Deep Space and Dragons
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Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 90: Unraveling the Threads of AI Art and Identity
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What if the secrets to an unpredictable career path lie in drive-thru legal advice or romantic texting tips? Join us on a whimsical journey as we explore the quirks of our modern lives, from the enduring existence of podcasts across galaxies to the peculiar absence of internal monologues in some people's minds. We share anecdotes from our bustling work lives, with tales of open houses, creative writing endeavors, and hilarious encounters with students. As we ponder the increasing unpredictability of career paths, we also touch on the amusing contrast between personal experiences and perceptions of writing abilities.
Step into our colorful workplace, where colleagues with monikers like Angry Bird, Psyduck, Iago, and Baby Mario navigate the tumultuous waters of political tensions and social issues. In the wake of a heated U.S. election, we tackle sensitive topics like racism and gender identity, exploring how personal beliefs spill into professional life. With a dash of humor, we emphasize the need for maintaining professional boundaries while examining broader implications of media portrayal and respecting individual identities.
Unleash your creativity as we journey through the challenges and joys of logo design, copyright considerations, and the fascinating world of AI art. From playful debates on whether a warlock or bard is more fitting for a project, to exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI-generated content, we advocate for cultural diversity and the value of human creativity. Along the way, we offer insights into character development in tabletop RPGs, the importance of thematic consistency, and even indulge in a fun debate over which anime character would excel in an Iron Chef competition.
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
https://linktr.ee/rajkevis
Hello entire internet. I am Richard of the esteemed podcast radio show type thing known as Deep Space and Dragons, and if you're listening to this in Alpha Centauri, podcasts are still totally a thing. I'm Richard. I think I said that already.
Speaker 2:You definitely did say that I'm Carl, did say that I'm carl um, and I mean, I don't really know how you can claim that podcasts will still be a thing by the time this uh beacon of data reaches, reaches it, I mean like that's, that's like what? Several hundred million light years away.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's pretty straightforward, because this beacon is the podcast, so by the fact, they're listening to it.
Speaker 2:That is what makes the podcast still exist yeah, okay, podcasts are totally a thing, until people stop listening to them exactly, although I am deeply horrified that 20 of people don't have internal monologues.
Speaker 1:But that's unrelated don't have internal monologues no, there's just nothing going on in there at all. And to follow that up with a not-at-all-subtle jab what's new in the Carlverse?
Speaker 2:Oh well, you see, I actually have three things I want to talk about, each one ending with a question more nerdy than the last, so you should go first.
Speaker 1:Okay, I guess what's new in the Richardverse or the Vladverse, if you're feeling saucy. So, due to the power of open houses at Redacted School, where I work at Redacted, which is easily figureoutable if you click on my LinkedIn, that's attached to my link tree Come on, stalkers, put in a little effort. I can't do it all for you.
Speaker 1:So because of that, I haven't like had like a day off in like nine days, so at some point I get to cash this in for like a five-day weekend but, like I'm slowly sleeping into sleep deprivation on account of, like, writing new chapters and submitting to literary magazines and work copy and all this stuff, and like one of my job roles today was literally to go in the hallways and ask students how they're doing. Oh, that's great, it's like getting paid. To be like how are you feeling today is pretty excellent, although we found like a circle that had just gotten out of a class Like how are you feeling? It's like, would you believe we said we're all pissed off and angry. I'm like, yes, give us this feedback so we can plan events for the angry, anxious students that are. You See, we go around. See, it's kind of a catch-22. So, while working at Redacted Job doing something, one of the things that well played is that we ask people how they're doing on this trademark emotion check thing, trademark and the.
Speaker 2:Thing is.
Speaker 1:It's. It's weird, but we kind of want people to be doing bad so we can help them. It's like we can't help somebody build up their mental resilience if they're already good right. So it's like technically for us if we go, how are you? And they're like crippling anxiety. For us that's kind of great news because then we can do something about it and I'm like I'm not being evil here, we're just more helpful to the ones who are doing good that is.
Speaker 1:That is kind of uh interesting it's one of those ideas like if you're a firefighter going to a burning building, you kind of need to find the people who are like in peril, not the ones hanging out outside but like do I feel bad for being like? Yes, they're on fire, now I can put the fire out.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know those ambulance chasing lawyers. They make a lot of money.
Speaker 1:I don't really want to be an ambulance chasing lawyer. Well, the thing is, the odds of that happening are substantially higher than they were last year and are concerningly like at like a solid percentage, like, instead of this being a hypothetical nonsense career, it's like a no, that's like a one or two percentage chance now.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I imagine you probably wouldn't be literally chasing down ambulances like you see in classic movies.
Speaker 1: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 orange codes and redirect them through my drive-thru. Drive-thru legal advice. Please tap card for your drive-thru lawyer.
Speaker 2:That would be pretty excellent. Well, actually no, it would probably be mediocre advice.
Speaker 1:but I don't know Like you can be pretty efficient these days.
Speaker 2:Fair enough.
Speaker 1:And I guess the last thing that's new with me is One of my co-workers today was asking me for romantic advice For how to craft text messages for a person they're seeing, and I'm just like something about that's just deeply funny. That, yes, excellent writer Richard Kivas Would theoretically be good at crafting romantic texts, but also this person has no idea what my life has been up to this point to see how deeply funny the concept of me helping in this scenario is, because it's like, yeah, in a vacuum.
Speaker 1:I absolutely have the skill set for it.
Speaker 2:That's definitely true.
Speaker 1: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:Oh, right, right, right, your Fiverr commissions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people can request what they request, and that's all I can legally say on that. I like balanced media right. So there's usually a romantic subplot in my work or a romantic main plot. Because I like romance, so does most fiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like Naruto and Sasuke, greatest love story ever told.
Speaker 2:If only they could just commit to the either swapping genders or the same-sex couples.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they would honestly Like. Nothing about the studio genre in magazine would prevent them. You know, the only author that I've been reading that I could see actually do something like there's two authors that could actually pull that card and get away with it. So the author of One Piece could absolutely pull that card. What are you going to do at this point? Nothing. And the author of the Chainsaw man is just such unpredictable chaos, energy. You can't. It's impossible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is unpredictable.
Speaker 1:He has no fear of being cancelled At all.
Speaker 2:He does not.
Speaker 1:Alright, so that's pretty much my updates. My sanity is starting to slowly crumble away as I workaholic for the next few months, but in a good way.
Speaker 2:In a good way.
Speaker 1:I have my best writing ability when I've lost all sense of reality.
Speaker 2:Fair enough, you can tap into that manic energy.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I think I might actually just be a manic pixie dream girl, like personality-wise that tracks. So what's new with you?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, okay. So question the first. That has a little bit of a lead-up here.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the content I live for, and our surprisingly large dedicated fan base allegedly lives for it. See, the funniest thing is we get feedback, but we rarely get. People don't typically give you feedback on things they enjoy in context, so we have no idea. What about our podcast works. So then we're just kind of committed to doing all of it forever.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we've talked before in our podcast about how people in kitchens, specifically, are often able to say outlandish and potentially offensive things.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I need to stop you right here. I have a question for you, Okay. So you mentioned we've said a lot of things in our podcast and this just kind of came to me and it's like I'm curious your thoughts. Do you think we've said all of the words to Romeo and Juliet across our episodes? That someone could find those sound bites and reconstruct it?
Speaker 2: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:Go for it. Add it in here. This will be a sub goal Ethiope.
Speaker 2:OK, that's fair. We never used it. Why would it come up in context? I've also used Doth.
Speaker 1:I've absolutely used Doth loving thy aunt. There's a lot we've used. We've used Capulets and Montagues in Sentence absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anyway, but so I have four employees. I have more, have four employees, I have more than four employees, but there are four that are important for the story and they are Angry Bird Got it Social.
Speaker 1:Commentary Guy. Oh, I thought they were going to give them all code names, but all right, just use definitions.
Speaker 2:That's probably easier to follow. Well, I don't really have a better code name for Social Commentary Guy. He just really loves to talk about social issues like education healthcare politics, my instincts was Polly Parrot for him. Polly Parrot. Okay, angry Bird Polly.
Speaker 1:Psy, parrot.
Speaker 2:Polly Psy Parrot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why don't we just go with Psyduck? All right, I'll take Psyduck. Okay, so we got Angry Bird like Psyduck.
Speaker 2:Alright, I'll take Psyduck. Okay, so we got Angry Bird, we got Psyduck. We have I need to think of a better name, but Nice Guy.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 2:Flamingo. He is foreign, he has a fun accent.
Speaker 1:Iago.
Speaker 2:I don't know, iago, okay, okay, I mean Iago's not a nice guy, but we'll go with it. And Baby Mario, which?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyways. So Angry Bird comes into work, and he is unhappy with the results of the US election, and so he says a moderately offensive comment to the effect of all Americans must be racist and bigots because of how the election turned out.
Speaker 1:Unrelated side tangent. We brought candy into my office to counsel everybody after that election to counsel everybody after that election, okay.
Speaker 2:But so then Psyduck, he's like, well you know, maybe the other party lost because they didn't really campaign their platform.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a lot of theories Like every pundit has a theory but a lot of people also predicted a different outcome.
Speaker 2:That's definitely true, but so you know, I mean that seems like a pretty rational argument. Angry Bird he just gets mad and calls everybody racist and storms out.
Speaker 1:Also a fair response.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to talk about politics without also bringing up gender identity. They've just kind of become inextricably linked. I hope this episode ends up being called Richard and Carl Get Cancelled. So Baby Mario keeps the conversation going and he says something about gender identity that offends Iago. Nice guy, iago.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm not exactly sure what was said, but Iago comes to me and he's like I'm very upset by what Baby Mario said and I just don't feel comfortable and what can we do about this? And so I send a note that basically says you're welcome to your own opinion and you can discuss it freely on your own time, but we don't want to talk about politics or gender identity in the workplace because we don't want people feeling uncomfortable or potentially getting into heated arguments. But so I mean that's basically the end of that. I'm fairly certain that Iago and Baby Mario have worked out their differences and politics and gender identity haven't really come up since I sent out this note. But purely out of personal curiosity, I am curious as to why Iago was offended. Is he part of the LGBTQ plus community? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:The temptation to say the LGBTQ plus ultra gets me every time. Sometimes I get the two S's in there, but I've just watched so much anime, I just want to put plus ultra at the end want to put plus ultra at the end, but so, um.
Speaker 2:So the the first question. Uh, I'm looking for more of a like a academic perspective.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mean, I was promised increasingly nerdy questions and now I'm in actual issues. How dare you?
Speaker 2:but please continue well, some sexual conversations with Iago have basically confirmed that he's gay okay, which is why he was offended without him on this podcast oh sorry, the bird from Aladdin is gay. Sorry for you know what's hilarious?
Speaker 1:about me picking this name out. It's like yeah, I know that tracks wasn't like didn't Disney go their way to like queer code every villain in that era, because they're Disney, okay. But, See, their plan was to queer code all their villains to like encourage people not to be gay. Instead, they just made a bunch of gay villains in real life.
Speaker 2:Instead they just made a bunch of gay villains in real life. No-transcript, like it's just for personal edification. Like I like Iago. He is a nice guy and he has a good work ethic. He's funny, he has a cool accent and his gender identity or sexual identity have nothing to do with our relationship.
Speaker 1:But I'm personally curious say on here is meant to be legally binding or actually. I need this clarification because I deal with people, confidential information, and it is a serious topic, so I'm going to tell you what I would tell a student in this circumstance yeah, okay, okay, that's kind of what I'm going for 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're comfortable telling you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I mean I kind of figured that was the quote-unquote correct response.
Speaker 1:And for the comedy version of Richard on a podcast. There's no good way that'll go. Just don't fucking do it, man. I'm using my F-bomb early, Just don't Like just don't.
Speaker 1:Even if you tried that on me, it wouldn't end well for you because but you're so flamboyant, exactly like. If you're like, hey, maybe 10 years ago you could have just walked up, but right now, no, as an employer, absolutely not. I mean, unless you want to start doing what colleges do, where they are determined they never pressure anybody, but then they put an anonymous checkbox at the bottom of the thing to identify, and then that anonymous identification is attached to your file for grants and bursaries.
Speaker 2:Well see, that's kind of why I was a little bit curious about your perspective. Intellectually, I know you should just never ask, but emotionally I'm just so curious.
Speaker 1:What's really funny, too, is in the college environment where everyone's so open. I've never been in a situation where I would have to ask in the first place over the last X number of years. People just come up to me, I'll be sitting there eating a mango, They'll be like. So here's my entire traumatic life story. I'm like I no longer want this mango. Thanks, If you create a safe enough space and you share about yourself, people are more likely to open up. That would be my actual approach you would never ask.
Speaker 1:Just create as many comfortable one-on-one chill sessions as possible to get to know this person better, and maybe this information will come up. Or maybe you'll never know, but there's no way to acquire this information except for finding the two tiny marble-sized Dragon Balls and wishing on off-brand Chonky Shenron to get this information. Okay, so, tldr, don't go up to asking people about this thing, especially right now when, like for all they know, you're trying to make a mass deportation list. I'm pretty sure if you're just like hey Redacted, can I ask you about Redacted? He just sues you and wins and should win Fair, because there's also a power imbalance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. So question in a second. Again, probably has an unnecessary buildup, but here's where it goes Ba-ba-ba. Eons ago, when you and I lived together in the frozen hellscape known as Saskatchewan, Looks suspiciously like Hondo Mooko at winter with the giant white sand dunes of snow in the moon. But so you. When you moved, I inherited your TV stand.
Speaker 1:Now that was not allegedly that actually just happened Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely did move and I definitely did inherit your TV stand, allegedly Okay, okay, but so, um, the bottom two shelves of this tv stand are just panes of glass on a on a metal frame. I'm shocked how well I'm mentally picturing this tv stand oh, I think it's still actually available for sale at walmart to this day. It's the same design.
Speaker 1:Well it's more like I'm like. I'm just shocked at how firmly I remember this thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so one day I decide that I want to build a light table, because I need to be able to do my own graphic design and light tables would be useful for doing it by hand at the very least.
Speaker 1:You know what would also be useful Just going to school for it.
Speaker 2:Screw going to school for it, screw going to school for it. I'll just pick it up as I go.
Speaker 1:As I like, spent the day working with two graphics designers. I'm like okay, boomer.
Speaker 2:Side note, my boss asked me if I've ever used CorelDRAW, which I haven't. But the graphic designer that we use for our pizza store. It's a local business, he basically runs it by himself and he doesn't have money to hire more people, but he feels overworked. And so then my boss is like oh, you should just train Carl how to do what you're doing, and then you can have a day off and get him to work for you. Hiss, anyways. So I take the bottom pane of glass out of this TV stand and I build my box. I get it wrapped in the aluminum tape and I have the LED strip lights. And I build my box, I get it wrapped in aluminum tape and I have the LED strip lights. I'm just about to start painting this piece of glass. I'm holding it in my hands.
Speaker 1:You know you could just use equipment at libraries, right? Please continue, it's fine.
Speaker 2:I'm just about ready to start painting and frosting the glass and I carefully set it down on the tiniest pebble that hits the exact point and it completely shatters in my hands.
Speaker 1:So this story, at least in some form, has absolutely been into our podcast before, but it makes me happy because it's such a like, it's such a futurama-esque bit to like be holding the pane of glass and then just set it down and then it just explodes afterward like that's some classic looney tunes injury um, right, but so I ended up buying a new pane of glass and I ended up, uh, building my, my light table.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately, wherever there's space to place stuff, stuff gets placed, and so my poor light table has sat unused for far too long, and it's very sad. But so then I was thinking about how you said that talking about movies isn't, carl core, enough for for our audience.
Speaker 1:Yet again, as I mentioned earlier this episode, I have no way of confirming what's Carl core enough. What brings in our audience. People are not filling out surveys. I'm not bothering to make a survey, however. However, I just. The main reason I pointed it out is we had spent I don't know about a fifth of each episode on horror movies over the last 20 episodes. So I thought you know, let's mix it up a bit it was October. Yeah, you did nothing wrong here. Not all quips I make mean you change your life. Sometimes they're just quips. I really need to get more used to how much power I apparently have where I'll say something like hey, you shouldn't jaywalk. It just geasses somebody and their body goes into convulsions against it. You see, I thought I was a warlock this whole time. But what if I've just been some super powerful bard?
Speaker 2:using vicious mockery. That would be your number one skill, for sure yeah, my vicious mockeries are savage too bad. I mostly use them on myself but so, um, uh, I was thinking about how my light table just sits unused and I'm like you know what we've talked about. Uh, our, my paper scissors card game project before, and I'm really close to actually being able to like play test it.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice, make it easy, but.
Speaker 2:I just I just need to actually design the cards, um, and so now I'm like okay, so I need like a wizard hat, a rogue's cowl and a warrior's helm, cause those were the rock paper scissors elements that I was going for.
Speaker 1:I mean I would have went staff dagger axe, but this is legit. Okay, I can get behind it.
Speaker 2: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 wanted to spend money, yes, I would go to Fiverr.
Speaker 1:How much have you spent on burgers this week?
Speaker 2:On burgers this week? Yeah, zero dollars.
Speaker 1:Okay On fried chicken this week.
Speaker 2:Also zero. I've ate at home so far this week.
Speaker 1:Good job, I was going to make a point that for the $40 you could spend online for an artist to draw these. Most people spend more than that on like takeout in a week, but instead you're like now I'm on a wellness kick.
Speaker 2:Vlad, you're not going to impale me on my hubris uh, the whole point is that I have the light table to be able to do it myself. I just have to get a design to be able to trace.
Speaker 1:I love how many steps this is more than uses computer With drawing tablet, because there's a version of this which is just Photoshop and a drawing tablet.
Speaker 2:No, this is respect by the way I respect the game here. I don't pay for very the way I respect the game here. I don't pay for very much software. I really should support people that are designing useful tools.
Speaker 1:Nah screw Adobe.
Speaker 2:I use Inkscape, I use GIMP. Yeah, no, you're supporting good software.
Speaker 1:Because I want to be very clear here Adobe can go to hell right now With them backdating striking in an agreement to swipe contract data to train AIs. Adobe, if you want to sponsor this episode, bite me.
Speaker 2:Well, ironically, that's kind of where this is heading, because a wizard hat was pretty easy to find, A warrior's helm logo wasn't too hard to find, but a decent rogue's cowl logo that was hard to find. I couldn't find one. Then I was like, wait a second, I could just like AI generate this. Oh no, so then I AI generate a rogue's cowl. This was like a rogue's Cowl.
Speaker 1:A Rogue's Cowl, Just for anyone listening right now. A great source of stock images is a lot of museum databases. We'll have tons of them.
Speaker 2:Hmm, that might actually have been a great place to start, but I turned to I don't remember which AI service I used.
Speaker 1:Skynet, the Matrix.
Speaker 2:Rogue's Cowl 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 a styrofoam mannequin, faceless styrofoam mannequin, and it's like oh, so you want it to have eye holes and a mask. I'm like, no, I don't want that. And I just couldn't get ai to generate the right logo, so I just took one and I just painted out the face and I got the outline.
Speaker 1:Um, and I'm gonna like try to make it more, try to make each of these logos more stylistically I mean, I kind of want to pause you because I just kind of like had a idea what if the rogue logo was those drama masks Like the smiley drama mask and the frowny drama mask was the rogue logo?
Speaker 2:Ooh, I don't know if people would get it, but it's cool. It is cool.
Speaker 1:Or like some kind of opera mask, or like. The Phantom Renegade from Meta Blast, huh yeah, the Phantom of like Opera Mask, or like the Phantom Renegade from Metabots, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Phantom of the Opera Mask.
Speaker 1:Or the V for Vedetta Mask was more. What I like was more the energy. That would make sense.
Speaker 2:Ah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I mean I want Phantom Renegades from Metabots, but like that's a deep cut even by my standards.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so the more nerdy than the last question is um, how so does does anyone own? Like the ai generated images, like is it just plagiarism? To just straight up, use it. Not that I'm going to, I'm going to edit it to be, like I said, more stylistically unified, but like.
Speaker 1:I wrote a term paper on this. I'm feeling weirdly qualified to answer this question on this comedy show Like this is like a thing I explained on like a law school application. So copyright isn't something you get done. You don't copyright something. It's literally your right when you create the copy is you have the right to that individual creation.
Speaker 1:Right so right. You write a book, you own that book and you really only have to prove you own that book when ownership of it's disputed generative ai does not provide copyright, meaning if you put these logos out in their ai generated, I can just steal those and they're AI generated.
Speaker 2:I can just steal those.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're just mine now because they don't belong to you. So if your game used rules that use ChatGPT to help generate those rules, you don't own the copyright to that. No one does, so I can just take it.
Speaker 2:I see.
Speaker 1:And that's where companies are being had in court is because these databases weren't legal to begin with. They just scraped data off without consent. So many lawsuits happening right now it's not even fathomable. The only thing that makes them even arguably legal to exist is that ChatGPT does not. Well, openai does not own the content on ChatGPT, or they'd all be in jail until they died because it's all stolen.
Speaker 2:So if you use, ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:No one owns that content. That's the argument. So that's what makes it really interesting is that these artists can sue OpenAI from theft, and if you use this image, you can't be sued for theft, but they can take it. However, they own the copyright to their design. So if the ai generated one's too close, they can still sue you for using it, because they own it and you own nothing right?
Speaker 2:well, I mean, like I said, the whole, the whole point of this experiment is to use the light table.
Speaker 1:Uh, so I feel like I am going to put in enough, uh, changes and physical effort to make something uniquely mine that is, in fact, copyrightable and that's where it gets interesting right, because if you start with a stock photo, technically you have to like, cite that as one of your sources or inspirations, but like, yes, if you just draw something and it's yours, it's not based on an existing ip you're good to. But here's where it's really funny Is if that mask image, for example, you go with Richard's mask suggestion and it's too close to Vita Vendetta, they can argue that you copied Vita for Vendetta in your artwork and you'd have a hell of a time proving you didn't. When you're like oh no, I drew this AI-generated thing that ripped your data. Oh, so I guess I did just steal it. There's just extra steps involved.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm doubtful that this is going to be the final version. Like I said, I really just need to get cards printed to use my garbage magic cards, because I have tons of literal garbage cards. When I came to visit you, I bought a dollar pack of magic cards. Ah, yes, you did and, as you pointed out, there's no value in there but it's fun.
Speaker 2:I can't help myself. I go to dollarama. I see it it's $1.50. It's like, oh, that's more cards than what are in a normal pack nowadays not only that, but it's like cheaper than the cardboard's worth.
Speaker 1:It's kind of wild, you know one of the best uses of those, though, is using a hole punch to use them as D&D minis, because all you do is you buy a stack of washers, hole punch out the artwork and then glue them on a washer, and you got sick tokens, or like make, or if you use like little plastic standees for them, like you know like wedding place card holder standees that are like 50 cents at the dollar store. You just kind of cut out your artwork on the card.
Speaker 2:I. That is a great idea, but I Talking about garbage cards. For some reason, the Dollarama Magic Packs have started including cards from Unfinity.
Speaker 1:That is hilarious and that makes me sad.
Speaker 2:That makes me sad, because those ones are literally garbage. They're not useful in any capacity, and thus I have collected well over 200 tokens and or other garbage cards that I can fill sleeves and then just sleeve my Rock Paper Scissors game using garbage magic cards.
Speaker 1:So you know. What's really fun about doing that, though, is sticker paper's not that expensive, so you can literally use a regular printer, print them, size them sticker paper, peel them off and stick them on the magic cards.
Speaker 2:Ooh Huh, I'll have to look into that sticker paper Cause that was just fun. Uh, but so uh, I guess the other half of of the AI generator AI question is um Do you think it's all right for artists to use AI as a tool in that kind of capacity?
Speaker 1:Nope. So in Canada, part of our, there is no fair use clause that America clings to right. So we don't actually have the legal protection of parody or inspiration that America does that builds a lot of other things. We also don't have the. You can't copyright games rules law at all. So if you use AI as part of your process, not only do you not own it, you are tactly giving someone revenue for theft. So I know people whose art has been wiped by the machine.
Speaker 2:The fact that open.
Speaker 1:AI just isn't straight up in jail. Note this is a comedy show, don't sue me. Is baffling to me Because it's just theft. So like if you were to literally be like oh I'm an artist so I want to look at some paintings. So they see a bunch of artwork in the back of a truck and some dude sells you it for 50 bucks that. So they see a bunch of artwork in the back of a truck and some dude sells you it for 50 bucks.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That feels questionable, right, like even if you're using that to then trace that's sketchy. It's like how people would go to artist alleys at anime conventions and do up prints of other people's artwork and sell them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And they'd be like well, no one owns the artwork, man, because they posted it on the internet. I'm like no, no, no someone owns that. They made it so, legally it's theirs.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So it's weird because for writing, for artwork, for all these AI tools a lot of people talk about oh, this workflow, productivity. I've heard people make arguments for equity, but the people who are usually pro-AI are trying to sell your data. It's almost always, AI is good, so you should use my tool Also. It says here that my tool steals your data and sells it to AI.
Speaker 1:So it's like Just go on Fiverr and pay a dude 30 bucks. That's kind of where I'm at. If you're going to use it for anything other than like personal use like I used an ai gen to show you a picture of a three eyed raccoon the other day- right, because it had to be biblically, biblically after it correct so for just looking at a concept, it's fine.
Speaker 1:But if you're to publish that or put it in a book and and I can't stress this enough as an artist just pay someone the 30 bucks, like, come on, think about how long you spent. Okay, here's some girl math for you, or guy math, or non-binary babe math for you. Okay. So you make about $20 an hour, I'm guessing to $30 an hour. Let's say let's go Stevie, let's go Stevie. I'll make a fictional character named Stevie for this. Stevie to $30 an hour. Let's say let's go Stevie one, let's go Stevie. I'll make a fictional character named Stevie for this.
Speaker 1:Stevie makes $20 an hour, let's say right, stevie is a prompt engineer and really wants to use ChatGPT to bring his vision of a robot to life. So Stevie spends five hours reiterating, reiterating, reiterating on Midjourney, gives mid-journey 20 bucks to keep doing it and makes this robot artwork. That's kind of what he wants. Had Stevie went and worked at his job for three hours instead, that was enough money to pay an actual artist to make exactly what he wanted.
Speaker 1:So people have this fallacy when they think something's free, they forget about time cost. So if you have an AI, write your book like, say you're like oh, I'm going to fiddle with props until the text nearly matches what I want for my monster investigation story, right tools and then you would now know the tools. Or you could have turned that time into labor and paid somebody for it and then made an artist, not homeless, who then future ais can then steal their artwork from and humans. Cultural capital can continue because every piece of content on the internet before 2016 is going to become one of the most valuable historical artifacts. Because the ai is just going to hit like a synesthesia point where everything looks the same, because it all generates average content and then novel content will be necessary.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like herd immunity. We're like ai is slowly going to poison all dialogue. To be the same, we're actually hitting the point where people are using chat gpt to make an email look fancier and then the person on the other end is using chat gpt to turn it back into plain language. So it starts with sub Carl, puts it through AI, then Carl reads the AI message, puts that through AI to make it include text and it turns back into sub Carl.
Speaker 2:That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Where it's like yeah, no, it turns out like a typo riddle. Richard message is easier to read than if I use a machine to do it nicely, because it just fills it with pointless bullshit.
Speaker 2:Ah yeah, you did send me that one AI-generated message that sounded like it was an advert. I was like is this an advertisement for Dragon Ball Z? Like what, why?
Speaker 1:See, that proves my point pretty perfectly, doesn't it? That it just comes off as corporate soulless copy when literally just me going yo, what do you think would be a good anime for branching storylines? And with my disability, my texts are not great, but apparently the correct, grammatically perfect piece of internet copy was just less appealing to you.
Speaker 2:It was very jarring, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:And that's what all communication is going to be. Everything's going to sound like a commercial, because that's what most content is, and people are just going to commercialize each other until a giant cube alien decides mankind's not worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, maybe I'll have the right answer this time 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:AI never would have made that quip. Did I answer your question, though, because you got me in like one of my special interest ramble topics.
Speaker 2: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 difficult in 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 you base it off a piece of art that's not no one alive owns right good to copyright and trademark that forever if you
Speaker 1:tried an inkscape, you're good to copyright it. The human flaws make it less likely 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 and belongs to no one in its fair use, which means if someone steals it you can't really point to your source. So, ignoring all the ethical ramifications, it's just not a good practice to get into, because a lot of companies are going to find that they're making new products that don't actually belong to them.
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, yeah, Okay, that makes sense, so like.
Speaker 1:But so then I wrote a book and Disney just took it because AI content meant no one owned my book.
Speaker 2:But so moving on to the nerdiest question. Okay, so you said that you have played Vampire the Masquerade. Yes, so I mean I don't know if you said this on the stream but you also said that you're not a huge fan of play-by-post.
Speaker 1: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-fast ADHD-inspired death spiral. I will not remember. Well, let me rephrase that I will not have object permanence to post a play-by-post game because I'm going to get bored between the play-by-post game, because I'm going to get bored between the play-by-posts and I'm going to lose interest because my brain's already told an entire epic fantasy story between two players' moves.
Speaker 2:Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So I could either write a novella to explain what I imagined during the 12 hours it took someone to be like and I have a spear, or I could just write 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 for me that's fair, uh.
Speaker 2:But so I got invited by a co-worker to join this play-by-post Vampire the Masquerade game and honestly I'm feeling okay now. But at the beginning I felt like I was in over my head because the character sheet seemed straightforward enough. But then the touchstones and convictions are mechanically important, but you just kind of make them up, your ambition and your goal mechanically important, but you just actually just kind of make them up, uh, and and like then there's you, get your, your disciplines, and it's like, okay, I'm gonna choose a discipline. It's like, okay, I'm going to choose a discipline. It's like, okay, well, you have level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you have to choose one from each level for each dot, and there are just so many seemingly mechanically important choices to make before I even start the game. And I really appreciate the level of customization you give to this character. But I'm wondering if there's a more simplistic way to give that character customization while not forcing you to make so many mechanically important choices before you even play.
Speaker 1:So what's interesting is degrees of game crunchiness have been a big discussion point when I was doing a lot of my ttrpg club things right, like, for example, ninth level games, polymorph system. You literally just pick your size of dice and that determines your odds of rolling for strength, intelligence, what have you? So the size of your dice is basically your character class.
Speaker 1:And then your edges are you literally just write three things that give you advantage. So you could really be like I'm a helicopter sniper and then you'd get advantage when doing helicopter sniper things. So it's a very straightforward basic game. And likewise, like the Fate Core system, you can light whatever you want for your edges and boosts and abilities and then when you use those things, you those things.
Speaker 1:So those are like the more soft flowing games and then the more crunchy, hard flowing games like fifth edition, which is people are like, oh, it's not that crunchy. I'm like, oh, it really is. You're basically doing war game simulating. If you go any crunchier, which is like, okay the thing, nothing you make up in 5e is mechanically impactful. It's almost always flavor right like, but they don't. They decide that, oh, we'll just use dcs and skill checks rather than figuring out exact movement, distance and mathematics and what have you right.
Speaker 1:So I ran into a similar issue with Critical Role's Daggerheart game. So lots of Daggerheart is 5e level of precise right Like, oh, I have my dice, my weapon proficiencies, my skills, my domain cards that have specific effects written on them. There's just a box where you write an experience and you just list a thing that happened to your character to give yourself a plus two bonus on when you do the thing. And I always get kind of salty for those where like, oh, if you're playing with fun, people who just want to be chill about it, people put reasonable things there, right Like, oh, in my experience fighting a minotaur, I became a bull wrangler.
Speaker 1:So anything that's bull wrangly, I would get that benefit. But when I was doing casual drop-ins I have people be like well, the game doesn't say I can't have a minimum size, so I'm going to be the size of an ant and I'm going to be good at everything is my experience. So like it's like, the more your player goes along with power gaming scale, the more a rules-like game kind of enables them to derail the fiction and just be tacky, like a player would be. Like I'm three kobolds in a trench coat so I should roll three sets of dice.
Speaker 1:No, most of these things I say about hypothetical bad players are things that have happened in one of the games I ran for drop-ins. So like Vampire, the Masquerade, those two boxes that are like mechanically impactful but very vague is actually a way more common mechanic than you would think among very many games. Like even Critical Role's Daggerheart is like oh yeah, no, this is a brand new game built by people who played D&D for the last 10 years. And like oh yeah, no, we is a brand new game built by people who play D&D for the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:And like oh yeah, no, we're just going to let you write what you want in this experience box, and I hate it. Personally, I find that limitations actually breed creativity, right? So you're like, oh yeah, my race can be whatever I want it to be and my magic is whatever and my abilities are. Whatever is whatever and my abilities are whatever. Players tend, at least in my experience, to either get choice paralysis or commit to something that either they think's really funny but isn't, or something that would give them a mechanical advantage in something that's now turned into a storytelling experience rather than a game. So that's kind of where I fall with that one is. It almost feels like a hole in the rules when I'm playing a game.
Speaker 2:Like in 5D.
Speaker 1:They're like name your bonds, your flaws, your da-da-da-da-da. But they almost wanted a way to make none of those things actually do anything. And it's like, yeah, you can create your own background, but then you just kind of pick a background feature. I'm like okay, I see what you guys are doing here right so it's interesting, I guess, is the best way to put it.
Speaker 1:It depends how far are, because in theory, someone like me and you, if we were playing a ttrpg together, really could play something like ninth level games as mazes, where you're just picking your dnd class, choosing your weapons, and effectively, if you roll a one and it's something your class could do, you succeed. If you roll a two or three, it's. If it's something intelligence, you succeed. Four or five. If it's something strength, yada, yada. Maybe it would do great because we wouldn't turn it into power scaling, right.
Speaker 1:We would just play the game, like, for example, the Fate Core games are all. You roll these plus minus dice and add them to the different attributes. But the rules are like. It's like a game making game where I used it to run a Hunter Hunter one shot and a Dragon Ball one shot and it functioned very well when I played with creatives. But then people showed up with my nine-winged angel with a hollow mask and a scythe whose special ability is to instantly slash through space time to kill you not a hypothetical. It was like the cringiest anime OC character I'd ever seen. It looked like something out of Dragon Ball AF or Dragon Ball Super Super Heroes and I'm like oh, because I know like Carl, the Person when Zamasu's like this is my scythe and I don't even know what my powers do anymore died a little inside.
Speaker 2:And it's Dragon Ball you know Dragon Ball's stupid.
Speaker 1:You're fine with being stupid. That was apparently your breaking point. For stupid was the character literally saying I don't even know what my powers do anymore, they're so awesome yeah, oh but like if I told you we were running a bleach session. We probably wouldn't even need dice. We would just pretend to be bleach characters and run around in the backyard yelling at what our Zompakdos do at 30 with no regrets.
Speaker 2:Well, we'd probably have Kendo sticks.
Speaker 1:Yep, Like zero regrets, Like there's a decent chance I bring Kendo sticks to your wedding, like your bachelor party, Like come on. So that's kind of I hope I answered your questions that, depending on the group, those mechanically relevant flavor situations, some games, they almost feel like they don't quite match because the game's already really mechanical Right. So for me if I'm playing something like Vampire, the Masquerade, I'm thinking about it from a character point of view, not a skill point of view. I pick the skills to fit the character, not the character to fit the skills.
Speaker 2:So when.
Speaker 1:I play D&D, I figure out what funny bits I want to do and then build a character that lets me do those bits. So I would have no problem being like, oh, these are what these boxes are for. But I definitely know players who'd be like. This doesn't make sense from a game point of view and it's going too much into a story point of view, so it's like an impasse almost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like the goal. I think I have a reasonable goal in mind now for my character, Because he's his name is Philip Marlowe and he's a hard-boiled detective. I don't know exactly what he's been doing since the end of World War I, completely semi-related your D&D character, philip.
Speaker 1:They found his stone statue on another continent, with people praying around it and the lizard dead, because they thought it was an idol statue that's pretty funny you know that thing where you melt them bolted gold to like piece together pottery, and they did that to assemble, reassemble the Philip statue oh, so Philip couldn't live oh no, he's still very much just dead. It's just some statue of some guy and it's like here lies philip, and they had no further questions. But cassie gave me the evilest look I've ever seen. It was great uh.
Speaker 2:But so, uh, sometime between world war one, world war two, philip comes back from from the war and becomes a detective, trying to root out evil in the seedy underbelly of New York, nice, and he comes across a crime that was committed by a vampire, a murder committed by a vampire, and ends up killing said vampire because that's the only logical way to stop this from happening again. But then another vampire turns him, because obviously he is quite skilled as a mortal and his intellect is useful to the vampire clan or whatever. And so then, the current day we're in quarantine. New York COVID-19 was even worse than it was in reality, and somehow, through the pandemic, it became apparent that there are vampires. And now there's some organization hunting vampires, and I'm not sure what our meeting is about, but I think Philip's goal would be to investigate someone or something that went missing due to these hunters. But I'm having a hard time figuring out his ambition, which is going to be relevant, because you have to act according to your ambition to restore humanity or something along those lines.
Speaker 1:My first thought when looking at those boxes is I always go back to the narrative trope of the want and the need, where what the character actually needs for their story arc versus what they think they need for their story arc.
Speaker 1:And that's how I would go with the ambition and the desire. So the desire would be something like wants to be human again, like whatever his big goal is would be the ambition, and then the desire would be like what he actually needs to achieve that. So if we did Fire Lord Zico, for example, his ambition would be to restore his honor and his desire would be to be loved by his daddy Right.
Speaker 1:It's how I'd go about it, but make 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 to break free of vampire servitude, then his desire would be freedom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, I'm just not really sure. The character Philip Marlowe the only book in the series that I read is called the Big Sleep and it was quite a good book. But he doesn't. His goal is pretty straightforward he just wants to solve the crime.
Speaker 1:Well, you gotta kind of go a layer deeper from that. What is it internally that solving the crime would help him realize internally that solving the crime would help him realize.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, and, like I said, for a person like me this is like let's see. So, yeah, like talking about the want which drives their external, external decisions, like solving a case or a mystery is a want, but like the need is like trying to find that desire for the truth, learning to trust others, et cetera, et cetera. So that's the way I would try and frame it for this, but also part of it comes to your player base too. But also part of it comes to your player base too.
Speaker 1:So one thing I often notice, like for the often cited Water's Deep Dragon Heist campaign is when players make characters whose wants and needs don't feed into the other party members, you end up with five games of Solitaire right, I totally wanted to solve some mysteries, but we were busy building a bakery which is fine, but like if you knew you were playing the bakery campaign, you would have been Cedric the baker, like you, that's true your later character, who is like a weird gourmand, fit better yeah, I like that guy.
Speaker 2:later, character who is like a weird Gormond fit better. Ah, yeah, I like that guy. I can't even Kalidor.
Speaker 1:Kalidor, where it's like, yeah, I ate my arm. What Like fit the level of weird that the group was going for because their campaign ended up more delicious in Dungeon than Dungeon and Dragon, although, to be fair, most of their campaigns end up delicious in the Dungeon instead, which is good that I like delicious in the Dungeon.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's still a fun experience. It's just like not at all what I was expecting based on Session Zero.
Speaker 1:Like not at all what I was expecting, based on session zero. So that's why I'm kind of thinking that, like for your current situation with the players I can imagine for your play-by-post absolutely ask what their wants and needs are to kind of get a sense of scope. Because if it's like wants murder needs the blood of chickens, then maybe hard world detectives might need. Wants booze needs therapy. Like you might want to lower the depth a bit to fit the story being told right, right.
Speaker 2:Okay, I should read what their ambitions and desires are, to be able to figure out what their scope is.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm kind of thinking, like a thought that comes to mind, about like when that dissonance gets. Weird is when you put a character doesn't quite fit in a piece of fiction. So like let's take Uehara and Aizen, for example. Uehara and Aizen are like, look at our deep philosophical objectives and it's like like this is a show about punching each other with swords right no one's really like.
Speaker 1:Aizen's objective made no sense because he weren't doing a philosophical enough thing. Where it's like, ooh, his sword reflects his loneliness as he struggles with his burden of greatness, I'm like, yeah, cool, these themes don't match the show at all. We don't care right we're actually more likely to root for crazy scientist guy with his burden of greatness. I'm like, yeah, cool, these themes don't match the show at all. We don't care, right, we're actually more likely to root for crazy scientist guy Shoots up zombies to fight master hand.
Speaker 1:Master hand made more sense in bleach than Eisen did. Yeah, that's true. So that's kind of I'm trying to think. Can you actually? I'm going to flip the question to a random question back to you what characters? Just felt like they were written for a different show. Like what characters from things you've seen just feel like they would have belonged better in something else hmm, okay.
Speaker 2: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. So, uh, boji, the main character, uh, he's this adorable, happy-go-lucky, deaf kid and it's like I know the whole story is like around him and there's a reason for him being like tiny and weak and deaf, uh, but he's just like, so not the like shonen protagonist that he's become.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's kind of like a dissonance. I love the series and I think it's a great show, but it's just like it's just such a weird like.
Speaker 1:So another one.
Speaker 2:Like the superpower character.
Speaker 1:yeah, what kind of comes to mind is the way they wrote Deku where. So they write Deku from Episode 1 of my Hero. I study my enemies' quirks, I write 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 to punch things real hard and break his body and it's like you gave him the least creative power in your entire cast for the creative character, to the point where people are like wouldn't this show have been better if he just never had a superpower?
Speaker 2:So um Jujutsu Kaisen. I reread, sort of reread, all of it. I kind of skipped all the strategy part for doing the Tsukuna boss gauntlet, but Isidori again as a main character. I don't know if it necessarily doesn't fit for the show, but 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 is his? I can punch real good power, like it's such a bad power for the show and yet he's like toted as this extremely powerful and talented jujutsu sorcerer.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to actually take that as saying and be like no, I don't think Itadori did fit the theme of that show at all. So I would very comfortably say if Itadori wasn't in it as the main character and instead we went with their actual main character of my first girlfriend, died at 12 and became a ghost who haunts me.
Speaker 1:Yuta made way more sense for how that show felt. And like Itadori would have been 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 he was like, yuji felt like a Bleach character that wandered into a show that was trying to be darker than Bleach. And then Dragon Ball has a weird magical power where, because it's a comedy, it can get away with jarring tone shifts, that kind of cause whiplash, where it's like I'm Trunks All my family died in front of me in my post-apocalyptic wasteland and I'm time traveling to fight murderous cyborgs and you're like this is a show where people can do a jazz dance to take two dudes become one dude you know I I know we've dunked on jjk a lot in this, in this podcast.
Speaker 2:It's topical, but oh, man, haven't reread it all um. Firstly, my first observation is that Isidore probably does have a sorcery. Yeah, because there's at least like three times in the series where he inserts himself into people's backstories. Which is funny for me specifically, for many reasons yeah, it was like um toto, the guy that claps his hands moves people around.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah toto is a naruto character in jjk, but he's so broken that it works in jjk because it's like he's a shonen protagonist, but the show kind of plays it like he's so smart that he's literally insane. That guy is actually crazy and that's why he's trying to be all might in a show that chops off your hands without a second thought and gets away with it Is he's just broken?
Speaker 2:But yeah, he like he inserts himself into that guy's backstory. You know, it's like someone asks him a question, responds and suddenly they have memories of things that never happened and call him brother.
Speaker 1:And they vaguely explain that in the final fight, where he does that to Sukuna, where it's like some sort of soul resident, I'm like just say it was his personal power.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just say it was his sorcery.
Speaker 1:Before this turns into a full JJK episode at the one hour mark, because that would be a misplay. I do have to say, though, while we're on the topic of JJK, he's set up like if JJK Shippuden came out next week.
Speaker 1:I'd be happier of JJK as a whole, because this feels more like a midpoint than an ending, because, like, what was the point of Kenjaku being Yuji's mom? What did it do? Because, like it was in the plot, but he never learns about it or reacts to it. No one does. So it's just kind of a detail, because if you put a piece of plot in but no characters in the story have emotional reaction to it, it didn't do anything. Also has nothing to do with anything at all, but me and my brother recently went through all of Gundam Sea and Sea Destiny again and something broke me that I didn't think was going to break me.
Speaker 1:So they have this weapon called Requiem, which is a giant cannon mounted on the moon that shoots up and uses space colonies to redirect the laser. So they basically set up a bunch of arrays and it shoots from anywhere. We bend it with these old, dilapidated colonies and arc it around to hit places. And then I Something important struck my brain. The moon moves, so a lot of animes will have moon bases and moon lasers and moon cannons. The moon orbits the earth, it's not stationary. So your moon base is not going to be in the same spot in three hours as it was three hours ago, which is terrible for so many reasons, because if you build a super weapon on the moon, it's never pointing in the same direction. Also, the earth's also moving. It's all moving, so a gun on the moon would be useless, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, I guess maybe we should move on to our random question?
Speaker 1:Absolutely we should. So I'm pulling up the list.
Speaker 2:Ah, the list is being pulled up. Okay, I got a random question for you. First, though. All right, if one appliance in your house was replaced by a cardboard cutout of that appliance, how long would it take you to notice?
Speaker 1:Oh, my house with my roommate, where we found a skateboard on top of the microwave Never.
Speaker 2:You would never notice, you would never like go to make some toast and realize that your toaster is just a cardboard cutout.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just so used to weird things like that. My toaster would be gone and replaced by a cardboard cutout Like huh Wonder why that happened. Like it wouldn't, I would acknowledge the toaster was gone, but I wouldn't be sure if the toaster was gone, but I wouldn't be sure if the toaster was ever there.
Speaker 2:Okay, was that enough time to help you find a random question?
Speaker 1:Yes, it was. So what food have you seen in an anime that looked so much better in the show than it turned out to be when you ate it in real life?
Speaker 2:That looked so much better in the show Than it turned out to be when you ate it in real life.
Speaker 1:That looked better. Yes, so my answer is the time Germany actually brought back those Red bean paste buns and I'm like this sounds delicious on anime, like it's a dessert, and then it I was not a fan, tasted like sand Was very disappointed. My palate was just not refined enough for this.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, ice cream always looks so luscious and sparkly. Anyway, ice cream is still good, but it never quite compares to that anime representation of ice cream.
Speaker 1:That's fair. And our second question is another anime question Seemed on point for today. This one actually makes me happy. Which anime character are you entering on Iron Chef?
Speaker 2:Which anime character am I entering on Iron Chef? Yep. Which anime character am I entering on Iron Chef? Yep. Wow, I mean, like there's the low-hanging fruit, like Sanji.
Speaker 1:Like Sanji was first thought, or like Soma from Food Wars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say the protagonist of Food Wars is also quite excellent. There's uh, toriko would be a fun one. Well, yeah, Toriko would be a fun one. Toriko would be a fun one. There's that new housekeeping manga.
Speaker 1:He seems like he's not going to handle the Iron Chef mystery ingredient particularly well. I know who I'm entering because it's kind of a hot take. So I'm entering chichi, the person who cooks for zon goku on a daily basis. Nothing that happens at iron chef will compete with cooking for three saiyans yeah, that's true, but plus, like Goku, like will eat bugs and things Like. Yeah, no, like there's no ingredient.
Speaker 1:I'm confident that Chi-Chi wouldn't be able to cook successfully, that is true, including meals for a literal god that'll destroy all life everywhere if they're bad.
Speaker 2:Hmm Well, who I'm looking, looking, looking, looking.
Speaker 1:hmm well, who I'm looking, looking, looking, looking like, I'm hoping for a wild pick from you well, lloyd from Spy Family. I mean, yeah, I guess like you're right, but like see, the problem is we started with Sanji. We're both like, eh, neither of us gonna going to pick Sanji, sanji would beat Lloyd.
Speaker 2:I don't know, Because Lloyd would already have intel on all of his opponents and he would already know what the secret ingredient was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Lloyd's intel on Sanji, where it's like you mean he was a genetically engineered super soldier that likes to cook. I don't know if facts help you in a one-piece fight, they might hurt you.
Speaker 2:This is an Iron Chef fight, and I mean, Sanji is supposedly a great cook.
Speaker 1:We're like I'm confident. Gigi would beat Sanji at cooking just due to power scaling alone. Like Iron Chef's like you got one hour, debone that fish. So, sanji at cooking, just due to power scaling alone, iron Chef's like you've got one hour, debone that fish. So Sanji's kicking a fish in half so the bones separate and then Chi-Chi's moving so fast that the bones turn into dust Because by power scaling logic, chi-chi's, like You're right, lloyd is actually just a normal human.
Speaker 2:He's incredibly skilled, but he actually just a normal human.
Speaker 1:he's incredibly skilled, but he's just a normal human like if I wanted to beat Sanji, I'd probably go with the butler from Black Butler oh yeah like literal demon from hell is your best bet okay, let's see.
Speaker 2:Looking through, looking through, looking through.
Speaker 1:I've run out of options and my final thing is ramen guy from Naruto ramen guy from Naruto alright, and we have one final random question so this one is what is the most hilarious and practical weapon you've seen recently.
Speaker 2:Hilarious, impractical weapon Yep.
Speaker 1:My default is always the arm-mounted gunpowder pilebunker weapon, where instead of just shooting a spike, he uses gunpowder to use the spike so the spike has more kinetic impact, going like an inch. It's just such a dumb concept because everyone would be like why would you bother making a stopper to stop the spike? That's not how anything would work. I'm like a revolver that's hooked to a jackhammer. Spike is cool and you know it. My editor for my first novel is like no, you can't just give your main character the impractical anime spike weapon. But he has super strength. He actually totally could work it. But it's stupid. They couldn't visualize how I was describing this weapon, which I guess if you've never seen one in anime, it would make no sense.
Speaker 2:Oh man, oh man.
Speaker 1:Now I gotta think 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:Oh, the switchaxe is Well, all of the weapons for Monster Hunter are extremely impractical. They're way too big, Even as styrofoam models. You can hardly carry them.
Speaker 1:You're just not trying hard enough.
Speaker 2:But I mean, the gun lance is actually pretty hilariously impractical that is fair, also because it keeps coming up in anime.
Speaker 1:I have to say it boomerangs only come back when you miss, and as soon as you apply that rule, every anime boomerang becomes a terrible weapon, Like Son Go Sarai Coast if it hits the thing it's trying to hit, doesn't come back. It's like the idea of you throwing a giant boomerang on a flying cat so you can catch it is cool, provided it's sufficiently magical.
Speaker 2:Giant boomerang is pretty impractical and common.
Speaker 1:Giant boomerangs are a staple of uselessness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know what else is a staple of uselessness? Sharks with freaking lasers on their head.
Speaker 1:How dare you? However, I want you to know I once played an FPS game for PC that one of the weapons was a shark gun, where it was a laser pointer and then land sharks came up and ate the target at the end of the pointer. You want to say it's impractical, but you love it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it, but I mean I did. I did have a random question, um a different random questions besides the cardboard cutout, one which was uh, what would you do if you could swim through rocks like a, like a land shark? Tax evasion tax evasion tax evasion you're just gonna like swim through a wall to get away from whoever's trying to tax you, or like I don't know what I would do.
Speaker 1:Like the thing about that power is I'm not particularly good swimmer and like, yeah, I can break into places but it's like it was a line that some atheist TED talk gave a while back.
Speaker 1:That was like, without a code of rules to enforce, what's to stop you from going around and murdering and crime all you want? I'm like I do go around and murder and crime as much as I like, which is none because I have no desire to do that. That's kind of my thought, like yeah, I can swim through stone to like commit crime, I guess. But like I'm not interested in doing that. Normally I have some sort of fun gimmick use where you're like what would you do with this weird power? And I'm like honestly not a whole lot. Like if I could swim through everything, I don't know how much that would increase my swimming content. And it was just rocks. What happens if I hit a metal pipe? Does it just go through my arm and kill me? Ha ha, ha, ha ha.
Speaker 2:Well, see, rocks, what happens when I hit a metal pipe? Does it just go through my arm and kill me? Well see, when you play Monster Hunter and like, the monsters are just like swimming through the ground and then jumping up. They're not burrowing, they're not displacing the dirt, they're not leaving a hole behind, they just jump up and they can immediately stand on solid ground.
Speaker 1:I ran into that problem running D&D last weekend. I learned dragons have burrow speeds so they went to this death. Mine, which was a bunch of it, was a blue dragon painted red. So, they'd get all their anti-fire gear and then, haha, surprise, lightning bolt.
Speaker 1:There was water at the bottom of this and a bunch of minecarts like think Donkey Kong Country style minecart tracks, and the idea was that when it shot lightning, if you're standing on one of the tracks it'd zap you because I don't know, I just kind of wanted to kill this party. It was the B team party and I thought I could get away with killing it without any long lasting emotional reper repercussions. So the strike ends with Burrow Speed. I'm like, oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a fire, lightning bolt and burrow underground and come up.
Speaker 1:But then my players start asking questions like can I follow the tunnel behind it? I should be able to see the disturbed ground. Is it rough terrain where it dug before? And I'm like, man, burrow Speeds don't work. No, they no, they don't, because things don't actually burrow like that, like they dig, like for something to dig fast enough that just digs under you would just be structural damage. And like you can't just dig under someone. Then jump up and be like, well huh, monster hunter style, it doesn't actually work. So I wanted to let you know I'm right there with you because I'm like, ooh, jump up and be like, well huh, monster Hunter style, it doesn't actually work.
Speaker 1:I want to let you know I'm right there with you because I'm like, ooh, I have this scheme. And then they asked obvious questions about it. I wasn't prepared as much as I thought I would 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 point because they stood in a line and got lightning bolt.
Speaker 2:That's super funny, but well, thank you for indulging my three questions in increasingly nerdy order.
Speaker 1: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 deal with the serious interpersonal situation with my friend who's also a co worker? And I'm like you don't, you don't, that's what you do. You clock out and go home.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, personally, I think I handled that situation as best I could, and I believe I handled that situation as best I could and I believe I resolved the issue just do what I do sit on a bench cross-legged, and they'll just come up and tell you because they're assuming your gender identity men, don't sit cross-legged to be fair, I trip a lot of various beige flags, so I'm not surprised when people reach the conclusions they reach.
Speaker 1:But I digress. Thank you everybody for tuning in and deep, serious conversations on polysolidical topics about presidential campaigns is absolutely what I was going for, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we promote self-care. You know, go hydrate, exercise, maybe build a snow fort if it snows where you live.
Speaker 1:Oh, and post in the comments who you think would be the best anime cook to win Iron Chef, because I'd love if we had enough contenders to do a future episode where we're just like here's who people think would win anime Iron Chef. It's not Meliodas, no, no. It's very specifically a plot point that his food is terrible and will kill you. Bye, bye, bye. Like me, like me, oh, but seriously, nerd question the first. So I'm in this very complex situation.
Speaker 2:I said that the questions Would get increasingly nerdy.
Speaker 1:I mean you didn't lie to me, but much like a box of chocolates and you open it and there's no chocolates in it and you just said I didn't say I got you chocolates, I said I got you a box, laughing.