What's up, Internet? It is time for another episode of Magical Boys A. Gay gaming, comics, anime, manga, video games. I probably already said that. All that good shit, but from a queer perspective. And it is I, one of two of your lovely hosts, DJ Kirkland. And joined by me, as always, is the ever so lovely and the ever beardy, Ruben Medina. Oh, hello.
I'm very beardy. You're very beardy. I just haven't shaved in a long time. I mean, who cares? Who cares? No one's going to see me. My hair's long. Let's see if I can keep it up the rest of the year and look truly awful. Yeah, like, I most...
I just shave my neck because it gets itchy and a little graimy. And I do that every couple of days because my facial hair grows back so fast. So I do that. And I haven't had a haircut in four months. So I'm just trying to take better care of my hair. So you guys can't see this, but I'm wearing a bonnet. And that's all that I wear around the house. I have completely just resigned myself that I have fully become an auntie. Like, that's just what I am now. Like, I'm like 34.
wear glasses so I can look at computer screens for more than three hours at a time. You got to take off your flip flop and beat me with it. Yeah. Yeah. I got my tongue. And you know, I'm just walking around, walking around the house with my house slippers and I'm like, the music's too loud from the neighbors. I'm just really accepting that I have become an auntie. Like, and that's just what it is. And it's not. Well, that's what this year is. 2020 is the year of the auntie. You're the auntie. Done.
No, my goal is just to be, by Christmas, in honor of his birth, to just be fucky Jesus, to look like fucky Jesus, have the big beard, have the long hair, maybe get in shape, figure out how that's going to work. With all this depression and not being able to go outside, I'll figure out how to get in shape. We'll see how that works. I mean, isn't that a bitch? Like, it's all like, wow, I have all this time on my hands because, fortunately, I think I can speak for both of us. Super blessed to still have a job. Yes, totally. Very grateful and thankful to be employed during all of this fucking nonsense. But depression be like that because it's like, ooh, like I have all this extra time on my hands. I can kind of work.
however I want to work and do whatever I want to do at home during the day. And one of those things you would think would be working out consistently now that there's like no excuse to not to, but the pressure be hitting, anxiety be hitting. It's, it's truly the devil. It makes it difficult. It does make it hard. But before we get this off really quick, I just want to talk WAP is such a like, let's just, let's just talk about WAP real quick because Cardi B and Miss Thee Stallion.
brought it they brought us that summer jam we were waiting for they did and my favorite thing is just this week is uh conservatives losing their shit about it if you've seen how many conservatives are just like adding themselves about having never gotten a WAP yeah actively doing the opposite yeah it's like I'm sorry that like you've never experienced a WAP in your life like You could never. I mean, here's the thing, right? I'm taking off my glasses, by the way. I have very little patience for pick me ass, fucking crusty, boxers wearing ass, fucking Ben Shapiro looking ass, fucking no hairline, have an ass, cishet men.
talking about women's business. For sure. It's funny you mentioned Ben Shapiro, who is a man who has a face and a voice that I would have beaten up in elementary school, and I was someone who was beaten up in elementary school. I've never met more of the walking version of just a punchable face. I don't know if you've seen it, and I don't ever recommend anyone to watch anything involving Ben Shapiro, but he did, just on his show, read the lyrics while self-censoring himself, editing himself as he did it, and it is unintentionally some of the funniest shit I've...
ever seen and what's great is now there's i've seen a couple times people have taken him reading the lyrics and then mixed it back over the track and delayed it so he's saying the lyrics on beat and it is it is very good um and oof yeah but you know i it's just there's very little things right now to bring joy and watching all these um cis ass white ass conservative dudes self-own themselves so intensely is you know just a nice it's a little treat yeah it's like packing up incels like there's nothing else to see here like i'm so sorry that like you believing that just because you're made fun of for liking anime in the 90s that you have a chip on your shoulder and that the personality trait like it's not it's like you're mad that girls didn't find you attractive back when you were a kid and you're like it's real interesting that everybody likes anime now it's like pack it up pack it up sis like maybe it's because you didn't wash your ass maybe it's that maybe it was that Let's really think about it here. TJ, I was having to take an online quiz thing, which sounds like I'm about to talk about some BuzzFeed. But for work every year, we have to do the sexual harassment policy online thing. That's 60 minutes of torture shit you should already know. Sadly enough, I'm sure it is necessary for some people in the workplace. But it's just a real basic ass stuff of how you shouldn't harass people in the workplace or anywhere. And one of the quizzes was like, which one of these things is not...
considered sexual harassment in the workplace. And one of the options, I think I took a screenshot because I didn't laugh. One of the options says, an employee displays erotic anime he created in his cubicle. I was like, do they have a camera? Is this me? Not somebody with a Hatsune Miku statue in their fucking cubicle. Dude, there's two Hatsune Mikus right behind me. And I see your Horny Bulma statues in the background. My Horny Bulmas right there.
you don't even see the horny just monster like so i read that and i was like is this who is this which all made me think about is the fact that when i go to work i usually have my personal laptop on me because like i use my work computer for work stuff and i use my personal laptop for personal stuff during work because don't don't cross those streams yep and on twitter i follow a lot of artists and a lot of artists do lots of not safe for work stuff also i also just follow some like accounts that post adult stuff frequently um and it is like the eternal fear which i could just make another account but whatever uh that's too much work of like when i leave my desk to make sure i either close my laptop or like at least minimize twitter right because i know some untoward shit will come through my twitter feed oh yeah it's probably gonna be anime porn yeah sometimes i'll i will open my main account and even on my main account like i follow some like their strap accounts and of like various big brown boys of you know every shape color and you know everything it's it's great um so sometimes i'll just open it and i'm like wow that is just a butthole just like right there on on my feed like the first thing at the top It's just on Twitter.com. It's on Twitter.com. It's some very hot boy's butthole that says see the whole video on OnlyFans.com. And I'm like, I would love to see it, actually. Yeah. Which is like, you need those pick-me-ups during the workday. That's the kind of serotonin that I need. Well, it's like, you know, this is what I, like, everybody's working for the weekend. No, DJ's just working for that butthole on the OnlyFans. Honestly, like, it's... You gotta make money to pay for that OnlyFans. You can't simp if you're broke. I'm sorry, but you can't simp if you're broke. Right, like, I mean, I don't think, I think that's the episode title. Like, you, how can one simp for someone without there being money involved?
you need the coins i think it's i think simping and ponying up some cash goes hand in hand oh for sure like i think you can like try to figure out like i try to figure out how how can i simp for my partner without giving the money because that would be weird probably yeah it's just like wear these shorts today how do i simp fiscally here's some money yeah how do i okay this is gonna be our new our new online seminar it's gonna be on masterclass.com um how to simp your way to success How to simp and have a 401k? Imagine being able to simp and have a Roth IRA. Can you imagine investing in real estate and simping? I can't. Millennials could never. Yeah. Never, never. Not in this timeline. Because we are in the darkest timeline. All of this to go back to just, I felt very attacked by the sexual harassment training. Only because the displays are like animated in my cubicle. I don't display. No. But I do have it. Just not at work. Because he doesn't have it. Oh my god. I'm just like, I'm just writing this episode title down so I can have it.
Just like simp your way to success in three easy steps. That'll be my self-help book. Oh my God. I love us. Okay. I had to get those written down because every time that we're in a show and I'm like, Ooh, that's the episode title name. And then I go to like, put it up online. I'm like, I forgot what I wanted to call the episode. So I had to get those on paper and have them at my desk ready to go so that we can have a fantastic episode title so that everyone that listens to our show, like all 15 of you that listen to the show can be like, again, with the usernames, with the names of the episode titles. It's like, yeah, that's exactly what we do here. Now, okay. So I'm assuming that past tense for simp is simped, but I feel like sump is something.
Can you simp and then sump? Like, I sumped for? There's no ED, you just, I sump. I sump? Sump, past tense, sump. Samp? I sumped for? I simped. Simped is probably correct. Yeah. I'm sure. Sump. But something about something just... Having something. You know, I do be something, though. I do be something. Something about Mary. Yikes, the reboot that we don't need. No, that we don't need. Get it out of here. DJ, DJ, tell me. Tell me about what you've been playing lately. Okay, so...
If you follow me on Twitter, which most of you on the show do. I mean, 30,000 people do. Oh, gross. Like, I hate it here. Every time I go to a convention and I've met so many of our listeners that come and talk about the show and how they love the show. And then they say, like, oh, my God, I follow you on Twitter. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. Like, that's what I say every time because I just be saying shit. I just be talking on my ass on Twitter sometimes.
But I was talking about how I had a very emotional response to beating Persona 5 Royal. When I tell you I was full on sobbing by the end of it, it was wild. So this isn't really a spoiler. It's just something that happens at the end of the game. Basically, once all of the events are over, you talk to the player characters. Again, one last time. And those moments are all fully voiced. And the voice cast for the English version of the game is so good. They did such a good job.
Because it's all the people that you met that are non-playable confidants, and it's all your player characters that you go talk to, and they all give you stuff when the game is about to end. So go into New Game Plus if you want to. And I was literally crying at every conversation I was having with both the NPCs and the player characters, and I saved Ryuji for last, and it literally broke me. And I was just like... sobbing completely and totally sobbing at the end of it let us state that himbo yeah exactly like it's um Ryuji and On because they've been with you the longest by the end of the game since they're like your first two party members like those two Oh, I was like devastated because I also romanced on as well. So I was like, no, it's so sad. Is the new character romanceable? Yeah, she is. Persona, let me romance that boy. Let me romance that himbo. Let me romance the boys, please. But yeah, I love the game. Total this time as I finished it was 160 hours. It's so much. It's 160 hours. And I loved every minute of it.
um yeah just imagining you crying on your couch and like it's like you're my best friend joker like you're just sobbing no that's that's exactly what happened because Ryuji was like you're my best friend and I was like no like crying like I I think I saved the video that I sent to Brandon because I sent him a video because it was over at his dad's house. And I was like, babe, not me crying at 2 o'clock in the morning after beating Persona 5 Royal. And then I sent him a video, I'm like, it was so good! Like, I literally had a moment. The last heart I ever expected to be stolen was mine. I was like, oh, were you? Joker. Exactly. The voice acting is very good in that game.
It's not too off base, though, for Ryuji's voice. But it's not too far off. But yeah, I really love that game. I think that the retouched localization of the game was very good because the first time around, there were some rough edges around that localization of the game. So I'm really happy that they kind of retooled the script again, and it sounded a lot better this time. The new additions to the game really made it feel really fresh. I really, really love that a lot. And yeah, I just had a really good time. The all-news section of the game is buck wild. That whole story is crazy. I really, really liked it.
I want the Persona 5 Dynasty Warriors game to come out in the US already because it's been out in Japan for a while. It's apparently just Persona 5 2. So I want it. I want it. I want to play it. And it's supposed to be coming out soonish, but I think because of COVID that it kind of pushed the game back, especially because we're recording the English audio tracks for it. So I'm curious if they're just going to go ahead and release the game with Japanese VO only with subtitles and then have the English voice track as DLC. I'm fine with that. I just want to play more.
More Persona. I want to be in that world of Persona 5 again. I love those kids so much. I love that cast more than the Persona 4 cast. And I love the cast in 4. But there are characters that I didn't like necessarily so much. But I loved everyone in 5. I need to go back and play through 4, Golden. You should. It's really good. It's really good. That's what I wish. I wish that they would go back and touch that game. Give me all the quality of life stuff from 5 and throw it into 4. Because 4 is really, really good.
I am definitely spoiled by the quality of life additions in five. I know that I would have a hard time dealing with some of the stuff in four. Yes, yes. Yeah, for sure. But what are you playing right now? Let's see. I'm playing... Okay, so I think I talked about playing Destiny 2 again, which is just Destiny 2, y'all. Destiny's in a good place. It's been fun. I'm just trying to get up to level to do some of the new content. It's an MMO. It's just a fun thing that you log in and you do during the week, and it's like when you can't really think about what you want to play otherwise or you just want to hop onto something comfortable, it's great for that.
uh, the main thing I'm playing right now that I've been newer is I've played some fall guys. Um, I played the beta of it a little bit when it came out and then I bought it. Um, fall guys is great. Um, I'm really, really glad that someone decided to do something different in like, it is, it is that sort of, it's weird. It's like people describe it as a battle royale, which it is a battle royale in as much, like the same way that the Tetris game on switch is battle royale. We're just like, yes, it is a fuck ton of people playing at the same time and you get knocked out over time. Um, but if you haven't seen fall guys, it's everyone is a cute little jelly bean looking avatar.
And it's just like the TV show Wipeout or American Ninja Warrior. It's just running through obstacles or little games. And each game, you start with usually a group of 60. And each game that you go through, usually it's like six levels per play session, whittles that down until one person wins. And right now there's a bunch of different games. So you get a good mix of different games when you play. I think that's the main thing they're going to be adding over time is new costumes and new games. But it's just really fun. It's like...
I don't know how that game works when you invite players. Like, I assume that you'll play in the same session, but there's no, like, teaming up. No, no. There are levels sometimes, like, usually one level through, like, a play session is one where you are put on a team, like, with everyone else because whichever team or the top two teams out of the three that wins that round stay in and the bottom team gets eliminated. But there's no, like, teams with friends in it, which for me is the only downfall of that game is that there isn't a way to, like, play doubles or something of that kind. But it's great. It's just, like, it's fun and it's stupid. It's unfortunately developing a...
a sort of griefing and trolling culture of uh you can grab each other in the game which can be fun but people will just like if someone's doing really well before crossing the finish line at the end of obstacle course or something they'll just like hang out there and try to just grab people as they're trying to come in and like keep them from passing the line um yeah they're just like dumb stuff like that which is like to me just it's for a game that's so silly and fun frustrating also there's been lots of it's on pc so there's already lots of cheating happening which is super frustrating um but it's like for 20 bucks it's great it's a great game to stream because it's funny and silly and simple um It's just really good. And I'm glad that, like, it's a really small developer from what I understand. Yeah. So I'm glad that everyone is, like, the internet is so hyped about it right now. Yeah. And I don't know if I'll keep up, but. And what's cool is that it's currently free if you have PS Plus. Yes. Yeah, if you want to play it on PlayStation with PS Plus, it's free there. Yeah, because that's what I did. I just downloaded it on PS Plus yesterday. No, on Saturday. But if that's when I think it went live on PlayStation. And so when we tried to log in and play, it was down for maintenance. Yes, the server got smashed. Yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to actually play it yet, but it was ready to go. And I think I'm going to give it a shot today for sure.
Yeah. So that's been, that's been like some of my time, uh, with some stuff. Uh, DJ, what else you got? What are you playing? Um, so, um, I have been chronicling my, uh, I think that's chronicling. That would be the word. Um, my ring fit adventure. Um,
Ring Fit Adventure is surprisingly very good. It'll bust your ass. It will bust your ass. It's really fun. A great presentation. I think of the Nintendo fitness things. I think it's way more successful, in my opinion, than Wii Fit was. And I think that's just a testament to the Joy-Con and what it's capable of. And I really like that game a lot. It's like a fitness JRPG, which is super fun. And if you don't want to do the JRPG stuff, it has a workout mode that you can do just to workouts.
and not the adventure part of it. So I really like it a lot. So I primarily use it as a good source of cardio and an upper body workout and even some lower body stuff. I use it to do lots of squats and some very light yoga and core work, but mostly just to get my heart rate up and to start sweating and trying to burn calories. It's really, really good for that. And again, the game in typical Nintendo fashion is very much like, hey, are you good? Do you want to take a break? And I'm like, that's nice. In a case for a game like this, I want you to ask me periodically, like, hey, maybe you should just wrap it up for the day. You've been working, you've been playing for like 15, 20 minutes.
Like, do you want to just, like, finish and be done? And they're like, yeah, you know what? I will. So I appreciate that kind of, like, attention to the actual wellness of the player. And it gives you, like, little fitness tips as you leave the game every time that you play. And it's really encouraging and it's really nice. And the presentation's great. Like, I think it's one of, like, the nicest looking Switch games. And I think...
again, in typical Nintendo fashion to where they're not concerned about having a box that has all of the best specs or whatever, but they're really about optimizing what they have. And really kind of like, let's use every bit of this, of the horsepower of what we have and make something really special and really unique. And like Ring Fit visually looks as good to me as any one of these like hyper stylized games that are on like PS4 and Xbox. It looks just as good to me. Ring Fit looks like, I don't know for sure, but it looks like it's the same.
It looks like Zelda's engine. It looks like Breath of the Wild. It looks like Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword had a baby. The NPCs feel very Skyward Sword to me. And they're so cute. They're really, really cute. In typical Nintendo fashion, maybe it wasn't their intent. Who's to say at this point? Because they do it every game. A lot of fucky characters in that game. Oh, yeah. Incredibly fucky. Yeah. Hubby and Honey? Hubby and Honey? Oh, my God. I walked in, Aaron was playing it, and I was just like...
I was like, give me this large man. And you haven't gotten to, there's like, there's like masters. Like in each one of them is like a different, like one of them is like, I think Abadonis is the Abadmaster. One of them is like a lower body master. I think it's a lower body one who's just like, well, first of all, all the masters are like.
four times your height oh so they're all huge good um and they're all just incredibly fucky and the one that's like the lore body one um let's see if i can find her name but like when she's when they're doing like attacks and stuff one of her attacks is just like her like grinding her like foot into the ground and i'm like nintendo knows oh great i don't know i mean look at the dragon the boss drago like that's a fucking dragon like i need to i need to show you drago's so fucky like the furries are eating good they're gonna be eating good in 2020 and going into 2021 i think furries are gonna be eating good for the next decade oh like rise up everything rise up first yes um here i'm gonna send this to you in real time so you can see dj let me see let me have to pop this window back in what is happening here um let's see oh no the discord no no help what did you do pop back in there we go okay um i'm just gonna paste this right into the chat do it let me see this So Allegra, who is like the legs one. Yes. Like Dojo Master, basically. And the internet is already... Of course, I typed in Ring Fit and Autocomplete was like, Allegra. And I was like, oh, okay. The internet knows it already. I love it. I would love another Zelda game to have this kind of an art style. I love it. It's super clean and super readable and colorful. I love it. I love, love, love the presentation of Ring Fit. But y'all know me by now. I love anything that's hyper-stylized, cartoony, clean, and crisp, and just plays with bright colors and hyper-contrasty, stuff like that. It looks great. It's also surprisingly deep.
like there's i'm i'm amazed aaron's been playing it at least like two or three times a week um and like i'm i'm amazed like how many exercises there are to unlock over 40 um yeah there's a bunch and like it slowly kind of rolls them out to you and like how it introduces new mechanics like over time um it's just it's just really good yeah that game's really good and i don't like i saw a lot of people be like oh like i go to the gym and so like i don't whatever and like honestly even if you go to the gym unless you're like in really really great shape right i think that you can get something out of it because it's just it's good cardio work and it's good like um i know for me I haven't really felt upper body-wise it'd do a whole lot for me, but lower body for sure, because you squat a lot in that game. I definitely had days where I didn't ring fit, and the next day I'm just like, ooh, okay, walking around is a little bit rough. Yeah, and that game, specifically when you do squats, that game wants you to really...
dig in and get low and get low to do the highest power version of the squat that you can. So ring for the series when it comes to that stuff. So I'm really impressed. I've been enjoying it a lot. But what else? What else are you playing right now? So I'm digging my toe back in Yakuza 0, which is like, I'm like 13 hours into it, which I feel like I'm taking like over a year to beat this game, which is fine because I do want to start going through the series. I just need to like...
It's a game where when you sit down to play it, you want to have a couple hours at least. I just haven't had that sort of time for the most part, or at least focus time to do it. But the main game, honestly, I've been so enamored by has been Blazeball, which Blazeball is... I don't, so it is, how do I describe this? It is a fake baseball season with fake teams. And when you log into it, you can go to blazeball.com, B-L-A-S-E ball.com. When you log in, you pick, they have you pick a team, just like whichever team you want to pick. You just pick a team to be your team that you're a fan of. And you get passive income whenever your team plays. I think when they win is when you get it. But then you can also bet on games with coins. Those coins are used for a couple of things. Like you use them to unlock.
the shop initially, and then things in the shop, and then elections. So the shop is stuff like making your passive income higher whenever your team wins a game, making it so you can bet more at a time when you bet on games. So it's a game that you can really not pay attention to if you don't want to, or be super attentive to. Games happen every 30 minutes or every hour, and they all happen at the same time. um you can watch them like live and when they're live it's just text it's just you're seeing it's like watching the live sports stream on espn for a baseball game um in text where it's just like this person's pitching this person's up to bat um they took a strike looking or uh hit a foul ball or um hit a three-run home run whatever it is um and it's It's like all that stuff is fine. But isn't that interesting until the game starts getting really weird? Yeah. So each week has been a season like basically the finals have happened every weekend. So we've had three finals so far. And what you use some of your money on is called blessings and decrees. And you can vote for decrees. Decrees are things that affect the entire game. And then blessings are things that affect your team. And whichever team has like the most votes for those things gets those for those blessings gets those blessings. And whatever has the most votes for decrees gets decrees. So there is a thing in decrees in the first season.
Um, and you can, you spend money to buy votes to, to vote, um, called the forbidden book. And it was like, Hey, this is the forbidden book. Don't open it, but you could vote to open it. And when the forbidden book opened, like a bunch of weird shit happened. Um, solar eclipses became a standard weather type for games. Um, birds, uh, I think birds fill the sky that might've happened later. Um, rogue umpires showed up. Um, also just like really weird, like kind of like almost Eldritch horror shit kind of happens. Um, things that kind of remind me in some ways of like welcome to Night Vale or some of that similar, similar style. Um, and then they affect the game in weird ways. Like.
rogue umpires can just randomly incinerate a player in the middle of a game and they get replaced by another player which happened in the finals this weekend and it was wild because the game is like so limited what's really amazing is that the fans are creating all of the lore for it and it's a thing that like everyone kind of agrees on right so there's a huge blaze ball wiki that is like every player has a backstory and something interesting happens about them there's fan art for these characters the team so my team which won the final the Hades Tigers Hades Tigers, they have a pitcher, Yasmin, Yasmin Mason, I think, who, like, fan art just agreed that she's a deer. Yeah. And so she's always a deer. And, like, people have made Twitter accounts that are, like, they're unofficial, but people treat them as, like, the official Twitter accounts for these characters as well. So, like, I follow, like, Yasmin Mason's account and, like, Jessica Telephone, who's the star batter for the team. I love that. And, like, Jessica Telephone's whole thing is, like, she is an anomaly. So, like, she exists in multiple places at multiple times. She has a legendary bat that was gifted her in the game. Like, all sorts of just weird shit. And it's so fun because you just...
like most things that have really active fandoms, because they've left so much undefined, the fandom has just, with so much creativity, really filled everything in. And so for me, the fun of it is just kind of like keeping track of all of the weird headcanons that the fandom is now just making canon. And at times, the game itself adapts. Like when Jessica Telephone, a blessing was given to her in the game from one of the seasons. And so she was given a legendary bat, which I think the fandom named Dialtone. And so now in the game, when she's at bat, it's like Jessica Telephone at bat wielding.
dial tone um the creators have been really cool about bringing that stuff into the game as well um during the finals uh the first incineration to happen to the hades tigers uh landry violence uh was incinerated in the middle of a game he's a great player and replaced immediately by paula turnip and so like the hades fans were losing their shit because it was like we have to win for for landry like arrest and violence riv like you have to give it up and like and that's like that's what's really really fun about it um like i i lurk the discord for it now just because watching games uh watching the discord that is like when games are happening live especially during the finals is electric Um, like when big things would happen in that game in the finals, there would be like six or 700 messages in three minutes. Yeah. Um, so it's, it's just, it's just a really fun, really silly time waster that just increasingly has like more weird lore. And if that's, that's the sort of stuff that I can get really into. Um, and if the sort of stuff that you like and like the sort of community stuff that you like, you know, I super suggest it. Um, who knows if it's going to hit that point where I think most of these things that have a lot of fandom control or input get, we're like, they become annoying or the fandom gets too toxic around it.
but right now it's like it's so pure and just good and creative at the moment yeah um so if you even if you don't like baseball or like sports i think it's actually really fun that's really great i love community driven stuff like that i mean it kind of makes me again think about um with overwatch specifically how blizzard gives us little bits and bytes of the character's backstory and lore but it's mostly the community surrounding overwatch where people have really given these characters full realized backstories and lives and personalities because still to this day it's like all the characters are just like vague most of the characters have like vague just vague tropes are their personality traits but like the fandom at large has really made them more fully realized characters so i love stuff like that i've always loved that kind of stuff And I love that Blasepal's fandom is really queer. Yeah. Really trans as well, which is great. So, like, there's so many characters and so many players now that, like, use any of them pronouns. There's, like, so many, like, most of the characters, I think, on Twitter have, like, their pronouns and their profiles. That's awesome. Really funny stuff. Like, Jessica Telephone, one of the innings in the finals, Jessica Telephone and Paula Turnip hit, who was the brand new player that replaced Landry Violence, they hit home runs, like, back-to-back. And so everyone's like, they're girlfriends now. Like, that's, it was destined. They're girlfriends. Oh, I love that. That's so cute. And it's just, that's the sort of shit that I think is just really cute. So it's really fun. Yeah, I love that. That's really fun.
And let's see. Other stuff that I'm playing, just really, really quick. I'm making my way through Paper Mario and the Origami King, and it's better than Color Splash. That's what I will say. Again...
it's very very light rpg elements in this and not if not to say that paper mario as a whole series has been super deep mechanically with its jrpg elements it's always been pretty light but um the combat has more consequences in this game and because like in color splash you could essentially avoid any in all combat if you wanted to and still progress through the game so origami king sometimes you are forced into battles and they just have they have to happen especially the boss fights but the ring system i'm not gonna get too deep into it um it's a little confusing but once you get the hang of it it kind of makes sense but yeah like i'm enjoying it it's not my favorite paper mario game nothing is ever gonna beat thousand year door for me or even the first paper mario game on the n64 it just won't um part of that's probably nostalgia but it just the direction that they're going they have been going in with paper mario games isn't the direction that i would pick personally but i do think the game is very fun the writing is very sharp and funny as they always are so there is
some fun stuff to be had in that game. And then I jumped back into playing Tales of Berseria again because I dropped off on that game right around when Persona 5 Vanilla came out. So I had to start it over because I'm like, I have no idea where I left off. I was 30 hours in when I was originally playing it. So I have no idea what to do, how to even play the game. So I had to start a new file. And so I started to play that again. And I love the Tales games. I always have. I really want Tales of Arise to come out. But I know because of COVID, it has delayed that game. So God knows when it's ever going to come out. But that new Tales game looks really good.
The Tuesday show looks great. Yeah, whatever that game decides it wants to come out, I will be buying it. I've heard Brasiria is one of the better modern Tales games. It is. I still personally think that Tales of Zestiria, which was one of the first Tales games to be on the PS4, is my favorite. That one's my favorite because I love that protagonist. I love that whole cast. The characters were great. It has a tie-in anime to you if you have the Funimation app, and I think it might be on Hulu as well. The tie-in anime is voiced by all the same people from that.
that reprise a role from the game. So the dub is really good and the script is really good. So I would play that one too. But yeah, Brasseria, I think mechanically is the best of the ones that have made their way to the PlayStation 4. So if you're looking for an action RPG, play that. I need to play it because I haven't played a Tales game since GameCube probably. But I did play Dragon Quest first, which I have it on Switch and they just added it to Game Pass as well. So I'm just like, I think from what I understand, the Xbox version of it. The Xbox PlayStation versions are the Switch port. It's just the Switch port. So my understanding is that they don't really run any better than the Switch port for the most part. They don't. And so it's not...
gonna look better so like the playstation 4 version of dragon quest 11 obviously looks better because it's missing a bunch of shit yeah just like it's missing some things but like it's like visual stuff that's not anything like that has to deal with the actual game itself it's like environment stuff um but it still looks really good on the switch i mean and i mostly played 90 percent of my switch games in handheld mode so it's fine um it is dragon quest 11 is At this point, I will say that it is my absolute favorite JRPG that I have played within the past five years. Persona 5 Royal is a very close second. I was about to say, I'm surprised. And the reason why is because there is a completely queer coded character in Dragon Quest XI that has a coming out story in the game. And it is so good.
Are they explicit about that character being queer? Or is it just obvious without saying it? It's obvious without saying it. There's literally no way that anyone on this planet could think that character is anything but. And a perfect character. So good. I protect Sylvando at all costs. Such a good character. Really fucking fantastic. Not problematic. Just really, really, really good. Dragon Quest XI is one of the best RPGs I've ever played in my entire life. I gotta play it. It is so good at everything that it does.
Like, again, another game, full-on crying. Dragon Quest XI. It's great. So please play that game, because I really want to know what you think of it. Yeah, I need to play it. I need to get through Yakuza, and then maybe after I get through Yakuza 0, I'll take a Yakuza break and play it. Which, Yakuza, not a JRPG, but a lot of things about it that feel like it. Oh, yeah, definitely has a lot of JRPG elements in it, for sure. Speaking of perfect boys, Kiryu is just... Oh, yeah, protect Kiryu at all costs, period. Yeah, protect him at all costs. He's perfect, and he's so much softer than he seems. Let's see. Let's see. Just stop watching. We talked about Decadence, I think, last week. Yeah, we did. Or last recording. I've been just, like, just mainlining the office. Just...
Cause I never really watched it when it was on TV. Aaron watched some of it. And so it's just been like, let's just have this on in the background. And cause it's just so easy to watch. It is, that show is still very funny. It's interesting to watch. Like that writer's room early on was probably like Mindy Kaling, I think was one of the, in the writer's room in the beginning and directed episodes in production. So I had like a, from what I understand of a somewhat diverse writer's room early on. That show's still like, especially early on and even like later on.
Plays with racism in ways that I think are funny, but also uncomfortable. Yes. So consistently it does which is kind of so I feel conflicted about it as a convenience I'm just like I know that like they're showing how much of a like weenie Dwight is or how just fucking completely clueless Michael is when they do these things that are so heinously racist that are like, you know Microaggressions at the very very very best usually far worse And I understand that the show is like saying like, you know Should having these characters do these things to be like obviously this is wrong. Yeah, and we're laughing at them for being so out of time but it's still like I don't know I still definitely feel ways about it though when it happens I'm just like oh boy and certainly some language that's used that's dated that's like I don't think they would use that they wouldn't use that now for sure That's the one thing that I think in the age of being able to binge shows that came out, let's say in the early to mid 2010s or even the early 2000s to mid 2000s, that you kind of see where we were culturally surrounding certain types of language. And I think in criticism of this type of content, I think more people honestly really need to take into consideration cultural context and time of when these shows were created. Again, some of these things are problematic and have been problematic since the dawn of time. The shows that still have episodes about blackface, why are they still doing it when...
when blackface has been wrong since like the dawn of time so yeah there are certain things about it that are just like full stop it's not good um What I will say, though, I'm trying to make sure that I keep knowing where I'm going with this. But yeah, me and Brandon were watching, because Brandon's never really watched The Office either. And I've watched some of it, but not all of it. And you're talking about all the microaggressions and stuff. The diversity episode, the diversity training episode was episode two of season one. And that was like, whoa, yikes. In terms of the microaggressions and all of that stuff, it was very, very tiptoeing on the edge.
That kind of stuff. I mostly think that The Office holds up. I feel the same way about Parks and Rec as well. They both kind of were... produced and started at times where we were just starting to have conversations around like queerness and more conversations about blackness and like racism in general that you kind of started to see the wheels turning and the language changing as the shows went on in its production. But yeah, starting off, it's like, ooh, this is, yikes, not today. I think these shows, and I think even in some of these like, even like what were probably fairly progressive writers were like, we want to talk about this stuff. Like Oscar's a queer character in The Office, which when The Office first started was probably a big deal. Enough said that like,
him being closeted is a big deal in the early seasons of The Office, which, like, it was, like, it took me a second because it's been a while since I've, like, watched a TV show where that's, like, a big plot point that a character really doesn't want other people to know that they're gay. And so it's, like, that's great. But then, like, so much about how Oscar gets treated for being gay in the early seasons is so rough. That's so rough, for sure. Or just stuff like the only black guy in The Office, or, like, the only black guy who's, like, in The Office proper, who's not down in the warehouse, Stanley, is, like, played in a bunch of various typical black guy roles. Or same with, like, Parks and Rec, right? With Donna, who I love Donna. But, like, very much that type of character and the only black person. So it's, like, there's not...
there's not a good way to like show a big difference. Right. Um, or at least like could with like the colorism of, of like Donna versus like Rashida Jones's character, right. Being mixed. Um, so yeah, it's, it's interesting. Sam had the same thing with the Simpsons where I, we were watching a lot of old Simpsons and like, I forgot how as good and frequently progressive as the Simpsons was. It was intensely transphobic for a long time. There were so many transphobic jokes in that show. Um, and there, there are seasons where they're like,
they're constant. Like, it's almost every episode. I'm just like, what was going on in the writer's room this season where this was, like, thought of as funny every time? So it's just interesting. Again, like you said, it's a thing where it's, I think, obviously, context of time should be taken into account. It doesn't mean those things are a problem. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I just think it's part of the conversation that needs to happen about these shows as people revisit them and people are kind of learning about these things for the first time because, again, they were either literal children when those shows were airing and they didn't have the language or even, like, the...
the understanding of what is and isn't racism and all of that stuff, being young, is to consider the context of the time as part of our discussion of these things when we continue to criticize and talk about how what they are saying and doing is inherently problematic and how we shouldn't bring this stuff forward as we make new shows that are about these kind of topics and things like that. And it doesn't mean we're vilifying these people or anything. It just means that we're saying like, I mean, I would venture to guess that. most of those writers rooms and actors that were involved can like look at those series and be like yeah like we definitely did some stuff at the time that we you know we knew was a little bit on the edge but we didn't think of as being offensive or being that bad or that rough or the sandwich used and you know we look back on it 10 years later and we're just like oh shit yeah that was wish we hadn't done that right um so it's it's definitely it's interesting to go back especially i think is because um because of like the nature of comedy is usually it wants to talk about new stuff or it wants to like find jokes and things. And it's like, it's a delicate balance to find jokes and things and also not like, uh, uh, make, make, uh, a victim out of a group when you do it. Um, especially when you're trying to talk about it in the right way. Yeah. There's, there's, yeah, the, there are levels to it. And it's, I can imagine this, like what our writer's room about something like this looks like and how do we tackle these subjects that are, that are touchy subjects, but do it in a way that is not problematic, but, and also respectful at the same time. So it's, it's funny. And I think like finding that line is hard.
and one of the ways to do that i think is being like we're gonna have this character who's obviously an awful shitty person or someone who just doesn't know any better be the person who says the stuff but you also have to like okay we know that we're making them the butt of the joke but is that like does it there's still like i think a line or there's still a place and it's different for everyone we're like even if you're doing that even if you're making it obvious that these these people are terrible um like do you still need that joke or those languages what you're doing so it's it's always a difficult and interesting i think thing to go back and look at but we've been enjoying going i mean it's as far as a comedy it does hold up pretty well i agree But let's see. What's currently still on my docket of stuff that I'm watching? Just really quickly, God of High School, I've been watching that. It's fine. If you just want popcorn tournament arc of the anime, it's perfect. That's what it is. And it's been a lot of fun and enjoyable. It hasn't been doing anything different or new to me yet in the fighting tournament battle anime genre, but it's solid. So I've been enjoying that. But I just wanted to get through that quickly just to say that I have watched,
all of Netflix's offerings for One Piece. So you finished the Alabasta arc. Alabasta's so good. Yeah, I... So, I will say, with my entire chest, that One Piece, I believe, in my opinion, is better than Naruto, narratively. And the reason why I say this is mainly for one big reason, is that...
While Oda maybe draws one body type for all of the girls. And one face type. But at least... Two face types. They get to do things. And they have agency in One Piece. Like, Nami's whole arc at Arlong Park was incredible. It was so good. And Vivi's story through Alabasta? Yep. So fucking good. Alabasta is good because of Vivi. She's what makes that arc really good because I think you're so invested in...
everything that she's doing. Yeah. I mean, and like the shawl hats like are just a really great diverse group of characters that have their own motivations and wants and needs and desires. And that is established so early on, so succinctly and in such a great way. And then they throw us into their backstories like soon after us meeting them and you just fall in love with them so quickly. They're so, they're so three-dimensional. They're, they're fun. Like Usopp's whole story was really touching and endearing. Like I love that. Like,
Everyone. And I'm obsessed with Chopper. Chopper's story was great. I really, really like that show a lot. And it's the most shounen of shounen animes. But you understand why One Piece has been around for over 20 years at this point. It is just that good.
It's really, really great. I have been having so much fun with it. And I've been watching the dub because I was watching it as I was working. That's the only way that I'm going to be able to get through stuff like this is being able to kind of multitask. And I really like that dub. That dub is very good. Funimation did a really good job with the One Piece dub. And yeah, I just love that crew. I'm going to start reading the manga going forward from Alabasta on. But yeah, I've really enjoyed myself. I know there's more of the anime that I can watch on the Funimation app, but God, trying to use the Funimation app in the web, they have the worst, worst video player.
It's so bad. It's awful. It's so bad. So yeah, I'm just reading it at this point. And yeah, I love it. I love that series a lot. So I see it lives up to its hype. It lives up to the expectations. I understand why it has stood the test of time. It is so good. And don't get me wrong. I am a Naruto stan. But completely. I've been with Naruto since 1999. I love that series a lot. It has a ton of problems. One Piece does as well. But I think in terms of like...
what they're both trying to achieve which are doing different things but again we're talking about two books that ran shonen jump for over a decade like like one piece is just like miles and miles ahead i would say the same thing about hunter hunter as well like it's just miles and miles ahead of what kishimoto was doing with naruto and naruto's so very good i haven't watched any of the one piece anime at all i've seen like a couple clips here and there um i would have to hmm I don't disagree about anything that you're saying about One Piece because I'm now, I've been reading the manga and now I'm 600 chapters in. So, spoiler alert, if you're going to go read the manga now after Alabasta, you're going to read through what is my least shared arc so far, Skypiea, which, still good, but just don't be, if you go to the manga and it feels rough...
that is probably i would say that'll probably be because skypea is a so-so arc in my opinion versus going from the anime to the manga um i one piece has a lot of uh pacing issues i think until alabasta and from alabasta to where i am now is like it's a non-stop it's like that train is going non-stop um and it's great skypea is like the one lull in it in my opinion um i have i feel like i'd have to go back and read neruto which is like that's 700 chapters that's a lot um i don't know i think i think the things that one piece does incredibly well is like you said i think so many women in it have agency and are strong and do shit um I wish that they were more consistently like part of the crew. Like you get, you get like Vivi's pretty strong, but like she'll never, which I guess this is also just a Shonen thing, right? Vivi's strong, but she'll never be, none of the women ever tend to be as strong as like Zolo, Sanji, or did they say Zoro? Zoro. So initially when like four kids got the rights to One Piece, and this was also very early on when the manga was being serialized in like the US Shonen Jump, they changed his name to Zolo, but they then started calling him Zoro. Because in Shonen Jump,
Currently, it's Zolo. Oh, Zolo the manga is Zolo? Yeah, at least unless they changed it after Chapter 600 at some point, but it's been Zolo for a while. Okay, yeah, it's Zolo in the anime. Gotcha. So Zoro, Zolo, Sanji, and Luffy are always going to be stronger than any other women usually involved, which is unfortunate. But we do get Niko Robbins super strong. Boa Hancock, who you'll get to, is one of the seven warlords of the ocean. You do get really, really strong women, but you also get whole stories.
that revolve around them you get uh even with like nami never being strong um nami is given ways to fight um she has her her staff that does like weather shit um and that gets stronger later in the series as well like so she stays like able to be a part of the crew um and it's not just the one right like usap for the most part stays weak compared to most people um same with like chopper right uh chopper is strong in very conditional um situations um so i think like i think overall oda does a better job of like giving women shit to do i feel like I feel like it's not untrue that Naruto is really bad at that, but I do. Naruto does have so many good characters. Completely. It's just because like, I mean, when I think about like how many there are that are really, really, really strong, it's just that like Sakura got done. So I think for some, for me, I think it sometimes feels like Sakura got done so dirty in that series that it kind of like removes any goodwill of like how there's other really great, really strong women characters. Like the fucking, the fucking final boss of all of Naruto is the Kaguya, like the moon princess, like lady, like there are super strong women characters that are really important to story stuff in it that have great relationships. So I feel like, and I feel like I'd have to,
not that Kishimoto did a great job and he for sure did Sakura dirty because Naruto and Sasuke just have power creep that no one else can match. And Sakura should have been right there with him because she's incredibly powerful. Like on paper, she is just as strong, if not more so. She's also the first one of them to fucking murk somebody. Like the Sasori fight, which is like one of the first major fights in Shubadun. She's like one of the first people that kills a human of the three main characters. But yeah, I...
But reading One Piece, you're right. I do see that. I'm like, oh, I get why this has been going for 23 years and why it's the most loved comic period in Japan. Like it's still like the only thing that's outsold it anytime recently was Demon Slayer because everyone slept on Demon Slayer until I had an anime. And then everyone, I was looking at the manga sales like numbers for basically the last like eight, 12 months. And like One Piece is in like second place with like five or six million volumes. And Demon Slayer has like 46 million volumes sold. Because everyone at this point is buying One Piece as it comes out. And people are back blogging on Demon Slayer.
But no, One Piece is amazing. Hunter Hunter is also incredibly good. I need to get farther in it. I need to just read the manga. I mean, I would suggest watching it too because it's done by Madhouse and it looks good the entire time. What I've watched looks great. And it's consistently good. The anime is really, really, really solid. So I would honestly recommend watching it because it's a really fun watch. And the dub is pretty good as well.
Yes, I, yeah. But this is sort of stuff where it's like, I wish, like, I know people, like, because it's the new hotness, talk about My Hero in the same breath. And I'm just like, y'all, it's not, though. If you go and read One Piece, like, you see where One Piece, like, was the trailblazer from. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it really defined it. And that's not saying, My Hero's great. Especially the current arc of My Hero is, like, the best that comic's ever been. But, yeah, it's, there's a reason why One Piece has been around for forever and has been loved so much for so long. And One Piece has problems. Like, again, all the women have the exact same body. Most of them have the same face. I thought Bo Hancock and Nico Robin were the same people. I thought they were the same character for a long time.
anytime i saw like any like not like fan art of them like official art posted i'd be like oh that's a different look for nico that's it um but it's so good read one piece yeah read read one piece absolutely um but what else are you watching was that it for you that's really i've really just been like wow oh i've watched you know what we do in the shadows the tv show which is also very very if you if you like the movie the tv show is just like more of it um different cast but very very very good if you just want it's also like it's just very silly the same way what we do in the shadows was so on fx i believe yes yeah it is on fx you're correct um and for me um i'm watching kakeguri again because i just can't get enough of that horny gambling show it's stunt queen gambling so it's I've watched it all the way through at least four times, both seasons. And I mean, it's just fun. It's just really, really fun and ridiculous. I never finished it. I need to. Yeah. The, the, the way that season two ends, I'm not too very huge fan of, but again, one of the few things where the live action adaptation, I think is better than the anime. But yeah, watch, watch it all. It's, it's fun. It's really, really fun. Yeah. Again, me and my husband have been watching Hunter Hunter. We're on the Chimera Ant arc and it's.
We're towards the end of it and it is dragging on a little too much for whatever reason. But I really like that show a lot. Let's see. And so sadly, I just found out that it recently just either was canceled or it ended this past week. But Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was on Nickelodeon just ended because that show has some of the best animation that I've seen in American kids cartoons in a long time. I don't think I've seen, I don't think I've seen any.
tv anime outside japan that looks as good in a while either like rise rise looks so like and i'm sure it's like kind of few and far between but when they do action sequences the the choreography the animation um you know that that you know that like that studio is full of animators because there's constant anime references happening all the time but it is just Their eye for how to choreograph action sequences is amazing. Trigger seems to be a big influence there, for sure. Every time I see a clip from that show, I'm just like, how is this show this pretty and no one talks about it? Nickelodeon has relegated it to Nicktoons and it's not accessible unless you specifically have that network. It's one of those things for someone that has Comcast and a lot of the networks that have tie-in apps and they're like, oh, they connect with your cable provider and Comcast is never one of them. I don't get to watch a lot of that stuff legally.
So it's hard to kind of get track of that stuff. So I ended up just buying the first season of Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on iTunes. So I can like watch it on my phone or on my iPad or on my Apple TV. And it's great. Like it's really funny. It's sharp. And again, the action sequences are just so snappy and good. Like again, there are just tons and tons of anime nerds that are on that show and it shows. And it is a love letter to not only Ninja Turtles as a franchise, but to anime as well, which I love that we are in a generation where we're getting shows now that are people that grew up with, that are our age and grew up with.
Like being exposed to anime and manga for the first time. And even the younger generation of people that are like in Gen Z that are coming out of college that are getting their jobs and breaks in animation. And you're seeing that just like inundated in the work. And it's awesome. It's really awesome to see. I need to sit down and actually watch the show because I've only really just seen like the clips of action scenes. But I've heard the show itself is also really good. It's really good. I definitely like it. It's one of my favorite American cartoons that I've seen.
Yeah, there's a lot of really good stuff that's out right now. Like, Owl House is really good. Amphibia is also really good. I need to watch both of those. Yeah, both of those shows are really good. They need to put them on Disney+. Disney keeps, like, keeping its best shit off Disney+. I know. Just, like, let Amphibia and Owl House air on Disney+, a day after it comes out. I think Owl House also just had its, just, like, out loud said, one of its characters is gay or bi. Like, that just happened, I believe. It wasn't, like, an implied thing. It was, like, a, yes. And I saw some of the storyboards from that. And, again, like...
Spencer Wan did some of the boards on it. And Spencer Wan, if you guys don't know, is an incredible storyboard artist and artist in general that has worked on so many different anime projects and Western projects. His boards are... like, unmatched. He's so good at what he does. He works on Castlevania, right? He works on Castlevania, yeah. Which, again, if you want, a series that has amazing action, choreography, and animation. Big shout-outs to Powerhouse Animation for doing the damn thing on that show because it's great. But, yeah, that's all that I'm watching. Oh, and my favorite trash reality show is I'm watching The Real Housewives of the Potomac, and it is... Wait, wait, I'm sorry. Did you say Real Housewives of the Potomac? Yes, it is. Is that a fucking thing? Oh, yeah, it is. And it's great. It's what I like to call The Real Light-skinned Housewives of Atlanta. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, it is great. It's better than Real Housewives of Atlanta. Like, it...
It is so, so good. It just, it just sounds like, it sounds like a fake. It sounds fake. It sounds like a, it sounds like a fake season. It sounds like if you were making fun of it, you'd be like, like real housewives of the Chattahoochee. Yeah, exactly. It sounds ridiculous and made up, but no, it's real. And it's very good. Oh my God. It's very, very good. But that's it for all that I'm watching and playing. All right, good. Good, no more. Let's not talk about it. Good, let's get out of here. Do you want to take a quick, a quick break and then we'll talk about some, some news and some questions from our listeners. Let's do it.
And we are back, and we're going to talk about some stuff that's going on in the games and anime space, because there's a lot that's been going on. We've had a couple of game events over the past two and a half weeks, so there's a couple things to talk about, all amidst during COVID. So it's cool to see that stuff is still happening, and that lots of places are doing work from home, so things are still happening. So let's jump into it. Yeah, we had, let's see, there's the Xbox game event that happened later last month, which this, I don't remember most of what was shown, so that probably isn't the best.
Yeah. The thing that stuck out to me and what I saw a lot from people on, at least in the comments on YouTube. was the um the not fantasy star online 3 fantasy star online 3 that's coming out for windows and xbox series x and xbox one still yeah it just looks really good it just looks like they totally revamped um looks like the combat's revamped a little bit but like the graphics are totally revamped um it looks really yeah so like my biggest issue with fantasy star online 2 is that there are so many like menus and things and systems that are all really really confusing and it looks like they have streamlined a lot of that stuff because i think i think the thing that they saw with people getting really excited about Phantasy Star Online 2 finally being available in the West, is that people are really into it, because there's been this community around it that's played the modded version of the Japanese version of the game for such a long time, is that there is this huge community around that game, and now that it's accessible to everyone, I think it's probably exposed a lot of the weird, overly convoluted systems in that game, and trying to, at least from what I can tell, they're trying to make it a little bit more user-friendly and easier to kind of navigate through, so I'm excited to see what they do. The visuals look great, so I'm excited to see how that turns out, because I will definitely be playing, and it's still free to play, so I'm very excited about that.
pso desperately needs especially through like doing this new one uh would be a good time to do it desperately needs like a really good onboarding process and it is a like japanese ass mmo for sure and i know for like when i when i played some of pso too on xbox when they just added it i was like this is really fun but like i'm immediately overwhelmed at how much shit's in here like there's too there's too much going on that's all here immediately like don't even show that like i don't want a game sometimes i don't like when games get things too much because it's too slow but it was just like so much at once and i was like give it to me, give it to me slowly over the course of the first couple hours. And that's not even combat, just systems. What's this currency for? What is this thing for? Destiny's that way, and Destiny's not remotely as complicated as Fantasy Star. So I'm like, just ease me into it. Just a better onboarding experience. Final Fantasy XIV has a better onboarding experience too, and that game has a lot of systems and things that you can do in it, but I still felt like I understood more of the systems by hour two or three more so than I did in the first even 30 minutes of playing Fantasy Star Online 2. Yeah, XIV seems far less complicated than PSO. Yeah, and by the way, I...
i love final fantasy 14 as someone that doesn't actually play it but i love everything about it and i love how positive that community is like there are so many people that are in our discord server and just people that we both kind of mutually follow on twitter that are super deep into final fantasy 14 and it's just been good just consistently good and i'm so happy that there is a game that is like that that is available to people right now because i feel like there aren't that many in terms of the animal landscape that have kind of like stood like the test of time over the past like five or six years outside of like world of warcraft right but i'm glad that there is something else especially for the for the anime nerds and the Final Fantasy nerds like us, that has done so well. So I'm really happy about that. I wish I were way more into that game than I want to be. I want to be so invested in that game, but I play it for a couple of weeks, and I think it's because I don't have a solid group of people to play with that it just doesn't hold you. 100%. Well, so they just extended how long the free beta, or not the free beta, but how long the free tier for that game is, right? So I think it includes Heavensward now. Oh, that's awesome.
And I don't know if it includes Shadowbringers, but it includes like a lot of new content. And so I keep getting like if I can find just even like one person to consistently play with, which I don't I'm not trying to throw a billion hours into MMO. But if I can find one person to consistently play with at least through all of the free content just to like get in there, I would be opposed because it's like I've heard it's some of the best Final Fantasy stuff. Oh, yeah, and I want to play that shit. So if I just treat it playing it like playing a Final Fantasy game through.
but that's fine i just need to have someone to play it with um but yeah it's i'm excited for pso to i hopefully get even even more of an audience and an easier onboarding um the only other thing that i remember really distinctly from the uh series x game event was just like halo infinite looks okay yeah and i know that the i know that 343 and the halo team talked about how they wanted to go with our direction that was back to kind of like og halo where it's like brighter colors simpler uh design like i know more of the modern halo has definitely looked a little bit more um gritty or more realistic um which is totally totally fine like I know some people that love that about Halo and love Halo. Just for me, like, and I'm sure this is also part of the fact that that game's not out yet. That game still has months of touch-up before it comes out. What they showed just didn't...
didn't say anything about next gen right and i think xbox when you're showing a halo game for the new that's like launching on the new hardware what you probably want to show people something that makes them go oh shit wow this is i i need the new one yes because i want to play it and it look this good i play it and i don't think what they showed accomplish that so i agree i'm hoping that next time we see that game we they show us something that gives us that feeling um also it wasn't clear it wasn't clear what that game's gonna play like yeah the map seemed way way bigger it doesn't seem like it's an open world but it does seem like it's made up of like open worlds in a way Yeah, areas where you can, like, choose to go do things in different orders or whatever else, but not one big open world. So, like, maybe a little bit more Destiny in that way, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna be an MMO the way Destiny is. Yeah, I'm still, I like Halo games. I'm still excited to see more from that. I just, I understand why people were, people dunked on it too hard, but I understand why people were bummed about it. Yeah, like, I get where that comes from, totally, because it's like, I think it's the equivalent of Kingdom Hearts 3 for a lot of people, right? I think we were also, like, chomping at the bit for this game because it had been 13 years since Kingdom Hearts 2, and then we get it, and then it's like,
Oh. So for the people that love Halo, and I have a lot of people in my life that are diehard Halo fans, I want that to be good for them. I want it to be good. I want to be optimistic about what that game ends up looking like by the time it hits release. So here's hoping that it's good. I want it to be good. I want nothing more than for Microsoft to just do well in this next console generation. I personally think that we are culturally so far beyond the...
quote unquote console wars. These boxes are basically just like custom built, not custom built, but like box ready to go PC towers that come with the controller at this point. They're all just more and more and more. It's like spaceship looking alienware computers that play specific things. That's what these boxes are at this point. So I just want there to be good games for people to enjoy whichever box they want. Like whatever box suits their needs, I hope that that box gives them the things that they want. That's all that I want from this. That's all that I want for games in general. Like it's...
It's a symptom of capitalism, as most things end up being, because not everyone can afford to spend money on both boxes, so they pick one, and no one wants to be the person that picked the box that doesn't have the cool things. You don't want to be the second Genesis kid. I was that kid. You don't want to be the Genesis kid who doesn't have the superintendent. I was fortunate enough to be the person that had both, but not everybody has that experience. Part of me having that opinion comes from being a person that had access to both of those things. When we talk about these things, it has to come back to capitalism, and it has to come back to access, to being able to access all of these things.
part of it as well but as these systems have become more and more just the same pc boxes that have different shells on top that have specific games to those pc boxes i just want everybody to have fun i just want everybody to have fun with whatever box that they get and they just play the games that they want on their box Like I know I know me my preferences like when action comes around I will probably pick up ps5 because I know that spider-man is okay, and I want to play Miles Morales Spider-man yeah sure I know that the Dark Souls remake is gonna be there like there's Sony tends to have more exclusives that are the types of games that I give more of a shit about one day whereas So far most of the Xbox exclusive stuff that comes up is stuff that like I like halo I don't feel like I have to play it right um like I like I like years of war I don't like I have to play a game I like forza I don't like I have to play for today That's informing my decision. That said, Xbox, user experience, Games Pass, everything about interacting with the customer experience with Microsoft and Xbox is so much better than everyone else right now. I got Games Pass Infinite or Games Pass Premium. Whatever the fuck it's called now. Whatever the platitude.
I got it so I have it for like three years. I upped my Xbox Live stuff and then did it when you could just transfer it over for like a dollar. And I was like, yes, of course, for a dollar. And it's just like, I consistently have really great games to play on my PC or on my Xbox all the time now. And that makes it so I don't have to buy games that often. Like the only games that I've been buying lately, it's like, oh, it's a PlayStation exclusive. I need to go out and buy, like I haven't played it yet. Like eventually I'll probably go and buy Ghost of Tsushima. Or I'll probably eventually play Last of Us Part II. And like I'll have to go and buy those games. And so until Sony offers something of the same kind.
like, that's where me, I'm just like, that's where I'm like, I hate that there's multiple consoles because if I could take the user experience that I have and the services I have with Xbox, which is what Microsoft is really focusing on is the services with exclusives of PlayStation, I'd be set. One box. No problem. Yeah, like, my whole thing is, is like, specifically, like, for Xbox, and I think I've talked about this on the show before, that when it was the PS3, Xbox 360 generation, I was team Xbox. It also helped. So was I, I was 360 all the way. It also helped that I worked at a Microsoft store, so I got 15% off of every game.
that was released on the Xbox. So, of course, I played everything on the 360. And I loved it. Like, the 360 was great. Xbox Live continues to be unmatched. They have been doing the online shit right since Xbox. They've been doing it right every step of the way. And it's taken Sony up until now to really catch up. And they still haven't caught up to the services that Xbox Live offers. And the reason, I still stand by this, the reason at this point to own an Xbox is Games Pass. That is a reason to own one. Period. Games Pass is so good. And that's why with them doing, including xCloud streaming with that, right? So now it's like,
technically they're incentivizing you so that you don't even have to have an xbox to use that stuff if you have an android device you're gonna be able to stream a bunch of that stuff on there like there's gonna be reasons that you can just play your stuff wherever and anywhere i'm just like yeah like that's good shit we should be seeing more of that to give people more easily accessible ways to play these games um i love that shit about it But their thing, their pressure wasn't great. I think that we're, I think there's a event at the end of this month for Xbox, which people are saying we're going to see, which it was confirmed that this is going to be a console. There's an Xbox controller leak for the new controller. And in the instruction manual for the new controller, it mentions the Xbox Series S, which is going to be, what's been codenamed? Which is going to be the, like the weaker budget version of the Series X, which from what I've seen. From my understanding, it's just going to be the digital only version, like the Xbox One.
That's whatever. That's what I don't know. So from what I've seen, I don't know if it's gonna be digital only or not. It might still have disc, but it is, you're gonna have the Series X the same way like you had the Xbox One X. The Series X is going to be like the strongest one. It's just that they're launching with that now. Then Series S or Lockhart, the specs that have leaked about that, it's actually pretty similar in power to, in some ways, it's similar in power to the current Xbox One X. Yeah, which is why they are no longer manufacturing. That makes sense because they're not manufacturing the Xbox One X anymore.
exactly what's what's gonna what's gonna end up being the case or i think the digital uh s is no longer being manufactured either so what there are things that look like i think before it is you're gonna have the xbox one s that we currently have is gonna be the base xbox that's gonna be really cheap and then you're gonna have the series s which this is gonna be confusing but the series s which i think is gonna look like the some of the early leaks people think it's just gonna be a shorter looking version of the series x um is gonna be your mid-tier one and then your top tier is gonna be the series x yeah um and that'll be their entire lineup um So I'm glad that they're doing that. That's going to be like, you're going to be able to play these games across a bunch of different platforms. Or not platforms, but rather different price tiers, basically, of power. But yeah, so that's good. Because maybe I'll be like, oh, they announced the prices for the Lockhart for the Series S. And I'll be like, I'll spend that. I don't want to spend on the whole thing as much. But I'll spend this. If you can play the same games and it's like, oh, this one isn't ready for 8K or whatever the case may be for what the Series S is going to be. Maybe that'll be the one that I buy. So it's like, well, I know that I'm not going to play my Xbox nearly as much as I'm going to play my PlayStation or my Switch.
if I want to get into this system for this new console cycle, like at least there's a budget one that I can get and still not miss a lot of the same experiences. So I hope that ends up being the case. Yeah, that's not me as well. And I'm assuming just because it'll be surprised if they hold out prices longer. I would guess that means that end of August we'll maybe see prices for X and S, perhaps. But I know that both Sony and them are holding off as long as possible so they can try to undercut each other. Yeah, exactly. I think it's going to be expensive. It's going to be expensive, for sure. I don't think we're going to see a $400. It's probably going to be around $5. I think we're going to see a $500 PS5. Maybe the digital one will be $500, maybe. And it's just going on my Best Buy credit card, so whatever. You got 12 months to pay it off. Exactly. No interest for 12 months, so I'm just going to do that, probably.
Let's see. Oh, I think I want to talk about this. It's not related to this. It's different, though. They did share this game at the Xbox game event. Don't Nod has a new game coming out called Tell Me Why, which Don't Nod did Life is Strange. They do these kind of like narrative...
uh it they're not visual novels but they are kind of um but they do this like narrative simple gameplay usually there's like a one interesting gameplay twist like um uh life is strange had a sort of like fast forward rewind mechanic if i remember correctly um that you use for puzzle solving so they did this really interesting thing is um don't not frequently has been having uh queer characters in their games or has been tackling like i think more progressive things than most games do in storytelling um so if you're watching tell me why i don't think they said it explicitly in the trailer but it appeared that one of the characters was trans it focuses on a brother and sister um And so they put out a FAQ, if you're going to tell me why, game.com slash FAQ, and it's really cool. The game's set in Alaska, and the FAQ has a bunch of questions, and they're all in these little, like, you don't see the answer, so you click them, and it expands into a dropdown. But it's set in Alaska, so, like, one of the questions in the FAQ is, what steps did Dontnod take to ensure its representation of Alaska Native cultures respectful? And they talk about, like, what research they did and what they wanted to do to make sure they did that. They, the trans character in the game, Tyler, there's a question, is Tyler's birth name or dead name used anywhere in the game? They address that immediately in this FAQ.
was Tyler's mother transphobic is a question that has a tag that says spoilers on it. So if you, you know that there's like maybe a spoiler for read this, but what's, what to me is really cool. Or like there's also a, does the game depict any transphobia against this character? Um, there's a queer character in it. Uh, does this guy, does it depict homophobia against this character or violence against them? Basically all of these things that could be triggering to people playing this game, they address in this fact so that if you want to, you can go read and, you know, and some of them are spoilers, but it's like,
To me, that's so cool that they took the time and cared to say, hey, this will narratively spoil some aspects of the game, but if you don't want to be surprised by violence towards a queer or trans character in this, you can go read our fact and we'll tell you, does that happen or not? And then you can choose, okay, I don't want to play this game, or I do. Which I think is a great way of, if a game's going to tackle sensitive subject matter, that is realistic, and we should be telling these stories, and we should be tackling sensitive subject matter, to do that while also being respectful of the communities that are playing these games. And it's just cool. It's still above and beyond I've ever seen any developers. And I think that this is the kind of stuff that people are just asking for because I think so much of what people being like cishet people that are acting in bad faith are doing is whenever we're talking about representation in games is like, hey, let's just be conscious of...
of how we're going to represent marginalized communities in our content if you want us to play your games i think these are perfectly fair and reasonable questions to ask it's like hey like maybe i don't want to spend my 20 30 40 50 60 bucks on a game that has a trans character if the game itself is going to be transphobic like why would i why would i invest my hard-earned money into just being harmed by the representation of someone that has an experience that could potentially be similar to mine in a game. Why would I pay money for that? And it's important for games like this, especially right now when these stories are so few in between. I think it's important for there to be games that have trans and queer characters in them that are fluffy and fine and nothing bad happens. And it's important to also tell stories where bad shit doesn't happen because people are bad and we tell narratives. I think those are things that both should happen and both be told. But I love that versus Sony games coming out of Sony First Party, like Last of Us, where it's like...
the the embargoes are so right and you can't talk about any part of right like they're so worried about these leasing out and all that stuff i'm just like that's that's fine and i understand why especially if you have a big twist i know there's big twists and lots of us that happen like that's fine but when it comes to this sort of stuff that you know that some of your some of your players are going to be sensitive to especially if they're part of these communities It's not like they just put it out there and spoiled it. There's also stuff that you know that journalists are going to ask about. Especially journalists from more progressive outlets are going to ask about, hey, there's a trans character in this. How do you guys handle the trans matter in it? Instead of having people go, I think, off-message or inadvertently spoil stuff through that.
don't know just took control of the conversation was like hey here's a fact here are these things um and i love that because it just it makes it so it's like the journalist can then just focus on asking about the game and like the developer can just focus on talking about the game and the story and we don't have to have uh we don't have to have these like awkward conversations or tiptoe around uh queer and trans tropes and narratives and stuff it's just yeah that's part of the story and if you want to know about these things for your own sake for content trigger warning purposes you can go look at them But to me, it's just, it's such a cool thing. I really hope that we start seeing this from more developers where they're not spoiling anything. They just like the very top of the fact, it says, no, some answers contain spoilers for the game. So please proceed with caution. Perfect. Like,
So if you want to know, you can know. And if you don't want to know, you don't need to know. And if someone spoils it for you on Twitter, that's how Twitter is. That's Twitter, babe. That's Twitter, unfortunately. Twitter does not give a fuck about spoilers because people want to fire off their hot takes as fast as they possibly can because the dopamine and the serotonin from giving those likes and retweets, it's real. People like that shit. So who knows? The game might be trash. The game might do other stuff that's problematic and fucked up. But I huge, huge respect to the Dontnod team for doing that, though. Forgive me for putting that back up because I've never seen that before and it's great. Yeah, it's awesome. So as the resident fighting game head, I've...
I've had my opinions about Street Fighter V on the show for the past couple years since we've done this together. And I'm kind of hot and cold on Street Fighter V in general because I haven't really enjoyed a Street Fighter game since Street Fighter III Third Strike. That was the last one that was 2D. And the only 3D Street Fighter games I like are the EX games. And Street Fighter V is neither of those. So I am a Street Fighter fan from afar.
at this stage of my life. And so Capcom just had an event, a live stream, and they talked about their Street Fighter V summer update for basically all the stuff that's going to be happening in 2021 with Street Fighter V. So they announced that we're going to get five new characters. And what's cool is that one of those characters are from my favorite fighting game to come from Capcom, Rival Schools. Like, they're going to put Akira in Street Fighter V. So I think, this is what I'm thinking, that this is going to be like a, we're going to test the interest to see if people are potentially interested in us revisiting
rival schools and bringing it back. Don't get my hopes up, though. Don't get my hopes up. Yeah, and so, for me, again, I said this before, I don't know what this is about me, but, like, I don't get excited about things because I've only ever been disappointed, so I end up having no expectations so that I don't get hurt. So, some of the characters in Street Fighter V, the models look great. So many of the models in Street Fighter V were outsourced to multiple studios, so that's why none of the characters look consistent across the board. I really don't like how Street Fighter V looks. No, I'm not a fan of how Street Fighter V looks visually at all. Like, if Street Fighter leaned into it being cartoony, which...
bodes better for Street Fighter with how ridiculous those characters are, I think it would be a better looking game. If we had a Street Fighter game that looked like Guilty Gear Exard, Revelator 2, that would be perfect. That would be beautiful. What I want you to do, listeners, is go Google... Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 character art. Alpha 3 is the most beautiful character. Look at that art. Now, could you imagine if Arxis made a Street Fighter game that looked exactly like the art? Because it's possible. It's absolutely possible. With the power of technology that we have today, we could have a Street Fighter game that looks like that. But then go type in Street Fighter 5 Ken Masters and look at that demon spawn of a character. We could have had it all. We could have. But, you know.
That should be the next Sony conference with the power of the PlayStation 5 and they just show Street Fighter 6 and it's with Arc System Works and it looks like that. I would cry. I would literally cry if we got a Street Fighter game that looked anywhere as good as Dragon Ball FighterZ or Guilty Gear Exert or Granblue Fantasy Versus. Ken looks so bad. It was my dream for Capcom to just like, maybe we just lean into the anime bullshit. Maybe we just lean into it. Yeah. And I'd be like, yes. You don't need to look like a weird, like, between Street Fighter and Tekken. Like, Tekken's its own thing. That looks good. Street Fighter's its own thing. It's just, yeah, it's in a weird place. Street Fighter V looks like Play Fighter to me. Like, a lot of the design looks like, people just look like they're made out of playing in a way that is weird to me. I just don't look at the textures. No, I don't like them either. Like, there are a couple of character models that look great. Like, Zangief is probably the best looking character in that game. Zangief and, um, and Boxer or...
In the US version of Street Fighter, it's M. Bison. Or if you are a Japanese player, it is... Balrog? Yeah, no. M. Bison and Vega's names are switched in the US release of the game because Balrog is supposed to be M. Bison because he's made after Mike Tyson. So they didn't want to get into legal trouble. So when Street Fighter came to the US, they switched the name from M. Bison. They called him Balrog. And Vega, who has the claw, his name was Balrog. And our M. Bison...
His name is Vega. So those three character names were switched around in the U.S. release. So if you are in the fighting game community, most people refer to who we know as Balrog, who is the Mike Tyson character, or M. Bison, just refer to him as Boxer. Like, that's how they call him Boxer, because that's how they can just...
worldwide just understand who the characters that they're talking about. Because we have Japanese players that are playing it, US people that are playing it, people from all over the world that are playing the game, and they're not the same names. So they just call him Boxer. But yeah, that's what they do to kind of make that make sense. Do you remember that second disc for Rival Schools that was just all minigames? Yes, I do. There's like a Home Run Derby minigame. There was the sexy school nurse giving you a massage with the DualShock controller minigame. Which wasn't really a minigame. It was just literally giving you a massage with the DualShock controller. Yeah, and so a little fun fact about Project Justice Rival Schools, Rival Schools 2, in the Japanese version,
It had a character creator game that was like Mario Party to where you would roll the dice and go around this board and your character would take on attributes of the player characters. So by the time you finished it, you had this character that had movesets from the various characters that you wanted. And they took that out in the Western release of the game. And that when you just beat the game, you got this custom character that represented one of the schools that was kind of customized. So I missed that they took that out, but it was a mess of a game, mini game. But yeah, it was cool. But yeah, it was just so good. Bring that and Bloody Roar back.
we are long overdue for a bloody war remaster like we and no one's asking for it but tech romancer yeah what a weird game like tech romancer is not a good fighting game at all but it's so much fun it is fun it's like it has like a capcom's classics collection of weird ass games the dreamcast era that nobody played and just put uh cannon spider again weird ass fucking games on the dreamcast Well, the Dreamcast literally was just like, hey, we can finally pour all these arcade games to something. So let's just put all these arcade games into the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast ran on the Naomi board, which was the board for all of those games. And it was great. And they were mostly all arcade perfect ports. So it was great. This makes me want to, this does make me want to buy an old Dreamcast. I have two. So, like, because I thought that my original Dreamcast didn't work anymore. So, but it does, thank God. So I bought one at a local convention here in the Bay. And I bought one for like 50 bucks. It had two controllers and a VMU. But they were charging off the ass for games. So I'm like, no.
I'll get more games later on. But I have a working Dreamcast again. And, like, most of the Dreamcast games are not good. Not all of them are great. Because they're arcade game ports. Not all of them are great. But they're fun. That's all about it. Like, they're fun. Like, I wish the Switch would just have, like, a Dreamcast Classics. Like, some bundles or something. Because they're all games that you really only want to play for an hour at most. Yeah, and the Naomi Board works on Switch. Like, I read that article, like, two years ago. That they got it to work. So I'm just like, just do that. Just give me those Dreamcast collections. Because, like, I don't... Crazy Taxi is fun for an hour.
most of the drink test kits are fun for an hour that's about it um but they're not great for longer than that for the most part um with some exceptions there's some good resident evil games on there some good uh some good other games on there for sure um let's see what else do we oh speaking of street fighter uh oh no left capcom yeah um so i'm like hot and cold about that because like oh no led that are like led street fighter 4 So I'm like, he's kind of responsible for Street Fighter 4 being what it was, and I did not like that game at all. But it's sad to see anybody go. But the person that's now in charge of all their titles at Capcom now has done a really good job, because he was responsible for Resident Evil getting its kind of revival, Monster Hunter, all the stuff that Capcom's been doing now is great, Devil May Cry. All their old IPs that they've been doing now are so good.
I still feel like they're going to continue to, because Street Fighter V, if anything that it's done successfully, it's done the games as a service thing very well. It's done that very, very well, and they've just added on more and more content to the game as it's gone on. My want for it, if they just do a remaking Street Fighter VI, if they do that, I just want them to... let it be cartoony, anime-looking, and just, like, get back to, like, what people really loved about Street Fighter. And there are a lot of people that love Street Fighter V. I mean, I could be the minority of the group that, like, of contemporary Street Fighter heads that wants it to kind of go back to what it used to be. Like, I would prefer it to being a fucking beautifully made 2D Street Fighter game, but that's never going to happen. So if you at least get something that looks like Guilty Gear, I would be happy. But I doubt that's everything.
that's like when Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out and I was like yo and I was like nah never mind but so I mean and so my whole thing about Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is now that we got Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite I'm like I actually have a fonder appreciation for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 because that game actually both have an art style it tried to do yeah infinite is a mess yeah mechanically super fun to play but looking at that game is a nightmare so yeah can't do it Do you want to hop into some questions from our listeners? Yeah, because, like, only other thing that I wanted to mention, I'm super hyped for the Yashihime, the Inuyasha continuation anime. I'm very excited about that. Oh, we're following, like, Sashomaru's daughters, twin daughters, isn't it, right? And Inuyasha and Kodome's kid, so, like, I'm excited about that. One of those girls has that Colonel Sanders drip. She does. For sure. She does. She looks like Colonel Sanders. And like Colonel Sanders. We love it. I'm excited about that because as someone that recently watched all of Inuyasha recently, I still need to watch the movies, but I like that series a lot.
I do. I need to watch it. It's been so long, so I don't need to watch it. You should. I would support you. I started having a big crush on, who's the boomerang girl? Oh, Sanga? Oh, she's the best. Yeah. Sanga's the best. But yeah, let's jump into some questions. We, of course, dipped into our lovely Discord server, who, by the way, is just phenomenal, and got some questions.
Mm-hmm. Let's see. First from Quarter Moose, which Nintendo handheld console is, was your favorite, and why? Handheld. I think their best is the Switch. Yes. I think their best is the Switch. Yeah, their best is the Switch because, again, we're getting the handheld and the console system together in one, and I think it was executed pretty well. I still want a Switch Pro that has Bluetooth so I can pair my damn AirPods to it. But if we're not counting the Switch, Game Boy Advance.
Game by Advance SP, specifically for me, that little clamshell. The 3DS had a lot of really, really, really good games, but the SP was a system that was 95% 2D games, but had enough power that the 2D games were really great. All the Mega Man Zero games, Mega Man X Zero games on that system are great. The Final Fantasy Tactics game on there is great. It's a good, good system with a bunch of Advance Wars on there, which is fantastic. The 3DS has, I think...
3DS might have a stronger library. I can say with full confidence that the 3DS has a way better library of games, probably the most diverse library of games that did some really unique and creative things with the dual screens. A really, really great send-off for Nintendo doing a handheld system only. 3DS is fantastic. but the advanced sp was like the last time i remember being able to like actually put a handheld in my pocket and have it on me everywhere i went without carrying a bat like it was it was truly that small like the 3ds was like in the psp and the 3ds were both big enough that unless you were like wearing some cargo shorts or some shit um like it was gonna be hard to put in your pocket also the screens that you're reading sp was a clamshell so you're all good to go uh it's just it's one of my favorites um favorite comic series out right now i'm not reading a lot of western comics so right now um That's going to be a tie for different reasons. Chainsaw Man, which is a current Shonen Jump series, is great. Ghost Rider Time Paradox. Ghost Rider Time Paradox. That shit fucking sucks. That's so good. The end of every chapter. Every chapter is just like, what? So good. Also, are you caught up with it, DJ? Yes. Has a new chapter come out yet? Sunday. I'm ready. I'm caught up.
okay so like that series also appears to be addressing to some degree like um crunch like or like the lifestyle of mangaka of just like constantly turning out comics killing mangaka or making them sick which is wild to see in shonen jump um it's also beautiful the art is so good it's like some like 90s ass really good really good art um the style's great uh so chainsaw man uh ghostwriter time paradox uh one piece is obviously great but i'm not current on it um uh black clover like people sleep on black clover and that shit's so good like the anime is bad like the anime is just not good i i tried watching the anime um both brandon and i really like it like i like the ideas of it but like i can't i just can't watch it like awesome it's like i just oh god i can't just read it because it's it is it is so good like it is it is such a good it is 100 it is like it is shonen it is a shonen ass shonen 100 but it is so good and it does such a good job of being a shonen to be in earnest and it's just great um black lover is was like the most surprising thing that was like this is amazing um
what I probably look forward to most week to week right now might be Chainsaw Man um it's just it's so weird and it's so different from everything else that's in Jump right now it's very different from what I've read of Chainsaw Man it is yeah it is very much not what you would typically see in a Jump book at all no it's very like B-movie horror but they keep doing character stuff in it that's like surprisingly emotional that's really really good um it's just yeah it's just very good yeah um has a question about thoughts on the rise of the teenage mutant turtles and nickelodeon being a bad company again um so yeah again again nickelodeon doing things that i'm like suck really bad like they canceled Rise of the City of Ninja Turtles. There's still a movie coming out that's coming to Netflix. I'm excited about that. But they canceled that for them to do two SpongeBob spinoffs, which the creator of SpongeBob, who is sadly no longer with us, didn't want. So now that he's gone, they're like... Explicitly did not want more SpongeBob. Yeah, he was like, no, there's no more. But now that he's gone, they're just going to make more SpongeBob stuff. And I don't think anybody wanted that, especially the creator of that series. So it's just a shame because at every turn to where Nickelodeon does something really, really different and unique.
for their shows, it's the one that always gets the axe first. It's because they, one, they don't invest in releasing toys for it, which is a big reason why the shows get canceled to begin with anyway. And two, they're typically relegated to their either online-only platforms or somewhere that's not accessible for people to watch the show. So it's like they're dead on arrival. So I'm surprised that Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was around for as long as it was. But I've just started, because I wanted to find somewhere to stream it legally, but there hasn't been anywhere to do that. So I just bought the first season on iTunes and I'm slowly starting to watch it now.
I hope it happens to be a situation like kind of what happened with Glitch Text, which was a show that was originally supposed to air on Nickelodeon, which was then, it was canceled before it even started, but then it ended up finding a home on Netflix, and then its next 12 episodes are coming out really soon, which Glitch Text is also a pretty cool show, so watch that if you haven't seen it. I hope that we see more of Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it's so good. It's so, so good. I know a lot of that team is going to be working on the new Lego. That new Lego show that's coming out. Yeah. Which looks great. Yeah. Might be the same studio even because it's a lot of the same people working. But it looks great. So I just hope that, I hope that no matter what, those people get to keep working on shit they like because they're so good. From Black Barbara Gordon, any thoughts on, DJ just had to inform me that Act Age is actually not pronounced Act Age. It's Act Age.
uh, on the Act Age debacle, uh, and how John Pampled it. So, uh, let's, how do I catch people up? The, so Act Age is, uh, is a, is written and drawn. It's not one mangaka. It's a duo. Um, I think the artist is like 24. She's pretty young. Um, so, and the, the, I believe the writer is 29 or in his early thirties. So basically, um, uh, allegations came up of, of improper conduct between the, um,
the writer of uh actage and what was initially reported as minors um uh that i think eventually was clarified into it sounds like he assaulted some middle school girls uh on more than one occasion um and there's there's a security camera footage of it i don't have all the details but last time i read that was basically like he assaulted them i don't know to the degree um so last time i read it sounds like they're pulling the series from jump at least temporarily or pulling the new issue from coming out um i don't know if jump's gonna do a whole lot more than that though given the fact that like this is like this is also like a really bigger discussion in um i always want to err on when i talk about stuff happening in a different country especially a different country with a culture as different as japan is from ours like how i talk about the stuff because i don't ever want to sound like oh this is the thing that happens over there that doesn't happen here because by all means this shit happens in america too um but there is a i think systemic problem in anime and manga with how it treats underage characters and sexualizes them um and we keep consistently seeing mangaka especially mangaka at jump who end up being guilty of the ship uh the shit it happened with um the romani kenshin creator who like just straight up had uh which trigger warning i guess for this conversation um i should have given earlier we'll put it in the notes um for the episode but uh for you know um child pornography um and assault but like he had i believe child pornography on his computer and like the kenshin writer got a creator got a slap on the wrist basically last time i checked um which is you know nothing uh for for that versus you look at something like um what are the voice actors for judgment the yakuza game
or like Yakuza adjacent game, who I think got caught on cocaine charges. And they took the game off the shelf, took his voice out of the game, had replaced his, like that game went off the shelf for months while they re-recorded that voice actor. And so it's like, you know, like it's, it is wild that like such intense lengths went through removing this person completely from this video game that already come out for having cocaine versus you take like the Kenshin mangaka, like having child pornography. And, you know, I think that was around the same time that Jump Force came out and Kenshin's a playable character in it. so um so it looks like as of 13 hours ago at least it looks like actage was canceled which is good i feel bad for obviously like for the victims of this dude um i also feel really bad for the artist who's on it because the series was just starting to like really pick up steam as far as people paying attention to it and getting notoriety um and she seems like a promising young artist um and this is something that she's going to have to deal with in her career, which sucks, for sure. So I'm hoping that she wasn't A, complicit in any of this, and B, can bounce back into something else. Yeah, it looks like they're ending the series. The final chapters of it are expected to be published in print only. Manga Plus isn't going to host the final chapter for it. There's been no updates given on the mangaka Matsuki, his case, since this was first reported on. So I don't...
yeah I don't know I think Shonen Jump I was reading somewhere else I don't think they have any women on their editorial staff which if that's the case that's obviously a problem and I think that there's obviously again we talked about I opened up talking about this but there's a systemic problem I think in that community that, you know, we were talking about this before the podcast where it's like, you look at My Hero, which is a super, super mainstream series, and Mineta is a character who's like constantly, constantly sexually harassing everyone, and it's just a joke. And Mineta frequently is the self-insert for Horikoshi, the manga-ka for that series. And that's not just in My Hero. That's in most shounen manga, unfortunately. Like, I can't fuck with Seven Deadly Sins because the main character is just constantly sexually harassing everyone, and it's the hero of the story, and it's not treated like it's anything. It's not a joke.
That shit was in Dragon Ball to a degree. That's been constant. And it's always treating the stuff like it's nothing or it's a joke. Not that manga will make you do bad shit that you shouldn't do. Violent video games don't make kids violent. But people also tend to write what they feel or write what they know. And so if every time you're writing shit, it has that in it, that might say something about how you feel about that or how you don't see it as a serious thing.
I think that's something that is just going to continue to happen unless Shonen Jump and other publishers address that. And not just address it to the public, address it internally, address it with the people they hire, the type of stories that decide to run, the type of stories they pick up. And they have editors. There's editors for all these mangaka that, from what I understand, have quite a bit of power in when they're meeting with these artists and storytellers of saying, hey, this thing's in this comic, and I don't really think it's... Maybe try a different direction. My understanding was a lot of Kishimoto writing Naruto. A lot of how that series ended, a lot of Sasuke and Sakura ending up together, all these things. A lot of things were things that he didn't want to do.
but were really pushed on him by his editor as being what would be the popular thing to do. So it's not like you don't have editors that can't be like, hey, maybe like, let's not have so much sexual harassment, especially being perpetrated by heroes of stories. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to get this out real quick. I can't really, I don't want to speak too much on like the Aga stuff just because like I work at the company that.
publishes that book in the u.s so on so again like the opinions the opinions that are expressed here on the show are my own they are not representative of my employer um so i just i'm not gonna really speak too much on that but um i would agree with what ruben is saying on all that on all accounts in regards to that but yeah um yeah like it's weird like i i had a conversation about this on tiktok um because this was like a couple of weeks ago to where um Again, we're talking about like comic book artists and some of them being shitty and all of that stuff. And I really want people to really take the time to really understand and start to identify their unconscious biases because that stuff manifests in works of creators that you like. So think about like a book.
Or, I mean, I guess not necessarily about that particular, but, like, in the future, what I would say is, if you're reading something and you're seeing, like, hmm, the way that women are being treated in this is not so great, or, oh, there are, like, no queer characters, or the way that some of the queer characters are being treated in this, like, is not so great, like, I would definitely, like, pay attention to that, and then also look at, like, the creators, especially if they're on Twitter, like, the kind of stuff that they're saying online and what they're tweeting. Like, I know that some people can separate the art from the artist. I am not one of those people, as someone that is an artist, that we are often drawing and creating things. of what we know and our own experiences and putting our opinions and our thoughts into the work so really really think about that to really think about that and consider what's going on in the content that you're consuming and what you're willing and what you are willing and not willing to handle in the stuff that you are consuming. So it's just something that I think people should really think about and consider when it comes to consuming content. And again, we say it all the time on the show that it is more than okay to like problematic things. Acknowledging that said thing is problematic is what's most important. And you can do whatever you want to do because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. So do whatever you want to do. But, you know, I would just be mindful of stuff like that.
yeah and that doesn't mean like um i'm i'm all for also like consume problematic content if you want to like i certainly um some of my favorite series are like full of problematic but also for me like also like when i see that i go okay well i should also be prepared for this creator to maybe have some shit going on that will make me need to jettison this like because that might be part of what's coming out here who knows right i was just looking into it just because i wanted to to remember correctly the uh kenshin watsuki the kenshin creator um i believe when the indictment was filed he was hit with a 200 000 yen um fine which is two grand. So like he, you know, for having child pornography, he basically had to spend the cost of a nice couch, like, which is fucked up. That's so fucked up. Um, so yeah, as far as like what's gonna happen to this, uh, guy, probably not much of anything. Probably.
a fine maybe some jail time because i have him assaulting people on camera and again i don't know the the extent of how much of how severe it was um if it was if it was um sexual harassment or worse or something you know far worse or more invasive um but what i'm hoping though is that like shonen jump um in shueisha by extension who owns them just starts making changes internally i don't think that'll be the case but that would be great um because it would make for you know right now if i look at shonen jump a lot of shonen jump feels very similar because a lot of it is that um and a lot of shonen has been that for a long time it would be nice to see the shonen genre have more weird more different more diverse stuff going on in it um moving on from scarlet queen with today being august 10th what's your favorite song of the summer oh that that's a hard question let me dj will tell you i'm so bad at keeping up with like new music let me look at my at my spotify list right now okay so i just i just googled top 40 because because that's how old i am terrible so a couple of things that are on my list um i would say um tap in by saweetie is like one of my favorite songs of the summer um it samples uh blow the whistle by too short which is like one of my favorite one of my favorite artists that's from the bay um love that um
I would say that Sour Candy is probably my favorite song on Lady Gaga's latest album, Chromatica. Rain On Me is really good, but Sour Candy, it features Blackpink, the K-pop group, and it is so deliciously ridiculous, cheesy, earworm pop music that it's like the serotonin that I get from listening to that song is what I want at all times. I'm the kind of person that listens to a song on repeat. For hours. So that's why I always whenever I'm listening to a new song that I'm obsessed with, I always have headphones in. Because I don't want to subject anybody else to my bullshit from when I'm listening to music. Wait, number 11 on the church right now is a song called Blueberry Fago? Blueberry Fago's really good. I like that song a lot. I like that song a lot. This is me literally going through the Billboard Top 100. I like Blueberry Fago a lot. It's really good. Because I just go on the top rated on Apple Music or Spotify and just listen. And whatever I like, I put on my playlist. It's how I kind of consume and find new music.
Maybe some Dua Lipa. Let me say this right now. Dua Lipa has the album of the summer. That album has no skips. Every single track. Back to back to back to back. Flawless. No skips. Do you like how I said Dua Lipa at first? Because I'm that out of touch. I was so nervous. Listen to that album. It is so good. Every song. Future Nostalgia. That's the album of the summer. Don't Start Now is such a good song. You know what? I think that...
Break my heart. Because I'll tell you why. Because if the gays, if the queers were able to go out this summer, Chromatica and Future Nostalgia would be bumping at every gay function, the world would explode. Hallucinate on Future Nostalgia, that song is incredible. And the music video, if you were high or on some other drug of your choosing, it's incredible. That video looks like
Dua Lipa was like, I want a music video like Cuphead, the video game. And that's what it is. It looks like Cuphead. And it's great. That song is so good. That needs to be my homework for this week is to listen to Chromatica and Future Nostalgia. I want you to listen to Future Nostalgia first. I want you to listen all the way through. Do not skip a single song. You won't want to skip a song because they're all good. Every single song on that album is phenomenal. I can't say the same for me personally for Chromatica, but it's Lady Gaga's best album that we've had in a long time.
It's very good. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I can think of off the top of my head. So my answer, I guess, is just do a lead. Yeah, the album of the summer. Thanks for coming across the pound. I sure like your music. Rina Sawayama's album is very good. It's weird. I've listened to some of it, and what I've listened to is really dope, but it's really weird. It's really, really weird. It gives me, like, early 2000s pop vibes, and also, like, K-pop, It's kind of Kairu vibes as well. XS and Comme des Garcons are my two favorite albums on Rina Sawayama's new album. Like...
I will listen to those songs, again, on repeat for hours. So good. That's what I would say, for sure. Yeah, I'll have to, that'll be my homework, is to listen to those two. And then I'll have to give you, next episode, I'll give a book report. Yeah, please do. I want to know your thoughts. Like, please, I want you to text me as you're listening to Future Nostalgia. I really, I need a play-by-play of you, like, experiencing that album for the first time. I'll do it, I promise. Because me and Brandon had it blasting in our house, and we were like, oh my god. Like, how was it just, how was it still just so good? But, yeah. When you wake up tomorrow, shoot me a text and be like, have you started listening to it yet? And, because I haven't remembered to when I wake up tomorrow while I'm working. And then I'll listen to it. I need the play-by-play. Another question for Black Barbara Gordon we got.
what are your thoughts on games that focus more on building up a narrative on your own slash creating your own world like the Sims and Animal Crossing to some extent? I've mostly seen straight dudes with limited imagination tag them as not being real games in the communities these games form are as robust as an FPS community. Yeah, that's, I mean, this is like what I was talking about with Blaseball early on is like, I think that, I think that people like, especially like a lot of like, quote unquote, when you think of like the kind of straight white cis game gamers. capital G gamer play call of duty and Madden, which are fine. Cause call of duty and Madden are both fun to play and they're good games. Um, but like, yeah, some people really want, uh, they're handheld in a very direct experience or just a very like, here's the simple mechanics and here's it. Here's what it is. And it's skill based or I like competition. So here's competition and that's fine. But some people want to like have more, um, more authorship in their games. And that's why, you know, I do think that's why you see with things like, um, animal crossing or the Sims being more popular with demographics that aren't like capital G gamer, which is like women or, or the queer community, um, or, or people that are non-binary or genderqueer. Um,
And that's, I think it's really, really good because I think there's an old quote from the creator, like the main creator of Gundam. I can't remember his name off the top of my head. But he specifically talks about like Gundam really early on had a huge female fan base. And he basically talks about, I think I mentioned on the show before, but he talks about how like, he was like the true fans of the series are the female fans because they're the ones that like create fan art and are making their own stories in the universe and like basically making fanfic. And this is back, you know, Gundam was in the late 60s, early 70s was when Mobile Suit started.
yeah uh in 1979 right was when mobile suit started and so i think like giving people the room to have that authorship it's great i mean that's that's also how like you know not that i love it where it's the best example but something like um uh twilight right twilight started off as 50 shades of gray fan fiction no vice versa so around 50 shades of gray started out as twilight fan fiction and like 50 shades of gray i i don't like it but but it was someone wanted to create something and make something based on something they like a lot um and it made them a fuck ton of money and i think a lot of other people liked too um and that to me is always like uh the fire community right so much of the fun of fire emblem to me was reading like the fake like fire emblem twitter conversations that just personify those characters or get their voices really well so as um i guess like my thoughts about it i think it's i think that is interesting that those communities are largely not straight white men i would have to sit down and think with it a bit more to like have a theory about why that's the case um besides just the fact that those those uh
those more like capital G gamer, hardcore games are heavily gated. Um, and have really, really toxic player bases. So, you know, it might not be why there's as many people of, of, of not that exact demographic. Um, but it's great. I love that. Like, again, the reason why Blaseball is cool to me right now is because it's the entire thing's being, all the story and interesting bits of it are being filled in by the community. The game is basically just like writing props for people to go crazy with. And I love that. Yeah. Like I love that stuff too. Like I, like, I mean, again, like all of this shit comes back to capitalism. Like it all, at its core, it all comes back to capitalism. And I, I just think, I think about like the way in which like,
dusty crusty like not watching their ass having ass straight dudes that play all these video games that constantly are telling people that are like like because animal crossing is popular well animal crossing is not a real game like like that's not real it's like it's a fucking video game it is a game that you go to game stop or whatever other fucking electronics retailer that you put into your nintendo switch a game system and you turn on and play it is a video game that is what it is by definition stop gatekeeping games it's because it's not a run a run and gun shoot man game or fucking 2k like doesn't make it less of a video game Stop it. There are different types of video games for different types of people, and not every game has to appeal to you. Let's normalize not everything needing to be for everybody. Not everything is designed for everyone. I think so many people get so caught up in being like, oh, this game doesn't do this or doesn't do that. It's like, well, maybe it doesn't. And there's absolutely room for criticism, which is what we like to do on the show all the time. We should be criticizing all the games that we play and having these conversations. But we should also be saying, hey, well, this might not necessarily be for me, and that's okay.
There is a whole demographic of people that love this, and it's just not me. And that's fine. I wish more people could just, like, understand that not everything has to be for them. Not everybody is going to be in Animal Crossing, and that's okay. Yes. Let people like what they like and play what they want to play. And, like, feel free to have opinions about it, for sure. But still let them. Like, I certainly have opinions about it. That's why we do this podcast. But I'm not going to, like, by all means, play that thing when you want to play. Or do that thing they want to do. Let's see. What else we got here?
A question from Holly. Here's a question. Which iconic dish from the anime would you love to try? I can't think of a specific dish, but literally any food from any Ghibli movie. Because Ghibli just always makes food look so good. Like, so intensely good. Yeah, absolutely. It makes me hungry every time. Yeah, I would say that, and I would also add to every dish that was made in Food Wars. Yeah, so I really want to try that bacon-wrapped potato dish that they made in the first episode of the anime, in the first volume of the manga. That looks so fucking good. Just, like, potatoes that's, like, absorbed in, like,
bacon juices sounds incredible. So I would love to have that. Let's see. One more, another question from Holly, which this one, this one makes me sad, but also happy to think about. Imagine we're in a world where conventions are happening. You're doing, you're done tabling for the day and you're going to meet up with some friends. What's your post-con hangout game plan? This question's in honor of FlameCon, which was supposed to be this weekend. Dang. Well, I mean, God, if it was FlameCon, it would be me and DJ getting some Carpecio. Getting drunk and then going to Forever 21 at like 2am.
which was amazing in times where which is wild um and then making making dumb instagram videos um the one that came to mind to my mind immediately just because it's probably my favorite con that um i do with my partner is mag fest that we do in dc every year um mag fest is in national harbor maryland and there's a bunch of little restaurants around it um around the gay lord which is the hotel it's held in um there is a restaurant there called the walrus which is a seafood place that's like clams like they're just it's a great clam place oyster rather it's a great oyster place um their oysters are fantastic um they have a uh shrimp not shrimp a lobster uh a lobster roll that's just like god the fucking best it's like expensive but it's worth it like when we so it's like when we are at magfest like we will end up being at the walrus like two maybe three times over the course of the four days we're there four or five days um uh and aaron's always like it's just i'm making money at this con and i'm tired so i get to deserve this um or going to nando's because there's a nando's right there and we don't have those uh in georgia which is their chicken's amazing um yeah it's usually like like doing whatever we need to do to the table before we leave and then
going to grab dinner together somewhere, and then after dinner, making, like, some drinks, putting them in inconspicuous bottles, and then walking around, either walking around the con and just, like, checking stuff out, or just, like, staying in the fucking hotel room with, like, two or three other people that are not in our room. Like, no big parties, just, like, a couple friends, usually other people that are tabling, and, like, sit down, count your money, hopefully it was a good day, and then, like, watch some dumb shit on the TV and drink and relax. Yeah, that's, like, absolutely, like, the best part of, like, the con experience. One of my favorite moments is with my friend Steen's, like, I will never forget this, it was Emerald City Comic Con 2017. 2017. No, 2018. And I was staying in the hotel where quote-unquote BarCon is always held in Emerald City. So her and I both love shitty Bravo reality television shows. So there's a show that's called Vanderpump Rules, which is a spinoff of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with one of the former castmates, Lisa Vanderpump. And Lisa Vanderpump owns a ton of restaurants in Los Angeles. And one of the restaurants she owns is called Pump. And the show centers around her entire waitstaff of that restaurant.
So basically, Pump and De La Rosa are the two restaurants that it centers around. Lisa Vanderpump has her own sangria so as a joke we were like oh my god we should totally get the Lisa Vanderpump sangria and drink it at Emerald City so she did so she got it and so we got to the convention and she came up to my room and we just like with like the Starbucks cups they give you in the hotel room we each poured like half of the sangria which was like 90% like Welch's grape juice with like a little bit of alcohol it was horrible and so we just drank that and went to Barcon and just like had a fucking blast like it was great and then my other favorite moment you've already said it was when we were at Flamecon together and we shared we shared the same room and we just like ran out and just bought like shitty shitty drinks and pizza and just like went back to the hotel room and like talk shit and had a couple friends over and like that was it like that those are my perfect post-con activities like i used to be really really about like this is like before like i started doing like like booklet comments professionally like trying to like get in and meet people and all that stuff and network or whatever
Now I'm way more interested in having more intimate moments with people that I don't get to see very often, where I only really do get to see them at shows. Maybe six to eight of us will go to dinner and have drinks and just talk and get to continue to know each other and establish our relationship as friends and creatives in the same industry just trying to do the best work that we can and just having a good time. That's what I love about conventions. I miss that more than anything. It's just being with people that I don't really get to see very often and just getting to hug them and say hi and tell them in person how much I love and support them and all that stuff. I really miss it.
yeah that's i mean something about like obviously i don't table at cons i'm usually either sitting with aaron to like assist her or like watch the table or i'm usually usually i'm running errands like i'm running around like grab water or grab lunch for aaron and like usually a couple different tabling and then just like doing con stuff um but it is like i understand from like a doing performance perspective like you're on all day um you are like performing at your table in a way because you have to be personable you're you're selling um and so i think when i was younger yeah definitely like and maybe one night of the con two at most you're like yeah let's get down to the hotel bar and like network and schmooze and see people and or let's go to a party or like any of that but certainly as i get older that becomes like less and less appealing and it's more just like well what if what if we just go to the room and what's the easiest way for me to get food and alcohol like that requires the little like the minimal amount of effort possible is door dash how fast can i take off my pants When I found out that in DC for MagFest, there's a booze delivery service in DC. You just can do Postmates or anything else, but it's just for liquor. And it wasn't that big of an upcharge. I was just like, this is it. I don't have to spend a bunch of money, more than I should spend on drinks. I can just have a bottle of something delivered, get a bottle of wine, get some whiskey.
use that for the weekend order some bad chinese some pizza whatever and just and just just relax and ideally yeah relax with a friend that i haven't seen like i so desperately look forward to cons usually like to cdj because we go to similar cons or like i want to go back to emerald city really bad because i haven't seen nigel in forever um like that's what cons are for me is like seeing artists that i really really love that i don't get to see who are just good people i agree 1000 i miss it yeah i miss it a lot too um until there's a vaccine i ain't going to no fucking conventions anytime soon um no fuck that um not doing it you're not gonna see me on an airplane unless there's like a massive emergency I, as much as I hate being stuck in either an airplane or a car, particularly I hate being stuck in a car for any extended amount of time. I would prefer to fly, but I will drive. It's not a far drive. I'll drive to LA and see my friends in LA. I will do that. But I, unless it's an emergency, I am not being on an airplane anytime soon. Yeah. Just ain't worth it. Not right now. Anyway. Well, DJ, that's probably, well, actually we have one more question, which has no context, which I love from professor Litwick. I probably missed the question deadline, but should I punch my boss in the face? Yes or no. More than likely.
Just based on our experience of knowing Litwick for as long as we have, they probably deserve it. Probably. I'd say probably. Also, if you're asking if you should, I feel like deep down you know. You know the answer. Only you can know what's in your heart. Let your heart be the guiding king. Jesus Christ. I'm so upset that we both. See, this is why we're so good. No one can take us seriously.
Yeah, exactly. No one will take it seriously. Somehow we suck our people into marrying us. Well, that's it for this week, everyone. Thank you so much for listening.
Hit us up with reviews and likes, ratings on iTunes, and wherever else you're seeing podcasts. Share us with your friends. Let's bring more people into the fold. People are looking for a place to get queer POC-friendly discussions on nerd shit. Me and DJ, we talked about it before. We're still working on some stuff to bring some new content and maybe some changes to you guys in the near future, so look out for that. Until then, just, you know. Oh, and also, if you have feedback, if there's stuff that you'd love to see in the show that's not happening, or stuff that you're like, oh, these guys, they do this sometimes, and it's not, this is when it's like, I don't care about listening to it. Let us know.
Because we're right now in a place where we really want to tighten the show up and overhaul it to make it more fun for you guys to listen to. So let us know on the Twitters or on Discord. DMs on Twitter. Just drag me on Twitter. And yeah, that'd be great. And in the meantime, just stay safe. Stay inside when you can. I mean, our community's really good, but wear a mask. And to all of y'all that are essential workers, thank you for what you're doing. And I hope that you're safe and doing everything you can to be safe in all this craziness. And I hope that all of your loved ones are safe and sound in that. I hope, my biggest hope for y'all is that you are able to find moments of joy in all of this because we are in the darkest timeline right now. And I hope that even amidst how shitty things are right now, that you're able to have moments where you can really laugh and feel joyful and be happy.
in a really crazy time right now. So yeah, you know where to find us online. You can find me at ohheydj on everything. That's O-H-E-Y-D-J on everything. And Ruben, where can they find you?
uh ro double b oh no r double o b o t s uh on twitter robots um and you know i real quick just because you made me think about it i'm talking about the darkest timeline that we're in um uh check it check that you're registered to vote yes um and you know uh i for the most part i would encourage everyone to do get their mail-in ballot stuff figured out because of what's gone with covid um with the events of the past couple weeks with the usps leadership getting gutted and it's seeming more and more likely that by time election happens the usps is going to be um significantly crippled in a lot of ways that personally make me concerned about um mail-in voting not that i think uh because there isn't really good precedence or evidence for fraud but just for your votes even getting there because of the usps being overloaded with them um try to keep an eye out for early voting wherever you live when it's happening and where um and if you can safely go to early vote um and and hopefully in as little crowded as possible as a precinct to vote in um think about trying to do that so that we can keep um uh mail-in voting uh less congested so the people that truly that are high risk that are really really at risk going out with this pandemic going on um
can do that, can do the mail-in voting. Normally, I wouldn't advocate for that with this pandemic going on, but with what's been happening the past couple weeks, the way it looks right now, I would just be dubious of how the USPS is going to be able to handle the influx of things to do with mail-in voting. So just... Keep tabs on that and make the decision that feels right for you. Yeah, exactly. I know that the options aren't great, and I know that voter apathy is real. And given the circumstances, I understand why everyone or a lot of people are apathetic. But I mean, I would really encourage y'all to really, really take a look at what's happening in your communities locally. Again, the president is only one part of it, but it's really what happens with your local government that really has a much bigger effect on your day-to-day lives. So again, looking for those people that are up for re-election for their Senate seats, look at those options and see.
And try to get as much information you can behind those candidates and see what they're about and see who aligns with your values the most and vote them into these positions. Because, again, these things have to pass through both the House and the Senate. So vote for your senators and all of that stuff. So, you know, do the research, look into it. We this is probably going to be one of the most most important elections in our lifetime. And the precedent that this election can set for.
our the rest of our lives i think is really important so yeah it's not just about the president it's about again what's happening at the local level wherever you're at so we love you all very very much stay safe out there stay hopeful stay queer stay amazing because we're all amazing and we'll see you next time