Deep Space and Dragons

Episode 69: Convergent Evolution is a Sick name for our Episode

• Richard • Season 2 • Episode 69

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Ever wondered if you could take on a horse-sized duck or outsmart a horde of duck-sized horses? Well, wonder no more! Join us as we venture into the playful and strategic realms of Magic the Gathering, dissecting the art of deck building, the allure of game theory, and the delicate balance of power and simplicity in game design. From the color-coded wizardry of Karl's latest deck-building challenge to the thoughtful consideration of player engagement, we cover all the bases, ensuring both seasoned veterans and curious newcomers find their strategic sweet spot.

But it's not all about tapping mana and casting spells; our discussions take whimsical turns through the landscapes of pop culture and daily life. We zigzag from analyzing the 'Assassin with a Heart of Gold' trope to the nostalgic narrative of Chekhov's gunman, and then all the way to culinary corners where we dream up interviews with celebrity chefs. The narrative journey doesn't stop there—with a side quest into the world of Final Fantasy VII and musings on whether our favorite foods are shaving days off our lives, we promise a smorgasbord of topics to feast your mind upon.

As we draw the curtains on this episode, we get personal with casual confessions of our guilty pleasures (trust us, you won't guess what's on the list). And let's not forget the sci-fi gadget debate that might just leave you yearning for a World Trigger in your life. Whether you're here for strategic insights, cultural critiques, or just want to chuckle at the absurdity of our hypothetical battles, there's a spot at our table for you. So grab your favorite snack and join us for an episode that's as unpredictable as it is entertaining.

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Richard:

this in the morning, just take a nap and listen to the evening, and I'm Richard, the completely reasonable co-host of Deep Space and Dragons.

Karl:

And I am Karl, the completely unhinged co-host of Deep Space and Dragons, and I mean, like it's breakfast time in China, so Is that true? You could just.

Richard:

Like I don't know, Like we do not have the budget to employ more than one fact checker.

Karl:

I don't. We don't even play any fact checkers. None of us get paid. Well, I mean you do get paid by me supporting you on patreon but that's deep to God.

Richard:

I mean, yes, accurate. I don't even know how to handle what's new in the world of Karl. I'm gonna justck that like bullet time.

Karl:

Okay, what's new? Okay, as fans of our podcast may or may not know, I am a fan of Magic the Gathering.

Richard:

You know, I feel like that's actually come up like enough that they should know this.

Karl:

And if they, don't know it they have homework to catch up on. I feel like it should too. So magic is divided into the five colors white, blue, black, red, green, blue bird and devoid. Don't forget devoid well and yeah, wastes I guess the worst basic land type, because they were only printed for like one or two sets and now they're actually. If you actually want to create a colorless deck, good luck. They're also just the worst colorless option.

Richard:

But before we like, let this overtake our entire episode. I assume this story, much like a triangle, has three points.

Karl:

I'm not sure if it has exactly three points, but it can, if we shape it. One of those points is that the format that I like to play the most is Commander, because it forces you to choose a commander that suits whatever deck you're trying to build, and then it forces you to find all you choose a commander that suits whatever deck you're trying to build, and then it forces you to find all of the options that fit that theme, because you can only take one of each, although I do want to follow up with something.

Richard:

My favorite magic format is booster draft, because I'm poor but better at the game than most people. So if given completely random cards, I actually will do pretty well, Not related to your story, but our audience may not have picked up on this. I'm also played a fair bit of Magic. The Gathering as a general rule, yeah, anyway, please continue.

Karl:

You definitely talk about Magic a lot less than I do.

Richard:

Well, that's because I like pivoted to flesh and blood, because my ongoing casual war with wizards of the coast, which you'll get more into the what's new of Richard's segment and if you're listening to this. You should employ me and I'll change my stances but so commander is a four-player format well, you already made like three errors in that sentence, but please continue what?

Karl:

okay, so commander is a multiplayer format like what's yeah, commander is one to five players one to five. Really, I've never played with five players.

Richard:

I feel like five would be just one too many it's kind of funny is they used to put out the Cycles of Commander decks as five decks back when it was Elder Dragon Highlander, because there was five Elder Dragons and each player picked an Elder Dragon. But then they realized that four is a more manageable number of players, but three is a decent number. I don't hate three and I've 1v1'd people at Commander before, just because.

Karl:

I'm not a huge fan of 1v1. I find that one deck generally just steamrolls the other.

Richard:

I also find that like duel decks or like draft decks are usually better for 1v1. Like two good calibrated duel decks for my opponent picks first, because I did not learn from Gary Oak.

Karl:

it's just a good tactic but so, in my mind, the ideal number of people to play commander with is you start with four, and so, then, I needed to build what I am calling a cycle of decks that represents all five colors you see why five makes sense, just off the record, why, like, if I put anyway, I'm sorry, good to you but so, uh, the first deck I made was my red black goblins deck, uh, where the theme is that it is, it is only goblin cards, aside from the lands, uh, and so, oh, you're about to lose some points, because if you managed to do this four times with four different, only one creature types, you would get bonus points uh, no, I, I did not do it the same. Well, it would be really hard to actually create diverse decks when you're trying to do from that, from that theme goblins, elves, merc, folk knights I mean, yeah, you're right, it could be done.

Karl:

Uh sorry, but I I just do feel like it would be difficult to actually get functioning themes that play substantially differently, because they're all.

Richard:

All the decks would just be creature heavy decks it's interesting because like any tribal mono would be weird, but like it would still be a more rampy deck. I'll get back to you. I'm going to ponder this, but please, I took away your story because I am a cruel, cruel man.

Karl:

Well, okay, but so then the next deck I built was my tribal wizard's deck, which is not only wizards there are some artifacts and some non-wizard spells.

Richard:

I feel like wizards need spells.

Karl:

Yeah, wizards need spells, it's just a thing. That's my blue deck, so I've got red, black and blue represented so far, and then I built my fight stuff deck, which is a deck. It's a green deck and it's all about playing creatures that give you value from taking damage like the creatures themselves and then making them fight other creatures outside of combat and protecting them so they can fight more creatures outside of combat. Okay. And so you know, you can see how each of these three decks plays quite differently.

Richard:

Yes.

Karl:

But none of them have a graveyard strategy, Like they don't dig through the graveyard to try and find what you actually want or need for any given situation.

Richard:

Which any like high-tier. Magic players would be glaring at you. So hard right now for no graveyard strategies.

Karl:

Well, so despite Mono White not really having much graveyard strategy kind of disagree I managed to build. Well, I mean, it does have some graveyard strategy, but generally, if you're looking for, like, a reanimator strategy or ways to get cards out of your graveyard, you're you're looking way more into like black I black.

Richard:

I guess, but like. I don't know If I had the magic community in this room and, like I need a mono-white graveyard deck, it'd be like three lists would appear.

Karl:

Yeah, that's true. I probably could have actually just net decked this.

Richard:

No no, no, no, but instead no, no. The internet is just a bad thing, just full stop. We should just ban it. Then we'd have to get a radio transmitter and be in a tower to give our weekly show, and that'd kind of be sick. I'd have to have you literally call in on a landline and connect it to the transmitter.

Karl:

That would be sick, though, but so the point of the matter is, you are probably right that there are graveyard decks in mono-white, but generally speaking, decks will run more colors, so they have more access to diverse cards. So mono white already limits me to what I can access in terms of graveyard strategy. Uh, and then, white is not often about getting cards out of your graveyard because the thing is so.

Richard:

That's well to follow that one up a bit for the sake of clarity, because I can. So white contains three creature types that are usually pretty graveyard themed, like angels there's a lot of angel effects that do graveyard related things. Spirits and one other thing that eludes me Humans, I guess. But, it's like yeah, no, there's white would be in second place. If you told me to make a graveyard deck for the color I'd go for.

Karl:

Really yeah, oh, maybe I built my deck wrong then.

Richard:

No, you can't build it wrong, because you're playing for fun. That's why the internet is bad?

Karl:

That's true, that's true. But so the commander? He is the linchpin of the deck. Without the commander, I think the deck would probably fall flat on its face, because the commander is, whenever you play a historic spell, artifact, legendary or saga, fun fact I have a friend with a cat named Saga you return a creature card with a mana value of 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, and so then I filled the deck with a bunch of cheap artifacts, and I filled the deck with a ton with as many cards as I could find that were draw a card, discard a card, and then a few that are discard a card, draw a card, which is just slightly worse, not slightly worse no, no, no, no.

Richard:

so like I study game theory a fair bit, not like the channel, although I like the channel drawing a card, then discarding a card is a measurably better than discarding, than drawing a card, because you go you lose like let's assume you have a four card hand and you draw and discard, that is a one in five chance you lose something of value. If you discard the draw, that's a one in three chance you lose something of value. That is almost twice as bad, just mathematically. It's not a little difference.

Karl:

There are a few cards that discard, then draw, which is a little bit unfortunate.

Richard:

Worse so much worse.

Karl:

The majority of them are draw then discard.

Richard:

Draw then discard is a cilantro of trading cards.

Karl:

But so that was the last deck, the deck that completes my cycle, as I call it, because I have every single color represented. I'm a little bit sad that black feels a little bit underrepresented because it's basically splashed into the red deck.

Richard:

I mean, if it was me I would run black, white angels for a reanimator deck. But I'm also really cool.

Karl:

So the point of this is that I finished this deck and then I actually had a chance to play test it, not against the other decks that I made, uh, which I was a little bit sad because my one friend was playing um, the I don't know what set it's from. It's a pirate's deck. Oh, ixalon. Yeah, it's from ixalon, explor.

Richard:

So Explorer of Ixalan had a D&D crossover PDF that has stat blocks for, like the five elder dinosaurs and my campaign's going through Tome of Annihilation and I'm just like, yeah, I'm gonna just put on this random encounter chamber the five elder dinosaurs. If they get a double O, I'm gonna just put that on there. Anyway, it happened twice during a session, what so? If the encounter shows up once, they see it. If it shows up twice, it jumps them, and if it shows up three times, it chases them. So they've seen it twice and that just makes me happy.

Karl:

That is pretty amazing. But the Pirate's Deck unfortunately, is also a graveyard themed deck, because the commander, when you move to combat, you bring a pirate back from your graveyard. They come back as a 4-4, but if they die they get exiled, uh, and so then it has all sorts of like it's just the battlefield effects and and then like banner effects for for pirates. So pirates all get plus one plus one.

Richard:

It's probably actually just better at the graveyard strategy than my off-brand black deck well, amusingly enough, one of my favorite magic things jeremy ever had because I never added was a cycle of it was five commander decks but each commander was a planeswalker and they're mono-colored. Ah, and I loved it because it's like, okay, each deck has a planeswalker and they're monocolored. And I loved it because it's like, okay, each deck has a very clear, obvious theme and it's clean, like this is a great way to teach people this game. But we both know that they've drowned it in so many crossover projects that I've just kind of stopped liking crossovers. And it's just like yeah, I want to play the game where my space Marine can shoot pinky pie. Yeah, that's, that's the game I want to play. The game where my space marine can shoot pinky pie yeah, that's, that's the game I want to play.

Karl:

It's like when people are like, yeah, I got the Peter Griffith skin on Fortnite, I'm like man, maybe Y2K should have wiped out all the computers but the point of the matter, though, is that I play tested it, and pretty much as soon as I got my commander out into play, I just started doing a ton of stuff, and I had felt actually like I was doing so much stuff, and it wasn't very interactive with other people's boards and it wasn't anything particularly scary, because they're low value creatures and I'm playing low value artifacts, but, uh, I ended up doing a lot of stuff that I started to wonder are my turns taking too long, or are my friends having fun playing against this deck where I'm just doing a bunch of stuff?

Richard:

I'll follow that one up with a. They were not. So one of the worst things about Magic as a game is I always found when I was playing against Jeremy, he would always have, somehow inexplicably, five moves to my one, and I found that, with the power of my ADHD, my brain would just go elsewhere. I'd be staring at my cards, picturing my rat army with their rat flails made of other rats, and then I'd zoom back into how much of what you said actually impacts me. It's like, well, when playing competitively, you go like main phase action attack. I'm like, yeah, but you haven't said anything I can react to yet. So how much is you explaining how you're playing the game and how much actually affects me? Because at a high level event, you need to be paying attention to everything your opponent does. But if I'm playing you and you're like I have a combo and you start explaining like just tell me the results, you're like, oh, I get four goblins, like okay, thanks.

Richard:

It actually ties into a mini rant of Matt Mercer's new Darrington Press Daggerheart TTRPG.

Karl:

But that's a rant for another moment. Well, okay, so like I had a creature that reduced the cost of artifacts by one, yes, then I had a one costing artifact which now costs zero. So I play that to get back a creature.

Richard:

You think I know math. I'm a third year college student in the humanities.

Karl:

I have long since forgotten subtraction so I play that card for free because it now costs nothing. Uh, I bring back a creature that bounces an artifact in my hand. Bounce a one cast artifact to my hand. Play that card for free because it now costs nothing. I bring back a creature that bounces an artifact to my hand. Bounce a one-cast artifact to my hand. Play that artifact for free. Pull back a creature that brings another artifact from my hand.

Richard:

Play that artifact for free and me hearing this story is getting bored, Not just your opponent players. I'm getting bored With the hypothetical of how your turn went.

Karl:

And then there's a creature on the battlefield that gains me a life for each artifact that comes into play. So it's like I'm playing a whole bunch of artifacts, creatures are coming back, and then I finally move to combat or most often just do nothing because most of my creatures don't have haste.

Richard:

And that's the thing is. Like I said, one of my biggest pet peeves about how magic the game is designed is asymmetrical turns because, like a lot of players and I noticed this especially when I run dnd want to do a bunch of things, so they can have their like power fantasy moment, but that's not often good game design. So the reason that pokemon is literally the only competitive played JRPG is because you get to do one of five things a turn and that's it.

Richard:

Or like when they made the strictly better Digimon Cyber Sleuth. That had more options, more stat distribution, more hold items, more interesting interactions. No one even tried to play that competitively because they're just going to die to some random kid online. Because the more convoluted your game is, the less a bad player feels like they can learn it.

Richard:

But if your skill ceiling's too low, then you lose interest and get bored, so you kind of have a game growing complexity, but also, yeah, that makes sense. This has been 17 minutes, so please wrap up your hypothetical turn. How does the story end?

Karl:

I mean that actually was the whole point of the story was to get your opinion on whether or not that's good deck design, whether or not that's good game design. To create a super synergistic deck that does a lot of things that aren't super interactive so here's my mixed thoughts, right?

Richard:

so players like to feel powerful and do cool combo we things and they like discovering them.

Richard:

So if you built the cycle of decks with the sole intention of handing them out to other people to play, it would be satisfying to be like oh, my combo went off and they get that power high moment. You know the? Why does a fighter get to take eight actions at level 20? Because you get to feel really cool for a minute. But the downside comes to because you didn't playtest against the other decks and you're the one who playtested it. It's hard for you to get the perception of someone who's watching it happen.

Richard:

So, to loop into this rant about dagger heart, how it works is instead of an initiative system, it has a turn tracking board and each time a player takes an action, they put a token on the board when a player rolls a certain number. Basically they have like a good luck dice and a bad luck dice, and if the bad luck dice is higher than the good luck dice, the GM switches to their turn and gets a number of turns equal to tokens on the board and then it switches back. So in theory, you no longer have to roll for initiative and players can have some flexibility to who does what. There's literally mechanics for dope team attacks, but there's nothing that stops one player from taking 30 actions in a row, and players can have some flexibility to who does what. There's literally mechanics for dope team attacks.

Richard:

Right, but there's nothing that stops one player from taking 30 actions in a row, while the other players sit there and Matt Mercer's logic is this game works great for my trained voice actors and for players who set the story first, it works great.

Richard:

But if you were to do what you did with your mono white deck in this game of I climb a tree and I summon a skeleton and then I turn the skeleton into an angel and then I turn the angel into an arrow, then I fire the angel arrow and then the angel arrow turns into a cat and then the cat bites them in the shin. The rest of the player are like cool, but if they're not like confident, outspoken people, they'll just kind of sit there and let it happen. So if I was giving new players a cycle of decks, I would cap it at a three-card combo per turn. I wouldn't want anyone to play more than four cards in a turn so their attention span doesn't die. But the thing is it depends on your group, because if you bring a combo deck to play Post Malone, he has a combo where he makes Infinity Shivan and Dragons. Right.

Richard:

And is not opposed to playing 50 cards in a chain to make a combo, but if you're doing it to casual players, they'll check their phones. So it really depends on the group you have. It's much like if you want to play a game of Eldritch Horror. You can't invent everybody to a four-hour board game, fair enough. So if I were designing a cycle of decks, it would really come down to I don't want to say the skill level of my players, but their experience level, because how long would it take a new player to just read all their cards, to even do what you did, like cause goblins? Anyone could pick up by just reading what's on the cards and kind of figure it out.

Karl:

Uh well, see the goblins deck a? Uh, surprisingly has an infinite combo.

Richard:

See, that could be fine in a lot of ways People play commander.

Karl:

But B? I mean there's one card that I took out because I thought it was the earwig squad. When you play it, you can search an opponent's deck for three cards and exile and the card is absolutely bonkers for in terms of removal, because you can remove things before they're even possible to be a threat. But if you don't know your opponent's deck, which chances are you won't you don't know what you're looking for.

Richard:

There's 500 cards at that table.

Karl:

Yeah, you're looking for three cards out of 400, and you're trying to find the most valuable ones. It's like, no, your turn is going to take forever, yeah. Or there was this other really cool deck that I built. It was blue-green and it was like whenever you play a blue spell, search your deck for a creature card, put it on top. Whenever you play a green spell, draw a card, or something like that. Maybe that was reversed and I was like, oh yeah, this deck design is super cool because I'll be able to fill it with counter spells and then get Guile, the elemental, the incarnation of Guile. The card is just called Guile and it's whenever you counter a spell, gain control of it. And so I was like, yeah, okay, so the guy's not legendary. The only way to get him is to consistently get him to search for him, and that's the most consistent way to search for him, and that's the most consistent way to search for him.

Richard:

But then I play, tested it and I searched through and shuffled my deck six times in a single turn and I was like like, no, that's, that's just dumb right so it's kind of like a better reason it's like it's funny when you think good versus bad deck for like tournaments or online play, but then it becomes like enjoyment of game state for when you're planning for a specific game group. Like when I was doing like a lot of flesh and blood things at club, I literally bought a four player brawl set of four decks that were balanced for each other specifically for that purpose, and it was just way more satisfying than playing against whatever people had built, because the skill level is just going to be different.

Karl:

But anyway. So basically, what's new with me is I built a new deck and I really like it, and I bought the cards before actually even playing testing it, because I was like, oh yeah, this deck design is awesome. And now I'm having buyer's remorse because it's like so part of it's your group.

Richard:

I can't stress this enough. If your group and I played with a few of your friends before, I played Unstable Unicorns with them, they're people I'd want to make suffer. So I would absolutely spend 10 minutes on my turn making them suffer because they deserve it. But if I were trying to be like hello person I've been on two dates with, I don't really want to make you suffer then I'm not going to play a deck where I have a 5 minute turn, because it really comes down to how long do you want to make your opponent suffer as chat's just holy, that's dark, but yeah.

Karl:

Well, the worst part about the whole situation is I was doing a lot of stuff. I wasn't actually particularly dangerous because they're all like I say, they're all relatively low cost creatures, not super valuable, but my brother, despite me not being the biggest threat, was like that guy's doing too much stuff, gotta take him out.

Richard:

I was actually about to say so. There's also the meta implication. So people when playing games and I know this a lot because of how often people attack me they don't attack the strongest player, they don't attack the smartest player, they attack the most punchable player, and usually it's me by my very nature. But it can easily switch to you if you feel like you're taking a long time. So the downside to combo decks is people will gang up on you and kill you so their turns happen faster.

Richard:

So it's kind of like the Matt Mercer balance system to Initiative is if you take 10 turns in a row with your warrior and no one else does anything, then I get 10 turns.

Richard:

They're not going to let you take 10 turns again, they're going to leave you for dead. I mean, ironically, that problem can be fixed pretty easily by being like OK, everyone gets, you get to take another turn, but everyone only gets one. Like, it can be fixed pretty easily. There's still an open beta and my big feedback was nah, make it that each player can only take up to three actions before someone else gets to do something, just like.

Karl:

put some hard rules on it, because some players are obnoxious, right that that is definitely true, um, but that that's what's new with me, is I, is I uh built a new magic deck and I played it once, and now I'm considering, like, what do I do to make it better, what do I do to make it more playable with my group?

Richard:

My group is actually pretty chill with the deck design, I think, because, like I say, it does a lot of stuff, but it doesn't feel like it's overwhelming the other players because it's not particularly interactive with their boards, and so then they don't feel like it's a one-sided battle when, because I'm not in that group, I'd probably show up next week with something to spite you, where I just make all your cards cost one more, or constantly exile my graveyard. What's this? I have an exile graveyard deck. What are the odds?

Karl:

But that's enough Like say, uh well, we've already had like 22 minutes or something like that oh yeah, which is a perfect demonstration probably need to find out what's new with you.

Richard:

Probably not so I'm in like the crunch time, because I have three weeks left, but my profs never use the last week because we don't have final exams for the most part Okay. So it's like I'm working on big school projects and I air fried a turkey. And what else did I do? That's pretty much it Big school projects and air frying turkeys, except me and one of my friends had a Final Fantasy VII party.

Karl:

Like the sequel remake.

Richard:

Oh yeah, so the sequel remake came out. So we hung out, we ate buffalo wings and pizza, drank soju and enjoyed the game. And because you see, the thing about a pretty game like that is it's a great game to pass controllers back and forth while the other person snacks, because it's pretty much an interactive movie, yeah yeah. So then I proceeded to binge all of Final Fantasy VII Abridged so I can remember what happened in the original game, to see what the bullshittery.

Karl:

The machine mod version.

Richard:

Yeah, yeah, okay, because I'm like what the hell happened in this game? I've forgotten. And now it's been four years since I played part one of the remake. But also they're changing things in the remake and the plots about Gaslight and Cloud, so I'm like I have to actually remember how he was being gaslit for this to make sense. Right. Like legitimately the plot was, Cloud gaslit himself so hard that he saved the world.

Karl:

Gaslit himself.

Richard:

Yeah, he gaslit himself into thinking he was a super soldier and it worked. That is literally the plot. Is he gaslit himself into thinking he was a first class soldier and then he somehow succeeded. Like his sheer thought confidence that he could wield a buster sword allowed him to wield a buster sword which is bigger than guts's sword, whose backstory is since guts was two. He was wielding swords.

Karl:

I'm pretty sure it was like straight from birth. I'm pretty sure he was born with a sword in his hand.

Richard:

Guts' backstory is so edgy that it's actually kind of perfect. See, I would love to run Guts in a D&D campaign, because everyone innately plays clowns and I'm just trying to be like the most serious edgelord. It just would not work.

Karl:

Okay, but stepping this back a minute. Yes, air fried a turkey. Was it a large air fryer or a small turkey?

Richard:

So it was not technically a turkey, it was a turkey roast which was like it looked like a ham made of turkey meat. Okay, so I made up some garlic chili butter, I threw it in the air fryer and then, I like, used the drippings to make red eye gravy. So it was like a chili red eye gravy on air fried turkey.

Karl:

And it was delightful. You know, the food recipes are the real reason our fans are here.

Richard:

I hope so. I would love magic, Like we basically have like a full morning show going. Like part of me wonders if we should like just do the news but like make it like nerdy news stories and just work in like recipes and celebrity chefs and things.

Karl:

Oh man, if we could get a celebrity chef to show up on our channel, I mean, I don't know, that would be w me having any guest star at this point would be, although I've never tried to be fair.

Richard:

Like I actually know people, I'm weirdly famous but, also, I've never tried because it's like they're tuning in for Richard and Karl. They don't want Richard and Karl and Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay would take away. Gordon Ramsay would sit there for 25 minutes while we talked about whether taking too many turns during a game takes away from the fun value laughter, laughter.

Karl:

An episode with a guest star would definitely be a different animal, for sure.

Richard:

I feel like we need a second show. We'd have like Richard and Karl percent Deep Space and Dragons, and we'd have Richard and Karl torture of the interview, or like the Richard and Karl celebrity guest show or something Like it'd have to be. It makes me think of something. So John Oliver does his like 30-minute deep dives into random depressing topics Right, and he was talking about how originally they're gonna have guests and they just gave up on that idea completely because he wasn't good at interviewing people.

Karl:

Ah, yeah, okay.

Richard:

And the thing is, I think we could interview people, but that'd have to like be a second show.

Karl:

Mm. Yeah, probably.

Richard:

Also also new with me is I actually learned how to set up chapter markers. So like last week's episode, it's like chapter markers by topic, oh, and like I like fleshed and I got like pulled the transcript off of it and changed the season to case. So it's like last week's episode looks so nice aesthetically, Cause like I bothered to do all the bios and things today.

Karl:

So we're like a hundred episodes in and we just finally started dividing our episodes into chapters.

Richard:

Right. Well, it occurred to me to try and control F keywords because we jump so many topics about Akira Toriyama that we should let people know when the Akira Toriyama part starts, because we are skilled professionals.

Karl:

We are. I mean the topic today, if you're still interested. Is is the um my spouse is super alien assassin yeah, well, it's a character archetype, or maybe it's a movie design. Um, actually segueing into our topic, I got, I got a random question, a random-ish question for you. Love it, have you?

Richard:

heard of the term convergent evolution. I feel like I have yes.

Karl:

Yes, I have Okay. Well, I mean, firstly, I'm waiting for you to elaborate because I mean, I know what it is.

Richard:

but I'm curious if you know what it is. It's where you have two light forms or things on separate parts of the world that somehow evolve the same thing, so like, for example, if horses showed up on, like if you had two different horse-like creatures, like zebras and horses evolve that way but don't share a common ancestor.

Richard:

So it's kind of like how a lot of things have eyes above their nose because that just makes sense, or how most cultures on Earth figured out some kind of salsa okay, okay, uh, well, similar in in theme with that.

Karl:

Um, there's two movies that have come out within the last two years. I'm not sure when family, the family plan, came out, but it's a movie where Mark Wahlberg is a, he settles down and has a family and he's a retired hitman, but then the company that he works for puts a hit on him, and then in the end of the movie it turns out that the person running the evil organization is Mark Wahlberg's father, and so there's this confrontation between the son and the father, and he's like I love my family and I'm trying to just live a normal life, just let me be, and the father's like no, I made you and you should live up to your destiny, and all that kind of stuff. It was a pretty funny movie, okay. But then there's another movie. For some reason I can't think of her name, but the girl who played Penny on Big Bang Theory I think her last name is like Cujo.

Richard:

Hayley Cujo or something yeah.

Karl:

C-U-J-O. That's her last name. I'm like 99% sure Can't remember her first name.

Richard:

Kaylee Kuko or something.

Karl:

Kuko. You're right, it might be Kuko.

Richard:

Not Kujo, not the murderous dog from You're right I?

Karl:

feel like she plays.

Richard:

Harley Quinn, but I'm not sure that's.

Karl:

Margot Robbie.

Richard:

No, and like one of the animated ones, I think.

Karl:

Oh, maybe, but so this movie.

Richard:

Oh yeah, she voices Harley Quinn in the animated Harley Quinn.

Karl:

So this movie, hayley Cuoco her character is a semi-retired contract killer who's the company that she retired from basically puts a hit out on her and then she goes and it turns out the person running the company is her adopted mother and she's all like, yeah, I love my family, just let me be. And the mother's like you got to live up to your destiny, I made you uh. And then there's a you know climactic battle between the two of them, uh and uh, I don't know I. I found it very interesting that I don't know if any of the production teams from other either of these movies, like if there's any overlap between production team, but I found it a little bit odd that two very, very similar plot structures would come together within such a short span of time, relatively speaking, for movie production.

Karl:

Because, they were probably at least somewhat in production at the same time.

Richard:

Alright, so I have a triangle worth of thoughts on this. So point the first is that Convergent Evolution is a sick name for our episode, Richard and Karl. Convergently Evolve is pretty great, okay. Second point is a lot of it's hindsight. So Convergent Evolution is a weird concept, I find and I feel like we've talked about it before where we'll look at two series and be like so actually, this is when this came up.

Richard:

Okay, so I was in science fiction class last term and we're looking at Blade Runner and Akira those two things have a ton of common themes, right, genetically engineered humans, motorcycles, all cyber and punky but they're both in the production independently on other sides of the planet, and they're both in production too late for the other one to influence them. So they both were foundational to cyberpunk but could not actually affect each other, and that's when the phrase convergent evolution came up. That's a great case of it where just two places on Earth independently make the two fundamental staples of cyberpunk in different mediums at the same time. There's like a six month difference between launch windows.

Karl:

Yeah, so there's no way they could possibly have affected each other. These two movies Role family, the family plan are less likely to be completely independent of each other because they are both done in hollywood in north america.

Richard:

So it's they could very easily have affected although now our topic has changed to let's try and find things that convergently evolve, like what are two things that came out around the same time, that feel like they ripped each other off but possibly couldn't have?

Karl:

well, I don't know if I have enough wealth of knowledge for that particular topic. The only example that I immediately have is the American version of Dennis the Menace and the UK version of Dennis the Menace. They tried to sue each other because they both came out with the same American version of Dennis the Menace and the UK version of Dennis the Menace. They tried to sue each other because they both came out with the same comic at the same time, but it turns out that they couldn't sue each other because they were actually completely independent.

Richard:

That is fascinating. A real world example is birds and bats.

Karl:

I mean, that's not a real world example. No, I said birds, and I guess it's not evolution, but like I'm sorry.

Richard:

When I meant real world, I meant biological as in, not movies. I'm sorry. Okay, go on about birds and bats. No, I'm done now. They convergently evolved. That's just a fact. Okay, so then back to the topic of and bats. No, I'm done now. They can urgently evolve, that's just a fact, okay.

Karl:

So then back to the topic of movies, where one partner in a family is secretly a badass, yeah. Firstly, normally I find that this is no Well. That kind of tells the trope. I don't know if it's actually true. I couldn't actually find this specific trope on tv tropesorg you'll be happy to know.

Karl:

I tried to look up convergent, implausible convergent evolution, but it is not in fact a trope uh, but I tried to look it up and the closest thing I could find was Hitman with a Heart of Gold, I think it was where it's like they kill people but they have a moral code, so they're not inherently evil and they have more depth to the character, even though they're doing evil things.

Richard:

I found a trope called Coal Oriented, but that has nothing to do with this.

Karl:

But I don't know, have you seen the movie? Nobody, no, that's the guy who plays Saul from Better Call Saul slash Breaking Bad.

Richard:

I have not, but I know the guy.

Karl:

Okay, well, the point of this movie is there's an unassuming nobody kind of guy and he's just like a perfect dad, but he seems kind of unhappy with the monotony of his life. And then their house gets broken into and he thinks about beating the shit out of these burglars. But he doesn't, because, firstly, he notices that they don't actually have any bullets in their gun, because it's a revolver and you can see whether or not it's loaded, and so he decides not to beat the crap out of these people. And then his son is like man, you're such a bitch, ass bitch. Sorry for using one swear for this episode, but I mean bitch ass.

Richard:

Bitch is just what people sound like now.

Karl:

But so the son calls his dad out for being lame, and then the dad's like you know what? I'm not going to be lame, I'm just going to go fight some drug dealers. And so then it turns out that he used to be like a cleanup crew for like the CIA or something, and the movie's called Nobody, because that's how he, like that's his calling card, it's like I'm nobody. And then the CIA comes in like oh yeah, this, this guy just ignore him. He does his stuff whatever. And it was interesting to me because it's at the time it came out, not too long after John Wick. And a whatever. And it was interesting to me because at the time it came out not too long after John Wick, and a lot of people thought it was really similar to John Wick.

Richard:

I do like me some first. John Wick.

Karl:

It really did manage to differentiate itself from John Wick because of the whole family aspect. As opposed to there was no dog dying or a car getting stolen or anything, it was just he was secretly a badass. And then someone messed with the wrong guy and he's just having a you know mental health day Cause his life is boring, monotonous and nobody thinks he's as badass as he is.

Richard:

So, ironically enough, sakamoto days. If it stayed the show, I wanted it to be subverted. That trope quite nicely Cause like yeah, no, he's just. The spouse wasn't a secret assassin, the spouse was just a very public assassin that no one messed with because they knew that, although I did find a fun example of convergent evolution, Divergent evolution Digimon and. Pokemon Convergent Convergent.

Karl:

Divergent is like the opposite of what we're talking about. But Evolution, Digimon and Pokemon Convergent, Convergent, Divergent is like the opposite of what we're talking about.

Richard:

But yeah, digimon and Pokemon were in production at the same time, huh, and they were released with a one year window apart, so they didn't actually have a chance to rip each other off.

Richard:

Because Digimon Tamagotchi came out six months before the Pokemon game and then their animes came out a two-year apart, but they both had already made their concept. But it was only one year apart. So like I don't think someone broke into game freaking went. Oh, you're making a cool bug collecting game. I'm a beat you with my digital monster. Tamagotchi pet, probably not. So I found that one fascinating because they're like yeah, we're just gonna pocket monsters and digital monsters. I'm like maybe the names got affected, but like the actual concept came out simultaneously almost but so I don't know.

Karl:

Part of the reason I wanted to talk about this topic was because I thought that it was a common enough trope that you would have banter to come across, or that we would at least be able to find the TV tropes at org trope description. But I like, I feel like I've seen this a lot of, a lot of times and I feel like it is an archetype that people use to design stories. But I don't know if it's interesting, Right.

Richard:

Cause, like the hidden, like family member trope, as it were. Like when I literally Googled hidden assassin in a family, mark Wahlberg was the first thing that pop up.

Karl:

But like oh yeah, that was probably. That was probably the best of the three movies that I just mentioned. Oh yeah, I mean, nobody was pretty good at role play, was kind of meh.

Richard:

But so I mentioned, when we were talking missing, mission impossible, impossible. Yep, that if one of the face reveals was his wife would have been amazing, because, because, like you're right, like this feels like it's a more common trope than it actually is.

Karl:

Well, either that or it's just too broad for TV tropes to define it.

Richard:

Well, it's weird, like I'm trying to think of examples. So I'm on the hitman with a heart of gold trope, but I think it's more common that I was a hitman and then my love interest died and then I became a mercy. A bounty hunter is extremely common because, like that's most of these on this list, like guts train from black cat, someone from assassination classroom which I couldn't be bothered to read the full article.

Richard:

but you get the the idea right, like the idea that like, oh, I stopped being assassin because someone died. It's just such a film noir scene. But the oh, my loved one's secretly an assassin. Honestly, I feel like it happens in Marvel and DC a lot to artificially inflate the numbers Like any given person. Batman's dating is secretly an assassin. All of them All of them Best case.

Karl:

Batman's luck is almost as bad as uh Denji's from Chainsaw man.

Richard:

No, firmly disagree, no, no, denji. No one and I'm including guts in this list has been less lucky than Denji. Okay, because, like usually, the bad things are their backstory and then, when the story starts, good things happen to you. But Denji has exactly enough good things happen to make the bad things worse. Like he finally eats a good meal, specifically, so someone vomits in his mouth. He has his first kiss just so he has to kill her. Like good things that happen to Denji are just to make Denji's life worse. He goes on his first date so he learns that he can never be with anybody. That was the only reason he got a date was so he could be captured and get his leg repeatedly chopped off.

Karl:

Like oh man was. The only reason he got a date was so he could be captured to get his leg repeatedly chopped off like oh man. I don't know that they repeatedly chopped off his leg. The latest chapter all of his body parts are just in boxes and they're trying to reassemble him they definitely repeatedly did, I think. I feel like that stuck out to me but yeah, like it sounded like maybe they did.

Richard:

But so we got hero you. You accidentally killed a child so he became a Gundndam pilot and then became a assassin with a heart of gold. Like the assassin with the heart of gold, like the. Why can't I kill you? Like I don't know if hero yui from gundam wing counts, because, like she figured out he was an assassin instantly and then he didn't kill her.

Richard:

So it wasn't like he was a secret assassin, it was more like, uh, he was a secret assassin, but it didn't matter that it was a secret right although apparently on the assassin hitman with a heart of gold trope, every character in naruto technically fits this, I'm like, no, they weren't actually assassins, nice try, nice try very few assassinations happened, even though there are so many ninjas so many ninjas

Richard:

but a shockingly slow number of death, although apparently the first character to be shown killing someone on screen was choji really, apparently, according to tv tropes I mean we need to.

Richard:

We need to contact our one fact checker for that oh yeah, I will message them after this and like, yeah, no, I'm looking at this list of like assassin for heart of gold and there's definitely more. The I was an assassin and then someone I love died and then I became like a mercenary and either they're mercenary who never kills or mercenary who always kills. John Wick is the perfect example of that one Of my wife. So I stopped being an assassin and then she died. And then he killed my dog and everyone must die. But the shock my family member is an assassin thing. I feel like I've seen it more. This is bugging me because I'm not like finding examples of it that's the thing.

Karl:

It's like those. Those three examples are the best examples, mr and mrs Smith, with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I think, is that kind of skirts the trope as well, except that they're both.

Richard:

I think we might just be brainwashed by Marvel and DC, because I'm like thinking about Marvel and DC now. I'm like thinking about Marvel and DC now I'm like, all right, almost any time someone dates someone in a comic book, they're an assassin. Batman's dated at least three. Superman's dated at least one, wonder Woman's dated at least one, green Lantern's dated at least five Like the odds that if you're a superhero and you're dating someone, and they turn out to be a super villain are real.

Richard:

Either you've married them or they're a super villain. Like there's almost no middle ground that's fair so that might be why we have just been brainwashed well, it's like so many side characters turned out to be secret badasses in marvel movies because I was just a trope that it might have like poisoned my mind.

Karl:

Well, I just I feel like the comedy bit where the, the non-assassin partner, is like, oh, why do you have a gun? And they're like, don't worry about it. Also, just take this gun and point and shoot, like the, the the exact line, point and shoot where the secret assassin member is telling the regular member to.

Richard:

Right, because then we're getting into like. Jason Bourne and Tom Cruise territory of, like the spy thriller trope of less about my spouse is a secret assassin and more like regular dude learns friend is badass assassin dude learns friend is badass assassin.

Karl:

Yeah, I mean, maybe that's where I'm tricking, where I'm mixing things up is like the regular who just finds out his friend and I just extended that to be about family members. But, like I say, there's at least two movies that come out relatively recently, and then nobody is the oldest of the three that I mentioned, mr and mrs smith being the absolute oldest. But then, like the trope maker, oh, I mean, it might be, except that it kind of subverts the very trope that I'm trying to define.

Richard:

Well, let's see. Let's see if Mr and Mrs Smith itself is a trope, let's see here.

Karl:

The two assassins have to assassinate each other.

Richard:

Let's see Bolivian army ending. That's amusing. So as I'm browsing through these Mm-hmm Chekhov's gunman I don't know if that's the trope we're looking for, but there is a trope called Chekhov's gunman. A character is innocuously and inappropriately introduced to the viewer who later proves to be important by the end of the story. In other words, they're a human Chekhov's gun. Yeah, okay. That feels closer to what you're looking for Hmm, maybe. Where you just introduce a character and then they end up shooting somebody. Hmm.

Richard:

I don't know. I don't know. Also, anyone who taught Peter Parker science turns out to be an assassin or a villain. I don't know why that one's weirdly specific, but it's true.

Karl:

I mean that is fair, because he worked for the Osborne Corp for a while. Too right, peter Parker did, or at least that's no, he never actually did work there, did he? No, he just showed up and then people turned out to be villains. Well, all the villains turned out to be from Osborne Corp Only when they rewrite it to be bad.

Richard:

So a lot of movie series and franchises have this weird habit especially when you adapt something that when you do an adaptation, people feel like they're compelled supernaturally to link unrelated plot points together. So, like the Cowboy Bebop live action made every one of the one vignettes link together to a bigger story. It's like that was literally the opposite point of Cowboy Bebop. And like you'll like watch Yu Yu Hakusho on Netflix and be like, yeah, we've linked together all these plot points, I'm like why are you doing that? You'll just take to it like even we're saying the new spider-man movies linked every villain to Oscorp for literally no reason. Hmm, and it's just what people do when they adapt a story is they're like we need to link these plot points together so I can track them easier. I guess, like it's bad your Dragon Ball did.

Richard:

Like we need to link these plot points together so I can track them easier. I guess Like could you imagine if Dragon Ball did that where they linked every villain to being part of the Frieza forces for some reason, like the Red Raid of an army turned out to be like a sleeper cell of the Frieza forces? That's the kind of thing they do. Actually, that would not surprise me to see in the Dragon Ball Super manga, ugh.

Karl:

That would be pretty funny, but the Stregoball Super Manga Is on indefinite hiatus.

Richard:

I'm fine with that. However, mr Smith Is in fact A name of a trope where you just call your Fake name Mr Smith. So, mr and Mrs, Smith. Or James Smith, happens enough as a fake name to be a trope.

Karl:

Well, I mean, yeah, there's a, at least in North America. I don't know how common the last name Smith is nowadays, but like it used to just be a super common last name.

Richard:

Like in the anime Dockered in Black, several characters just used Mr Smith as a face name. Over the course of it, Ghost of the Shell did it too, where a character was just named John Smith, NSN agent, I mean.

Ghost?:

I really like when they. We talked at the same time. The gist of what we're.

Karl:

The gist of what we're getting at is that the specific trope that I think exists might not exist.

Richard:

What I learned is we may need to do a bit more research before we do our episodes. I'm afraid If we didn't fill the first 20 minutes of Card Talk, we'd be struggling to find more examples of Mr and Mrs Smith logic.

Karl:

Well, I mean, that might have been on purpose. You never know.

Richard:

No, no, it was not. I call bullshit. You do not get to pull an eyes in and say your parents met because I planned it. I'm the one who poked a hole in the condom so your son would be born, so I could become a god.

Richard:

All I'm saying is that when you didn't have any examples of the specific trope I was looking for, I was like, hmm, maybe we'll need to pad our run times so I really thought I'd have more like it sounds really familiar because my brain's like, oh yeah, like Electra and like, and then my brain just like went through a montage of spy movies I've seen in my life that I haven't found enough to maintain. You know, it's a complete inverse of the trope that happens actually with a montage of spy movies.

Ghost?:

I've seen in my life that I haven't found enough to maintain.

Richard:

You know what's? A complete inverse of the trope. That happens actually with a lot of frequency If two characters are attracted to each other in a Power Ranger or Shoujo or whatever, but they have alter egos. Both of them have alter egos and they either like or hate each other in their regular form, Like the two superheroes who crush in superhero form and despise each other in regular form is such a magical girl trope. It's actually like amazing, Huh. I say as someone who's watched a reasonable enough amount of magical girl shows.

Karl:

I don't apologize. That is an interesting play on the trope that I'm imagining anyways.

Richard:

Because it's like, yeah, that's the idea that we have two characters who fight, hate each other immensely, but their alter egos are in love. I feel like I've seen that trope a lot, where it's like they crush on your fake identity but they don't care about the real you Like. I feel like I've seen that.

Karl:

Hmm, well, I mean, they even did that in the Spider-Man, where Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man, mary Jane, loves Spider-Man but she doesn't even recognize Peter Parker and then it's like the staple of Superman is that Lois Lane likes Superman and Clark Kent is dull as shit yeah which to be fair.

Richard:

I don't think that's the source of this trope, but a lot of it has that energy hmm, you want to assess that energy Witch Watch with the werewolf?

Karl:

There's the other witch that crushes on the alter ego with the werewolf.

Richard:

Man that altered in Asta in space.

Karl:

Asta in space was so good.

Richard:

Yes, and Witch Watch is not. I want to be very clear about this.

Karl:

I am also not happy about Witch Watch, but no secret spies in there, though, although there are a lot of secret betrayals.

Richard:

Yeah, but they're all like mundane betrayals. It's one of those shows I forgot to have stakes.

Karl:

Well, the worst part is that it had stakes and then it felt like it was getting going somewhere and then like, ah jk, now she's a kid again and I, I seriously have almost given up on it.

Richard:

And it takes a lot to make me give up on a on a manga like that yeah, I know the feeling like I've been very much enjoying psychic police officer but there isn't a whole lot going on in Show and Jump Like. I pray every week for my Hero Academia to end Like.

Karl:

I'm not kidding Like every week.

Richard:

I'm like please, please, just end. This has been going for so long.

Karl:

Are there any examples of convergent evolution in my Hero Academia?

Richard:

So yes and no, so show and jump. It's hard to tell, because a lot of ideas are so replicated in a manga where I'm like, yeah, you all feel like you're ripping each other off, which makes me wonder, like how old some of their original ideas actually are. Because it's like when did he write his Jujutsu Kaisen one shot? Because if it was after Bleach, then he definitely just ripped off Bleach right, right but like.

Richard:

Also like how many series have we reborn in another world? Did any come out close enough at the same time that this idea was novel? Or are the people just deep absorbing the idea, like Indie, washington and Escaflowne like how far apart are those ideas? So it's an interesting topic but, like Convergent Evolution, to figure out like which ideas came out around the same time Definitely would take like active research, like if I wrote a paper on it I'd have to actually write the paper because I've never actually looked at release dates that often.

Karl:

Well, and to be perfectly frank, we really don't do that much research for our show.

Richard:

We just kind of I mean, I have read hundreds of thousands of hours of manga and played hundreds of thousands of hours of big games. Are you just saying I'm not doing that for the show? I played through all of Unicorn Overlord, not for research for this podcast, but because I enjoy it? Is that what you're accusing me of?

Karl:

I am accusing you of enjoying manga, anime and video games.

Richard:

Yes, how dare you. This is work I do for our fans, just no respect. But with that, let's go to our random questions. Unless you have more thoughts on spies pretending to be spies, cuz we can definitely easily fill an episode, but I thought we'd have more examples.

Karl:

I mean, the only other things I would want to say would be the reasons why I didn't particularly like roleplay, but I feel like we're too too far gone let's dive back.

Richard:

I need a moment to look through our so I have to find the Deep Space and Dragons email and remember which password I used for that. So you've got a moment.

Karl:

Well, okay. So, like I said, if this trope does exist, I feel like it's generally a comedy trope, and Family Plan with Mark Wahlberg was hilarious because it just had all sorts of silly wait, wait, wait, pause the fuck up.

Richard:

I use your f-bomb for this. Perry the platypus is the trope, objectively speaking wait is that?

Karl:

is that on TV tropes Perry, the Platypus and similar media?

Richard:

No, I just Perry. The Platypus is a perfect example of this trope of actually being a secret spy that everyone knows it's like reveal, like yeah, no, that's just an actual example and it makes me mad and happy. Please continue and happy.

Karl:

Please continue. Well, so this role-playing movie. It sells itself as a comedy in the trailers, but it's one of those trailers where anything that is funny was revealed in the trailer.

Richard:

Ew.

Karl:

Comedies that spoil. Everything in the trailer is gross. Well, and so then it's like it wanted to be a comedy, but it took itself way too seriously. And then at the end, the supposed villain, who is the badass adopted mother that trained the assassin in the first place? She just running around like a complete rube in the forest, like, doesn't even.

Richard:

Oh, I hate that.

Karl:

You're supposed to be the badass trainer? Why are you so completely inept? It doesn't really show the assassin being a badass either. It just makes it seem like the company that she quit was just not good at doing their job.

Richard:

Well, it's funny, like I've said it a few times where it's hard to write characters that are smarter than you are. And it's always funny to me when someone writes a character as I'm smart, but actually they're just omnipotent, because it's like yeah, I wrote this character. They're the most badass genius. Their plans always work out perfectly, it's like. But you can't, you're not smart enough to come up with the plan, so then you just had their bad plan work out and call them smart rather than them having a good plan.

Karl:

Well, I kind of feel like that extends into a combat experience where it's like they say someone's a badass but then they get warped on screen. Well, they just they know they don't know what it means to be, uh, uh, ex-military, right, like they don't know what kind of ticks and and uh what kind of strategies an ex-military would actually use. As an example of a good example, this is, um, I believe it's called the tourist with jackie chan and pierce brosnan.

Richard:

Yeah, uh, where whoever wrote that movie did some serious research onto tactics and strategies that an ex-military member of an ex-chinese military member might actually use, uh, when they're trying to break into the you know, this irish minister's house well, it's funny like one of my favorite anime is full metal panic, which does meet the trope and I don't know how it took me so long to get there of sosuke sagara being the secret assassin who they just think he's a socially awkward high school student. I do not know how that one took me so long to think of see, I knew, I knew you'd have more examples like that's my favorite anime aged questionably, but one of my favorite animes.

Richard:

But like to loop into your previous thing. It's like, yeah, he's a badass soldier in his natural environment but then just shoots the arcade screen because why would you point your gun off the screen and pull the trigger rather than just draw your second gun? So it's like that was the example. I'm just surprised I can't think of more, because I love that trope when it's done well, but it's definitely like the I'm a secret badass and my friends don't know Like it goes so easy into superheroes, like everyone's into Peter Parker's, actually Spider-Man, but yeah, no, sosuke Sagara. Full Metal Panic is a much cleaner example, although I'm pretty sure they wrote Full Metal Panic as a parody of Gundam Wing, where the edgy main character of Gundam Wing was actually a doofus, but a crazy skilled doofus. The funniest thing is a full metal panic.

Richard:

There's a scene, like when they decide for the show to get serious, where he's literally being shot at running up a stair. Someone throws a grenade and he just kicks it out of the way while he's running up the stairs without missing a step. It's like wait, this guy's actually insanely badass. He just keeps having to deal with mundane problems like getting a haircut. But with that I think I've amped up time enough, so are you ready to get into our random questions of the day?

Karl:

oh, are you ready? I mean you said you had to find emails. Yeah, I found one.

Richard:

I found a good one, this coming in from redacted would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? Isn't that amazing. Like I don't know how good a question it is, but it's just so out there, I'm happy.

Karl:

I mean Oof Right. Neither of those are good options. I'm gonna die, I'm gonna be real, I'm dying to both these things?

Richard:

just objectively speaking, there's no way. But I'm having to pick my execution Because like Miko's like not like the size of like ten ducks and I don't know if I could fight a Miko-sized duck effectively, I don't think I could fight a duck effectively, full stop.

Karl:

See, that's why I'm leaning towards the horses. I think their relative size and strength would diminish, so I think the enormous duck would be more dangerous than the hundred horses.

Richard:

Where I'm going with the one horse size duck, so the one horse size duck. I'm gambling hard on being able to outrun the horse size duck Right, like if I can get to a like a nice, tall, dry location, but like horses aren't trying to kill you. It's a coincidence Horses have teeth that can bite through bone and they can trample you to death, like a horse has never tried to kill you.

Karl:

So I'm really concerned that these duck-sized horses, if they're actually trying to kick and bite you are actually extremely dangerous.

Richard:

Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose they're just so small they are, but I feel like if you kick a horse, they're denser than you're thinking and they're tougher than you're thinking, like a real full-size horse, I think they're disgustingly must.

Richard:

I think this might be a godzilla size situation. So remember what I mentioned. One of my favorite comments is when ant-man shrinks the godzilla and then they realize that godzilla, with the proportional strength of a godzilla, is actually incredibly dangerous, because godzilla isn't actually based on his size, he's actually proportionally that strong. I'm worried that horses are actually proportionally really strong and if you shrink them down they become more dangerous, because now you're fighting something with the strength of a horse the size of a duck.

Karl:

Okay, I mean.

Richard:

So I'm going one. It's a losing situation, like I'm fighting the duck. I don't think I'm winning, but I just don't think I'm killing a hundred anythings.

Karl:

Like if this was fight a hundred kittens.

Richard:

I'm still betting on the kittens.

Karl:

I don't necessarily think that I'm winning against a hundred duck-sized horses. I just I feel like I could deal more damage to the horses than I could do it do a one horse size duck is I think it's also like horses are here's richard math too.

Richard:

I can get lucky and kill one thing. I'm not getting lucky and killing a hundred things yeah, I mean that's, that's true.

Karl:

I mean for me it's the opposite. I feeling I could get lucky and kill a hundred things, but when I try to kill one thing it would not work out.

Richard:

But bonus points for that. Being a top tier question, that was a good question. And we have one other question before we wrap things up. Our second question, which is almost as good. If you could only eat one color of food for the rest of your life. What color would it be? Well, what color would it be, hmm?

Karl:

Well, what's the most appealing color? Let's see.

Richard:

I'm deeply torn on this one. Huh, I'm going with red. You see, my instinct originally was like red gives you a lot of like good food, that gives you pepperoni and tomato, like if you add some dye in the dough, you can get away with it.

Karl:

That's that's what I'm thinking. Firstly, you can add dye to other foods so that they become differently colored for you. And secondly, I think that, like, if you go with green, you're going to get some really, really disgusting looking greens and you're not going to want to eat your green things. If you go with red, I feel like it's a nicer, more neutral color that will give me diversity and allow me to dye my foods to be red.

Richard:

I'm going with brown, but I'm going for a golden brown because that gets me breads and chocolates and coffees and bagels and I'm like I can do it. It's not good for me, but if I could only eat things that were brown, that doesn't change my diet as much as it should.

Karl:

Well, I mean, you're not allowed to have red velvet cake now.

Richard:

True, but I can have my everything bagel with some sort of lunch meat like a really specific lunch meat on it and a cup of coffee. I can survive like this for a long time, Like I can get away with beef ramen with sliced up hot dogs in it. I should be able to live indefinitely to the age of 50 with this diet.

Karl:

You know, I don't know if this came up on the podcast or not, but hot dogs take days off your life, man.

Richard:

I know this has come up. This was one of our first random questions was was a hot dog a sandwich? And it's like does it count as a sandwich if the bread has a hinge on it? That was one of our first random questions, like episode two, I think.

Karl:

What yeah, yeah, I mean I know, but it wasn't there also, like because there was that study about uh, they figured out exactly how many days pizza and hot dogs take off your license yeah, and then we had a very important debate about it.

Richard:

We had a very important debate. Does it take them off the start or the end of the lifespan? Because if you eat the hot dog and I lose one of my days as a 34-year-old, that's a problem. If I eat a hot dog and I lose one of my days as a 94-year-old, I don't give a shit. So as a 94 year old, I don't give a shit. So I really need to know where it's like. Is it aging me faster or am I just losing time? Because if I'm just losing time, yeah, I'm going to make some bad deals and I'm not going to regret it.

Karl:

In any event, I will eat my red hot dogs while you eat your brown hot dogs.

Richard:

It'll work. I just have to grill mine over fire and our final question. Final question what is your favorite sci-fi gadget or tool?

Karl:

Favorite sci-fi gadget or tool?

Richard:

Wow, that's right, that's a doozy. I hate what.

Karl:

I'm going to answer tool.

Richard:

Wow, that's Alright, that's a doozy. I hate what I'm going to answer because it pains me to say this, but I'm going to go with the triggers from World Trigger. They're just cool. They like invert, they make the digital you the real you while storing the real you digitally. And they make you lightsabers and real you while storing the real you digitally, and they make you lightsabers and beam guns. I'm like that's just cool, because it wasn't like what would you like to own, it was like it's your favorite. I loved the idea behind it Because they used it to such good effect, being like oh, there's no stakes here, actually they're just abducting people. And then they had a character break their digital body to stab them with their real body, and that was great so like the triggers were awesome and they just kind of stopped using them.

Karl:

In world trigger they got rid of the world and the trigger part well, I mean, I am gonna go with nanobots, because I find nanobots can do anything, that's what makes? Them lame. I'm just saying that I could have my nanobots can do anything. That's what makes them lame. I'm just saying that I could have my nanobots that do the exact same thing as your triggers. That's what makes it lame.

Richard:

Because it wasn't what you would have. It's what's your favorite and every single Marvel character is like nanotechnology to hand wave away. How's the new Iron man suit Nanotechnology? Black Panther suit, nanotechnology? I would rather take a phaser because at least a phaser looks cool.

Karl:

You're right. It was what is your favorite. I don't know that nanobots are my favorite.

Richard:

Or the personal shield in Dune that exists specifically to let people have knife fights in the future.

Ghost?:

That's an awesome gadget because it specifically exists to let people have knife fights in the future.

Richard:

That's an awesome gadget because it specifically exists to let people have knife fights in the future yeah, but see I'm.

Karl:

If I were going to go for the shield from dune, I would go with the more specific uh, minecraft blocky one, because that was hilarious I mean, dude too was great, so I rephrase the question a bit, but like, yeah, my favorite gadget.

Richard:

Like I really like what the triggers did for storytelling, I dislike things like the tricorder in Star Trek or the sonic screwdriver that are too convenient and I can't really count a Gundam as a gadget but, like definitely not a gadget. Swen's briefcase from Black Cat was also just like a sick gadget, and I also like the Staff Blaster from Stargate, which is just a staff that shoots lasers for some reason.

Karl:

You know actually, so this isn't really a specific gadget.

Richard:

You're going to say the face-changing mask, aren't you? No, no, no, no, no.

Karl:

The incredibly compact folding. You're going to say the face changing mask, aren't you? No, no, no, no, no. The the incredibly compact, folding object, because there's a whole bunch of objects and you just you pull out of your pocket and then it just like unfolds and there's just way more in there than that volume can possibly hold. And it doesn't really matter what the catch it is. I just really like the animations where things just turn and slide and then, and suddenly you have this full-blown something and it's like, yeah, I just had this quarter-sized little disc and I pulled it out of my pocket.

Richard:

I do like it when they unfold. I like it when they're origami. But if they're pocket DaVinci they're less cool to me. Origami.

Karl:

But if they're like pocket da Vinci, they're less cool to me you don't like the like, the twists and turns where pieces like pop out and fall into. No, I like that.

Richard:

I like what it's just like, like if it transformers itself into the thing that's sick. It's like, yeah, when it just like apparates, though no, but that's true.

Karl:

I mean I do really. I actually know I think I did. Actually, I've settled on my actual answer. This is my final answer. I hope this is worth a million dollars. Capsule Corp. I love the capsules. I'll allow it. We just get where they apparate, but there's so much stuff you can put in there.

Richard:

Like they're used for good, Mostly because the capsules are used for comedic effect.

Richard:

I'm way more on board where it's like I'm gonna camp brings out a house yeah, or a motorcycle or an airplane right, like recently because I've been playing a ton of cyberpunk like the quick hack deck in cyberpunk where you're like, oh yeah, I just hacked someone's brain and made them overheat and melt, but like a lot of it's definitely like the sci-fi gadget in Cyberpunk where you're like, oh yeah, I just hacked someone's brain and made them overheat and melt, but like a lot of, it's definitely like the sci-fi gadget has to be cool in the show and like if it's too overpowered it stops being cool.

Karl:

Yeah, you're right, nanobots was a lame answer, but you know what's a sick answer?

Richard:

In Gundam Wing, duo Maxwell jumps out a window and out of his pocket, pulls like a beam umbrella that spins really fast like a helicopter to slow down his fall and it's like so dumb, so beautifully dumb. It's like why, why did you have that? That doesn't work any better than a normal parachute. It's like your show was completely serious and then you just pulled that out of your pocket and that's great. It's kind of like I can't count the Escaflowne as a gadget, but like, yeah, the Dragonheart-powered armor mech suit is just awesome.

Karl:

It is pretty awesome.

Richard:

Also, the lightsaber feels like a cop-out answer now. It used to be really cool. Got done too much.

Karl:

Yeah, no, that's definitely not my favorite, but you know what was?

Richard:

a sick gadget the ori kelcom gloves with a wire glove hand hmm, yeah, man, black cat just had some cool stuff it did, and then he proceeded to draw smut for the rest of his career. Really, he hasn't drawn anything good since then he proceeded to follow it up with Two, love Rue and ACIE Triangle, which were both just Smut, yeah, okay, and one of them was really frustrating Smut, but with that, thank you everybody.

Richard:

I'm not going to give into this rant, but I read the first couple chapters before I realized it was smut. But with that, thank you everybody. I'm not going to give into this rant, but I read the first couple chapters before I realized it was smut. And the core premise was the main character had a crush on the other main character, but one of them got gender switched by magic and now they're the same gender, but they still both had a crush on each other and somehow this not problem managed to last like a hundred chapters until they realized they could just date each other regardless of gender. It's like there was never a conflict. The only conflict is you're in Japan, which I guess is technically commentary. If it did actually end with them like realizing the solution was that, I would have been so mad.

Karl:

With that, maybe you should buy some of uh richard's books, because uh he's an author.

Richard:

He might want to eat.

Karl:

Yeah, I will buy shawarma and hot sauce and it'll be amazing I don't have anything for sale, so you can't buy anything of mine. And, as mentioned on, previous weeks.

Richard:

If you email us in with a tattoo of Karl, we will mention it on stream. What a terrible prize. Like I'm not even going to sign a book and send it to them. Nah, I'm just going to appreciate them.

Karl:

I mean, if someone actually did, I feel like there would be some sort of surprise. No, I would just write a full novel series called the man with the Karl tattoo. See that that sounds like an adequate prize.

Richard:

It's not even a prize, I just need to know who this person was and how it led to this moment in time Like this is how many people are going to think this is a parody of the girl with the dragon tattoo. That makes it better, especially if it's like a tramp stamp. That's just your face.

Karl:

Well somebody's face. I don't know how people are going to. I'm really curious how tall I am according to my voice. You know, normally I keep it together on stream.

Richard:

But I'm just done. Thank you everyone for tuning in, hanging up now Bye. So do you think they realized I just confessed to reading like casual smut manga, or do you think I got away with it?

Karl:

I think you got away with it. Perfect crime, I mean, you didn't talk about that. Uh, Vampire Diaries.

Richard:

Midnight Secretary.

Karl:

Ah right, the the didn't talk about that. Uh, vampire diaries.

Ghost?:

Uh, midnight secretary ah right, the the, the women's vampire movie it was really good.