Five Needles, One Angry Customer, And A Moon-Sized Sword

We spin from spleen surgery and stacked vaccines to a tense late-night moment at the pizza shop, then celebrate an academic high that launches a sharp take on shonen pacing and payoff. Humor carries the weight, but structure and effort win the day.

• vaccine scheduling, boosters, and sore arm realities 
• why we add disclaimers and trust professionals 
• the ethics of letting people sleep in a business 
• cleanliness, safety, and the social contract after midnight 
• validation at a conference and posthumanism joy 
• World Trigger’s bottle test and power systems 
• friendship, effort, victory as design principles 
• where Boruto stumbles and Kaiju No. 8 sticks the landing 
• long-runs vs tight endings and when to time-skip 
• weird phases, from bell bottoms to late-night kendo

Submit to the button that we put in the episode description to get your questions to Deep Space and Dragons

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open And Banter
• 1:36 Spleen Surgery And Vaccine Prep
• 7:20 Booster Schedules And Missed Calls
• 10:55 Flu, COVID, And Shot Hesitation
• 15:20 Legal Disclaimer: Not Medical Advice
• 17:20 Access And Cost In Canada
• 21:04 Alberta, Policy Rants, And Healthcare Gaps
• 23:40 Pizza Shop Or Shelter? Ethical Tension
• 28:20 Confrontation With A Sleeper And Safety
• 33:00 Homelessness, Cleanliness, And Social Contract
• 39:20 Community Spaces, Cafes, And Kindness
• 45:20 Conference High: Posthumanism And Validation
• 50:12 Party Game And Grad School Grind
• 56:00 Shonen Pacing: World Trigger’s Slow Burn
• 1:06:20 Friendship, Effort, Victory As Design
• 1:14:00 Bottle Test, Power Systems, And Payoff
• 1:23:00 Cancellations, Arcs, And Time Skips

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Good afternoon, Internet. And if it's not the afternoon, I guess you have to take a nap until it is to listen to this episode. I'm Richard, the cocky member of Richard and Carl presents Team Space and Dragons.

SPEAKER_03: 0:14

Uh and I am uh Carl. Uh I I don't have any roosters, so you're a chicken. Oh man, I saw a YouTube video. Um it was like uh talking about the classic joke, why did the chicken cross the road uh to get to the other side. Right. And a lot of people think that it's just like the joke is that there is no joke. But when you think about it, if it's a busy road, if if if it's a busy road, the chicken might get hit by a car and then pass over to the other side.

SPEAKER_04: 0:53

With that, I begrudgingly pivot to what's new with you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00

Well, you know, I was I lost my last chicken the other day, and you know, they're the gum!

SPEAKER_04: 1:08

You know the thing is with the shenanigans you give, this would be the first time our audience had heard that you had chickens would be after they're dead. Like I've only counted those chickens before they hatched.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21

I I've I've never owned any chickens. I don't know that I'd be a responsible chicken owner, but I never have owned chickens, and I most likely never will. Um coward. But uh But what is new with me uh is uh you know I I uh somewhat recently had my my spleen taken out. Um and you know that's uh We're not allowed to give that away as a prize.

SPEAKER_04: 1:52

We uh we are very clear that we cannot give Carl's remove spleen as a prize on our podcast. Our lawyers say no.

SPEAKER_03: 1:59

I mean I I just let it get incinerated. Uh they they cut it off to make sure that there was nothing else wrong with it, and they didn't find any problems and they incinerated it, so But the point is uh that your spleen is apparently part of your immune system.

SPEAKER_04: 2:16

I feel like people might know this, but then get uh I mean no disrespect to our audience, but liter critical literacy is not doing so hot right now.

SPEAKER_03: 2:26

But so when you get your screen removed, they have to give you some uh vaccines against a variety of there's a couple different viruses that your spleen specifically helps protect you against.

SPEAKER_04: 2:38

Are you aware that vaccines have chemicals in them?

SPEAKER_03: 2:42

Yes, I am aware.

SPEAKER_04: 2:44

Oh, then you may proceed.

SPEAKER_03: 2:47

Uh so uh one of the the uh things that your spleen helps protect you against is meningitis. Uh which is uh can cause like brain infections and is generally fatal because unless you're brain good.

SPEAKER_04: 3:04

Pause. I swear to Beerus, if you're about to tell me you have meningitis right now in the middle of our episode, I'm going to lose it.

SPEAKER_03: 3:14

No, no, no, no. Um so pre-surgery, I had to uh go get all these vaccines. So they gave me four vaccines, well, two in each arm. Uh and then uh they're like, yeah, so you'll you'll have to uh come back for a uh second dose of the meningitis vaccines. The two of there was two of them. Uh covered like six different variants of meningitis or something like that. Uh one of them was just called like W125. Um, anyways, so they're like, yeah, you'll have to come back in like two months for your your second dose of meningitis vaccines. Uh and then after that, every five years you'll have to get boosters for all these vaccines.

SPEAKER_04: 3:58

Which you should do anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 4:00

Right, right, right. Um but so uh I uh was waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting uh for them to call me to to tell me that I'm gonna get my second dose. Uh then uh, you know, it hits the end of the second month, and they haven't called me yet, and I'm like, oh I should probably make sure that they are actually gonna get my second dose. Uh I had a follow-up appointment with my with the hematologist, and I'm like, hey, uh like what's going on here? I thought they were gonna call me. Can you make sure that they're gonna get me this second dose for the meningitis? And the hematologist, like, yeah, sure, said no. Uh and so then a couple days later I get a call from public health and like, yeah, okay, we can book you this day, this day, or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool. Ah. So then uh I it was a couple like a week or so away, and I'm going to work, and uh my boss, um when uh when COVID was around, uh, they were very paranoid and uh they you know took like three months off to hide under their beds.

SPEAKER_05: 5:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:10

Um I don't fault them for social distancing. I just, you know, the rest of us were working, and it was like, okay. Um but so every every year it's always like, oh, make sure you get your flu shots, make sure you get your covet shots, you know, do all this, because they are are rather paranoid about it.

SPEAKER_04: 5:31

It's like they're not wrong, but they're not aware of their privileged status, is what I'm getting here. Like everything they're doing is correct, but there is just that like splash of irony given their circumstances.

SPEAKER_03: 5:46

Uh and so my boss is bugging me about getting the like my flu shot, and I I I believe in in vaccines, uh, but I'm also lazy. Uh so I I oftentimes don't get my my flu shot. I I really should. I really should, but but it's like, ah, but then I have to like book an appointment, and then I have to actually like go to the appointment. It's just the s the slightest bit of extra effort uh to get something that you don't there's no visible way to know that it worked. Because you know, if it works, you you don't get sick. It's like Y2K where people are like, yeah, nothing happened. I'm like, no, no, what happened is we stopped the world from ending. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All all whole bunch of computers got shipped to India to have their reprogrammed so that the date change wouldn't mess things up.

SPEAKER_04: 6:39

Uh anywho. As I undercut your own argument with your own argument, please continue.

SPEAKER_03: 6:46

No, no, no. I'm I I'm I'm not saying that you shouldn't get the your vaccines for flu and your shots for flu and COVID and stuff. Uh just that sometimes I'm just too lazy. And I maybe I shouldn't admit that on on air, but but uh yeah, it's over now. So I mean I was thinking about asking the uh public health if maybe they could do my my flu shot at the same time as the meningitis shots. I was like, yeah. But uh again, I I was just just too lazy, didn't mention anything. Uh so then I get there, and they're like, okay, yeah, we're gonna do your meningitis shots. Oh, and and we see um that you haven't gotten your flu shot or your COVID shot yet, so you should probably get those too. And we also see that you uh haven't gotten your tetanus shot since like 2013, it's currently 2025. You're supposed to get it every 10 years. How was I maybe they told me 10 years ago I was supposed to get it, but probably. Probably. So uh we're gonna give you your tetanus shot too. So uh we're gonna do three in one arm uh and two in the other.

SPEAKER_04: 8:05

Isn't that what they did to awaken Deadpool's X gene?

SPEAKER_03: 8:14

Well unfortunately, I did not get Deadpool's Awakened X-Gene. Uh my arm, particularly the one that had the three vaccines put into it, uh, you know, they did the three vaccines in the one arm, and then they're doing the two vaccines in the other arm, and the one vaccine actually like like it really hurt as they were putting it in, and I was like, oh man, that arm's gonna be like super sore. Uh that arm was fine like the next day, not even sore a little bit, but the arm that had the three vaccines put in it that didn't hurt at all, uh, was sore for like a week and a half. That was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05: 8:47

Oof.

SPEAKER_03: 8:50

But the moral of the story is uh don't don't be lazy. Uh just go and get your flu and COVID shots. Um because you know, I mean, I guess speaking as a Canadian, because I need to pause you for one second.

SPEAKER_04: 9:06

To all those listening to Richard and Carl present Deep Space and Dragons, we are a pop comedy podcast, occasionally about pop culture. Please consult actual professionals about anything we say. If we say go get a flu shot, that does not mean we, as experts, are telling you you should medically do this. I am not getting sued for people dying to blue shots. We are a comedy podcast. Do not take medical advice off Spotify. Full stop. Don't take it off YouTube, full stop. Understand? Yeah, we good? Okay, please continue.

SPEAKER_03: 9:44

Yeah, but I mean uh in Canada, uh nationally, the flu shot is for sure free. Uh the COVID vaccine, I'm I'm I'm not sure if it's probably nationally.

SPEAKER_04: 9:56

I mean, I'm a student. Well, like as a student, I don't pay for shit, right? So I just go to the on-campus clinic and then they just medicine me. Like, they don't even check my healthcare card. They're like, oh yeah, you're a student. Enjoy your drugs, it's great.

SPEAKER_03: 10:08

Yeah, but but I mean, like, during COVID times, Alberta did some weird things and they started like charging people for the COVID tests and stuff, so I don't know for sure that like Alberta has free in COVID.

SPEAKER_04: 10:20

To be fair, Alberta's out here arguing that transgender people don't exist when they've been in the Bible from the start. Like, Alberta is just not doing great right now, guys. You're like, this isn't a thing, and I'm like, Zeus turned into a swan, and you can't comprehend the idea of comprehensive sex ed in your classrooms. Gilgamesh had this shit figure now. Come on, grow up.

SPEAKER_03: 10:45

In any event, uh, it's especially if you live in Canada.

SPEAKER_04: 10:48

Disclaimer, I'm a comedy podcast, don't sue me, Alberta.

SPEAKER_03: 10:54

So since we have universal health care, the flu and COVID shots are most likely free. Uh, so aside from leaving it.

SPEAKER_04: 11:09

Unless you need glasses or teeth for some reason. Because why would you need to see or eat?

SPEAKER_03: 11:16

Yeah, those are optional. Uh uh.

SPEAKER_04: 11:25

But uh that's uh that that's I mean, I guess it'd be a little a little pizza store anecdote, but Well, we could go what's new with me as I go pizza store, or we can go straight to pizza store. Your choice.

SPEAKER_03: 11:38

Uh no, you would what what's new with you there, Richard?

SPEAKER_04: 11:41

So, we had a brief chat outside of stream, but long story short, I went and presented at my first academic conference last week. And I was presenting on posthumanism and the ghosts of the shell. And I'm now gonna spend the next hour of this two podcasts explaining post-humanism. No, but what happened was so I give my presentation, and I'm like, okay, I did this, I got the screenshots, I met some of my colleagues, I'm planning to apply to a PhD at this campus, and it seems like a good idea to go do the thing. So I give my presentation, and I didn't think much interesting would happen after that. I got my free bagel sandwiches. The day was objectively a success. But then this older academic comes up and he's like, I gay I am the reason anime is in North America. I was part of this society, the guy that's things transported. I wrote several papers and thesis about this symbology, and and like I seem to have triggered this man's special interest. And he starts talking about the different kanji choices for ghost and why they went with the English ghost, and the idea of ghost in the show meaning like foreigner on the outside, Japanese in the in- Like, he gives me this amazing talk on this movie, and I'm just like, you know, I thought I understood this on account of presenting on it. But my mind just got blown, and I realized something, Carl. There's many good things in life. There's eating, there's drinking, there's adult relations, there's lots of things. I think the single best feeling in the world is an elderly academic coming and validating your speech and telling you why your special interest is important and cool. Like, imagine you just go up there and you give a speech on like let's say you went down the music professor path and you give a speech on the Claire Obscure soundtrack, for s for example, and then someone just comes up as like, and here's why video game soundtracks are vital to human survival, and gives it like a massive in-depth deep dive into what you just said and why it's important. It's a truly, truly beautiful moment. So, between that and grading, I get to be a bit smug because like a lot of my classmates, we have our little Discord server for chatting and small talk and memes and planning things, right? And I'm watching people post like four in the morning, three thousand words left, five in the morning, almost done. So people are doing their like all-nighter papers like you do in grad school.

unknown: 14:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 14:00

And I finished like a week early, so I should be being smug. But I'm also paid to write things, including stat blocks. So I'm like, haha, suckers, Wade still be writing your paper. Also up at three in the morning writing. There's just something deeply ironic being like, yeah, you guys suck. I finished early. Then why are you doing the same thing we're doing? Oh, because I also do this for profit and for fun, so I am doing the same thing as you. The only reason I'm ahead of you is so like a clear time to continue to suffer. It's great. That is pretty funny. It's like, wait, why are you awake to be commenting? Well, the thing is, I'm doing the same thing. And then this week we had our holiday party, which was lovely.

SPEAKER_00: 14:47

Ooh, holidays.

SPEAKER_04: 14:49

So, most of our cohort actually show up for events, which I've never had happen before. Like the idea that in your class of twenty that fifteen would come to a thing is actually wild.

SPEAKER_03: 15:02

That is a majority of people, that's true.

SPEAKER_04: 15:04

Yeah, so I learned a interesting thing. So I learned a new party game, which is fun. Oh? So how it works is you use like a list generator to generate a random list of people that are there. Okay. Yeah, yeah. The person below you on the list, you text them or whisper to them a question. They then have to say the answer. A coin is flipped to know if the group gets to know what the question was. And it's simple, but it's beautiful, because say, for example, I were to be like, Carl with a baseball bat. And it's like, I really need to know what the question was. Because that answer is like the question. It's like, would you defend it's like, would you defend Carl with your life? And be like, yeah, I defend Carl with a baseball bat. Great answer. But the question was like, how would you who would you be most likely to murder murder? And I said Carl with a baseball bat. Very different. So you start like starting to design these questions to like have maximum implication in case people don't know what it was. Right, right, right. Because like a simple question, like who's the tallest person here when it's out of context, can really mess with people? And then, yeah, so food, drinks, partying, etc. All of my gra I should be getting my grades back shortly. I finished my PhD application packet, had people read over that, it's looking good. I finished my stat blocks at like three in the morning on Wednesday, and then polished them up today. So I am like happy, healthy, and alive. For now. And I got invited on my professor's podcast where they talk about game narratives, which is cool. So I have to play through Expedition 33 again so I can talk about it informed and intelligibly. Because that's like our podcast, actual people listen to that one. I say on our podcast. I don't want to get caught saying something scandalous. I avoid social media. And then there's me where I'm like, there is 800 hours of me staying scandalous shit recorded on the internet. Try to find it if you dare. Yes, I probably say things that can get me cancelled, but you gotta listen to me talk about World Trigger for an hour first. Even the AI is gonna be like, I think he just had views on the gaza strip that could get him cancelled, but it's in the middle of this talk about bleach saw Bactos. Yeah. Alright, so pizza antidote time, sir. Yes, pizza antidote. It was a typo, and I'm not the antidote. The antidote to their s their problems. Nothing makes you happier than your job you're working, than hearing about people dying in front of Carl's pizzeria on a random Tuesday.

SPEAKER_03: 18:01

Oh, no, no, nobody's you know dying or whatever. Uh, but like, um this time. Still Well, no, so we're uh one of the places that's open the latest in in the city.

SPEAKER_04: 18:16

I agree, it's a problem. It's borderline unethical. But so uh, you know, we're not open 24 hours. At this point, you should just commit and be open 24 hours. Like, honestly. What's the point of not being at that stage?

SPEAKER_03: 18:34

Well, I mean, after you know, 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. you until like, you know, yeah, I'd actually normally open the next day. There's not a whole lot going on. They would basically just be people cleaning overnight. Cleaning overnight and kicking out homeless people. That's that's the thing about this the job, the that's where the panic piece anecdote is actually going.

SPEAKER_04: 18:56

It's like Oh, I need to make a mini uh mini monologue first. No one's talking about how in Pokemon Legends ZA they put in like anti-homeless architecture, like the benches and things have like the anti-homeless bars and spikes. Which is so funny to me to be like, I'm in a Pokemon world. You can't sleep for free on this bench in a Pokemon world. Yeah, we have standardized healthcare, but get a job. The rest of us are out here Pokemon battling like real adults.

SPEAKER_03: 19:25

Uh well, there is a theory uh that the city was designed that way to deliberately lower the population and increase uh popular dense population density so that more people get sick, and then when they leave the city they spread the virus and kill more of the population.

SPEAKER_04: 19:41

Oh no. That was not where I thought that was going. So please continue with your pizza story.

SPEAKER_03: 19:50

Well, so I don't know, it probably sounds similar to other stories I've told before, but it's like the guy comes in not ordering ordering pizza. Uh He's just sitting there. Um, eventually it's like, okay, he's he's falling asleep. So I go up there and I'm like, hey, you know, like, you can't sleep, dude. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And it's like, can I like like five more minutes or whatever? And he's like, Alright. You've been here for like an hour. I'll give you like five more minutes, but then I'm coming to like kick you out, man. Um and I look at this guy, and uh his one leg uh is like awkwardly straight, like he has like a knee injury or something, like his leg won't bend properly.

SPEAKER_04: 20:34

And then he's an assassin that attacks of combat crutches, like in that short story you were working on, right? No, remember with the guy who died to see somebody's DNA base stats using magical fireflies, that's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_03: 20:47

No, uh he didn't have his battle crutches with him, I'm I'm lucky, I guess. Uh because when I go to uh wake him up in five minutes, um he you know, he's just trying to say, Oh, give me like five more minutes, I'm like, no, no, you need to leave, like, please leave. And it's kind of been my strategy lately, uh, when people refuse to leave, as I'll just like stand there, and anytime they say anything or you know they're not getting up or anything, I just say, Please leave, sir, or please leave, ma'am, or whatever. That makes sense. And and this guy, like, he says, Okay, I'll leave, but his eyes are closed, and he hasn't even made any motions to like get up at all. And I'm like, you know, please leave, sir. He's like, Oh, but I've been shot like 56 times, and uh my I've like I'm like paralyzed from laying down, and it's like you know, just please leave. And it's like I I don't care, please leave. And he's like then he you know opens his eyes, he's starting to get annoyed at me because I'm repeatedly just saying, please leave. Um and he's like, Oh, you're about to get smacked! Uh that's a knocking. He's like, You need to get out of my way so I can get up and leave. It's like I'm not standing in your way, just please leave. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna hit you! And then he like leaps to his feet way faster than I thought he'd possibly.

SPEAKER_04: 22:05

Can I make a really tasteless joke here? Yeah. Good thing you got all your vaccines before this happened.

SPEAKER_03: 22:14

Please continue. I I didn't get my rabies shot, so I I I was I was in mortal danger for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 22:23

They're such problematic about those stigmas.

SPEAKER_03: 22:26

But moving on. No, I uh he did get up quite a bit faster than than I thought he possibly could. Come back. And uh Then he's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna call my cousin and he's gonna come and like beat you guys up, and like I was like, oh okay. But the real point of the story is like after I like I just retreated behind the counter. Uh he couldn't get through the tiny space that we have to get through, so because his leg was actually injured in some way. I don't know if it was from a gunshot wound or not.

SPEAKER_04: 22:59

Um I mean, are you concerned that your restaurant is where people come to die like a sad cat under the porch?

SPEAKER_03: 23:08

Obviously, this whatever wound it was that caused his leg, leg injury, uh had long mostly healed? I don't know, I don't know. Obvious like permanent damage, I guess, but uh he was not like currently bleeding out or anything.

SPEAKER_04: 23:26

He didn't this he was just I picture in the final scene of Cowboy Bebop right now, spoilers. Where he just does the bag thing and then it cuts away.

SPEAKER_03: 23:38

He was he was like his shoes uh had no shoelaces. Uh so it was like really like dirty in this, like he just kinda generally looked like a homeless person and he's fallen asleep and he's all mad that I'm trying to kick him over sleeping in our street.

SPEAKER_04: 23:54

And this is the story of how you met John Legend.

SPEAKER_03: 23:59

No, no, I he uh he gets up and he starts yelling at me that I'm a piece of shit and whatever, and I'm just I walk to the back and then just leave the situation and he just angrily stomps out. Um but it really makes me wonder, like he doesn't even know you.

SPEAKER_04: 24:13

He doesn't have the evidence to know you're a piece of shit yet.

SPEAKER_03: 24:17

Yeah. Uh but I mean most of the the homeless people that I end up having to kick out uh have this sentiment towards me that that because I'm not allowing them to sleep in our business overnight, uh, then I'm a piece of garbage. Yeah. Um you are sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 24:33

You could just let them sleep there overnight.

SPEAKER_03: 24:39

I suppose I could. We could turn we could turn our pizza store into a homeless shelter. That's you could.

SPEAKER_04: 24:45

Like, objectively speaking, you could. Yeah, I'm sure that have no stressor ramifications, and your quality of life would improve drastically if you turned your place of business that earns you commerce just into a shelter because you could. The logistics are so funny for what people consider ethical and unethical, right? Because it's like you could make that argument that, yeah, every business should just turn itself into a shelter. It's like it's true. But you're also the same people who would call the cops if you walked into the pizzeria and saw this guy. Like, the same people who'd give you, hey, you could just do that, would then proceed to never shop there again. Yeah, I think that's a good one. And then you'd go broke, and then you could no longer do that.

SPEAKER_03: 25:31

The risk of just like finding a used needle on the floor, most people would probably not come into our shop if we just let home a lot of the homeless people in our neighborhoods stick around. Like it's just Yeah. But unfortunately. Um but I do always kinda wonder though, like this guy saying that he was gonna like call his cousins to like do whatever. It's like, hmm. This like one of these days, am I am I just gonna like kick out the wrong person and then uh then they actually like will be like like you hear those stories about the the poor guy that goes to a bank to like open a bank account and gets refused, and it turns out the guy behind him is one of the bank's biggest customers and gets upset with how they treat the the homeless guy and and like destroys the bank's reputation because he didn't like their customer service towards uh homeless people are like 40 years ago when people Well, maybe like 40 years ago when human beings were slightly more empathetic, that might work.

SPEAKER_04: 26:33

But we're in this weird situation where both the people on both sides of this equation have kind of just degraded to being shittier people. Like let's put it this way. If someone's so down on their luck that they have to bleed out in your pizzeria, clearly their support system isn't gonna come get revenge. Because if they cared enough about this person for revenge, they wouldn't be bleeding out in your pizzeria. Right? Like the idea that there's systemic problems of housing, support, shelters, is true. But there's also systemic problems of Oh man, I'm gonna get me myself canceled. This is why I bury the scandalous bits in the world, trigger trigger trivia. Is it's like there's obligations on all sides. I was watching this special about homelessness in Japan, for example. So in Japan, they have a problem where a lot of people are sleeping at internet cafes because it's cheaper than their rent.

SPEAKER_03: 27:31

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 27:32

But because of how they function culturally, they leave those spaces cleaner than they entered them.

unknown: 27:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 27:39

So, because of like some cultural things, this is an equally added like this could be an equally heroin-addicted, down on their luck, unfortunate events, homeless person. But because of the cultural standards towards cleansliness, they're not leaving that room covered in literal shit. However, Canada seems to be less like my favorite example is you give somebody, because this literally happened to me, I gave somebody a burger. I ordered four burgers and they're like, spare some change. I'm like, you can have a burger. I really did I you ordered four because I used a coupon. Right? So I didn't lose any money and they got a burger. They ate the burger and immediately throw the wrapper on the ground ignoring the trash can. And I'm like, listen, no matter how down on your luck you are, and miserable and this that, you could have used the trash can. Like you made a conscious choice to make your environment you're sleeping in less cleanly.

SPEAKER_03: 28:40

I mean that that's like one of the problems we have at our store. It's like, you know, we throw stuff in the trash and we have to lock up our trash bin because uh people will go through it and they'll just throw the garbage everywhere and just make a huge mess, and they won't even find anything of value because it's pizza store trash.

SPEAKER_04: 29:00

Like it's not the cake trash that has like steak and lobster and things.

SPEAKER_03: 29:04

Yeah, I mean, maybe they'll find an uh uneaten pizza that's been covered with rotten vegetables and old dough.

SPEAKER_04: 29:14

Like Well, it's like kindness is weird. I always think about Bear Guy when we worked at Redacted Coffee, who's like, oh, I want these because I'm a nature photographer and I want to take some photos of animals. And we're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. You can have these old donuts, and then just leave a garbage bag of old donuts outside our parking lot. We're like, well, why? You could have just not did like we helped you. Yeah. And that's that's what's breaking me, is like, people are so thinking the world is against them, and I blame social media literally looking at your eye traffic and giving you information that tells you people are against you at all times. That like, if you go into any interaction assuming everyone there is against you, they then will become against you. It's just weird. That's I I'm not really here to fix this problem, but I am gonna say, as bad as this sounds, Oh man, I'm getting so cancelled from this episode. If the same individual had walked into your pizzeria and like, mind if I chill here for a bit, and was just quietly, peacefully sitting in their chair, close their eyes for a bit, you wouldn't have kicked them out. You would have given them a fair amount of time. Around closing time, if you went, hey, you gotta go, we're locking up, they're like, okay, just left. You'd probably let them chill there the next day. If they're just chilling, you don't care.

SPEAKER_03: 30:32

If they are just chillin', and like I said, I I do have to go up and tell people that they can't sleep. Yeah. Uh another homeless person, I had to tell them like three times that they couldn't sleep there, and the third time, they like literally tried to sprawl out across three chairs. Uh, and then they're like, oh, what did I do wrong? Why are you kicking me out? Oh. And uh, you know, they wouldn't actually even respond to the please leave. I I you know said that to them for like five minutes. I was like, okay, I'm gonna call the cops, and then uh talk.

SPEAKER_04: 31:01

Like, that's like the imbalance where I'm like, I'm always fighting for social systems.

SPEAKER_03: 31:08

Yeah, the police will be here shortly.

SPEAKER_04: 31:10

Right? Like, I'm always fighting for social systems. I believe tax the rich, give better social systems to the poor, society survives, trickle out, and economics is a lie, capitalism is an evil, yada yada yada. Like, I've given enough manifestos. But there's also the social contract. So it's freezing outside, and you're willing to let someone come in to warm up. There is a certain level of, oh, you should have some mild gratitude that you let non-paying customers in there in the first place instead of just constantly pushing your luck one step at a time. Right? Because it's like you're like, please don't take a nap on my floor. Doesn't feel like an unreasonable request. And it's just weird to me because like you're already given more kindness than you actually needed to. Like, let's use an example of I held I don't know if I told you this story, but I needed to hold a cohort dagger heart game. A second one. Okay. So the campus was largely closed because we were on like mostly holiday mode. So I wanted to find a venue to hold it that was accessible to all players and wasn't my home in. I live like two hours away from my location, I spend most of my time in. No one is taking two buses and a train to visit me in my cave. And I'd have to clean it up.

SPEAKER_03: 32:35

And I mean Toronto's not quite as bad as New York, but a lot of people just don't have cars because parking is a is a hassle.

SPEAKER_04: 32:44

So I end up booking at this beautiful cafe, which I almost want to name drop because they're actually delightful. So I think I am. They're called Bampon. They're not a sponsor, they're just a delightful. They call themselves like an anti-cafe where it's designed for you to chill there. They charge you like an hour you're late, but give you just keep giving you tea.

SPEAKER_01: 33:05

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 33:06

So like I call them, like, oh, I want to book for like five hours with a group of like seven people. Can I just chill here for five hours with seven people? And they're like, absolutely, but we do charge an hourly rate. Makes sense. So we play this game, the seven of us, play Daggerheart, for like five hours. We did a session zero, we made it most of the way through the campaign. They rescued the Ly- They failed to rescue- No, they rescued Lyra in this scenario. But one of them just got eaten by the sea serpent, and like they chose to avoid death, so they just washed up on a beach and they found them later.

SPEAKER_03: 33:40

So so for context, we uh we do have another podcast where Richard and I play Daggerheart. Um and uh we've been releasing the each episode as a uh free uh mini-adventure on itch.io. What is that? You did the product placement perfectly.

SPEAKER_04: 33:59

I'm so proud of you. So, also just if you ever need to find any of my stuff, just Google my name and you will find it. I have a big internet footprint. Anywho, like we can literally go Richard Author Brampton and it'll find me, which is hilarious.

SPEAKER_03: 34:17

I haven't tried to Google myself in a while. I I assume that this is basically my only internet footprint. That and the one picture on Facebook of me in a in a purple leopard print shirt being carried by my brother-in-law.

SPEAKER_04: 34:29

Yes. So, anywho, I was going somewhere with this kind of sort. So we're playing our dagger heart game, and we get to the end of it, and we ordered like a three-tier like snack carafe, so it was like little sandwiches, hummus, snacky things, right? And then I go to like cash out at the end, and it came to$200 total.$200 split across seven people for five hours of entertainment's actually like twenty bucks person, it's a really good deal. Yeah. And it's interesting because I was thinking how this where I would why this ties in at all is A, I wanted to give them some customers because like that's just a delightful business model of yes, you sit here, we just keep giving you tea, and if you order an alcoholic drink, they waive the hourly fee. Okay, okay. So it's like there's like the one dude working there that's just like, yeah, hang out, chat, play board games. I'm like, this was a great venue. 10 out of 10. But also, like if we look at this logistically, so this place was designed for us to chill for a long time. If someone comes into your place of business, which is not designed to chill for a long time at all, you're already not charging them an hourly rate. Not like rotating them. So, like, the fact that you're allowing people to just chill there for as until it becomes literally impractical is funny because this your reward for doing that is aggression when you tell people they cannot take advantage of that. It's just that slippery slope argument where it's like, oh, the argument a lot of people leaning towards particular groups will be like, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. If you let them live in tents, they'll live there forever. I'm like, that's a terrible toxic argument that seems to be logistically true. Which is unfortunate. I hate whenever someone makes an argument that assumes human beings will be the worst, and then I go out to argue like, no, they won't be the worst, and then they proceed to be the worst anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 36:25

Well, yeah, so like uh some of my co-workers live in the area around my work. Uh, and there was just like a homeless encampment along a path, like, near a field or whatever. And the city had to like cut down all the trees in the area so that people could stop stringing their tarps across the trees. Uh and so then this one guy, uh, he's like, No, I'm really not leaving. And so he started stringing his tarp on the hanging his tarp on the power lines because you know they can't cut down the power lines.

SPEAKER_04: 36:57

And it's like the obvious solution is build shelters, and then people are like, Well, who's gonna pay for those? And I'm like, tax meta point zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent if we're can support every homeless person in Canada. What are we talking about? It's like, yeah, if we tax meta like a single percentage point, we can just end homelessness. It's ridiculous the wealth's inequality in North America right now. I know, I know our listeners are gonna fact check me and do the math, but I guarantee you that math isn't gonna be more than 10% of Meta's gross earning in Canada. Tell you that right now.

SPEAKER_05: 37:28

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04: 37:29

I would love for our comments to be like, um, actually, Richard, you ignorant asshole, you would have to tax them 7%, not 5. Idiot. And like that's still you very much prove my point. Maybe tax a second corporation then if the numbers aren't adding up. Maybe a third.

SPEAKER_03: 37:44

Uh but uh you uh I uh didn't have any ideas.

SPEAKER_04: 37:51

Oh, yeah, I was gonna talk about Oh, I was gonna talk about World Trigger. Uh I was just gonna aggressively talk about World Trigger. Well, we had a conversation off-stream that I thought was gonna be a good episode topic. Is that we were talking about pacing and show and jump. So for a little bit of context, in our disc in my Discord server with my classmates, someone posted a hey, we should do a slideshow uh event where everyone gives a 15-minute slideshow on their special interests, everyone has to sit there and endure it. And I was wondering what my slideshow would be about. Because I need it to be something I care about, but also something I kind of force people to engage with against their will. Because most of my special interests are legitimately interesting. But the conversation you had about pacing and showing anime, I'm like, yes, this is a fantastic special interest topic of how you paced your show and how it's changed over the years, changing the effect showen has is like such a hyper niche specific PowerPoint where I start breaking down protagonists, antagonists, and character arcs over time to make argument whether or not Showen jump has gotten worse because their media's gotten s better storytelling, but it's more condensed, so it doesn't have the same social buildup to it. Cause, like the refresher where we started was I made a bold claim that yes, I'm mad at World Trigger. Because they decided to do switch from weekly to monthly, which I approve of. Every show and jump manga should be monthly, so they're not recommending spinal surgeons to each other. Right. We killed the Hunter Hunter guy. Like, he's lost movement in his left arm. Cause he simply could not do it.

SPEAKER_03: 39:37

Really, he is that unwell.

SPEAKER_04: 39:39

Yeah, like he took a lot of spinal damage and then shows up, writes five chapters because we keep demanding it of him, and then vanishes again once he's renewed his health benefits allegedly. But like, the idea that you'd have Oda, who's writing a billion-dollar franchise, actually physically drawing it every week is sort of insane.

SPEAKER_05: 39:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 40:00

And he has like his four assistants. I'm like, I'm surprised he draws anything. I would just be telling people to draw these characters for me at this point. I'd give them stick figures and say get to work. Mm-hmm. But the idea was that give them storyboards. Yep. Where World Trigger's problem was that it went from week months uh weekly to monthly around the same time it started as particularly slow plot arc. I assume you can agree with me with that.

SPEAKER_03: 40:26

Yeah, the the bottle test. Uh like World Trigger is has always been one of the most uh bureaucratic action series that it's ever been written.

SPEAKER_04: 40:38

Uh and bottle test is bureaucratic shown in action series. I think that part's relevant. Because something like Attack on Titan isn't quite shown in its closer descendant, and you can find more of these like bureaucracies. But World Trigger is specifically still a show and jump series at its heart. You look at the age of the protagonist, what were the three show and jump themes? It was like friendship, victory, and something else. They like literally have like a three-core theme just supposed to write on. I'll look that up while you talk about World Trigger.

SPEAKER_03: 41:09

I'll look it up. So, yeah. Um the the bottle test is just like the epitome of um like it's it's something that would generally be like glazed over in like a a TV show or uh more fast-paced series where it would just be like, and this is the result of this bottle test, but instead we're painstakingly watching um the higher-ranked uh members of border like go through and grade each of the lower-ranked members' performances and allocating points and and and writing essays and and uh then they're like teaching them how to use this uh virtual game like fighting system, uh so that they can learn the concepts, which will then eventually apply to the arc that we're getting to now, uh, where they're actually like doing hands-on training uh uh mock battle uh using these like try-on soldiers that they were learning how to create in the this bottle test.

SPEAKER_04: 42:16

So, yeah, the trio is friendship, effort, and victory. And World Tracker definitely hits those more than like say Attack on Titan or Berserk or something, right? Because it's like, yeah, it's absolutely about friendship. Like the core thing is Osumu's entire superpowers, he's a good friend. Effort, yeah. He's specifically the crappiest show and jump protagonist. But instead of a lot of show and jump that loves to be like, Naruto's the crappiest, but he has a super mode, uh, Asta has the worst magic, except it's actually the best magic. Instead, like Osumu actually just sucks. Which was the plot twist, is he just sucks. And then the third theme is Victory and Triumph, where I'm like, yeah, it's all about the little victories. So like World Trigger arguably hits that better than like anything. Like it those are definitely what the series is about.

SPEAKER_03: 43:09

Right. So they're definitely making painstaking effort to show the effort that the characters are are making to achieve their goals.

SPEAKER_04: 43:19

Yeah, so it's like absolutely about friendship effort and victory. Like, that is in fact what World Trigger is about. Or you look at something like Jujutsu Kaisen and you're like, yeah, friendship, oop, I killed these characters to be edgy. Effort, yeah, he worked hard at being born genetically superior. Victory, yeah, he wins via ass pull. And I'm like, huh. But like you look at like Naruto, for example. Naruto's another one that's the supposed to be the epitome of those themes. It is a story about an underdog competing against a genius to win back his best friend and become king of the ninjas. But it's undercut because he won the genetic lottery.

SPEAKER_00: 44:00

That he did.

SPEAKER_04: 44:01

I'll say Dragon Ball. I'd say Dragon Ball fits it perfectly, and Dragon Ball Z just throws it out the window. Dragon Ball is about friendship effort and victory.

SPEAKER_00: 44:15

That's that's definitely true.

SPEAKER_04: 44:17

Especially like when you Dragon Ball doesn't really start until we get to Roshi.

SPEAKER_03: 44:22

But then again, it's, you know, like you say, that's the the pacing. Um because modern show and jump. Uh there's actually like uh I think they call it the chapter 19 curse or something like that. Yep. Uh, where uh I don't know what metrics they use to decide which series need to be canceled. Uh but uh a lot of series don't make it past chapter 19 because Shonen Jump has decided that they're not uh embodying those uh ideals quickly enough. I'm not really sure.

SPEAKER_04: 44:59

It's probably they don't have i I almost guarantee it's because they don't get an anime deal on the table by then. Like that's my conspiracy theory is around chapter 19, studios will probably start talking whether or not they want to do anything with the property.

SPEAKER_05: 45:12

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 45:13

So it's funny, like, with this frame and looking at how series go, like I said, I made the bold claim a while back that if World Trigger runs as long as One Piece, this arc will be good. If it doesn't run as long as Naruto Bleach are One Piece, it would be a sad note to end on. Because this is where a lot of series come to an end around this point. We kind of like did this on stream where we were talking like this is where Naruto shifts to Shipuden. This is where Dragon Ball shifts to Z, I think, or might be around King Piccolo or something. Where Bleach goes to Volbringer's left. No, like I think if it's Bleach, it would have been the end of Soul Society.

SPEAKER_03: 45:55

Uh yeah, I'm I'm really curious about uh when does Dragon Ball Z actually start? How many chapters does Dragon Ball have?

SPEAKER_04: 46:02

Yeah, what's interesting too, like, is part of what brought up my world trigger reimagining is the first three seasons getting reanimated. It's so wild because I'm like, there's you're not doing One Piece, you're not doing Bleach. Well, I guess One Piece is having that happened. It's like you're not bringing back Bleach, you're not bringing back Naruto, you're not doing like there's like a lot of series that didn't get a first season or got a botch first season that baffles me that World Trigger get priority over. But also Siren is getting an animated series now.

SPEAKER_03: 46:36

Uh so Dragon Ball has 194 chapters, um, and then the series continues after that as Dragon Ball Z. Uh, which is to say that, no, I think World Trigger is somewhere around 200 chapters. Um World Trigger. Somewhere World Trigger's at 259 right now? Yeah. So, um Yeah, in terms of number of chapters, uh, again, this is about where Naruto switches to ship it in. Um so for a long-running series that has uh 400 plus chapters, uh between 200 and 300 is usually around the time where there there is another pivot, I guess. Because I uh I always say my my number is about 150, is where there's usually a tonal shift. Uh but maybe maybe that's actually even closer to the modern pacing where where it used to be around 200 to 300 and now it's shortened that people shift their tone early.

SPEAKER_04: 47:43

Because of ADHD. Well, see, like in my ideal scenario, what I'd love to happen is we have this battle royale, right? And then after the battle royale, they go in the ship, and then the next chapter starts up, it's like seven years later, and they're on an alien planet, and everyone's aged up by like five years because they've been on the adventure this long. That would be sick. Like, I'd love me like a time skip and they're just in the uh on an alien planet, we're just getting into it would be amazing. I am a little concerned it'll just end with them leaving on the ship and that's where they wrap the series up, but uh what alleviated my fear that the battle royale is gonna be the end of the series and like it's gonna go for a long time, is why would you bother reanimating the first three seasons if the battle royale was the ending of the show? Right? Like that would be like, oh, they're clearly want to double down in events back in it. The strategy is if you think this is going for a long time. Cause it simply wouldn't be worth animating the bottle test by itself. That's my like conspiracy theory is like, oh yeah, we're gonna reanimate those first three seasons because we're not just gonna release the bottle test. We're gonna cut that down to like 12 episodes of bottle test, and then do a 12 episode long fight scene tournament of power style.

SPEAKER_05: 48:59

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 49:00

I mean, that's what I mean. I love the tournament of power. People are like, that's stupid. I'm like, no, no, you said 48 episodes, and then at the end of the episode you're like 47 episodes minutes remaining. Like, this is great. You only get to do this once, but this is great. You're gonna like actually do like the Okay. I I was proud of them. They also did original character designs for like all 80 combatants. I'm like, oh, you're actually doing this, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 49:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 49:26

I mean, Dragon Ball Z is famously unbalanced as a series, so like power levels and things make no sense. Right. But conceptually, just doing the big tournament's cool. Like, I've been watching an animated series called Record of Ragnarok. And the concept is the gods and humans are having an elimination tournament to see if Ragnarok happens and the world ends.

SPEAKER_03: 49:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 49:51

And it they've had every season's like three fights long. Like they'll take their 12-episode season and have like two or three fights, and that's it. Because they have to show every character's full backstory and explain all of their nuance. And what's wild is me and you are used to the idea that an anime will start a tournament and then give up halfway through to the actual plot. Right. The show just seems to be committed that all it's doing is these ridiculous, slow-paced fights, while they do Baki-esque monologues about what's happening. And I'm all for it, because it's bad entertainment, but I love commitment to a bit. Like the last fight was Beelzebub versus Nikola Tesla. Who had his Valkyrie partner turn into Tesla armor that let him like teleport in lightning punch and things. As Bielzebub, who is also Satan, was using like his B-sounding vibration attacks to rip apart the armor on Tesla. And the show is impossible to see who figure guess who will win the fight. I've You can't. I swear they just flip a coin at the end.

SPEAKER_03: 50:52

They just flip a coin.

SPEAKER_04: 50:53

Cause they like the thing is because every character gets like an hour of backstory, it tricks your brain into thinking either like you're like, okay, now which one's backstory makes them the more important character, and you like can't tell. Yeah. Because they spend the time to explain why each person should win before it uh for context, Tesla proceed to throw his super electro-Tesla coil punch and then cut off his other arm and teleport it so he could punch the person simultaneously on both sides. And I'm like, the fight's over, he got this! And then literal Satan from the Bible takes the punch, does like a spin, and like does like a two-finger poke through the heart, and I'm like, ah! Damn it, I was wrong. Kind of teleporting your just your arm so it punches someone and they're just bleeding where the arm once was is awesome. Not saying the show is good, I'm saying it's awesome. There's a difference.

SPEAKER_03: 51:51

But like. Okay, but but so then, like, there's some series, uh, like in in Shon and Jump. If we're getting back to pacing, it's like uh the Shiba Inu rooms. Uh, the story story about uh a girl who's numb to horror. I need to pause for a second.

SPEAKER_04: 52:12

You could have given me a hundred guesses to figure out which manga you talk about next, and I would not have got that.

SPEAKER_03: 52:19

So it's about the girl who's numb to horror, uh, and she moves into an apartment that's uh haunted by these ghost dogs. Uh but the ghost dogs can talk and they can interact with the environment. Um and it opens up basically, uh, she like moves into this room and the dog in her apartment doesn't like her uh because she's cursed, and he can see the weird like uh snake curses that has like four heads and and they actually have to like call an exorcist to undo her curse. Um and so it you know it has this like very shonen aspect of of curses and exorcisms and whatnot. Like you did. But it is just completely committed to the bit of these cute dogs learning, like they're just being cute, stupid dogs doing cute, stupid dog things. Uh, and it's like I'm waiting for this shonen plot to like advance somewhere. And they're just like, no, no, we're completely committed to not doing the shonen plot in the shonen jump series.

SPEAKER_04: 53:25

Like to follow up on that. But yeah, to follow up on that one, another series that could have saved itself easily if it committed to having a plot. Psychic detective Chosero needed to around 50 chapters and like you I'm literally gonna give you 50 straight chapters of fucking around before you have a plot happen. Like, I'd give Gitama 50 chapters before it had to have a plot. But you gotta have a plot. Like, psychic detective Chozero had great characters, but he needed a case that lasted more than a chapter. Oh, like my poor, poor detective rom-com series that like ended, and I guess I'll just be satisfied with it, where it's like, we're gonna make it into a harem. Ooh, that didn't work, I guess we'll cancel. Like, no, no. You just needed to have mysteries last a while. That's all you had to do, bruh.

SPEAKER_03: 54:19

Mysteries that last more than two chapters?

SPEAKER_04: 54:23

Yeah. Like, uh I needed blanking uh Sidcraft. Um, like, this could have been really good. Hmm. If you just gave them like a semester-long mystery like a season-long mystery in TV terms. Right, right. But instead, they like kept bloating characters and then got cut because, like, yeah, your previous series was a harem series. This one wasn't one, then you tried to make it a harem, then you got cancelled, and you deserved it. But also, it's like when we talk about pacing, Sidcraft made it to chapter 28. Sleeper Psychic Policeman Choserou made it to 65. Both of these series are smaller than the bottle test, I'm pretty sure. So you gotta earn your bottle test.

SPEAKER_03: 55:06

The the the Shiba Inu rooms uh is at 41 chapters now. Uh, and I I'm a little bit worried that if they don't don't do uh something to advance an actual plot, that it's just gonna have the most heart-wrenching ending ever because her poor little dog, Moo, uh, is just going to uh ascend. And everyone's just gonna be they're gonna be like so happy that the dog actually managed to ascend, but so like emotionally distraught that their best friend that they've you know made it through the rest of their high school career with is now like gone.

SPEAKER_04: 55:47

Yeah, and like to kind of loop back to like the topic of pacing. So Kagura Banshi is either in its endgame or just getting started. It can go either way. Because we're at chapter 105, and the main villain has shown up. His uncle, who's a sword bearer, that wiped out Jeshu Island or whatever it was. I'll just assume it's always Jesuit.

SPEAKER_03: 56:09

Jeshu Island is Korea. This this is a Japanese manga.

SPEAKER_04: 56:13

I'm just saying he hit something with the subsid, and it might as well have been. Something got melodicted. And I'm deciding it was a war with Korea. But yeah, like, so this could either be the wind down to the end of the series, right? Of okay. Because there's still like six sword bearers unaccounted for.

SPEAKER_03: 56:36

Four?

SPEAKER_04: 56:37

Four sword bearers?

SPEAKER_03: 56:40

Yeah, I think there might only be like three. I think there are three. One has the big man, one has the sword broken, and then one is working with uh hero.

SPEAKER_04: 56:51

Yeah. And then three I think. Anywho! The point is this could wrap up in 50 or 500. Because like, if you really wanted to, too, after the like six sword bearer arc is dealt with, you can easily dive into, but seriously, what was this meteorite the swords are made of, and also sorcery is a thing. So, like, it can go past the sword collecting if it wanted to.

SPEAKER_03: 57:18

It could. It does have a very interesting world that's been slowly fleshed out.

SPEAKER_04: 57:23

And chance that man's heart to So she's about to turn the moon into a sword, right? America's flag. Because America's flag's on the moon, therefore America owns the moon, and since she's conquered America, therefore she owns America, therefore she owns the moon, so she can make the moon sword.

SPEAKER_03: 57:41

That she's gonna turn the moon into a sword.

SPEAKER_04: 57:44

So in any other series, I think it was ramping up near an end because the power curve has gotten insane. But it's Chainsaw Man!

SPEAKER_03: 57:53

Chainsaw Man, that's true. So who knows? The arc is definitely coming near its end.

SPEAKER_04: 57:58

Oh yeah, this arc is about to end about like a little longer than the last arc. That's sweet. But I think like, I feel like it can go another arc. Yeah, probably. And then, oh. The worst trend though. See, know how we started this with a lot of Sirius will hit the 150 to 250 chapter range and do their big pivot or their ship utin or their now we get serious, or they just end. The worst case is when they hand it off to another author to bungle it at that chapter point. Because man oh man are Borito, Dragon Ball Super, and JJK2, 2JJ2K, things I don't care about right now. Oh boy, are those mediocre concepts. Yeah. Borito's pacing is just ruined. So Borito is at chapter 29. Oh, sorry, Borito 2, because I decided I needed to ship it in for no particular reason. Is up to chapter 29. I actually don't remember how well our original Borito got.

SPEAKER_03: 59:09

Yeah, I don't remember either. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04: 59:14

So the issue like that is like, okay. Month re release, sure. I just explained World Trigger can get away with the Borito K. But Borito wants as much plot to happen within 29 chapters as 290 chapters of Naruto. Which is why nothing has any payoff or joy to it.

SPEAKER_03: 59:31

Original Borito only had 80 chapters before they decided to ship it in.

SPEAKER_04: 59:36

So, like, my complaint is like we don't care about anyone or anything in Borito. And I think a big part of that is pacing. Because, like, Borito's had as many arcs and events happen as part one Naruto did, right? But none of it meant anything, because it didn't, like, linger or give characters any move move to breathe. That's my theory.

SPEAKER_03: 59:57

Yeah, well, so like Borito had one of the most Interesting like ninjas versus technology uh concepts. Uh you know, steampunk ninja world. Um, and then it turns out that the technology was based on aliens, and then it turned out that the a the technology was actually completely irrelevant, and they basically don't use any technology except for walkie-talkies. What's funny is we use walkie-talkies?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:21

So a thing that a lot of people fail at is having multiple independent villains in your series. So most show and jump series will have one villain organization. Right. I would say part of the Ninja Tech problem is the tech villains and the aliens were the same faction. Where in part one, Naruto, every village was a faction, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:45

The Ikotski were independent, and Orochimaru was independent. And Orochimaru and Akatsuki did not like each other. Right. So what happened is Naruto's villains were all complex of different motivations, because it's like Gara is just fighting on his village, and technically, like, Gara wasn't any less ethical than Naruto was. Right. They just belonged to different factions, and then Orochimaru corrupted Gara's faction, but that had nothing to do with the Akatsuki or their plans.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:15

Right. So by allowing-cause all Orochimaru's plans.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:18

So by like separating out your factions, you're able to create like more complex character dynamics. Because then you can have villains turn coding works better if there's three factions. Right. Because they don't have to like you, they just have to hate the other guy more.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:36

And then Borg is like, no, no, all our villains are a tree, I guess. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Sketchy Scientist dude should have his own life going on here.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:44

But it turns out that Sketchy Scientist dude uh was just completely irrelevant.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:49

Yeah. But back to World Trigger, the thing I actually wanted to talk about. So, off stream, you remember I've been like tinkering with like a World Trigger card game for the lols.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:02

And one thing I found interesting was the idea that, like, because all the fights of World Trigger have commentary, every single weapon ability, and technique has been intelligently power-scaled, more so than anything else I've ever read. So let's take Naruto. Naruto, they waited until like middle of ship, and it would be like the five elements rock, paper, scissors each other. Right. In World Trigger, you go to like episode chapter, like, I don't know, 10, and they're like, here's our three kinds of swords. Kirby sword beats strong sword, strong sword beats shield, shield beats curvy sword. And here is explaining in excruciating detail the specific use cases, ranges, durability, and statistics of every weapon in this show. Right. Because they'll literally be like, snipers will definitely to take mid-range shooters down in a fight, but if you as a melee attacker can move around to the sniper, I'm like, wow, you really just built your rock paper systems and scissors systems right into this lore, didn't you? So like you get eight weapons, here's our standard weapons, here's our variant weapons, and I'm just like, it has such a solid foundation to build on that even the characters who rolled up in the invasion with bullshit powers had sensible bullshit powers. Like it's probably the most intelligibly scaled anime of all time. Where JJK's scaling was so broken, they're like, I have infinity plus one powers, and they're like, well, I can cut through your infinity with my infinity anti-infinity infinity chant. I'm like, why don't you even do it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:35

And then the main character just punched good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:40

Yeah, but also like he was the chosen one with special DNA, da-da-da-da.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:47

Oh yeah, uh Sakuna Sak Sakuna? Sukuna. Anyway. Uh there the fact that he had two souls in him uh saved his life, like, at least twice.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:59

Well, not just that, but apparently Brain Transfer Guy was Yuji's mom, and somehow that never met came up in the story. Again.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:07

Yes, and it doesn't seem to be important in the sequel either.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:11

The sequel's stupid, and someone should have said no, you can't just be dan to dan. You're not allowed to just be dan-to-dan with your time skip. Stop it. Finish your plot threads you've already written before having a time skip, writing out all your characters, and introducing aliens.

unknown: 1:04:27

Come on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:28

Introducing aliens that think the curses are just different aliens? I think that's the plot right now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:34

I don't know anymore, man. And then we go to Odor of the Flame, the most shown in shonen to ever shown in.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:42

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:43

It does still, it also faces a bit of a pacing problem because I can't see how I'd make it to chapter 100. Like they're at 30, and it's like, okay, he's fought half of the basic elements on his way to Iceland. And his power's pretty much been fully established as as strong as he's gonna be. I'm feeling like that thing's gonna run a tight 70 chapters and be done.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:06

Yeah, I mean On the one hand, you know, we could complain talking about pacing and how shows just don't run as long anymore.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:17

That's always a bad thing. You can just have a tight good manga. Hashtag Full Metal Alchemist.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:23

Yeah, like like uh that 150 chapter mark where uh there's usually a pivot. I don't mind it if a series comes to an end at that point because they told the story they wanted to tell. So kind of then Yeah, go ahead. Well, a after you after you told the story you wanted to tell, well, you can just, you know, tell a new story that has the different themes that you wanted to explore in your second half, you know?

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:49

Well, there's like a weird thing about artistic integrity here. Cause I like to make the claim that I personally enjoy the really long-running series. Right? Because I'm a fan of world building, I'm a fan of tie-ins, I'm a fan of playing in the crit established space. But also, the argument that a thousand one-piece chapters is simply too much, it's fair and valid as a criticism. It's funny, because like Full Alchemist is really good, but I rarely talk about it because it kind of wrapped up all its loose ends perfectly and was just done.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:25

And what's interesting is all these new shonen, and part of why I'm complaining about pacing, is they want the staying power of the quote big three plus Dragon Ball Z, but aren't willing to build it. And they're less it's like, let's take JJK. JJK doesn't feel like it had a scripted story from start to finish. Right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:48

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:48

If it did, they wouldn't have had to introduce 50 new characters in the middle of plot arc three.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:55

As you know, I'm a firm believer in not adding in new characters past the halfway point of your series.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:01

So JJK doesn't feel like it had a scripted, tight story to tell. It felt like it wanted to be the new Bleach, but wasn't willing to commit to being the new Bleach.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:12

Right. Or like like Tokyo Ghoul, for example, too, uh, where, like, it felt like they had a story to tell. Um, and then part way through, they're just like, and we're just going to completely pivot to a new story and introduce a whole bunch of a whole slew of new characters, and it it lost me at that point, because like it they didn't feel like they were actually telling the same story anymore.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:42

So it's interesting, like, let's look at My Hero Academia, for example. That had a pretty for the older generation runtimes anyway. My Hero Academia had a pretty long runtime. Like, I'd say it had like an appropriate number of chapters when you think about a long-running Shonen series, right? Hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:05

Because I think it clocked in at 430 chapters over 43 volumes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:11

Yes. So it was on the lower end of like a super long series, but on the higher end of series in general.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:19

I throw some shade at its pacing near the end, because only one school year passed in the entirety of My Hero Academia. Really? Yep. Huh. Only one school semester passed, and a lot of it was we had a big war arc, and then we had another big war arc right afterward.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:38

But the actual concept of like the story arc of he's given this power, becomes the greatest hero, then gives up this power and becomes a teacher. That felt like the intended plot arc.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:50

Mm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:51

Because, like, they introduced pretty early on, here's all my here's my power is to de uh my power to defeat all for one. All for one has his minion. We introduced Shiraki, like, immediately. And then other than like they did a bit of a villain bloat where they had like a jailbreak to up the numbers so they could have a big war arc. The final villain of him fighting Shigeraki after he'd be inherited All for One's power using uh uh one for all's power, and he loses his power to defeat the guy. That all felt deliberate, right? Like the pieces he put on the board, almost all of them paid off somewhat satisfyingly.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:30

So that one felt like it there's a few parts that felt like and most of it felt like because of, not end then storytelling. Because like they went out of their way to have some villains not be attached. Like they have a pole plotterk where they go against the Yakuza, and that had nothing to do with the villains, and it got like nice and complicated three-way shenanigans going on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:51

But like, as a general rule, it stayed on theme. Weirdly enough, my critique for my hero is that it needed more fluff between the big action pieces and needed the timeline stretched out so it took place over three years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:05

Yeah, that would have made more sense.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:07

Like, I would have added filler to it. It was also like the first one that like its TV show switched from being a release weekly model to like a 12-episode model for like show and jump stuff.

unknown: 1:10:18

Huh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:19

Like a few of them, like the shorter ones did that, but like My Hero's the only one I've seen do that and go like seven seasons on that model. So, like, if World Trigger lasts as long as My Hero, I do think this arc will have payoff, but I think it's more stably set up, weirdly. Ugh, the biggest ass pole in My Hero is like, here's your seven new powers. And it that part wasn't the ass pull. I want to be clear. The idea that each previous user of his power had their own power and they put it into it. I was fine with that conceptually, but it dropped the ball on pacing and on the previous guy not having it. So at the very start, they're like, no one really knows what All Might's power is. And then All Might's like, oh, I didn't have access to these powers, only you do because reasons. I'm like, no no no no. What you do is you have this happen over three seasons, and you give him the powers one at a time. They basically are like, I have seven powers, and then he just got seven powers. Yeah. Where had you like stretched it out to him learning the powers over six hundred chapters, I wouldn't complain about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:34

Yeah, they could have easily added several uh a couple hundred more chapters and been roughly the length of History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:45

That was perfectly recorded.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:47

Like the pacing wouldn't have fell off.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:50

So History's Strongest Disciple Kinchin.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:51

It was perfectly paced.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:52

Not not unflawed, but So ignoring the fan servicey nonsense. Like, man, oh man, if I got the anime rights, would I give everyone a man's directory? But the idea is that they introduce. Kanichi's an interesting one. Because they do just pull new villains out of nowhere for most of the show. But around the 100-200 chapter pivot point, they introduced the evil Rosenpaku, right? Like the ten villains that got together to train Bird Guy. And then every new villain from then was a disciple of those ten. Right. So the characters, like all the characters he fought against weren't introduced, but their masters were, so the characters didn't come like felt like they came out of nowhere, right? So ipatch guy being like, oh yeah, I was trained by the last time they tried to make a Kenichi and he joined the League of Villains was one of the guys that trained me. I'm like, okay, okay. You actually set all your characters up pretty early on. Cause they mention, like, the ten evil fist guys, like 30 chapters in. Cause they like mention Kensei's brother pretty early. They mention at the end of the Ragnarok arc. The guy that the previous Kenichi basically. And then when they reveal, oh, these guys are part of an organization, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. They all had matching pins. So I'd say Kenichi's pacing was nearly perfect. The spirit bomb at the end was stupid.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:30

And the elder punching a nuke and surviving was stupid too. Disagree. That was sick. You just don't like fun. Maybe. So like I just don't like fun.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:44

So to talk about we we've had this chat before, where it's like, the thing is, Kenichi's goal, they say at the start, it's like he needs to be as strong as the elder by the end of the series. That ain't quite happened. Right. And like, I definitely would have made, like, I know my final fight would have definitely been the guy that, like, was strong enough to fight the elder. The big, like, actual leader, like a masterclass guy. I would have had Kanichi and Mu team up to defeat a master, is how I would have ended the series.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:13

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:13

So my final fight would have been Evil Kanichi guy versus Kanichi and Mew together take down evil Kanichi guy. Is what how I would have probably where I would have put the last fight.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:27

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:28

Because they start mentioning it at the end, he's like, he's like as strong as a low level. I'm like, you almost got this. Your curve's almost good. Because I would have believed Kanichi plus Mu at the end could have taken down one of the ten fists.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:40

Right, yeah, that would have made sense.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:42

And then both of them would have character arc completed. Because he needed Kanichi needed to his like emotional arc was confidence in himself. And Mu's emotional arc was not baby and Kanichi, ironically enough, right? Like, both of them needed to like be equals for the power dynamic to work, and that's how I would have done it. But also, I'm not out here arguing that Kanichi needed rewrites. Because they do like a fast forward to get Jack Kenichi writing his book, which is funny because like he wanted to be an author from the deep like it makes sense. Especially the unreliable narrator at the end being like, yeah, the elder punched a tank. I'm like, oh, Kanichi wrote that. Somehow that like balances the loose ends of the story. Like, did the elder really punch a duke to death, or was that artistic flare? We'll never know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:30

But with that, maybe uh maybe we should move on to our random question of the day.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:36

I'm just gonna ask if you have any final notes on pacing before we move on while I look up the questions. And here's your chance to complain about Marshall King.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:45

Marshall King. Oh. Marshall King is I don't know if it's a pacing issue per se. Um no, it definitely is a pacing issue, because like he like speed runs getting this like Magnum gun and then the golden arms, and then he's like, oh, actually, I'm just gonna like put them back, and then we're just gonna start introducing random side characters that are robots, and like I don't know. The artistic merit doesn't really warrant the uh erratic storytelling that like it doesn't know what it wants to be.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:28

I think the guy needed to take like six months off and actually outline it this time. Cause like Doctor Stone famously, its ending was nonsense. I'm like, yeah, because I don't think he thought of what petrified people at the start of the show. I think like he also didn't know what the One Piece was.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:51

Yeah. Um like the the art is very beautiful for sure. Uh, but the the writing is all over the place, and like maybe it can all come together by the end of it, but I don't see it lasting that long, actually, because it's just not really doing anything actually like fun.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:14

I was just gonna be mean and be like, it's not doing anything good. And then, like, Kaiju No. 8 was probably like the cleanest run I've seen since Full Metal Alchemist.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:27

Hmm. They did just recently release uh more uh day off shenanigans.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:34

I am all about the day off shenanigans, but like yeah, kaiju number eight is just clean and completed. I'd love a sequel in that setting, but I think I would need the main characters. I think the main character I even said I'm like, well, they're standing sand by side fighting a monster, show's over. Like, I called that instantly. I'm like, well, that is the title card image. We're done. Because you open a series with an opening image, and then you close it with a mirrored opening image, and you're good to go.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:01

Hmm. Yeah, all right. It's definitely just a wonderful series. I would recommend reading that one for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:08

So here is our random question. What is the weirdest phase you've ever gone through?

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:15

The weirdest phase I've ever gone through.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:18

They're getting personal this far in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:22

Um. I don't know. I really liked fellow bottom pants for for a while.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:29

That was I mean, for me, it's obviously the transition sunglasses ponytail in fighting people with cando sticks. It it's hard, like, I think that was awesome, and I would do it again. But I think to the outsider that's a weird phase. The sword fight people at two in the morning phase of my life was probably a weird phase.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:50

Yeah, when we were walking around Calgary with wooden swords and got pulled over by the police because they thought they were real swords and people were complaining.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:59

Beautiful. We got Karen. So that's my answer, but I don't think you can have the same weird phase as me for the sake of variety.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:07

Well, no, no, no. I mean, I'm I'm sticking with the the bell bottoms. Um so uh I I buy my own clothes now, obviously, although most of them are given to me by for free by my workplace, so that's you know pretty cool. Anyways. I I have like uh 15 or 16 uh pizzeria shirts. It's it's ridiculous. Some of them are old, I need to throw them out. Um but uh when I was younger, I had you know lots of siblings, uh, so I got lots of hand-me downs. Uh and so like I really liked the the flared bell bottom pants. Um but I don't know why it took me so long to realize, maybe and maybe it's because they're ill fitting because they're hand me downs, uh but they would get like the Ankles would slosh me, uh, and then I would like step on them and they would rare tip and rare rip and tear and and stuff. Uh, and it's just uh I I don't know why I like them at all. Like bell bottoms are terrible.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:15

So I will say, what people around me would probably say is the weirdest phase, even though I argue objectively I'm right and they're wrong, is I'm a phase where I wear dress pants and a dress shirt to like everywhere I go. But my argument is I have to be dressed like I'm in a job interview at all times because every person I talk to on the elevator could be hiring me as a professor, right? Like, and like I'm a public-facing author figure. So I argue that it's appropriate for me to dress semi-formal everywhere I go. People are like, no, no, you just like to do it. It's kinda weird, never seen you in jeans and a t-shirt. I'm like, yeah, I just had a 15-minute conversation with the dean of the school. I probably should be dressed like an adult. So from outside looking in, people will be like, yeah, it's weird. Richard dresses in like a plaid dress shirt and like dark dress pants every day. I'm like, yes, I do. You are correct. But I think I'm right. Objectively speaking. I think showing up to class in jeans and a t-shirt is more acceptable and would make me blend in with my peers more. But why would I want to do that when I'm trying to be superior?

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:21

Yeah, well, and yeah, professionalism isn't a weird phase.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:24

That's just like But you'd ask like my classmates and things, and they'd absolutely be like, oh yeah. He's in his weird phase of always dressing like a professor, and I'm like, yes, my weird phase of dressing for the job I want to have. Because people like, you look like a professor. I'm like, that is the entire point. If you show up to an interview to be a professor, don't you want to look like a professor? Like when I send in my application to be a professor, don't I want the dean's first thought to be like, oh, I thought he was already a professor? Like, that seems good, right? Like if you're applying to be, I don't know, a football player, and they look at you like, you look like a linebacker. That's good. That is good that that's their first thought is you look like the thing you want to do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:09

But yeah, no, I I don't really uh I suppose maybe um I don't know, like Lego when I was younger, I really, really, really liked Lego.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:20

Uh but that's objectively correct. Lego's awesome. Yeah, I don't know if it's a weird phase. I mean You know what might be a weird phase though? When I got super into importing Japanese Gundam games.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:32

Mmm. Like I I I did kind of join on that bandwagon with the getting the uh Japanese PlayStation account and buying the Japanese PS cards or whatever, so I could get the DLC for Gundam Breaker.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:47

Right? Like that probably that's probably it. Like in like importing uh SDL.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:56

Jump Ultimate Stars? No, that was that was a Gum Nintendo didn't have uh Region Protection.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:03

No, I'll say Jump Ultimate Stars was a mainstream enough game, weirdly. I think the line when it goes into weird phase was importing SD Gundam Wii version to have the extra content that the DLC version didn't have for the jailbreak Wii. I think that is where it goes into weird territory is that specific game experience of where, yeah, me and you are both ride or die that Gatchapon Wars is the best game ever made. Well, that's probably where it is. That's the limit.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:30

Yeah, Gatchapon Wars is one of the best games ever made.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:34

It's objectively true. But like, uh, I can see it from a devside point of view, being like, you're doing what? Oh yeah, me and Carl have to uh go through freedom mode to unlock more mobile suits so we can have a better versus match in this hyper-specific game we can't read. We were paying a turn-based strategy game. The idea that we were playing a turn-based strategy game we could not read is amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:02

Just trial and error, figure out what each of the different commands do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:06

Yeah, it was the Chinese room experiment where you had someone inside the room cards and you expect they speak fluent Chinese, but they just use a guidebook and symbol recognization to output the other answer and don't actually understand the language they're translating. That is basically what happened. And it was magnificent. But with that, I think I need to go for lunch. So if anyone else wants to ask us hyper-specific questions, please submit to the button that we put in the episode description to get your questions to Deep Space and Dragons. Or Google my name and send me the question somehow.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:43

But don't bother Googling my name. I'm pretty sure my internet footprint is too small.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:47

No, to find Carl, you look at your tattoo on your arm, right? And then you compare it to the people you see until it lines up and you walk up to him in the street and go, Carl, right? And then say, my question is, and then walk away.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:01

Well, see, the the problem is uh that I have magic glasses. Uh if I'm wearing the glasses, the tattoo is not. If I'm not wearing the glasses, the tattoo is.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:12

That's such a hyper-specific version of the hypnoglasses that makes me happy. I'm just saying that if someone doxes you by listening to all the episodes, shows up to your place of work and just goes, I here's my random question, you'd be thrilled and you know it. I would definitely have to bring it up uh and uh Admit it, it'd be the best thing that ever happened to you if someone in the street is like, Carl, right? Um, here's my question for the next episode. That would be amazing. So I am encouraging every one of our listeners to stalk Carl, find out where he works, and ask him a question in his shit.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:56

That would be pretty pretty intense.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:58

You know what would be really funny though if we did have a sponsorship deal from your work and they got like a 10% off coupon if they asked you a random question for our podcast. Then that means you'd get extra business for people trying to hunt you down. From like we have listeners in like like I think we have one in Vienna, like we have some people that have to journey for this.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:23

My boss did listen listen to at least one episode of our podcast.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:28

Like I said, not sponsored, just a fan. I think for all the shade we throw, I do have to mention that you make good pizza. Like, I feel like I actually have to break that up once in a while. The pizza's real good. To be perfectly clear.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:42

I never talk about the pizza, it's always about the the events that happen around the pizza.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:47

Right? But like I I feel the cup clean that no no, the pizza's pretty good. Like, that is my goat you order while I'm there. Not sponsored, just a fan.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:56

Anyway, you know, self-care, check out our our other stuff like Vlad's book and and Vlad's itch.io.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:04

Oh no, Vlad! That won't help with at all.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:08

Oh no, yeah, don't don't search for don't search for uh Rich Don't search for Vlad. That's uh good so good.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:22

Bye.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:23

We're so bad at this.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:27

Oh, your first plug was immaculate, and the second one's like, yeah, if you search up Vlad's novel, it's like what?

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:34

Who is I I just got a text message from from Megan asking if I was talking to Vlad, and then that was on my brain, I guess. Flawless.