and
you'd have a hell of a timeproving you didn't, when you're
like, oh no, I drew thisAI-generated thing that ripped
your data, oh so I guess I didjust steal it.
There's just extra stepsinvolved.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
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 Dollarama pack of magic
cards.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Ah, yes, you did.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Right and, as you pointed out, there's no value in
there.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
But it's fun.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I can't help myself.
I go to Dollarama, I see itit's $1.50.
It's like, oh, that's morecards than what are in a normal
pack nowadays.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Not only that, but it's like cheaper than the
cardboard's worth.
It's kind of wild, you know oneof the best uses of those,
though, is using a hole punch touse them as D&D minis, because
all you do is you buy a stack ofwashers, hole punch out the
artwork and then glue them on awasher and you got sick tokens.
Or, if you use little plastic,standees for them, like like you
know like wedding place cardholders standees that are like

(31:23):
50 cents at the dollar store.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
You just kind of cut out your artwork on the card I,
that is a great idea, but um Iuh talking about garbage cards.
Uh, for some reason, uh, theDollarama Magic Packs have
started including cards fromUnfinity.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
That's hilarious.

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 could fill sleeves and thenjust sleeve my Rock Paper
Scissors game using garbagemagic cards.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
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 thatStick because that was just fun.
But so I guess the other halfof the AI generate AI question
is do you think it's all rightfor artists to use AI as a tool

(32:46):
in that 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 fuck.
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, let's go Stevie.
I'll make a fictional characternamed Stevie for this.
Stevie makes $20 an hour.
Let's say right, stevie is aprompt engineer and really wants
to use ChatGPT to bring hisvision of a robot to life.

(35:38):
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 fallacywhen they think something's free
, they forget about time cost.
So if you have an AI, write yourbook like, say you're like, oh,
I'm going to fiddle with propsuntil the text nearly matches
what I want for my monsterinvestigation story, Right tools

(36:21):
, and then you would now knowthe 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 continue,because 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 type of
old Richard message is easierto read 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, copy,
when literally just me going yo,what do you think would be a
good anime for branchingstorylines?
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 (39:50):
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.
Oh, okay, so you said that youhave played Vampire the
Masquerade, yes, so I mean Idon't know if you said this on
the stream but you also saidthat you're not a huge fan of

(40:17):
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-posts Right,and 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 sheetseems straightforward enough,

(41:44):
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
your, your disciplines, and it'slike, okay, I'm gonna choose a

(42:04):
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, nothing you make
up in 5e is mechanicallyimpactful.

(43:49):
It's almost always flavor Right.
But 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,

(44:21):
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 who are like, oh, if
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.

(44:46):
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
everything is my experience.
So like it's like, the moreyour player goes along the power
gaming scale, the more arules-like game kind of enables

(45:07):
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
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

(45:33):
common mechanic than you wouldthink among very many games.
Like even Critical Role'sDaggerheart is like oh yeah, no,
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.

(45:54):
Personally.
I find that limitationsactually breed creativity.
Right.
So you're like oh yeah, my racecan be whatever I want it to be
and my magic is whatever and myabilities are.
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

(46:16):
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, it almost
feels like a hole in the ruleswhen 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 want their wayto make.
None of those things actuallydo 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

(47:17):
intelligence, you succeed.
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 playthe 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.

(49:17):
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 Cause, cause he's.
His name is Philip Marlowe Niceand 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.
They did that to assemble,reassemble the Philip statue oh,

(50:42):
so Philip couldn't live oh no,he's still 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 (52:26):
My first thought while I'm looking at those boxes
is I always go back to thenarrative trope of the want and
the need, where what thecharacter actually needs for
their story arc versus what theythink they need 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 we did Fire Lord Zico, forexample.
His ambition would be torestore his honor and his desire
would be to be loved by hisdaddy.
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 (53:19):
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 about thewant which drives their
external decisions, like likesolving a case or a mystery is a
want, but like the need is liketrying to find that desire for

(54:14):
the truth, learning to trustothers, etc.
Etc.
So that's the way I would tryand frame it for this.
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

(56:08):
chickens, then maybe your worlddetectives might need wants boos
needs therapy.
You might want to lower thedepth a bit to fit the story
being told.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Right, right, okay, I should read what their
ambitions and desires are, to beable to figure out what 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.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
We don't care, right, we're actually more likely to
root for crazy scientist guywith his burden of greatness.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
I'm like, yeah cool, these themes 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.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
So that's kind of I'm trying to think, can you
actually?
I'm going to think, can youactually?
I'm gonna flip the question toa random question back to you
what characters?
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.
So another one like thesuperpower 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 and become one dude.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
You know, I know we've dunked on JJK a lot in
this podcast.
It's topical, but oh man, havewe re-read it all?
Firstly, my first observationis that Itadori probably does
have a sorcery because, there'sat least like three times in the

(01:01:37):
series where he inserts himselfinto people's backstories which
is funny for me specifically,for many reasons yeah, it was
like um, which is funny for mespecifically for many reasons.
Yeah, it was like Toto, the guythat claps his hands and moves
people around.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Toto is a Naruto character in JJK, but he's so
broken that it works in JJKbecause it's like he's a shounen
protagonist, but the show kindof 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.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
He's just broken, but yeah, he inserts himself into
that guy's backstory.
Someone asks him a question, heresponds and suddenly they have
memories of things that neverhappened and call him brother.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
And they vaguely explain that in the final fight,
where he does that to Tsukino,where it's like some sort of
soul resident.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
I'm like just say it was his personal power.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Yeah, just say it was his sorcery, before this turns
into a full JJK episode at theone hour mark, because that
would 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 thepoint of Kenjaku being Yuji's

(01:03:04):
mom?
What did it do?
Like what was the point ofKenjaku being Yuji's mom?
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 kindof a detail, because if you put
a piece of plot in but nocharacters in the story have
emotional reaction to it, itdidn't do anything.

(01:03:25):
Also, it has nothing to do withanything at all, but me and my
brother recently went throughall of Gundam Seed 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 thatshoots up and uses space
colonies to redirect the laser.
So they basically set up abunch of arrays and it shoots

(01:03:46):
from anywhere.
We bend it with these old,dilapidated colonies and arc it
around to hit places.
And then 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.

(01:04:06):
So your moon base is not goingto be in the same spot in three
hours as it was three hours ago.
Which is terrible for so manyreasons, because if you build a
super weapon on the moon, it'snever pointing in the same
direction.
Also, the Earth's also moving.
It's all moving.
So a gun on the moon would beuseless okay, uh, yeah.

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

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
absolutely we should, so I'm pulling up the list the
list is being pulled up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Okay, I got a random question for you first, though.
All right, uh, if one appliancein your house was replaced by a
cardboard cutout of thatappliance, uh, how long would it
take you to notice?

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
oh, my house with my roommate, where we found a
stapler on top of the microwaveNever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
You would never notice.
You would never go to make sometoast and realize that your
toaster is just a cardboardcutout.

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.
I'd be like huh wonder why thathappened.
Like it wouldn't, I wouldacknowledge the toaster was gone
, but I wouldn't be sure if thetoaster was ever there.

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.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
So what food have you seen in an anime that looked so
much better in?

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
the show than it turned out to be when you ate it
in real life.
Hmm, that looked better.
Yes, so my answer is the time?
Germany actually brought backthose red bean paste buns and
I'm like this sounds deliciouson anime, like it's a dessert
and then it.
I was not a fan, tasted likesand, was very disappointed.
My palate was just not refinedenough for this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Well, you know, ice cream always looks so luscious
and sparkly and Anyway, I meanice cream is still good, but it
never quite compares to thatanime representation of ice
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 (01:06:41):
Which anime character am I entering on Iron Chef?

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Wow, I mean like there's the low-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 gonna say the protagonist of Food Wars is
also quite excellent.
Um, there's um, toriko would bea fun one.
Oh Well, yeah, Toriko would bea fun 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 like I know
who I'm entering because it'skind of a hot take.
So I'm entering Chi-Chi, 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.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Plus, like Goku will eat bugs and things like.
Yeah, no, like there's noingredient, I'm confident that
chichi wouldn't be able to cooksuccessfully that that is true
including meals for a literalgod.
They'll destroy all lifeeverywhere if they're bad hmm,

(01:08:03):
hmm.
Well, who I'm looking, looking,looking, looking like, I'm
hoping for a wild pick from youwell, lloyd from Spy Family.
I mean, yeah, I guess likeyou're right.
But like see, the problem is westarted with Sanji.

(01:08:23):
We're both like, eh, neither ofus can 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 (01:08:49):
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 Chi-Chi would beat
Sanji at cooking just due topower scaling alone.
Like Iron Chef's, like've gotone hour to 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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Lloyd is actually just a normal human.
He's incredibly skilledoyd isactually 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,looking through, looking through
.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Nope, I've run out of options.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
And my final thing is Ramen Guy from Naruto.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Ramen Guy from Naruto .

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
All right, and we have one final random question.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
All right.
So this one is question, allright so this one is what is the
most hilarious and practicalweapon you've seen recently
hilarious, impractical weapon.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Yep, my default is always the arm mounted gunpowder
pile bunker weapon whereinstead of just shooting a spike
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 itthat almost my editor for my
first novel is like no, youcan't just give your main
character the impractical animespike weapon like but he has
super strength.
He actually totally could work.
It's like, but it's stupid theylike, couldn't visualize how I
was describing this weapon,which I guess, if you've never
seen one in anime, it would makeno sense oh, oh man, now I

(01:11:01):
gotta.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Your worst part is you want to be like the switch
axe for monster hunter.
Oh man, now I gotta.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Your worst part is you want to be like the
switchaxe for Monster Hunter,but you can't bring yourself to
admit that it'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.
You can hardly carry them.
You're just not trying hardenough.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
But I mean the gun lance is actually pretty
hilariously impractical.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
That is fair, also because it keeps coming up in
anime.
I have to say it Boomerangsonly come back when you miss,
and as soon as you apply thatrule, every anime boomerang
becomes a terrible weapon, likeSongos or Rikos.
If it hits the thing it'strying to hit, doesn't come back
.
It's like the idea of you'rethrowing a giant boomerang on a

(01:11:54):
flying cat so you can catch.
It's cool, provided it'ssufficiently magical.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Uh, hmm, giant boomerang is pretty impractical.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
And common 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 is ashark gun, where it was a laser
pointer and then land sharkscame up and ate the target at
the end of the pointer.
Oh you want to say it'simpractical, but you love it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
I love it, but I mean I did.
I did have a random question,different random questions
besides the cardboard cutout onewhich was what would you do if
you could swim through rockslike a land shark?
Tax evasion tax evasion you'rejust gonna like swim through a

(01:13:05):
wall to get away from whoever'strying to tax you, or like I
don't know what I would do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Like.
The thing about that power isI'm not a particularly good
swimmer and like, yeah, I canbreak into places but it's like
it was a line that some atheistTED talk gave a while back.
That was like, without a code ofrules to enforce, what's to
stop you from going around andmurdering in crime all you want?

(01:13:30):
I'm like I do go around andmurder in crime as much as I
like, which is none because Ihave no desire to do that.
That's kind of my thought, likeyeah, I could swim through
stone to commit crime, I guess,but I'm not interested in doing
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 If I could swim
through everything, I don't knowhow much that would increase my
swimming content.
And if it's just rocks, whathappens if I hit a metal pipe?
Does it just go through my armand kill me?

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
Well see, when you play Monster Hunter and the
monsters are just swimmingthrough the 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 then can
immediately stand on solidground.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
I ran into that problem running D&D last weekend
so I learned dragons haveburrow speeds, okay, so they
went to this, death mine, whichwas a bunch of.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
It was a blue dragon painted red.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
So they'd get all their anti-fire gear.
And then, ha ha, surprise,lightning bolt.
There was water at the bottomof this and a bunch of train
cart, uh, minecarts like thinkDonkey Kong Country style
minecart tracks.
And the idea was that when itshot lightning, if you're
standing on one of the tracksit'd zap you.
Because I don't know.
I just kind of wanted to killthis party.
It was the B-team party and Ithought I could get away with
killing it without anylong-lasting emotional

(01:15:01):
repercussions.
So the strike ends with BurrowSpeed.
I'm like, oh, I know what I'mgoing to do.
I'm going to have a firelightning bolt and burrow
underground and come up.
But then my players startasking questions like can I
follow the tunnel behind it?
I should be able to see thedisturbed ground.
Is it rough terrain where itdug before?
And I'm like, man, burrow Spedon't work.
No, they don't, because thingsdon't actually burrow like that.

(01:15:27):
Like they dig, like forsomething to dig fast enough
that just digs under you wouldjust be structural damage.
And like you can't just digunder someone then jump up and
be like well huh, muster,rancher, hunter style.
It doesn't actually work.
I want to let you know, I'mright there with you because I'm

(01:15:47):
like, ooh, I have this scheme.
And then they asked obviousquestions about it and I wasn't
prepared as much as I thought Iwould be.
I should have just said magic.
Anywho, I did not get a TPK,although I did have five out of
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 (01:16:42):
Personally, I think I handled that situation as best
I could and I I believe Iresolved the issue.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
But just do what I do sit on a bench cross-legged,
and they'll just come up andtell you because they're
assuming your gender identitywhich I mean men don't sit
cross-legged.
To be fair, I trip a lot ofvarious beige flags, so I'm not
surprised when people reach theconclusions they reach.

(01:17:10):
But I digress.
Thank you everybody for tuningin.
I am sure my random, incoherentmonologues about the legal
system and deep, seriousconversations on polysolidical
topics about presidentialcampaigns is absolutely what I
was going for.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Yeah, 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.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
No, it's very specifically a plot point that
his food is terrible and willkill you.
Bye Bye, like me, oh.
But seriously, nerd, questionthe first.

(01:18:19):
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 Laughter.