Magic Circles Explained

We start with workplace chaos that includes a too-good-to-be-true ring offer and a loyalty coupon mix-up that turns into complaint politics. Then we go full nerd mode on magic circles and rune magic, arguing about what makes a magic system feel consistent across anime, games, and fantasy stories.

• a suspiciously discounted ring sale and why it feels emotionally weird 
• how loyalty programs fail in practice and how customers escalate complaints 
• academic excuses, exam invigilation intensity and how cheating shapes policy 
• a clear three-part framework for magic circles in fiction 
• why Fullmetal Alchemist sets the standard for rule-based circles 
• where The Owl House and Witch Hat Atelier make glyph magic feel like code 
• why some “eye powers” feel like nonsense without system support 
• how worldbuilding breaks when “rare” people dominate the entire cast 
• quick notes on real-world roots and why circles fascinate humans 
• favorite magic systems plus random closing questions

Transcript

Cold Open And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good afternoon and welcome to Richard and Carl present Deep Space and Dragons. This is the third best podcast I've been on. I'm Richard.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I'm Carl, and I mean like I think this is the only podcast I've been on, aside from our other podcast that's, you know, the same two people, so.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Wow. Like, you can't even be like, oh yeah, this is the best podcast. Boo.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Well, neither could you, because apparently you've been on many, many podcasts. You're like a podcast whore.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Ouch. For the record, I have not been on many, many podcasts. I mean, I am genetically predomined to go on podcasts. Not sure why. But. Nah, I will say though, our Deggerheart podcast is doing surprisingly well. And that was like the main chat I was doing. And then the other one's a mystery thing. Ooh. I like mysteries. Good. It'll stay a mystery. Until you solve it. So, before we get into today's topic, what is new with you that won't send you to jail by legally admitting it on this podcast? Disclaimer. Team Space and Dragons is a comedy podcast. Never take anything we take to say seriously. Do not take legal advice from Carl. Any Carl, really, unless they're qualified or accredited. Don't take advice from me about anything, really, unless I'm qualified and accredited in that field. And even then, a little dicey and I'm probably overcharging you.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Okay, okay, so I I have two pizza store anecdotes this week, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Hmm?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Does it involve horse?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

No, no. Um we have this delivery driver, uh, and his partner is from the Ukraine. Um, we're gonna call him Broken for now. Well, I mean, uh, his name doesn't even really matter. Uh what matters is that his partner brought this uh ring to Canada from the Ukraine. Um and uh for whatever reason uh they're trying to sell this ring.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Uh throw that in a volcano, but continue.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Well, no, it's uh it's definitely not the one ring because it has a very large diamond uh and they got it appraised, and the ring is worth like$7,500 because it's like$3,000 worth of gold and$4,000 worth of gold.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Or like$137th of a Charizard.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Right, right, right. Uh but uh he heard that I'm getting married, you know. Surprise, surprise. I mean, I thought everybody in my workplace knew that already, but I guess. I really hope there's posters.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I really hope your like movie posters you did up are just hanging in your workplace.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

That would be pretty funny. Uh but um he comes up to me and he's like, hey, my wife is trying to sell this uh this ring. We just got it appraised at this jewelry store. Um you know, it's worth like$7,500, but you know, I'd sell it to you for$2,500. I'm like, uh, okay, okay, I'll I'll go get my my partner, she'll come and drop it off. You can take it home and and see out, see if your your fiance likes it, and it's like you just say no.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Just say no. You don't want a you second-hand refugee wedding ring if it means nothing to you. There's moments where that's a beautiful story. Someone's trying to hawk it to you is not a beautiful story.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Uh but so then he's like, well, you know, like this is this is what I'm saying. Besides, I thought you ordered your rings off Timu. This is an opportunity. So sometimes you just gotta uh jump on an opportunity. But but there's no pressure, no pressure. Then like ten minutes later, his wife shows up and has this ring and they have like the paperwork and everything. Uh I'm like, oh, okay, well, thanks. I'll I'll take it home.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Like, no, you fool! Why? Why are you entertaining this? Just say no. Say no to drugs, just questions.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I really should bring it back to facts in it by now. But I was I was thinking, um it would be extremely unethical, but you know, if there's a ring, I mean the paperwork says this worth all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So I gave the disclaimer about we're not we're no to do crimes because we're a comedy podcast. Please tell me you're not about to give me like the anctidote about how you counterfat this ring. How you took the time, adopt this war refugee ring and replaced it with glass and returned it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

I think we might figure it out. I'm not sure. But how I was thinking, like. I mean, I I feel like I'm a trustworthy person. I'm glad that this guy trusts me with this with this expensive ring.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I'ma be real with you, Carl. You are incredibly emotionally trustworthy. I don't believe you would willingly betray anyone ever. I do think you'd be talked out of a ring for some magic beans.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I mean, that might be true.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

And you would return with these magic beans that you sold this man's ring for because these magic beans will fix their problems. Uh I kind of wish your name was Jack, because then I'd make a running bit that the Jack in all the fairy tales was you, and it kind of makes sense. Well, I mean, maybe I just changed my name. You would never. Hmm. Fair enough. I love how you're just like, hmm, I've been defeated.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

But no, uh, I mean, obviously this would I would never never do this either, because this would be definitely be emotional betrayal. Uh, but I was thinking, I was like, man, I'd like, if he tells me to me for 2500, I wonder if I could pawn it for like three grand and make money off of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

I don't even think that's an unethical life hack. I just think the situation's absurd. Because like a wedding in my brain is such a personal, emotional thing where I feel like if you're getting a used ring, it needs to come for somewhere meaningful to you guys. But also, I'm a romantic and I'm not looking at the logistics of these things. And being like, hey, if I get this discount ring off Timu, we can afford flowers. Like, I don't know the math here.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Well, so I I showed it to my fiance, and she's like, Oh, I hope you didn't spend that much money on a ring, because that's like more money than we spent on our entire wardrobe for the wedding. Case in point. And I was like, no, no, I'm just I'm just showing it to you because, you know, I think it's kind of funny and weird.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I'm showing it to you because I said to some people at my coworker that I would show it to you, and now I have showed it to you.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

And she's like, oh, well, good thing you didn't buy it. I would have said it was nice if you had bought it, but it's really kind of plain. Because it's just like a white gold ring with a single big ass diamond in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Wait, which partner is the ring for? Because do you wear the diamond ring in this situation? No, I'm pretty sure it's for the wife. I thought it's like there's like a wedding bed thing. I don't know these weird archaic rituals.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, so I mean the the ring with the diamond is for the for the woman of the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Which can be whoever decides to be that that day because gender's a spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Right, right. And then there's a plain band that would be for the man of the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

With who I am as a person, I can see myself wearing the diamond.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

I mean, I guess if you really wanted to, you could both wear a diamond ring, or you could both wear a band.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

You know, the band actually seems if we're talking pure logistics, the band's just the better choice. Because it's flat, it doesn't get stuck on things. People live their life.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Well, see, I'm I'm I uh this guy hasn't really asked anything about what a budget is or what we're doing for our wedding, but it's like, yeah, I'm thinking to myself, A, that that ring is worth more than our entire wardrobe. And B, uh, we were actually thinking about getting tungsten carbine rings because they're so much cheaper. Yes. You can get a pair of rings on Amazon, which is much more reputable than Timu.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

For a hundred bucks. See, that's what I'm talking about. Like the logistics I was talking about, those logistics are lovely. I know this is a hot take, but getting a wedding ring that can be easily replaced when you're Carl is probably strategically smart.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Because that's ending up in someone's flatbread. And the Tunks and Carbide rings are supposed to be pretty much indestructible, but I think I got one of those as my grad ring thing I've been playing with.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

It's actually quite nice. Oh yeah? But I digress. I fully approve this message. I just want to give you support on this part, and I would have roasted you forever about your war crime ring. The time you stole a wedding ring from refugees who desperately needed the money and undercut them.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

They undercut themselves because we're such good buddies because we work together.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Seems seems fake. Ring's actually that blue mass from breaking bad. Never trust something that opens with a 50% off discount.

unknown 9:35

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

But anyways, uh Pizza Store Anecdote Number 2. I just feel like complaining a little bit. Yay. Um I'm I'm sure this has come up before, but I'm um uh basically we have a loyalty program on our online website. And uh it's like every hundred dollars you spend, you get like one of the four coupons uh that kind of like cycle through.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Um can I pause you for an absurd idea pitch and then I'll let you go back? Sure. So there exists a literary magazine called the Taco Bell Quarterly. Okay. They're a literally magazine that only accepts work inspired by Taco Bell. They put out an issue once a year, and they give out Taco Bell gift cards to people who submit their literature to it. Okay. I'm just saying it would not cost you much to set up a literary magazine for people to send pizzas with them short stories and anecdotes and things. And then your website would be incredibly more interesting if there was the TJ Pizzas Review, a literary magazine, that gave out pizza coupons for submitting stories to it. That would be pretty funny. There's no reason you can't do that. Be part of be a patron to the arts. I'm pretty sure the whole project is tax deductible.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Actually, uh so as a quick little side note, actually. Uh, this is not part of my story, but the other day my boss was like, hey, uh, there's this Lance Armstrong fellow. Yes. Not not the not the real Lance Armstrong. I need to pause for a second.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

When someone opens up the sentence, there's this Lance Armstrong fellow. I cannot fathom where the story is going.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Anyway, this fellow Lance, uh, apparently he's been going to the other TJs and he has like$5,000 in gift cards that he's been using. Seems sus. And so my boss. So my boss is like, hey, uh, you want to check this name on our customer database to see whether or not he's ever ordered here? I was like, yeah, okay. I find him. It's like, yeah, he hasn't ordering her since like 2019. And she has like, oh, well, I guess we didn't sell him those gift cards, so whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I mean, I my headcanon is that it is the Lance Armstrong, and someone gave him lifetime supply of gift cards because he went to the goddamn moon. The joke there being the L Arkstog and Lance Armstrong are not the same person, but that's just such a mess up. Someone comes in, I'm Lance Armstrong, the astronaut? Sure. Here, have gift cards.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

But anyway, the real story. Uh our our uh loyalty program has the four coupons like through every hundred dollars you spend. Uh, and one of them is a free medium pizza with three toppings each. With three toppings. Yeah. With your order. And you have to order ten dollars or more, but you get a free pizza. Um button.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

You're not even the first TJ's pizza when I Google it.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

This pizza coupon is a little bit um unintuitive because you can't just like order a pepperoni pizza. You have to order a cheese pizza and then add the three toppings you want. Um so sometimes people will they'll try to order and they the coupon fails because they didn't order the cheese pizza and the toppings. Or sometimes it'll fail because they order their cheese pizza, uh, but they add more than three toppings. So I uh go to uh an order comes in, right? And I uh look at it as like, oh, they failed to add their coupon because they have four topics. So are you still there?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah, I'm listening to your pizza story. I also have pulled up the website to fact check you on your own words.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Wow. Good job.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Because I'm seeing here one reward point for every full five dollars you spend online. Every time you earn 20 points, we'll email you a coupon for$10 off. Opportunities to earn extra discounts by referring your friends a free small pizza on your birthday.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Well, maybe the maybe the free medium pizza is only for signing up. I don't know, we got a lot of them, so I kind of assumed it cycled through the rotation, but Anywho.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Please continue.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Point of the matter is that this person, they you know, they had to order their$10 worth of stuff. So they order a bacon wedgie, which is$11.99 plus tax. 10 minutes like$13 something. Uh and I uh I decide that I'm gonna comp their pizza for them, even though they ordered too many copies, and I was just gonna tell them, like, yeah, uh, I did this customer service thing for you. Uh but next time if you get this coupon, uh it's only three copies of accident. So you know you do it right. Right. Uh it's a woman's name on the ticket, but a guy comes in to pick up the pizza. So I'm assuming it's he's the boyfriend or partner or whatever. Um and he's like 13 bucks. I thought it was supposed to only be like 10. And I was like, well, you know, the the Weggie is$11.99 plus tax, so like I don't know. He's like, okay, fine, whatever. Um so then, like, probably like 45 minutes later, uh, the girl calls back and she's like, hey, uh, were my were my wedgies old? I was like, no, they were made fresh. Uh are you sure? Because like they were they're cold. We had to put them in the microwave and they're real dry. It's like, well, I personally made your order. I remember yours specifically because of this coupon error, I explained for the error. Um, and I made your wedgies at the same time. Um like I don't I don't know why they would be old or cold, because they're not, right? Uh and she's like, Oh, well, you know, can we get them remade? And I was like, Yeah, for sure. I just I just don't understand how how they would be that way, but yeah, we can remake them. She's like, actually, uh, my boyfriend used to work for Jeff. Uh can we talk to Jeff?

unknown 15:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

And I was like, Well, he's he's not here. Uh, I can take your phone number, but he probably won't call you back. They're like, he won't call us back. Not over something like this.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Uh like so you know what's funny about that is just not what you've been at this pizzeria.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Well, I worked for them for like 20 years or something.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

And it's like that seems mathematically impossible because you've been there for a minute. And then I want to tell you, like, I'll take your phone number. Um.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

And they're like, oh, it's fine, we'll we'll just keep calling back till we get a hold of them. It's like um, but the point of the matter is, and it's like Apparently then later, like, they asked me my name, and it's like, well, I'm Carlin, the manager, like, you're gonna call in and ask for a manager to know who you're talking to, I guess. But apparently they posted on uh What the Fuck YXE, which is a Facebook group, to complain about me and my attitude.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Uh it's like So I'm gonna give you some maths.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

I really wonder how often it actually works for people to invoke the name of an owner.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Never to try and has literally never worked. So I'm gonna give you some mathematics here for you, to see if this helps the situation. Just one second here. Let's see. Or you're just bad at headphones. We're experiencing some technical difficulty because Carl keeps rubbing his ears that contains his communication device. Please stand by. Do do do do do do do do do do.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah, I don't know what the deal is, but today my earbuds are particularly uh slippery, and they just do not want to stay.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

That is such an unsettling sentence.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

It is very unsettling, because it's like I'm just like talking, and then my earbud goes to like fall out, and I have to try and like adjust it so it doesn't fall out.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I would tell you to just pick up like a nice headset, but then I remember I don't pay you. Yeah, in fact, I pay you to Patreon. I mean, kinda yeah. To be fair, we have a massive archive of episodes as a result of your donation to the arts. Someday I won't be a struggling student in like six years or so.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Okay, but so I mean, before my I touched the side of my earbuds because they have touch controls, but Oh, I was gonna say I have some fun mathematics for ya.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Okay. So, effective October 1st, 2025, Saskatchewan's minimum wage is$15.35 an hour. That means if it did literally anything else other than calling you, they would make more money than the cost of that wedge. It is more economical and profitable for them to work any job instead of trying to get this discount. They would save more money that way. Literally any job.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah, yeah. And one wedging is worth less than an hour of work.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah. And then to follow that up, asking to see a manager has never like calling the guy used to work there has never worked. Because no one wants an ex-worker trying to get free stuff off of them, because you're an ex-worker. If they liked you, you'd be a current worker. And third, and this is important, so you've been at TJ's Pizza for like a Legend of Zelda or Carina of Time amount of time, like seven years or so, right? A while, yeah. And then what time when did TJ's Pizza open in Saskatoon? Uh 1989. Alright. I do not think this man worked there 20 years. I don't think the math checks out that you would never have encountered or heard of them.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Oh, well, I mean, no, the the math the math does check out.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Wouldn't the dude be like 60 years?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

He is apparent I I asked my boss, and he apparently, uh, this fellow is apparently the guy who invented our bacon double cheeseburger pizza. Which sounds like a bold claim because I'm pretty sure it was just stolen wholesale from the Family Pizzas menu, but No, I'm pretty sure it's just an obvious pizza.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

So you bake pizzas based on the ingredients you have. Right? Any pizzeria with ground beef onions and a dressing can just make that. Now, if they put dice pickle on it, that's wild and crazy person behavior. But like just ground beef onions. Yeah. And bacon, that's all you need for the pizza.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

I'm just saying I I I showed my boss uh this guy's phone number and name. He's like, oh yeah, that's the guy that invented this pizza. I really thought this was gonna be a random.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Wait, so he still told him to fuck off, though.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

No, no, Jeff never talked to him.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I will say though. I'm just saying if TJ's pizza was trying to like do like a branding recall to like make them stand out more than being a generic corner pizza store, putting the artist's name next to these pizzas would actually be like an interesting move. Like if every pizza had like like it was like Carl's Turkey Cranberry Pizza. I just say it, you could add some humanity to things and start a literary magazine, is all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Uh I I absolutely hate it when people try to invoke my boss's name to try and scare me. And that's like you obviously don't know him.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

That'd be like somebody be like, hey, I was friends with your boss Ebenezer. I am certain he'll give me a discount. And it's before Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I'd be like, well, call Ebenezer yourself then.

Student Excuses And Cheating Paranoia

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And see how that goes. I'm not saying your boss is cheap. Sips coffee, rolls eyes at camera. I mean, he's never wronged me. In any way, so I should not throw shade at your boss. Yep. He also occasionally watches episodes, so if you're listening to this, you do a good job. But in all seriousness, though. I'm I just Oh man. I get a very different kind of complaint than you do now that I'm in a weirder field. So I don't get the I want to speak your manager. I get the most colorful excuses on earth. You'd be amazed how many grandparents die during exam season. You would be s like I was going over the math with one of my colleagues, and someone lost five grandparents one semester. Which is possible, but deeply tragic.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So I mean, lost the grandparents died as a classic one. Uh have you ever had any students say that their dog ate their homework?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Unfortunately, no. Because we don't give them homework anymore because they're cheating bastards, every one of them.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah, okay, but I mean, like, have you ever had someone say that their dog shoot on their laptop?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah. I've had people be like, my laptop charger got destroyed by an animal, so I couldn't take notes in class, and then I said, quote, okay. And is there a request here? Like, the thing is, like, I'm actually a softie when I'm TAing because I'm not supposed to undermine the professor, but the professor is allowed to be strict, which means I'm allowed to be a softie, like all things in balance, right? So I could be like to a student, oh, I can give you a copy of my notes from that lecture if you really want. And they're like, oh, thank you, thank you. And they're like, but don't tell the professor. And then I email the professor, yo, I gave this kid some notes. It's like, I like to do the like, oh I'm not allowed to do this, but here you go. And then be like to the professor immediately afterwards. So I did this thing and said, ooh, but I'm not allowed to. I was like, yeah, that's fine. See, as a TA, I'm supposed to be their friend and confidant. But also I'm an employee and therefore bubble rigid structure of rules and procedures. But like, Ay. Yeah, uh, we're not kidding where it's like, yeah, homework just kind of got phased out in the humanities because of Chappa Chipita. This last semester was brutal, like, we're like handwritten, no devices. I don't know if I told you about it, but I was doing some test invigilation for an extra some extra cash money. And the test invigilation crew are pretty intense people. Okay. And the thing is, it was a type of test that even if you had access to AI, it wouldn't have really helped you. Because it was read the passage in front of you and write a response, and it involved feelings and things, right? Like AI, you if you could type out the question fast enough into your computer and it gave you an answer, it wouldn't really help you time-wise, it'd actually like eat too much of your clock for you to be able to really do the thing. Right. But this crew is so trained to expect cheating that our drill sergeant comes in and he's like, They will do everything in their power to cheat. Escort them to the bathroom. Only one may leave. Look for Google glasses, look for angles, look for phones, have them turn out their pockets before they go to the bathroom, them jump up and down, check between their legs for phones. I'm like, are you trying to like turn me into Drake here? Like, what the hell? This seems intensive. I remember at one point I'm like, I am not looking at these students' thighs. You can do that, have fun, but I am not gonna.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

That seems inappropriate. They are people. But it's just like that does seem pretty intense. Yeah, but the thing is, everything they listed as a way people cheat is absolutely a way people have cheated. Won't be long before those assholes had meta come up with Google contact lenses for cheating. Ooh. I love how there's no actual good like. I just simply cannot think of a situation other than cheating in school where you would need meta glasses.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, I I can't really think of any either. Well maybe like show like the uh the really cool, like, hey meta, record this. But like the glasses already have to be on and like running, and they only have like a like a two-hour like battery life, so they really just seem super impractical.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Also, just having a recording device on concealed on your face feels like it'll be used by creeps.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Well, so here's some like uses for it that I think would be good though. If like you had a hearing issue and it subtitled people, or like translations, like there's cool things it could do. But money doesn't believe in supporting people. Like, capitalism's not gonna be like, hey, we've noticed that you're hearing impaired, have a free set of meta glasses to translate for you. I'm like, typically if you have hearing problems, you'd be like, cool, glasses aren't part of healthcare, so you can't afford to also be not also be blind. Like, glasses aren't free. Why are glasses not free? Yeah, I don't get it. Glasses should be free. Hearing aid should be free. Hot take.

Interactive Fiction Work And Summer Plans

SPEAKER_01 27:33

But so is that what's new with you in the amateur? Oh, not at all. I'm out of the semester.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I've been doing fun stuff. Oh, like what? So, I'm technically I have to write my big scullery writing essay over the summer. Uh-huh. I have a pretty decent head start on it, and I should be done by the end of the month, which gives me three months where I'm not really having schoolwork I have to do. So I had to do 120 hours of placement. Which I did in that two weeks conference where I was training people how to make adventure novels. Oh, sorry, to make parser games. So I've already done all my like internship hours already.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Okay, wait, wait, wait, just step a Mac for a second. Uh parser, parser games and choose your own adventure novels. How similar are they?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

They're very different, but there's lots of overlap. You just triggered a special interest, and now you're stuck for seven minutes, and I'm sorry. So choose your own adventure novels are manual application of the codex. I by codex I mean physical book. So choose your own adventure is a brand name, kinda like Linux, but we use it to refer to any book where it says on it, your choices are based on which page you turn to. Right. So that's a choose your own adventure novel. Yeah, yeah. Things that are digital tools like Twine or Story Loom or Inky, or even the classic anime visual novel, follow a similar structure mechanically, of we give you X number of choices and you click the hyperlink to go to that page. Like if I write my paper in Twine, which is available on my website, if anyone feels like be looking at my most dry academic work, which is usually my better work, ironically, is I literally have an elaborate Twine functions as an elaborate array of post-it notes that link together like they were pages of a book. So you can do things that aren't physically possible in a book, like perfect loops or things weave in, but most things you can do in twine, you can also do in a physical book. Now, what I was teaching was in Form 7, parser games, which are the games where you have a command line like Zork and things that say, like, for example, inside the room is a chair, a desk, a wall clock, and a door. What would you like to do? And then you type in your specific verb that you would like to do, like take egg, and it'll be like you have picked up the egg. This type of game cannot be emulated in a codex because you're dividing objects in space and interactions with them, the number of pages you turn would be infinite because you can type anything into the box. And you're basically setting up some functions that are built into the software. Like it'll recognize objects or objects so they can be picked up and moved, food can be consumed. So if you say something like, on the desk is an egg, an egg can be consumed. If you type into the game, pick up egg, it knows an egg's a thing, so you can hold the egg, consume egg, it'll say you have consumed the egg. So when programming these adventure games, you're basically creating a playroom of objects. And it's closer to how you would Mario Maker, where you're using text to find these objects where they are and what the spaces are. Whereas something like a choose your own adventure novel or a twine game or a Remply visual novel are more sc basically scripts and the big things are changing location. A parser game is completely different because you're doing object work. So in Parser, you could remake the entirety of Orgrina of Time in it. Does control via text command. If you tried to do that in Twine, you couldn't, because you can't account for all the player actions.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Right, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

I think that clocked in about seven minutes or so. I could I can go much more in depth on these topics. I'm literally going to a conference at the end of the month to present Twine in a Choose Your Own Adventure novels and the pedagogy of them. Like literally. I am going to the Acute Conference to do this. Shout out to any listeners who are going to the acute conference for whatever reason. Seek me out, yo. I do actually hope we have some random English professors who listen to this podcast, because that's so funny. That would be pretty funny. But did I answer your question? Yeah, yeah, you answered my question. Alright, so to fold it back to what's new with me is I taught Inform 7 games, that were all my placement hours. And at the end of the month, I'm going to a conference to teach on Choose Your Own Adventure novels in Twine. I'm going to Montreal for a week, which is lovely, Nancy Lux, never been. Taking the train.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

They do.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

That is not on my to-do list. What is on my to-do list is to enjoy my business class ticket, look out the window while sipping occasional free drinks, and actually watch looking at the countryside between Toronto and Quebec. That's gonna be delightful. I am super excited. But yeah, my conference, I got my placement hours done, I'm working on a big paper, I played through Azure Striker Gun Vault 1 and 2. So I haven't like locked into like getting projects done, because I have a novel on the go and I want to make like a full Inform 7 adventure game. But I basically told myself I have till the end of May to finish all my schoolwork-related stuff off, which is this one big paper. Then in June, I got a writing contract of sorts with the school that I work on over July and August, and then in September I start my PhD. How exciting. My life's awesome. These fools, these absolute lunatics, are pitching towards my expenses for me to go talk about Choose Your Own Adventure novels. They are giving me real Canadian dollars to talk about Zork and parser games and teach people how to make them. Are they crazy? I would do that for free! Ha, idiots. If you were like, hey, you should teach me how to make these, I have two days booked off, I would absolutely do that for free. It would be awesome. I should actually put some of those up on my website at some point. Because I made a few writing samples of things. Oh yeah. But like, the problem is that because I'm using them for school projects and things, the copyright area is gray. Basically, if they pay me, I don't get it and they give that away to other people for free.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I see.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Well, I don't get to give it a f publish it for free. I can slide copies to people. But yeah. So, I'll see anything else. Oh, I went to a jazz concert on the weekend. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Did you actually recognize any of the artists? Huh? Did you actually recognize any of the artists?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Oh no. This was like at a local community center, and it was like a local jazz band that was doing like jazz about civil rights fights.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Huh.

What Magic Circles Actually Do

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah, it was as indie as indie gets, and everyone in the venue was like 60 plus, and it was so nice. So here's a hot take of hot takes. I don't love concerts, and I blame my various neurodivergencies and deafness and things. Too loud, too chaos, too easy for me to die. Now a concert for old people, reasonable volume, small vendor, dark and stormy in my hand, people passionately jazzing about issues. It was lovely. I had a great time. Everything was reasonable. Including the price, which was nothing. It was great. Hashtag support the local arts. Which I think you have in Saskatchewan, local arts, I'm not sure. Yes, we do. Uh but with that out of the way, shall we get into today's topic? 40 minutes in after I've monologued about It was me. I did the monologue this week. I acknowledge that. Alright, so this week we're talking about magic circles. So okay. Uh I'm gonna open up in this. Okay, well, yeah, you can you can open. Alright. So, the magic circle. So the first thing I'm gonna talk about is so historically a lot of magic circles come from like old alchemic diagrams of this represents this, this represents that, some sort of spiritual this and that. But really, medias will use it in three ways. The first is they'll invent an entire magic circum system and the circle will actually mean something. Second, the circle will be like a category, and it'll be one of their toolkits, like, oh, this spell uses a circle, this spell uses words, this spell uses the blood of a griffin or what have you. And then the third is the FFX teams on your anime or video game will just add in cools to looking circles that mean and do nothing, but they look aesthetically pleasing. Right. For this one we're gonna focus mostly on the first two, but I do have a little m couple mini monologues about non-interesting uses of magic circles. But I want to start with the a weird random question. What media properties did you see that first had a magic circle? Via game, show, card game. What is the first magic circle you recall?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Well, okay, okay. Um, the first magic circle I recall, I mean, I can't they can't be the first magic circle circle I've seen, but I mean, like, full metal alchemist is is like that's one of the the Oh yeah, that is gonna be one of our deep dives today for sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Because after taking a college-level course on alchemy, I can say with confidence the magic circles of Full Metal Alchemist are correctly designed. Like they are historically accurate. Every circle she drew actually used the correct arrangements and placements in the manga to be a legitimate alchemic circle that was supposed to do the things the circle indicated. Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Uh, but so I I don't know if you would count this as a magic circle or not. Uh, but uh there's this movie, I believe it's called the Skeleton Key. Um anyway, the movie is about this uh I forget what she's doing, she like becomes a uh nanny at this house or something.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

A nurse who becomes a hospice worker?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Oh and uh then as she's working this creepy stuff happening she becomes starts to believe that they're like yeah. Uh well she's like yeah, she's working in this person's head until finally actually like anxious to like take over and the climax of the movie stuff so much that she like you know draws a circle of salt around herself to stop the witches from being able to get to her, and they're like, oh well, you know, we can't get to you because you're in your circle of salt, but that means that you can't leave either. Ha ha ha ha. And then they do their evil thing and and steal her body.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Well, it's funny is the circle of salt is a very common one, like supernatural has it. I feel like the circle of salt goes in that second category of there's magic in this world and the circle is a toolkit. I think the first magic circle I saw in the world. Yeah, definitely. There seems to be some leg in the call. Testing. Alright, I think the first magic circle I saw was in literally the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, the card magic circle. For like, that comes to mind, obviously. But Sailor Moon definitely had like the aesthetically thrown in randomly that meant nothing, magic circles in the special attack animations. And card captors also had like magic circles on the book that released the cards, but the magic circle itself means nothing, definitely aesthetics. But I think in the Yu-Gi-Oh! show they're literally like, I use magic circle, which traps you in a magic circle.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Yeah, I mean, uh the magic circles in Yu-Gi-Oh! were probably more along the line of the aesthetics rather than actual tools or anything.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh! was an interesting one though, because it was like the magic circles on the trading cards were shenanigans. But like, they had like a full season where there's like this is a serial or a calculus, and it makes a magic circle on a battlefield and it shrinks and captures your soul, and I'm like, that one felt like the circle did something at least. Hmm. Where like I'm just trying. But I'm gonna pass the bike back to you, because there's definitely magic circle things you want to talk about.

Card Games And What Counts

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Well, okay, okay. So my my first question for you uh is uh I I I'll I feel like I kind of know where this is gonna go, but would you consider um like magic circles for uh energy costs in trading card games to be in magic circles. Like, for example, uh magic has its its mana symbols, uh or uh Pokemon has the energy symbols, um where you know it's a circle and then the uh inscribed symbol in the circle uh has various meaning throughout the game.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

So here's my hot takes about this one. Magic yes, Pokemon no, and here's why.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

In magic, the idea is you're channeling energy from the land into an object. And magic likes to throw around words like ley lines and mana and terminology. But there's definitely objects in magic where it's like, hey, I'm gonna tap this land to do a thing. If you told me that every time you tapped a land, it was because someone was drawing a magic circle or a magic circle appeared whenever you tapped the land, I'd buy it. The idea of using a circle to capture the energy of the land to do a phenomenon. And if someone told me whenever you summon something in magic, they came out of a circle. Like Magic the Gathering, not Magic the Fortnite that's become, but like if you tried seriously to make like a Magic the Gathering manga anime series, I would agree with you that like the mana symbols could be magic circles. Like they could easily be visually represented by that. It'd probably be nicer that way. Pokemon though. Because Pokemon energy simply represents power points in the original concept. Right. So those circles aren't magic circles, they're batteries. They're basic in my brain, it's like, yeah. Also, they're cer not circles, they're balls, because everything in Pokemon goes in a sphere. Fair enough. Now the runes in hit card game Rippedbound, I've been playing a lot of with my brother based on League of Legends. Great game. Plays kinda like Commander, but they did the thing where you is first to ten points instead of losing life, so the game ends when someone wins. Really like the really like this ripbound card game. Unrelated, full episode, we're out of the topic. But they haven't their mana deck is separate from their main deck. And they're called runes. Okay. Those are definitely magic circles. They're literally runes. Also, for context, I say magic circle under the assumption that they're circles, because a couple recent shows come to mind. I think I'm really talking about runes. And a circle is a type of rune, because I don't think it being a circle. Is the important part. It being a structured, physically written indication of magic power for energy to flow is the point of this topic.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

So like um I I read a uh uh monoir on Webtoon. It's called uh the Academy's Undercover Professor.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Uh it's kind of a ridiculous premise. It feels like it's swiping my idea for a novel, but mine has more action.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

It's kind of a ridiculous premise because the the main character, um, he's like some sort of uh he's a he's a fallen prince of some sort. Uh and he's hiding his identity so people don't try and murder him, but he's going around trying to collect these artifacts for some reason. Uh and he's on a train. The train gets attacked by terrorists, and the person he's in the train car with ends up dying to the terrorists. Yeah. Uh so then he just assumes that guy's identity, and that guy was a new professor at this academy. Um and then it turns out that that guy was also a part of a Shadow organization, so now he's trying to pretend to be a professor at the Academy who's also part of this Shadow organization. People who don't actually know each other's faces and names and stuff. It's um but they use a lot of magic circles uh they to uh cast their spells, and um in one scene in particular, he says, actually, um for any music nerds out there, uh there's something called a Babbitt square. Uh which is kind of like uh you know, arrange your notes into a square, and it's like a palindrome where going down one way is the same as going up the other way. Anyway, he essentially makes a Babbitt square instead of using a circle. And he's like, hey, so actually, you know, you guys can you don't have to use circles, you just have to use the geometric shapes to channel the energy. Um and so it's when you look up the T V tropes, um that instead of only magic circles, they actually like they do like think it was like magic geometry or magic geometric shapes or something like that. It's the actual trope.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Geometric magic. I also looked it up.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Uh well I looked it up the other day. I'm I I'm right now I'm looking at the Wikipedia article on magic circles, which talks about real-world examples, but we'll get there.

The Owl House Glyph Logic

SPEAKER_00 46:31

So, when it comes to like things that did magic circles very well, one that I that did it extremely well was the animated series The Owl House. Where the premise was there was human girl ecosize herself to uh Crazy Witchland. Okay. And in Crazy Witchland, people have innate magic by a bile sack attached to their heart. Protagonists did not have innate magic, but they learned how to draw magic glyphs. And there was only five magic glyphs, but by combining them in different combinations, you could get different spells.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

And it was definitely like you could literally Google look up the different combinations for the glyphs to figure out what creates what effect out of the five combinations of magic. And it came down to like them experimenting, chaining them together and doing things with the main power system. And the only people who used the main, like used the glyph power system are like the main villain and the protagonist, because everyone else had innate magic. And it does a really good job of using like the magic circles basically as executable code. And that's probably one of the better examples I've seen of like the magic circles being, oh this is like we use a series of glyph magic to create specific effects. I think it was like, for example, like ice plus light made you invisible kind of things. And like the film was like, oh, if you combine these 30, you can teleport.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

But like, I'm gonna throw the mic back to you about magic circles.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Well, okay, so have you seen or read Magic Wish at L E A?

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yes, because it's beautiful. Like, I've been watching it, so I haven't been reading it because I'm like, oh, this is real good. I'm gonna like not spoil myself. You know one of those days? So I'm gonna make a blanket statement here. 2026 is the best year for anime in all time. So we're in May, right? And we've already had Free Rin, Fate Strange Fake, and Sentenced to Be a Hero. And Jojo's. That was last, like, half season. This half season we have Witch Hat Atelier. There's a new Digimon running that's actually been pretty good. And stuff I haven't actually looked into really what's going this season, but there's a lot. We're also slated to get new Bleach, New Dragon Ball, New Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, New Fist of the North Star, uh Damons of the Shadow Realm, which is the new Full Metal Alchemist Writers manga. That was the thing I that's airing right now, and I'm like, this is just an absurd season for anime.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Like, we'll say it's um crazy year. We'll say in in general, uh anime studios seem to have really stepped up uh their animation quality.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

I believe Oh yeah, JJK was last semester. I hear people care about that.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Yeah, well, I mean, regardless of the story, it was beautifully animated. They did do a full episode that was just a kill bill homage. Like that's the thing, is animation quality for anime seems to be- I don't know what exactly has enabled this um. I think it's shifted in an arms race quality. But but, you know, you look back at Dragon Ball Super, uh, and if you weren't watching the Blu-ray, oh man, some of those frames were. Well, they're actually re-releasing.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

So there's new Dragon Ball Super coming out, but they're starting by Dragon Ball Kaiing, Dragon Ball Super, and reanimating the grossness. So like they're like, we're releasing Dragon Ball Super. Do you want to watch the Beerus saga and have it only be seven episodes? I'm like, yes, please. That'd be great. So you're gonna cut all the filler from Dragon Ball Super, which you originally added to Dragon, you started up a movie, you added filler, and now you're removing the filler? That's that's a process. That's like literally going and getting breast implants, then breast reduction surgery, but keeping the implants, but surgically removing the breast part. Like that's crazy. Not the best analogy, but you see where I'm going with that.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Uh, but so I uh just watching anime in general right now, it's it's it's a visual treat.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Oh yeah. Which is funny because like Invincible's going right now and getting ragged on for being mid, and I'm like, you know, any other year. Any other year, people be like, man, Invincible's awesome. And I'm like, Invincible is awesome. Tragically, we got shows out here making it look mediocre art wise, and I'm like, it doesn't deserve to be that compared to Western Animation is doing really well, but JJK's a thing, and I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

But which had Atelier. Personally, I thought Atelier was what's a name?

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Uh, which I mean it's it's just a fancy cash word for workshop, but I see how you got there, and that's really funny to me.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Yeah, yeah, anyways. Um, but more to the point, uh, like I said, it's it's actually a pretty good example of of magic circles. Um, and it's one of the few examples where they do actually bother to uh somewhat explain uh the magic circle system in general, because you know, like these are the glyphs and you combine them with these uh and the bigger the circle, the more oomph, the messier the circle, the worse.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Like it was circle task. It's the reason we're doing circles this week.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

It's pretty pretty nice in that way, because a lot of a lot of series, especially the ones that use it for visual aesthetic, uh just don't really bother explaining it at all.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Oh, I'm gonna give the exact opposite of which had Atelier as an example. So in hit anime series Fairy Tale, in the animated version, they added spell circles to all the attack animations, and the manga never had them. And then they started a new season, like they had a time they switched from being weekly to seasonal.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Because I think they're one of the first anime I watched literally do that, where it's like, oh, we're doing every week. It's like, actually, we're switching the seasonal now because we need our animators to rest. And when they did the switch to seasonal, they removed the magic circles because they weren't in the manga, and the fans booed them. They got hate mail, be like, no, no, no. The anime's better with magic circles arbitrarily added for no reason. They add something of value we appreciate. And it's really funny to me because it's like there's a couple magic circles in Fairy Tale, like the village, like, oh, this giant clock robot's drawing a giant magic circle and it explodes you. But the magic system in Fairy Tale is literally powered by friendship and bullshit. And is so inconsistent that I like approve of it, weirdly. It's try- it's like how Dragon Ball Z is so abstract with how its martial arts works, I think they can get away with their shenanigans. Right, right. But you can tell your magic circles aren't trigger integral to the plot if you could just remove them to be more accurate, and then people get mad because they were cool.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

But anyway, so the the actual reason I wanted to talk about magic circles uh was because magic watch atelier, I really like um firstly they have this uh plot thread, the uh Knights Morales and uh the you know the Forbidden Magic. There's a few categories of forbidden magic, but one of the forbidden magics is uh anything cast directly upon the human body. With the only exception being magic that lets you erase someone's memories. Uh but wouldn't you know it, uh the uh knights morales uh are the ones who uh determine whose memories get erased. Um fascinating. Yeah, except for it's just because then we have the the brim caps. Uh and they are, you know, they are very clearly suspicious and evil or whatever. Uh but then they have this they have this little thing with like, oh, Coco, you're our only hope. And it's like Is it Is it too obvious that the uh brimcats are actually some sort of rebellion against an oppressive force?

SPEAKER_00 55:18

So I think they've so far, from what I've seen, because I've just been watching it, right? I think this is being written with a subtle enough hand that it's gonna actually be shades of gray and both sides are gonna have fair points. Like, I do think it's gonna be more like I feel like the obvious twist is gonna happen, but it's gonna happen subtly. Does that make sense? Like, sometimes there's an like let's take Bowman Alchemist. It was obvious that Amestris was evil. But what made it complex was they couldn't just bomb Amestris because their friends and loved ones would get in. Like it was complex. Yeah, yeah. Like Fury King Bradley's name was Fury King Bradley. There's no way Fury King Bradley's a good dude. But that doesn't make the obvious twist not enthralling because there's elements to the twist that caught you off guard like, oh, his son's a horrifying shadow monster. Yeah, yeah. Um Cafrey is just sexier Gojo. Which is a difficult thing to be.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

So, I mean, so that actually brings up my my next question.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

How is he sexier? Oh, it's the British accent.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

No no, I mean that's obvious, but um so Kuifri, uh, he makes a comment about how if Coco's memory should be a race, then she'll associate his, right. And then um his one eye is always covered. The one lens on his glasses has a black lens instead of a clear lens. Yeah, he's here. There's a 99% chance that the brim caps uh inscribe some sort of glyph onto his eye.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

There is a hundred percent chance there's a glyph on his eye.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Well, 100% chance there's a glyph on his eye. And I am like 99% sure it was put there by the by the brim caps because that's what his obsession with the brim caps is all about.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

I think he's just gonna bust out a Sharingan, or it's gonna be Farraking Bradley. I am 99% sure the magic symbol on his eye he put there as a last-minute buckie. He put it there. Oh yeah. And there's a 90% chance, based on the fact he's a silver-haired anime character with an eye covered, that that eye lets him read magic circles. Yeah, yeah. Um given that he is a Kakashi, a Gojo, a Zwen from Black Cat. Like, if you're a silverish-haired anime character with a covered eye, that I either lets you see the future, see object movement, or see the magic system. I will be aghast if it doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Um not all eye powers are magic circles. For example, Superman's heat vision is some sort of biological function.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Yes, but Reiner Lude's Alpha Stigma is 100% a magic circle.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Okay, so you so you would agree that in most scenarios, uh the eyeball powers are the ca are rooted in magic circles.

Eye Powers And Rule Based Magic

SPEAKER_00 58:46

I'm gonna break it down for you. Break it down, man. As I mentioned at the start of the episode, three kinds of magic circles. A circle in the symbology in the circle does a thing, a circle that's as a toolkit as part of spells, and a circle that's just aesthetically pleasing but means nothing. In Naruto, there are magic circles outright. Summoning circles, barriers, anything they draw and then slam their hand on. Like, I would even go as argue, because I'm saying circles are more rune magic. Naruto has rune magic. That's just objectively true. Yeah. The Sharingun, and what pisses me off about the Sharingun is it's not rune magic, it's bullshit. It's some sort of cross between biological and and magic? Well, the thing is, the powers the Sharingun has are like, oh, it can see chakra. I'm like, yeah, that's fair. Oh, they have different symbols on them. Okay. Oh, I look at someone and it lights them on fire. Why though? You told me I have to use a combination of hand signs, chakra manipulation, element translation, etc. etc. You missed the part where you're like the symbols on the eye convert the chakra into fire or something. You didn't give me that part. They just work because reasons. Yeah, okay. Sasano makes literally no sense. So they forgot to give the sharing gun a reason for why it works. So sharing guns are bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Yeah, and like it gets more and more bullshit the further along you go, like the Kamui, it's like, why does the eyeball that torch you on fire also teleport you between dimensions?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

And it could be fixed if they like bother to integrate it, because it's like if they literally said, oh, the symbol you put chakra through the symbol on the eye and it does a thing. But they never actually quite got there. Now the magic symbols, however, this is a hot take. King Bradley's magic eye isn't quite glyph magic, but it is glyph magic, but not in the way that would make it's not the glyph on the eye that makes it magic. So they have a circle that breaks humans down into energy. They turn that energy into a rock, and they inject that rock into King Bradley. King Bradley's magic eye is absolutely glyph magic. But there's no glyphs on King Bradley. So the actual glyph on his eye is uh decorative. More aesthetic. Yeah. So he has an aesthetic glyph on his eye, but glyph magic completely powers the homoculuses.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

And technically the entire city has a glyph under it, too. So like Full Metal Alchemist is peak glyph magic. But I'm gonna say Naruto, it's in the toolkit. The glyphs themselves, the symbols written on them, actually have meaning and does something. Naruto, yes, shampooed and it gets a little dicey. Oh? Well, it's like in Naruto, the hand signs, the chakra manipulation, the symbolology, the touching the symbol, the cutting your finger for blood to touch a symbol to summon a frog. That was like a hard magic system, right? Like I fully understood. I didn't know what the symbols on the frog summoning circle meant, but I was on board that you used a summoning circle to summon a frog. That conceptually made sense. Right. But then later, they it just stops making sense because people just have innate powers. Right. Because Naruto and Sasuke were given innate powers by Jesus that do random bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Yet, like, we go to the pain arc and he's like, oh, the power of my eyes is all our eyes are linked together, and I stab myself with rods to Wi-Fi my powers. I'm like, this still feels like a hard magic system. But like the longer the series went, the less it functioned as a hard magic system, and the more it turned into a soft magic system.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Well, I mean part of the problem with systems in general is power scaling. Oh yeah. Because once you set once you set a hard limit, uh if you like in most cases, people just push beyond it. Um just to for the drama of the moment. Um but it's like it's so hard to maintain that hard magic system with the limitations uh that that a lot of long-earning series.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

Unless you're full metal alchemist. Because I want to be perfectly clear, full metal alchemist nailed it. Cause for a hard magic system to be like, and now I eat god, you're like, yeah, that tracks. The amount of setup and foreshadowing that's required for a character to eat god in your reaction to be like, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Well, like you say, that's part of the the complexity of the writing where it's like, yeah, the empire was clearly evil, but at the same time, uh you know, they couldn't just burn it down because their friends and family live there. And then also, like, the idea that he built the entire empire to build a giant transputation circle.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

Right, and like the thing is humans aren't that smart. It's really easy as first to go bigger circle does bigger magic. And he made biggest circle does biggest magic. No one had any problem with the logic of, oh, it turns out if you sacrifice two billion people, it does things. Oh, I tr it's like, no, no, I need an even bigger circle, so I used the moon. Moon biggest circle, and I'm like, moon, biggest circle. Yeah. That's just it sounds so basic, but it's so brilliant. Moon, biggest circle. I use shadow of moon to make biggest circle. Yeah. Ugh. But I digress. So, which had atelier. I find it interesting how it's. And Full Model Okimus was good for this, too. It's not all punchy punchy. Right. But you know what I love? Two half magic circles overlapping to create jet boots.

Where Are The Normal People

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

No, Wonder Witch Adatelier definitely uh has some very cool stuff. But I do also kind of wonder, specifically about Magic Witch Hat, and I wonder if uh if you've seen this in other situations, where it's like, uh there's a divide between the witches and the normal people, and maybe we'll get more of normal society going forward. But right now, it's like there must be a society of normal people, but like, where, how, and why? Where, how, and why are the normal people. Yeah. Like it's just we just basically haven't seen them. They're like, oh, there's gonna be lots of normal people on this dangerous mission, and there was like five people that they rescued from the carton in in the water.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

Well That's interesting, and I'm not really sure where to go with that one. Because I do think like nothing to do with magic turples, but Oh Fullmetal how can I put this? Sixman has this problem more than any series, I think. Where it's like, your cool characters that are m mathematically the minority get more screen time, so they don't feel like they're as special. Right. Actually, Gundam is the example I'm gonna use for this. So in Gundam, new types are supposed to be super rare, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

But because there's a one question side note. Um do does Gundam overlay magic circles on their new type powers, or is it more like a like a little lightning bolt kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Uh depends on the series. It's the lightning bolt in original ones, but in Gundam C they have like the pshh.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Anyways, go on with your point about the minorities.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

I'm just trying to figure out if Gundam has any magic circles quickly. Which for Mercury kind of, but I cannot bother to explain that right now. I'm gonna say Gundamit for Mercury does in fact have magic circles. What about Gundam Double O? Did the aliens use magic circles? No, but double O Gundam did. Wait, no, the alien totally did like teleporting circle things. Eh-hoo, can't get into it right now. Gundam Double O straight up had magic in it, let's be honest. They used the word quantum, but it was magic. What I was gonna say is, because all the normal people in Gundam die all the time, and the characters who live are new types, you end up being like, how are these extremely nar rare new types the only people we interact with? They make up 90% of the plot. And a lot of shows have that problem where it's like because green time goes to the special people, and you're like, the show's saying they're a minority, but I'm looking at like 500 named X-Men and one named non-X-Men. I'm looking at a million new types and no regular people. That's because you actually have to remember to create characters who are regular people and insert them into your story, and no one wants to do that because they're boring. Like in Invincible, for example. Uh Invincible's mom, Debbie, starts dating Paul, and Paul's just a dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

Paul is my favorite character. He's just a dude. He's a real estate agent. He's just dating the main character's mom and being like, oh, you guys are doing all your superpower stuff. I make decent spaghetti.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

But you do have to occasionally write just a dude. Star Wars is the worst for this shit. Where every character we see is somehow a direct acquaintance of Luke Skywalker in a galaxy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

Right. And the Jedi and Sith that are incredibly rare are just like everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Yeah, because that's the cooler thing to draw. So to answer your question, I do believe there's tons of regular people in Witch Hat Atelier that get very little screen time because they're regular people, therefore boring.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

Hmm, true enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

Mathematically, there should be like a 10,000 people to each witch. That's just how numbers work. It's kind of like mutants don't even feel like a minority in X-Men. It's like they also outnumber the humans, so what are we doing? Weirdly enough, the boys is a funny show for that, too, where it's like, ah, we have normal humans against the soup. It's like you're on season five and you've given everybody superpowers.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:11

Yeah. Yep. The superpowers are more interesting, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

Well, they're more fun to draw, for sure. Like, if you're drawing a manga. You're not just gonna like make sure every chapter follows the day in the life of Springfield of 20 regular characters for balance. Uh. Naruto had that problem the most, actually. Wait a minute. Where's the normal people in Naruto? Everyone's a ninja, literally everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Yeah, there definitely are no ninjas. Or no non-ninjas. Or at the very least, like the guy running the ramen shop might be a normal dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

No, he's a retired ninja.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

He's also probably Yeah, he's probably a retired ninja.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

People are pretty sure he was on Naruto Dad's squad as one of the three on that squad. Oh, really? Yeah, but it's like the Cad Cabbage merchant where everyone just wants the ramen guy to be some kind of badass because that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:06

Mmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

Yep. Avatar did that too, like everyone was a bender. And they're like, wait, is it just actually you're less likely to not have superpowers in this world? Because it just feels like you're more likely to have superpowers than not.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

Well, yeah, the the Cavage guy is like almost the only normal guy, and he's just actually a recurring joke. And Sokka. Oh yeah, Sokka too. But back to the topic. Does Avatar have magic circles?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

No. I thought it might. I looked it up. No. Jackie Chan Adventures does. Which is objectively the better of the two shows.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:48

Objectively.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

That is the most controversial thing I've ever said.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:56

I think it depends on what season you're watching. But all of Jackie Chan Adventures is definitely better than Legend of Korra, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:02

But Jackie Chan Adventures is absolutely in the second tier of we have magic circles and they're part of the toolkit and they specifically do stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Like the Blowfish is probably the most used magical tool. But like, yeah, like the even though they're they're not just aesthetic in Jackie Chan Adventures.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:22

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:23

They are just aesthetic in bleach. Sometimes they'll go to cast a spell and there'll just be a magic circle behind it for no particular reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

Okay, okay. So now actually I have a uh more abstract question for you. Yes. I'm just gonna pull up my little Abstract that beach. I'm just gonna pull up the screenshot I took the other day. I love the idea that you took this. No, also we didn't go into Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

I was gonna say, I don't think we went into too much detail of how the magic system works in Witch Atelier, but it's absolutely magic runes and magic ink and what's in the circle, the size of the circle, how it's drawn, directly impacts the magic. And I fully believe this person has a massive binder next to their desk where they print in all the rules and clips for how their magic system works.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

Hmm. Okay, okay, so this is uh uh excerpt from something I found on on Reddit, which was the only like I don't know how to search for what I was looking for, but. Um similar to martial arts cultivation, magic and medieval medieval Europe team's fantasy, which is mana base, also advances through levels generating from first circle, beginner, to the tenth circle, demigod slash god. Um basically it's the evolution process of the mage, you build rings of pure mana around your heart with the addition to each ring, your strength grows, and can use stronger, higher, more complex spells. You don't use the mana in the environment directly, you first absorb it and find it to your body and sword around your heart. It's like an indicator of your projects. Um I feel like I've heard this phrase numerous times, you know, that nth circle mage.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:07

This is the first I specifically have heard about forming rings around your rings of malice around.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Alistair Crowley, New Age Media, read his novels, that's where he explains this concept. It's shenanigans. It is a person who wrote up how they thought medieval magic worked in their New Age magic book, and then everyone ripped off that concept. You'll even see the character Alistair Crowley in a lot of things that have magicians for this exact reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

Huh. Okay. I mean, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:35

So as a modern alchemist taking notes from old alchemic notes and trying to like put them together into a book, and then sold it as non-fiction instead of fiction for some reason.

unknown 1:13:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:48

Uh well It was like an early Scientology situation.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:53

This uh um person who made this post uh asking to explain the heart magic circles. Um couldn't find that information for some reason, and none of the people in this Reddit post seemed to actually realize that that was the reference being made.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:07

Because they didn't open a book.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

My abstract question is uh do you would you consider these uh circles of magic to be like levels of magic being described as circles? Would you consider those magic circles?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:25

Yes, but it's also a bastardization of a different concept. So if we look at early DD, they also called the magic circles, and a lot of games will word them as that. Like, that's where we get like first level, second level, third level spells. So like conceptually, but it is just a bastardization of the chakras in the body. They looked at this cool western con eastern concept and went, yeah, let's make it more boring and British. Because like you look at the chakra points and how they like showed them in Naruto, which is weirdly close, or how they showed them in Avatar, of like each of these gates allow you to connect to the universe. Like, that's like the actual philosophy. And this is clearly just a Timu version of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

The Timu version?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

Because instead of having points throughout your body and it being about self-awakening, they put them all in the heart and made them circles around the heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

But y you can see how it's just a bastardization of that concept, right? Yeah. But I do count it. If you're making like an internal magic circle, but it definitely goes into that, like, it's more likely to show up in a toolkit-based system, like. If we look at Legend of the Legendary Heroes, every spell had, like, either a chant or a ritual or a circle or what have you. And his magic eyes didn't bug me at all, because they were gemstone magic gems in his eyes that projected circles that scan things. Tracks completely.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:56

Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

And it was the idea that, like, oh, yes, some magic, you draw circles, and that's how you make the magic. And these circles scan magic. Ten out of ten, I'm bored. If you're like, oh, I have magic circles in my heart. Sure. It's just I would count those as magic circles, but I do not think they'd be in a magic circle-based power system. Because it's like, oh, here's my conceptual circle. I'm like, yeah, but unless you, the author, tell me what the hell's drawn in this object physically, it does not count as a hard magic system.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:32

Oh, um, yeah. I have an author in this uh series on on Webtoon. It's called the Rune Bound Professor. How's that different from the other one? I swear you said the same name in different orders. No, no, the first one was the Academy's undercover professor. I stand by what I said. Uh and that one was uh uh is completely 100% just a power fantasy. That's true. I enjoy it, but it's it's a power fantasy. Uh this one is kind of a power fantasy, but a little bit less so because the character's not completely overpowered, uh, but more to the point. Uh you in in this magic system, uh you uh can draw a glyph on a special piece of paper, and then you absorb that glyph into your soul. Sure. That's feels like it goes in the first category.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

I'm fine with that. I'm sure I've ripped that mark into pieces, but I'm fine with that conceptually.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

Yeah, well, I mean, personally I think it it's it's pretty cool, because then like I think you just cut out again because you can't afford internet. or I can't afford internet, turkey butt.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

Alright, so it started reconnecting and I heard Glyph's Soul. Glyph's Soul. Actually, that's a pretty great name for a metal band.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

Glyph Soul? But yeah, so you you uh can put the glyphs into your soul, and then you like combine them and and break them apart to try and form new more powerful glyphs, and the more powerful glyphs you have, the bigger your soul is, and if you try and use glyphs that are too big for your soul, then you'll end up damaging your soul and could potentially die. It's pretty interesting. No, he he does not have infinite storage space. Like I said, he's not an overpowered character. Although uh he did get Well, a part of the reason he's not overpowered is because he doesn't actually even understand the system completely, because he's he was uh reincarnated into this world, but that's uh I I dislike the flavor of east Ikasai, but I do find some interesting concepts in the variety of Ikasai set I have read.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

Just commit to making a setting. Ugh. It's not that hard. Do the thing you're gonna do, and don't put someone get hit by a truck and wake up here. That's it. That's all you have to do. Oh! Straight up. Solid magic system. Everything follows that rule nearly flawlessly. No issues. The circles draw power from your body in the sunlight to charge up. The shape and formation of the circles does different things. Pew magic laser. I haven't quite figured out how goddess magic works, but I feel like it I have a faith that part will also be explained because everything else has been explained. Like he's like, oh, I have a glyph on my body that then I use to make swords explode. Sure. I can't believe it. That seems legit.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:50

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

Also, says to be a hero was just great and I loved it. But yeah, straight up use glyph magic well. Like at one point you see him literally carving glyphs into shovels. So you can hit people with shovels harder. It's great.

Real World Roots And Why Circles Work

SPEAKER_01 1:20:21

Never. According to uh Wikipedia. We love Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:27

Uh here's Judaism. I did actually have a student essay come in that s the citation was just Wikipedia. Click the link that Wikipedia cites and use that as your citation. Come on, guys. Ah. You just had to go one step further and you would have got away with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:51

Apparently, uh uh Jewish customs. I wouldn't have expected it, but apparently in Judaism, um they use magic circles for birthing protections.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:04

I feel like I kind of vaguely knew that, but I also don't get paid enough to dive into real-world religions on our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

Pregnant women from Lilith and Demons. I'm just gonna believe that to be true. Um, it's just the circles themselves, um, I I I feel like um humans have always kind of been fascinated by them. Like, mathematically, when you when you look at a circle, we ac we actually like can't define the exact circumference of a circle. We get really, really close, but because pi is a uh irrational number that you can never actually find the end of. In theory, you never have, anyways. Um I'm just saying that uh the circles, the neater the circle, the more powerful the spell. It's like I I feel like that's geometrically is something that has always fascinated humanity to to the ancient times about like.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:07

Well, I'm gonna uh make a statement, so I'm giving a disclaimer first. The following information has not been researched, please feel free to correct me in the comments. But if we assume that human beings are shitty and we start with Judaism having circles for protection, isn't it weird that then those became satanic symbols in the other religion? I wonder what happened! I wonder why they're considered evil in one major group and good in another. Huh. That's it. That's the entire rant. Weird. Weird that ancient magic would be considered evil by the dominant socioeconomic group of the area.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

In any event, you know, like I say, circles, it kind of seems to be a uh universal thing that um circles have been used in a lot of different places around the world. I'm not sure my point where I mentioned the Sumerians, Judaism.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

I'm just gonna say that for the purposes of our discussion, focusing on like those three categories of magic circles that the circle themselves means something, magic circles that are part of a toolkit and mean something, and pure aesthetics is easier than trying to go too far into historical roots, because I would need you to do actual research and then present your research, and then I would grade it. Because yes, the origin of the magic circle is a great one. That's a fantastic paper, is where's the origin of the magic circle? I feel like there's hundreds of those online already, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:58

I I don't think you'd be able to find the origin because circles are just firmly disagree.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

I bet you if I pull up my college database right now, it'll literally find me the origin of the magic circle. So, to hate on a lot of people right now. People love to say there's no answer to things that have answers. Because they don't have the answer. I feel like Humanities History Department absolutely found the origins of the magic circle.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:30

Yeah, that's my statement, as I guarantee you know. It'll take me a minute to get to my database. Probably not worth the struggle right now. But like, yeah, just because you're like, oh, I don't know if anyone can know this. Someone knows this. That's it. We have current dating and we have records. Somebody somewhere knows this. Tragically though, there's like 13 layers of authentication for me to get into univers any given university database. Unless you're meta, then you just steal the entire database.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:20

The horse welfare can Alliance of Canada. For that pre-podcast discussion we had about horse meat.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:27

Oh, horse meat. Like, I just think it's a waste of a horse to not use it as a food supply, but I'm not curious enough to go out of my way to try it. Uh, you know what's do me a favor though. Pull up just like any given AI and ask it where the magic circle originated. I wanna see if the definitions match.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:00

Okay, let's see. What is the version of magic magic circle? Okay, and it's to verify that I'm human to use this uh ironic. AI, that's pretty funny. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

So I have my.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

Oh, it's thinking, it's thinking, it's a little circle.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:30

So according to mine, it's Mesopotamia, Samarion, and Babylon. But during the Middle Ages, the books of magic developed the idea third in texts associated with the lesser key of Solomon and Solomonic Matic traditions. And then we have the crowd thing I was complaining about later.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

Co-final is taking a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:54

But it's trying to be smart, so it's it's I mean, my fundamental point being the history of the magic circle is like actual research people have done with evidence. It is not just an unknowable factor of the universe. I still want to know who did who did the first Sudoka fireball. I want to know where that trope came from. Because Dragon Ball Z did not actually invent the energy blast martial arts move.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

Why are you being so slow?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:33

Well, back whilst technology fails you in the background, do you think Berserk had a hard magic system? And used magical circles.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Had a hard magic?

unknown 1:27:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:46

Well, I mean they definitely use glyphs. Like uh Guts himself has that demon summoning glyph.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:52

I think it's literally called the Mark of the Bastard because god they wanted to be edgy.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:05

Well, Microsoft Copilot, you are failing me for being too slow. Good. It'd be faster just to research this myself.

Favorite Magic Systems And Weird Games

SPEAKER_00 1:28:12

Absolutely. Ready? But now that we're getting pretty fur into the episode, I'm gonna kind of race a system uh raise the question a little bit. What are your favorite magic systems in anime? And manga and video games? And then also Final Fantasy is definitely category three of random magic circles that mean fuck all. Every attack and summons, like I'm gonna put in a circle. Sure does look cool. Probably lifted it off a painting somewhere and traced it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

What is my favorite magic?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

This is where you'd be like Fall Fast Eight's junction system. No I know my least favorite and popular one is Harry Potter's random bullshit. It's just random bullshit. Some spells require components, other ones are just swagger-based, like the death spell. Yup. Or the mother's love protects you from the death spell spell.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

Does Copilot actually come up with an answer? Copilot still doesn't have an answer in Chat GPT found an answer already, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:44

It pretty much will probably match what I said of Cimeria, then Resistance, then Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn, now anime video games.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:03

Thanks, Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:07

I will say though, do you think World Trigger uses magic circles? Or glyphs?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:15

Uh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:17

No at all. Here's what's kinda weird is Yumas Power specifically takes all the trigger powers and turns them into glyphs, and they're little computer chips. I'm running under the assumption that every little computer chip is a series of glyphs that you put quantum through quantum to quantum the quantum to make the trigger. So my argument is the triggers of all triggers might actually in fact be over elaborate magic circles.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

Yeah, I mean, for as uh detail-oriented as as the author is. I'm pretty sure he's just trying on just works. Yeah. It just doesn't think. I don't think he's actually put that much thought into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:03

It's hard to say. At the pace he's going, it could be completely mapped out. But he can only fit so many words of ex precision for per square foot and he's used it all.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:15

Oh no, he hasn't used it all. But he doesn't want to be uh hunter hunter.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:22

It's pretty close sometimes. Like they literally just took a week off to monologue. Like they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna do fifty chapters of us in a room talking.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:32

Yeah, that's true. I mean, you know, there were slight non-talking sections, but it was mostly just talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:43

Also, the single magic circle that shows up in Pokemon with the incredibly cursed RCS cutscene that makes an egg.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:55

Oh, the RCS egg that makes uh a level one D algaeya. One of your three legendaries from Diamond and Pearl.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:05

Although, oh, I need to talk about Star Ocean's magic symbols for a second. So in Star Ocean, which is a sci-fi RPG that has magic, they call it symbology where it's just straight up magic circles. So in Star Ocean 1, they go to this planet with like medieval things and be like, they have magic, and then like reverse engineer it using science. Like, oh, if you try these circles, it does magic. And then you learn in Star Ocean 3 that the entire universe is a simulation and the magic circles are you hacking the video game you're in? Oh. And they then proceed to hack their way out of the video game and beat up the devs for just trying to delete their universe.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:50

That's kind of amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:52

Like that the conceptually I love is like we're in a sci-fi series, but there's magic circles, and we're like, we don't know with our science why these work, but we know they do work, so we've created a new study of science for it. And then it's oh yeah, I'm literally hacking reality because reality is a simulation. Like, you know how that kind of works? Like, oh, the circle makes fire magic why? Oh, it's a dev command. Like your video game character and you accidentally stumbled on backslash kick server, and then learned you have a spell to kill somebody. It's kinda great.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:33

What is my favorite magic system?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:36

It is funny that there was a cool Metal Ogemist game on the DS that you can draw the circles on the bottom screen to use your spells on the top screen. It did not play well.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:46

Uh yeah, that sounds like it would be super tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:51

Uh well, while you think about it, I have to give you a mini tangent of the weirdest thing ever while I was playing a video game yesterday. So I'm playing the series Azure Striker Gunvolt, which were made by the Mega Man Zero team, because I didn't realize that team after they lost the Mega Man license proceed to keep putting out Mega Man Zero style platformers.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

Which is dope. So I'm playing this game, and one of the mechanics is when you get a high enough score, uh, you're basically you get a high enough score, and a pop star that's like a spirit fairy thing comes unseen and sings your theme music, which gives you a power-up. In the boss battle of the second game, the villain steals away your music spirit fairy thing to power themselves up. And then while you're fighting it, the spirit's like, you know the words, you have to sing the song of your heart. And then it activates the microphone on the because it was originally for 3DS, and apparently you were supposed to actually sing your theme song to kill the to uh drop the shield at the boss of the game. So I'm playing a Mega Man platformer, and the game's like, you know the worst to your theme song, sing it to defeat the boss of the game, and I'm like, what? Roll, roll, fight the power. Kinda, but I I don't think you're quite grasping how absurd this is. You're playing a video game, a platformer, for several hours, and the final boss is like, now use the in-game microphone to sing the theme song to defeat the boss. That is insane! I can't even I was so flabbergasted that I couldn't even conceptually understand that like I'm seeing this karaoke track in front of me, I'm like, it doesn't use this control normally. Like, that'd be like playing a racing game, and it says, now under your seat you'll find a gun. Use the duck hunt gun to fight the final boss of Mario Kart. Anyway, not related, just crazy. And apparently learning the options if you disable the mic input, there's just an alternate thing that plays if you don't have a mic. And I switched to that because I didn't feel like singing along a theme song at 2 in the morning in my apartment while my brother was sleeping. Anywho, your favorite magic system.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:11

Um, I don't know if this is necessarily my favorite magic system, but I'm very intrigued by uh this magic system in a in another webtoon comic I've been reading. Uh I don't it seems to me that that the Ikosai is just like at almost everything on WebTune.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:31

I'll give it a free pass right now because they're literally using it just so they get redirected to their series after people finish reading solo leveling. I hate it, but I get it. If someone told me the only way I can get my cyberpunk novel published is if the main character dies first and wakes up as a robot in a different world, I'd have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:52

Fair enough. Uh so the the one magic system uh. I find it very very amusing. Um they uh they draw mana out into strings. Uh and then they basically play the strings like a guitar to do their different spells. That is fun. If the world actually is made up of strings, and and we can actually just like learn to play these strings to do weird magical things, that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:29

That's really close to hack the source code magic system.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:35

Well, yeah, I mean uh obviously the I don't I don't know if that's where they were going with the whole strings thing, because then they're like, oh, the number of strings you can create denounce how easy it is for you to use magic and stuff like that, but it's just like pretty uh I find that interesting because, you know obviously having been doing music for a long time, but I did go to university to be a high school advanced teacher, so like I will say Full Metal Alchemist's system gets so many points for being like intelligent.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:13

I don't know if it's my favorite one, but it's like the one I give is like an example of how to do it well. Which had to tell you, I have a lot of faith that it's gonna continue to be a very good system. I do enjoy the symbology in the Star Ocean series of hacking the source code of the universe to blast people, but when they left the when they revealed the twist of oh you're in a simulation and you left the game.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:44

You didn't like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:46

Like my favorite magic system's probably part one Naruto when it still followed rules, of you had X amount of battery life, and then you had to shape it either using hand signs or circles or things. Or it could just directly spin it and hit somebody with it. I'm like, that was a good system. When it had power limits. Boruto's magic system of oh random bullshit. It's just oh random bullshit. Although I'll always remember, when you were watching Full Metal Alchemist Sacred Star of Milos, I think it was, and you watch these characters run into the circular room and be like, in this world, why would you ever run into a circular room? You know this world. Why would you ever willingly step in a round room? No. And you're so mad that these guards in this magic circle-based universe would run into a circular room.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:36

Well, I mean, it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:40

Oh. Still, Full Metal Alchemist, though, being the center of the citywide circle was his chessboard he was playing on in the background since like chapter three is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:49

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:49

That was just a good bit. Uh, did you ever read Magic Lurma Magic Lume Incorporated?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

Oh yeah. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:02

Yeah, it was Magic Circles and Flash Drives.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:05

Yeah, yeah. Uh I mean I think they're still releasing, like, every time they print a volume, I think they released the previous volume on Show and Jump. So I think it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:17

That one's like a comfort read of mine. Also, Show and Jump itself is kind of weak as shit right now. We should probably do a show and jump rando, but it's gonna be a very negative episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:27

Oh, uh Dark Gathering, that one uses a lot of master circles. Although mostly just for summoning.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:34

Like, using it as a summoning circle definitely does the whole, oh, we use this as a circle. So it's supposed to be like in the actual quote-unquote mythol paganism mythology, being like, oh, or sorry, the wicked mythology, the circle stops the demon from harming you. So the circle's not with summon it, you summon the demon in the circle. And that's where like a lot of the DD's oh magical circle spell comes from. Because DD just steals from religion's full heart, and now is pretending to be woke despite like it being the most imperially constructed thing imaginable. You know what started strong and I liked its magic system until it got stupid? A regular at the Magic Academy. Where it's like, oh, I have this computer and I have that run my spells, which form a thing, but each person only has so much RAM for spells. You know, I was doing good until the guy had a nuclear bomb gun, which didn't break me. The resurrection gun broke me.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:34

Well, I mean, what breaks me is just the fact that it's like he has some sort of limitation that's just not a limitation. It's like, yeah, he's not the best ever because he can't do everything except he can just do everything because he has a magic gun that does what he needs it to do. You need to make a hole in the wall, it'll just make a portal hole in the wall. You need to blow up someone, you need to snipe someone from a hundred miles away. It's a fly. Like, his his gun just does whatever he needs it to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:04

What's funny is at the start of the show, too, they're like, oh, because I don't have a spell, I'm gonna use my two spell casting things, set an awkward timing to do a shriek pulse to cancel your spell. I'm like, ooh, that's clever. Can I have more of that?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:16

And he's like, oh, I'm working on plate in my company because I'm also a CEO, but somehow I'm bullied. And here's my flight thing, and I'm like, why aren't you separate characters?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:31

Why are you a student?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:33

Why why? Why are you this military contract or walking nuclear bomb who can bring back the dead going to school? Like, why are you in a situation to be bullied? You can you have a nuclear bomb gun, can bring back the You are objectively more powerful than Jesus the Christ in beats. I didn't recall Jesus flying in nuking zings. Like, I think that dude actually is like up there with like Zeus for cannon shit he's pulled. And the premise is he's an underdog being bullied. Ugh. Yeah. Yeah, it's every never. I hate to bully the superpowered kid trope so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:24

With that, do we have a uh random question of the of the week?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:27

We do. I'm just seeing if there's any other magic circle-y things you want to talk about. Because I basically just did this episode be like, Witch Hat Atelier is awesome. Full Metal Alchemist is awesome. Sentence to be a Hero is awesome. Legend of the Legendary Heroes is mixed. Potentially awesome. Skipped the first episode, Legend of the Legendary Heroes. You just skip it, that's correct. You want to give any shout to awesome things people should read? Because we've mostly just said things that use magic circles well are awesome. We don't actually have an example of someone using the magic circles well and it not being awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:03

I mean, not not in particular. Like saying mostly what I've been reading right now has has been webcomics on webtoon. And uh as much as I enjoy them and they pass the time, uh I don't know if how many of them are actually good. They just have lots of interesting concepts.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

Which is fair. But with that, our random question. Do do do do.

unknown 1:44:27

Do do do do.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:30

How much more random going to question B than the one we're about to get?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:34

That is once I find it.

unknown 1:44:37

Do do do do do.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:40

Like I don't know, well it could be more random than if somebody was like, what's your favorite scent of Febrize?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:46

I mean, that's a great random question, so I'm gonna answer that one. My favorite scent of Febris is like default neutral. Because of my brother's scent allergies, I like want the least scented Febreze, because if it like smells like a specific fruit, it'll probably kill. So like Febreze scented is my is my answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:06

I I personally love game. Uh, but yeah, most often we either get the linen in sky or just the the basic whatever Fabriz scent.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:18

Let's see. What is your favorite chocolate bar?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:25

My favorite chocolate bar.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:26

That is our first question of the day. What is your favorite chocolate bar and why is it Kit Kat? That is specifically the question. So I have an answer to this one, and I'm gonna twist it a bit. My favorite Kit Kat is green tea.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:45

Ooh, that's a good point. There are different kinds of Kit Cats.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:48

The wasabi one was impressively not bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:52

Well, it was just oddly not spicy. I mean, it tasted like wasabi without the spice, which was weird. It was weird, but I think I enjoyed it. I don't know. I mean, I personally I like caramel. Um especially if you have like s'mores. I know most people use like like Hershey's for s'mores, but like a block of caramel on on top of your s'more. Oh, the the caramel, the chocolate, the marshmallow, it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:25

That is fair. I don't know, like I all my teeth are sweet teeth, so it's hard to give me a chocolate bar I don't want. A couple weekends ago, I got I decided to unlock tempering chocolate as a skill, and I did like chocolate-covered strawberries and like 70% dark chocolate. Okay, that was delicious. But dark chocolate, there's a percentage. Like 50% chalk chocolate, pretty good. 70% dark chocolate needs to be paired with something. Any more than that? Carl pancakes.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:00

What you mean my chocolate pancakes weren't your favorite chocolate bar? They get mentioned in therapy. Well, at least the raspberry shamboard sauce was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:16

The raspberry shamboard is just delicious. But like, I almost picked that up the other day. I saw it on the shelf, and I'm like, this makes me think of Carl.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:26

That's because that's probably the best flicker ever made. Like here.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:30

I'm not gonna make that claim. I'm not stupid. That like, sure, we can make all the hot takes we want about magic circles in anime. But if we start coming after people for what alcohol is objectively the best, mm-mm. Gotta know our limits.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:49

I'm just saying, if somebody says it's sourpust, they are objectively wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:55

That is fair. So here's our second question of the day. This one's a pretty likely one.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:00

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:01

So if you are in a classroom and we're teaching video game narratives, what is something that wouldn't be acceptable in the classroom because of either as content, gameplay difficulty, and things, but would have a narrative worth discussing. So basically, what's a game that has a really good narrative that you couldn't teach in a clo couldn't make people re-play as homework?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:25

Huh? Sheesh.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:35

Yeah, a game with a good narrative that you wouldn't make people play.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:41

A game with a good narrative that I wouldn't make people play.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:44

Or an interesting one. It doesn't have to be good, but it has to have something interesting about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:51

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:52

Like, for example, I would make people play Final Fantasy VI. They can just suck it up. So that wouldn't count for this process, because it's like, hmm. That's actually a reasonable ask. What's not a reasonable ask, which isn't my answer, but a hypothetical answer. Final Fantasy VIII. Asking someone to play through eight discs of a mediocre game of terrible writing because there's some interesting plot moments? It's not reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:22

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:25

Like another example would be like Expedition 33's parrying combat would simply make it too hard for the average student to play through long enough to understand the plot of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:34

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:40

Well. I mean, there's the obvious answer of Dark Souls being just too difficult a game for most players to actually play through.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:48

Yeah, but I don't Dark Souls plot is like such background, like I'll accept that as your answer, but I want it to be something you've played.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:57

Hmm. I have played a little bit of Dark Souls, but Not much.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:01

Right. Like, ideally, something you've beaten that you would like, I'm not gonna have other people play this, but I enjoyed it. Would be like an ideal answer. Like. I'm gonna go, like, Ace, another Century Episode 3, the game I played through entirely Japanese as giant robot crossovers. Would just be completely unhelpful. I found a lot of it. Actually, I'm gonna go Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2. It has a lot of really cool ideas, but my god, am I never having somebody play through that? It is full of anime tropes, and those are poisonous.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:37

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:42

Well, I mean, I guess if we're going through that category, it's like. Well, I I I think this Fire Emblem games actually has been translated now, but like the Fire Emblem 4, I think it was for Super Nintendo. That game was a lot of fun. But uh actually getting it like patched into English and like I don't know. There's also probably just like better examples of Fire Emblem games that have similar mechanics that are more modern, so it's like True, but the question was more about the story of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:23

Like I don't Fire Emblems are interesting. I personally think Three Houses probably had the best story because it was a lot of individual people's person like upbringing and family and things like that, a lot of time to focus on that. Where I've definitely played some Fire Emblem games where I'm like, I could not tell you who anybody was or what their deal was. Like I love Fire Emblem and the Sacred Stones, but his story does not resonate with me at all. Where Fire Emblem Path Radiance had a great story. I think that's my actual answer, actually, is Fire Emblem Path the Radiance. People aren't gonna just beat a Fire Emblem for homework.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:02

Right. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:06

Uh, this guy is a funny one. Diskaya had great writing.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:15

You know, I I feel like that's maybe I should that I feel uninspired by taking your answers, but Diskaya is actually a great answer. I mean, especially Diskaya. Diskaya 3 uh for the for the 3DS. Uh or maybe it was just the regular DS, I don't remember, but maybe the regular DS. But like it has so like the story itself is super fascinating. Uh but me personally, I got sidetracked by all the different things you could do. And it's it's such an expansive game with so many options and things that you can do that it's like I don't I don't think I would make someone play through that either, but it has such a funny and interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:08

Excellent. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in and submitting your random questions this week. And I don't know, go draw a perfect circle and solve pie. Bye. Bye. Uh it is true though that pie just works for intents and purposes, but doesn't actually work.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:28

But if we solve pi, it'll probably result in us cracking the world's source code and us escaping our simulation and having to go fight our devs.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:37

Oh, that sounds like a hassle.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:40

Yeah, I got things to do this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:46

That sounds like the end of the lone necromancer.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:50

Ooh. Although, man, Star Ocean 3, where you attach a mana cannon to the back of a dragon to shoot down a spaceship is still my favorite moment in gaming.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:59

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:00

It's just so stupid. It's just so beautifully stupid. The chain of events that lead to you having to capture a dragon to put a magical cannon on its back. And the premise being like, oh, they're not gonna expect attacks from below because they're a spaceship and we're in medieval Rome. Like. They'll never see it coming. It's like it's true, no one in history has ever predicted dragon attack, took down my spaceship as a plausible cause.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:28

Yeah.