The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #15 – LARPs with Mary Lou, Hate Watching, Wheel of Time

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Special Guest Host Mary Lou replaces Joe for this one and talks with Jared about LARPing before launching into a debate over the work of Brandon Sanderson! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/cXJqJtOHTl4⁠ Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠jointhenaish.com⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Hello, hello. Hi. What's up? Welcome to the show. Let's bring that music down. There we go. Give it up for McD on the ones and twos making this show work this morning.

And let's say hello to our guest co-host, Mary Lou. Stop. Hi. How are you? Hi everybody. I'm so good. I'm so excited. This is Glass Cannon Radio.

The date is April 30th, I think. April 30th, 2025. Yeah, April 30th, we're killing it. Mary Lou is gonna be with me here today. We've got all kinds of really fun stuff to talk about, and you guys are gonna be able to call in and give your two cents. But before we begin, I just gotta say, my wife and I, the other night, went to see Mary Lou perform in a musical called the Real Housewives Unauthorized Parody Musical, right? That's kind of the title.

from seeing her on the glass cannon, you've been seeing a tiny top of an iceberg of talent of which gigantic, huge, icy chunks exist. Right, you were singing, you were doing impressions, you were dancing all for two hours, it was absolutely amazing. So I don't think the nation even gets a full view of the talent on display here. So that was amazing. So I don't think the nation even gets a full view of the talent on display here. So that was amazing.

Thanks for inviting us to do that. Thanks, Jared. I am really proud of that show. I've been working on it since the very beginning. So I had worked with Rachelle, the writer, director on her last musical, which was a Bachelorette musical parody. I played Lauren R., which is a joke if you watch The Bachelor because they're all known to one. Oh, The Bachelorette. Okay.

Yeah. This one, so that conceit is, it's a real Housewives musical parody, but all the Housewives are played by drag queens. And then I play Andy Cohen and all of the other characters. The husbands. Every other character. The husbands, the waiters. The people that play the waiters,

the people that come in, yeah. Yeah, spa, everything. So you played like 10 characters through the course of this show. It was awesome. Huh? Still can't hear me on Discord. Oh no! That's okay.

Uh, you just have to go and press that little button in the Discord that looks like a little, like a microphone thing. Oh, wait, you're, you're on stage, okay. I'm on stage. Oh, you're muted. Am I pushed to talk? You're muted to me. Hold on, Hot Boyfriend has been using my Discord and I told him not to change anything. Uh-oh. But I think he might.

Looks like Splitsville for Mary Ann. Hot Boyfriend changed my settings to Push to Talk. Hot Boyfriend is gonna get some hot words, I'll tell you that. Is it working now? Is it working now? Hopefully it's working. Chat, are we okay? Discord, talk to me.

Talk to me Discord. No? I was on Push to Talk. Okay, hold on. I'm so sorry everybody. Here we go. Hey, it happens. Don't worry about it. This is our band will just be about trying to get the audio to work today. There we go. Now I've chosen the right input device. Like this actually should be working now. Right? Yes. There we go. Okay. All right. Wow. Everybody. Okay. So yeah. So, so just, just to review, Mary Lou was telling us about her experience working in this, this real housewives musical. I don't watch the housewives. I was

laughing my ass off the entire time. The queens with you up there were so funny. Aren't they great? They were. They were really amazing. I do love drag, I'm like a giant drag fan. So we gotta on this show do the Real Housewives. That's a type of nerdiness you guys. Absolutely, the Bravo.

The Bravo TV cinematic universe. People talk about the Marvel cinematic universe, the Bravo cinematic universe is insane. The lore is deep. It's so deep, it's so deep. And I got a little view of that while watching the musical because my wife kept laughing at things where I'm like, what was funny about that part? How was that a joke? How was that a joke? But it was like a deep reference to something. I would say sometimes

Howl's Wives are, man, they're at least as deep as Marvel, but we should have Kara on to talk Howl's Wives sometime maybe. Yes, absolutely. as deep as Marvel, but we should have, we should have Kara on to talk housewives sometime maybe. Yes, absolutely. All right. So Mary Lou, before we kind of jump into our topics today, I just like, I want to go over them and then you had something you wanted us to talk about, but let me just go over our topics real quick so everybody knows what we're talking about today.

So today, because we have a genuine LARP-er here with us, Mary Lou, we will be talking about LARPing, live action role play. We're gonna get into that. Then Mary Lou is gonna take me through the process of character creation for creating a character for her LARP, the one that she practices. Practices, like it's a religion. It's gonna be amazing.

Then we're gonna talk a little bit about hate watching. When you watch things you don't really like or that you don't think are good, we're going to get into that whole phenomenon and I can't wait to hear the nation's opinions on that. After that, I mean, a great way to get a transition out of hate watching is to get into the wheel of time. We're going to talk about the wheel of time TV show, which is in season three right now. And we're probably going to hit on the novels a little bit as well, although that could be a giant topic in and of itself, but we're going to mainly talk about the TV show. And then finally, Mary Lou and I are going to have a little debate about a related topic.

We're going to have a little debate and switch is what we're calling the segment. So we will take point and counterpoint on a topic related to the things we talked about today. But before we get into all that, Oh, and by the way, if you want to call in and say hello, McD is on the ones and twos. He's going to be bringing bring collars up. You have to be a subscriber, have to jump on that discord glass can of radio channel, raise your hand and we will get your

calls in. We want to hear from you, especially if you disagree or you think we're missing something in our take on the topic, please call in and let us know. And if you're not a subscriber, you're probably listening to this on YouTube or something later. Go ahead and jointhenesh.com and you can very quickly become a subscriber so that you can participate in Glass Can of Radio. But before we begin with all of that, Mary Lou, you had something you wanted to throw

out there this morning, you told me. Absolutely. So the episode that just came out of Blood of the Wild, we got into the incredible discussion about would you rather fight a snake-sized dragon or a dragon-sized snake. Right, yeah. And pretty much, it's a pretty much 100% consensus from everybody but me that you would want to fight a dragon-sized snake. I think that's incredibly stupid.

Wait, did I say that on Blood of the Wild? Because I think it should be a snake-sized dragon you want to fight. Oh, sorry. I meant the opposite. I meant the opposite. I said it wrong. Everybody is saying fight a snake-sized dragon.

I think you would want to fight a dragon-sized snake. And I do know that Jared and I have the same opinion of opinions, which is that you should have them really loud and strong and that we like when people disagree with us. And I will not be changing my opinion. Everybody is wrong. I am correct. You want to be fighting a snake-sized, no, you want to be fighting a dragon-sized snake. Dragons are too smart. Dragons are too smart.

Dragons are too smart. Absolutely not. Yeah. So even a little dragon in your opinion will be too deadly. You'd rather fight a huge rattle snake the size of two city buses. Easy. They're very stupid. I could figure it out.

Okay. But that's not what we're here to talk about, Jared. We're not here to talk about that. This is how I feel about your opinion not what we're here to talk about, Jared. We're not here to talk about that. This is how I feel about your opinion. What we're here to talk about. Okay. I can see why you would think that. I'm letting that one go. I'm letting that one slide today, Jared.

What we're really here to discuss is, if you've been on Twitter, you might have heard this one, but Jared, I think this one's going to be due to you. Who would win in a fight a hundred men or one fully grown silverback adult gorilla? A hundred men or one fully grown adult silverback gorilla. Correct. men or one fully grown adult silverback gorilla. Okay, well, that's pretty dark because I think the men are armed or they're not armed. It doesn't really matter. I think unarmed. Unarmed.

Okay, a hundred unarmed men. Wow, that is a good question, but I think that it's pretty dark because I think we're going to see a poor silverback gorilla die. I think it's going to be a hundred men. And once again, it is me against the world. Everybody is wrong and I am right. That gorilla would rip 100 men apart 100 times. What can you do to an adult silverback gorilla with your bare hands?

His skin is like leather. But if 10 guys all at once are all... You're right. You're right. It would have to be... 10 guys all at once? You can't get 10 guys around a gorilla all at once. Yeah, you're right. And you can't get 20. Also, what are you going to do?

You're going to hold his arm? You're going to hold his arm. Yeah, you're right, and you can't get 20. Also, what are you gonna do? You're gonna hold his arm? You're gonna hold his arm? Yeah, you're right. His hand has like 900 grips, like PSI grip strength. You can't, one guy's gonna go for his arm and he's gonna hulk whip him, poop, poop, poop, poop, and kill the rest of you. You're right, and you can't really take advantage,

you can't take advantage of your numbers there. Like you have 100, but not all 100 of them can use their strength on him at the same time. If they had weapons, I would give it to the men, but they don't have weapons. I would give it to men. I change my mind. The gorilla wins. Thank you.

McD says after the first 20 guys die, morale would start to be an issue. That's true as well. Yeah. Exactly. And he's not gonna just just kill you. He's going to rip you apart and you're going to see the bloody limbs of your compatriots flying through the air. He's going to bite out your jugulars and rip your fucking face off. No. You don't want to fight that gorilla. I'm with you on this one. I'm with you on this one. And now that we've framed it in these terms and thought about it a little bit, I don't

see why there could even be a debate. So like you, I think that my opinion that the gorilla would win is ironclad. And anybody who disagrees with it is a dummy. Dummy, idiot. Sorry. That's how I feel. Um, well, I'm interested to find out what kind of creatures you deal with in your live action role play scenario. So let us go ahead and transition.

So definitely that was so definitely done. That was really smooth. Yeah. Incredibly smooth. Um, uh, let's transition into our first topic of the day. That was so deftly done. That was really smooth. Yeah. It was incredibly smooth. Let's transition into our first topic of the day, LARPing. So I have never actually been a part of a LARP. And that doesn't surprise me.

I've never actually done this. I've always, I'll be honest with you, I've always been a little bit nervous about something like that. Maybe even, I don't know if I'm 100% honest with you, Mary Lou, and I think that you can handle it. I've even thought in the past, in the past, that it might be a little cringe to laugh.

That's fine. To have all these theater kids in a field pretending to be characters. I don't actually think you're wrong about that, Jared. I think it is incredibly cringe. It is incredibly cringe. I have killed the part of me that cringes because it's more valuable to me to have fun and whimsy.

Also, I just have an ironclad sense of self that I'm cool and fun and hot. Anything I do is cool and fun and hot. Cool and fun and hot. But also, LARPing is cringy. You will see things at the LARP that you can't even conceive of how cringy, how dorky they are. You can't even imagine it, Jared. And yet, when you're in it, you find Princess is leaning her entire body weight on me. Yeah, that's okay. Hi, Princess. You find, hi, Princess, it's my princess. Can you say hi? There she is. Good girl.

When you're at the LARP, when you're surrounded in it, the sooner you buy in, the more fun it is. You can do that while recognizing that it is the absolute dorkiest thing. It might be the dorkiest thing you can do, but just in case anybody out there doesn't know what a LARP is, it's like, it stands for live action roleplay. Can you kind of give you, you know, your most thorough definition of what it is and what it involves? Absolutely.

So. Absolutely. So TTRPG and LARPs have a lot in common. The only difference is that at a table, there's a very clear distinction between player and character. But at the LARP, it is immersive. So you are your character and you're walking through the world as your character. Reference to the outside world and to the world outside the LARP is seen as rude and immersion breaking. Okay.

Right. But you still – you have a character. You have a backstory. is like rude and immersion breaking. But you still, you have a character, you have a backstory. There's an established world with established lore and rules. You have a point by with like abilities that you can invest in. There are NPCs. There are cultures and characters and bloodlines. It's just a TTRPG that you are in. My LARP goes for a whole weekend, so there's this natural park, nature park, that is gated. On Friday night, we close the gates and from Friday at 8 PM to Sunday at 8 AM

it is on 24 7. All night. All day, all night. You sleep in character. You sleep in character. You can, yeah. So most people camp on site and there's an area called tent city where just like our normal camping tents, but then you could also camp in town, but then your tent has to be genre. It can't be world breaking. So if you're camping in town, it has, your tent has to be made of like canvas or covered in like a tarp, like not, maybe not a tarp, a blanket or a sheet. Animal skins. Animal skins, there's plenty of animal skins.

Dragon scales. Correct, yeah. Every lantern and every light has to look like a candle or a lantern. I had no idea camping was involved. It can be. TTRPGs plus camping. Are you crazy? You're mixing two flavors that don't go together.

You would think. You would think. But you can also stay at a nearby hotel. You can, you can leave and come back to site. It's not, not hard and not an issue. My first two times LARPing, I stayed at a nearby Motel 6. But after that we started camping because it's just so fun. It's so fun. How many times have you done it? I've been LARPing for over a year. My first gathering, we call them gatherings, my first gathering, my first game was July

2023. So it's been about a year and a half, almost two years. And costumes are a big part of it as well, is that right? Huge. Yeah. Your kit. Everybody works on their kit in between gatherings, which is about every once about every two to three months or one to two months. There's eight a year usually. Oh, wow. Okay, that's a lot Yeah, yeah, so

But your kit is really crucial Nobody's walking around in like jeans and tennis shoes, you know, that's seen as immersion breaking and it's seen as like kind of Rude right, sure. And so everybody's working on in their boots and, and, you know, genre sunglasses and they're, so you wonder like who does this? Who LARPs? Yeah, sure.

I thought it would be a lot of, it's a lot of theater kids for sure, but me and like a couple of my friends are the only performers that I know that are like who perform for a living. It is mostly people who don't do theater or don't perform. It's a lot of- That's surprising to me. That's- I know. I know.

I know. It's a lot of crafts people, like people who make leather armor and people who knit and sew a huge historical reenactment or costumers There's tons of those there people who make Swords and props for movies. There's a tons of people in the industry. And then a lot of people are just normal people who just like dressing up and a lot of cosplay, uh, overlap. Yeah. People love cosplay. I've always been afraid of cosplay. Um, uh, because you know, I, you know, my body type, you know, if I try to be Superman, I'm Chubby Superman, you know?

If I try to be Wolverine, I'm Chubby Wolverine. Chubby Wolverine is a tragic figure, Mary Lou. Why? I feel like I have to get in shape for the LARP, you know? No. Hey, the fact that a guy like me is living outdoors with a sword, that's my own self is immersion breaking. Jared, the best.

So, so also, okay, also you wonder, is LARP really hitting each other with foam swords? Are we really running around and like hitting each other with from shorts and see a home foam swords and shields? Yes, absolutely. We are doing that all the time. Everybody has their foam weapons. We are hitting each other with foam weapons constantly. The best fighters I know are your age men. Really?

Yes, 100%. An old man like me? They're middle-aged men. They're middle-aged men who don't look like athletes. I've seen so many Winters. Yeah. The best guy with a polearm is like 60 plus. Everybody asks him to teach them how he fights with his polearm. He's amazing. It's so fun.

There is no like, there's no cringe when you're there. Like Jared, you say I would be immersion breaking. You would not bat an eye. Nobody would see you and be like, what's that guy doing here? The average age is like 35, 40. Okay. Okay. Now, let me ask you, can you just take me through like the day?

Like you arrive, you arrive at night, it sounds like it starts at like 8 p.m. on Friday. Is that right? That's game on. Game on is 8 p.m. on Friday. Most people will show up Friday afternoon and we're all setting up the town. People bring storefronts. We're at a nature park that has a permanent ren fair installation. It has a bunch of storefronts and facades and tables and there's an arena

and a fake castle and things like that. It's essentially a campsite. People bring facades that – there's the bank and they built a facade out of PBC and canvas and then people set up their genre tents and decorate. There are altars and shrines and in this neighborhood that's the Mandolin Quarter and they decorate it like their culture and in this neighborhood that's the Kestrel Corner neighborhood and they decorate it like Kestrel, which is Gaelic-themed and Mandolin is like East Asian. Everybody is getting ready and setting up the town. Then at 8 p.m., we all meet in the arena.

The people who run it give some announcements and then it's game on. And from that moment, we all say game on. And there's about anywhere from 300 to 600 people. And we all agree, it started. And- So is there like a game master? Or how do you determine what once you're in, excuse me, once you're in character and you've got your kid on, how

do you determine what to do? Are there- How do you determine what to do in your daily life? It's like a small town. It's kind of like Burning Man is how I describe it. You think it would be like a Ren Fair, but it's more like a Burning Man where there are just like little things happening at all times. There is a story staff. There's a whole staff of people

that write quests. We call them modules, mods. There are some that are overarching multiple games that last years, right? Storylines and characters that last years. There are some that last one game specifically. There's always an anchor module that's like the big plot development of the weekend. That's something that usually most the entire game will participate in the anchor module somehow. There are also ones that last like five minutes or a half hour. That's just, you know, a merchant comes in and says, I need somebody to find me, blah de blah, and I'll give you a blah de blah. And you would never know about it unless you run into that merchant.

And yeah, there are some like scheduled events, but the everything is like mostly everything is player run or staff facilitated. Um, and you guys are NPCs sometimes you have to take a shift as NPCs, right? Correct. Yeah. Everybody who plays. And then when you're on that NPC shift, you might be called upon to be that merchant who walks in and gives a quest.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. There's like this area that we go to NPC, NPC holding area, NPC land, and a staff might come up and go, all right, I need six people to be merchants. Here's what you're selling. Here's what you're looking for. Get out there.

Or they might go, I need 20 people to play imps which are like low-level enemies a little mob and they'll like pop up in town and Like run around and their job is to get killed. Is that how the imps talk? Literally it canonically imps say meep. So they run like a can I sign on to just be an imp the entire time? I've got an entire imp kit. Yeah, you can. Just me and a little devil suit. It's actually a great way to spend your first gathering because you can NPC only your first gathering to get like a feel of it and you get extra points if you do that. Oh, so this is actually a thing. That you can spend on your character.

But I want to be clear that the little devil suit is skin tight that I'm going to wear. Skin tight. And I mean bottoms and tops. Yeah, they actually can provide you. Yeah, they can provide you with a morph suit. So void imps wear a morph suit that's like black and white. Basic imps. Yeah. Yeah. See, you're trying to make fun of, you're trying to have a little fun. No, I'm not trying to make fun. I'm trying to just get people the image of me in a skin tight devil suit. I'm trying to get that into people's heads. That's all.

You can wear a skin tight devil suit at the LARP people do all the time Yeah, what I love about you Mary Lou is that absolutely nothing can make you uncomfortable, but also you're like yes that happens at the LARP You can't you anything that you think is gonna be like so wild like that happens Yeah, yeah, the LARP is wilder than that. Talk to me about the rules. Like, how do I make an attack? How do I cast a spell? How do I know if my guy defeats somebody else's guy? Great question. Okay. So there are tons of rules. There's actually like a 200 page rule book on the website, um,

that we have all read. It's amazing. It is mostly on an honor system, but you have a point buy, right? Where you get a certain amount of points and then you gain points every LARP that you go to. There's ways to get other points, but generally it's the more time you spend, the more points you get. You can spend them on abilities and your health points. Everybody has health points, your magic points. How you would know an attack is if you have your weapon, depending on what weapon you have, if you hit somebody in none of the no-hit areas – I'm a trainer. That's my job at the LARP is that I train new people when they come to the LARP.

Okay. The no hit areas are head, neck, hands, and groin. I do a little dance to, to show everybody. Head and neck, hands and groin. Hands and groin, hands and groin. Exactly. And those are no hit areas. If they hit you there, it doesn't count.

You're going to get hit there. You're going to get hit in the head and probably they hit you there, it doesn't count. You're gonna get hit there. You're gonna get hit in the head and probably the grind. It just doesn't count. Yeah. You would call a hit. So if my sword does one, I can hit you three times in a row. That's a flurry. And I might hit you one, one, one. And I would say one, one, one. And you would have to either dodge it, physically dodge it, or you can take some powers that say dodge or resist. And you have to like have spent the points on that.

Okay. All right. It's pretty much an honor system. It feels like it can get complex, but honor system, that's very interesting because you know, a lot of people are like, how do I, can I trust these other people? Do you feel like people,

does anybody try to take advantage of that honor system? 100%. Yeah. I would say 100% those people exist, but I think like 98% everybody's really honest because it's simply not fun unless you buy in, unless you are honest with the system. Like if you just run around throwing a million fireballs and you get hit 10 times and you're like, I'm not dead. No, I didn't die. You didn't hit me. That's just not fun, right? You get a

reputation. Yeah, that's not fun. Okay. But there are people that are like, no, that didn't happen or hope nobody saw that they stepped in a trap and should have taken five fire damage, but they never did, you know? It's definitely a thing, but like, for the most part, the vast majority of people are incredibly honest because it's just not fun unless you are. It's an honor system completely. Great. Why don't we take some calls? Yeah, baby.

Anybody there that wants to call in and give me, give us rather your LARP experiences, if you've had any, or if you have questions about LARPing. Let's get in there. I thought I saw a hand up. Here we go. Sweet Threat. Let's see. What's up, Sweet Threat?

Did I put Sweet Threat on the stage? There we go. Sweet Threat, can you hear us? Yep, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you great. Hi, how's it going? Good, good. I can't use Sweet Threat.

Yeah, I did my time in the clink. Can I take it to the top? I've changed my settings. Oh, one second, Sweet Threat. We're still dealing with technical difficulties. Maybe you should right click on Sweet Threat in Discord and then turn up the volume for Sweet Threat. Or unmute Sweet Threat.

Say something, sweetie. Hey. There we go. Hey, baby. We're back in business, baby. Sweet Threat, you were saying you've spent your time in the LARP trenches, is that right? Yeah, yeah. A lot of my formative years as a preteen were spent LARPing at my local 4H.

That should be a... Oh wow! Yeah. We had a 4H that was a lot of horse girls and then we infested it with LARPers. Yes, a lot of overlap between the horse girl and LARP community. Not in line with the words. They were real upset with us because we insisted on beating a lot of metal armor with swords and the horses were not cool with it. Okay, I see that.

How old were you, sweet threat? I started when I was around 10 or 11. And I think I got out of it when I was around 17. The rules, the rules sound really familiar to me, like points, no heads, necks or groins. And again, yeah, you, you just like, of course you're going to get absolutely brutalized, but that's why they sell helmets and the gorches and things. I mean, my, my groin is going to get hit because that devil suit I described is skin tight, skin tight groin is going to be very prominent in that suit.

Although can I just- We can find some armor for you. Can I just run it back really quick to the gorilla versus a hundred men discourse? Oh boy, I knew this was going to happen. Go ahead. Yes, of course you can. I find it so frustrating in these questions like who would win a gorilla or a grizzly bear and some people or a gorilla versus a hundred men and a lot of people like well obviously the men would have weapons because the gorilla skin is too tough and it's so stupid because if we're including weapons I'm choosing a hundred rifle a hunting rifle at 300 yards. Yeah

We have to agree that this is a hundred men Fucking fisticuffs against a gorilla and if you hate the men winning you have to consider yourself the first guy against the gorilla Yeah, you really for these questions. we need like a legal form with like five paragraphs on how the people are armed and what a battlefield looks like. Yeah. Specifics. Right. It can't, I can't imagine how many, you can't imagine how many times I saw

people suggesting that the way we kill a gorilla with a hundred guys with bare hands is run it to death. We just jog around it. Can you imagine going into a fight with running shoes and then just jogging around the guy you're supposed to fight and calling that a win? We are endurance fighters, we as humans, but like, uh, that's not a fight. Yeah. Thank you. I agree.

That's sweet threat before we let you go. What, what is the best thing about LARPing or what did it, what did it do for you? What did it give to you that you, that you really enjoyed it? Cause you're also a tabletop role player, I assume. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, the craft workshop we had at my lab community, we had a craft workshop where all the leather workers and some metal workers, which is always bizarre because they're someone who just has an occupation in metal work.

I know so many metal workers now. But that was my first contact with 3.5. Yeah, I for a short moment tried to formulate a shifter druid and then I had to go back and build more leather armor. Um, so in a way it got me into D and D and tables are up role playing. Amazing. But thank you so much, sweet threat. Thank you.

So it sounds like not only do you get to role play, but you also are learning skills like leather working and metal. I mean, you can learn metal working and. It's a bug. Like I've been sewing. I've been sewing a leather jacket. Like you just tend to like make things. My friend Zach Reno, who's been on shows with us,

he's made armor, like scale armor. You just get like bit by the bug of craft and you start like building things and making stuff. And it's so fun. Yes. Get ready to get bit by the bug of craft is today's- The bug of craft. The bug of craft.

And Mary Lou, you're a quadruple threat. Acting, singing, dancing, sewing. sewing. That's good to know. Yeah Alright anybody else let's see. Does anybody else want to hop in here? Hi Sydney. And probably just talk about the gorilla question But maybe they'll have something to say about LARPing. Let's see here I've got enough to say about LARPing for all of us. I've got Scram. Scram has their hand up. I'm bringing Scram to the stage. Did that work? Hi, Scram. Can you hear us? Hi, everybody. Can you hear me? Yeah. Barely. Let me make you a little

louder. Go ahead, Scram. How you doing? No, no, it's me, not you. How's it going, Scram? It's going well. I'm happy to be here and ask some questions I've always wanted to ask about LARPing. Okay, great. Is it easy for a person who doesn't know anyone there? I feel like that's like the biggest barrier of entry for a lot of dirty hobbies. It's like going to Magic the Gathering alone is impressively scary. This seems like one of those things as well. Like, I really don't want to camp with a impressively scary. This seems like one of those things as well.

I really don't want to camp with a bunch of strangers for the first night. Is that acceptable and cool to just be there for one night? It is unbelievably acceptable and cool. I will give you that it is much easier to go with a friend or to go with somebody who's already been before. I was very lucky that I went with... I only knew one person. I knew Zach Reno and I went with a friend and so he introduced us to his friends. That was lucky, but people go alone all the time. It is not weird.

Nobody sees that as like strange. And it's really easy to meet new people because you have a built-in culture that you're part of. And so the first thing that people say is like, where are you from? Meaning what's your culture? And they'll take you to that neighborhood, that camp with those people. And those people are going to welcome you in

Immediately and there's built in ways to meet people And you're finally your introduced my backstory Yes, everybody cares so much about your backstory here Like that's the best part is for people who like writing, like their headcanon and their lore, it matters in this LARP. It rocks. So yeah, it is definitely, I will say it's a lot easier, right? Just anything in life is a lot easier to do something new with a friend or with, you know,

people waiting there for you. But- It seems so fun and everything, but again, it's just massively overwhelming. It's really intimidating. I totally get it. I almost really wanted to get into like the world of darkness LARP just because it seems so fun. But even that seems like excessive to the point of like, if I'm not, if I'm alone, I'm just going to hate it in a weird way.

It's just like too much to do too little to know. But Scram. Overwhelming for sure. Scram, don't you want to taste the ecstasy of kindred blood? Big ecstasy fan, if I'm honest. So yeah. We're going to go to the vampire LARP together and I am going to wear a tape on my nipples. I don't know if that's part of it, but. and I am going to wear a tape on my nipples. I don't know if that's part of it, but.

I'm a little, I will say those ones are so horny that even I cringe a little. Even I cringe, you know what I mean? What's the horniness level of the, thank you by the way, Scram. What is the horniness level of the LARP that you go to Mary Lou on a scale of one to 10. As horny as your average ren fair, right?

That's very horny. That's extremely horny. But they're wholesomely horny. They're wholesomely horny. Ren fairs, yeah, okay. They're horny in the way that there are corsets and boobs, right, and everybody's like penis joke, ha ha ha ha, right? Right.

But nobody's like boning, nobody's like, it's not like the vampire masquerade. The vampire is goth horny and gothic stuff is super horny as well. You know what I mean? Super horny. Yeah. But this isn't gothic horny. Nobody's hornier than the nerds. Nobody is freakier than nerds. We all know that. But the LARP is, that is not the focus.

That is not the focus. But you can see cuties at the LARP. You can see cuties at the LARP. Is it a good place to meet people? Absolutely. I've made so many friends at the LARP. But then you don't know if you're in love with them or if you're in love with the imp that they're playing.

You know? So true. I will say there are people who like people LARP as couples all the time, right? Like husband and wives, families come, but like there will be husbands and wives who are married in the game to other people or like dating. What the fuck? That's a sin! That's not my game. I don't play dating. What the fuck? That's a sin.

That's not my game. That's not my game. I don't play that. That's not allowed. Yeah, it is a sin. The Catholic Church does not agree, but that to me, that is a game that you can play. And I love that. That's a game you can play.

For them. Yeah. I don't get it. Interesting. I don't get it. But. I don't get it. But I think it's cool that people can do that. So you're saying the LARP would be a great place for me to cheat on my wife? Yes.

Yes. Nice. Okay. Emotionally. Emotionally. Emotionally, of course. Now, what I was going to ask before we get into another caller, does it feel sometimes like the line between fiction and reality gets

blurred in a way that is surprising or maybe even a little bit scary like it does for Tom Hanks in the 1982 film Mazes and Monsters? Yes. Yes. We actually, we talk about this in our training module. We talk about bleed. It's called bleed when your emotions from the real world and from the LARP world start to affect each other. And there, cause like our LARP is, it's really grounded and characters that you've known for years, they might die. You might have a relationship with somebody who dies. There are funerals

at the LARP all the time. Wow. And people feel real feelings. And it can physically and emotionally affect you as a person. And there is a lot of like dangerous overlap. We call it bleed. And it's something that you have to watch out for and be really careful about. What are the ways of dealing with bleed or what are the watch outs for bleed? What do you say in your training about it? Oh, we honestly, we just say like you have to be careful.

You have to be aware of it. Just be aware of it. You have to be aware of it that it is something that really happens and we recommend taking a break, right? Like, go to some corner and like just take a second. Be a human being, take a deep breath, drink a lot of water. People get dehydrated at the LARP. It doesn't help.

And then you can check in with people out of character. So the sign for, I'm going to teach you some LARP lingo, the sign for like, I am out of character right now is a hand on your head. So if you put a hand on your head, that means I'm out of character. And you can like – you know, if you and I see each other on the street and I'm from a culture that's at war with your culture and I can tell just by the way that you're dressed and the things that you're wearing and doing, that you're a part of this culture that my culture is at war with. We see each other on the street and we might be like, raaarrrr. Then I might check in with you and be like, hey, I just want to make sure that

that was okay that I called you a dirty rotten bastard in the street. I think you're a really cool player and I really enjoy our time together. You might be like, oh yeah, that's totally good. When you called me a dirty rotten bastard and I spit on the ground at your feet, that was just me being a character. I think it's really great. I really enjoyed that interaction. Okay, cool. Thank you so much.

Then be like, get away from me. It's a way to check in. It's a way to check in, which we also do in tabletop sometimes. Exactly. Just like you do in tabletop. That's right. Okay. Let's get someone else up here.

I see Jobster has something to say. Let's see if we can get Jobster on the stage. Jobster, how you doing? I'm doing all right Jared. How are you? Hi. How are you? Hi.

I, I, I just, I was struck by something when Mary Lou was talking about the points and the fighting and following the rules in LARPing. And it was a memory of growing up in the 80s, you know, with, and my friends and I had toy guns that were entirely too realistic and we would go play war and there would be endless arguments about whether or not a bush counted as cover. It kind of struck me that it's like, it's the same game but brought into the adult world with rules so you don't have to spend time arguing about who got hit. Don't worry, we still argue. But at least there's a method for arbitrating so it's not just two 10-year-olds yelling

at each other for 15 minutes. Which probably also happens. I think that's an incredible point, Jobster, is that we all used to do this. We all did this as kids. And then at one point we were like, no, we're too old for this. We can't do this anymore. How come? It's fun.

Exactly. And so at the large place you can do it. I do think it's good for people. I think it's good for people. Just like I think tabletop is good for people. I absolutely agree. And also the crafting bug is, you were commenting about that.

And I've, I got the crafting bug through You got the bug. Costuming and cosplaying. It's the same thing, yeah. This Halloween I made a full suit of Mandalorian armor for my six-year-old out of craft foam. Awesome. It's like, okay, now how am I going to top this next year? It's so cool.

Yeah. And you can make things for your character that you would never wear in real life. When do you get to wear a suit of armor? When do you get to wear a full know, a full pirate hat? Like, it's so fun. It definitely is. Although as a summer camp boats counselor, I do get to wear a pirate hat to work for eight weeks out of the year. Well, we can't all be so lucky. What's the coolest thing you've made? Is that required? Is that required, the pirate hat? Or is that something you've added as

an innovation? It was really funny. I wore it on the first day and someone was like, oh, how'd you know it was pirate theme week? And I was like, it's pirate theme week. I just, I was like, I'm gonna be a boats counselor. I wanna keep the sun off of me. This seems to be.

This is just part of what I wear all the time. I dress like a pirate. Sorry, Mary Lou, you asked a question. What's a favorite thing that Jobster has made? Yeah, Jobster, what's the coolest thing you've ever made? Oh, I think I think it is that that suit of armor, because I've got costumes that I put together with components from other people, but I made him the suit of armor from scratch and.

We we painted it up and like. Making it from parts, that's, I I think probably the coolest thing I made. Also when he was four, he said he wanted to be a truck for Halloween. And so I turned a diaper box into a fire truck costume for him in the space of about a week. I'll see if I can. I'll send a picture or an email to McD so you can share it later or look at it later. That is awesome. That's great. Thank you, Jobster.

Thank you. Yeah, that's really cool. It's a way to, it's also a way to get in touch with your kids, the cosplay, you know? Totally. I want to be a truck for Halloween. It's a great costume. You can make that happen. I want to be a truck at the. That's a great costume. You can make that happen. I want to be a truck at the LARP. Is that possible? No, unfortunately, trucks would be genre breaking. A wagon.

I'll be a wagon. You could be a wagon. You could be a wagon. You could be a wagon Faye. A wagon Faye? Yeah, there are Faye in our game that are always the concept of something. And yeah, there could be a wagon Faye.

I want to be the concept of a wagon. Great. We can do that. I keep thinking that you're going to be like that. You can't do that. And you're like, you can do that. You can do that. That's amazing. We had a Faye who was the concept of a child. There was a Faye who was the concept of a child. There was a Faye that was a concept of the mayor. He was the mayor.

There was a Faye. Was there a concept of the child? So did this Faye was an adult who was walking around acting like a child the whole time? But like the idea of a child, right? So she had like a lollipop and was like playing pranks and stuff. And is there a way to create a character that wants to kill that character and slay it and make it never be around anymore? Because, okay. Yeah, there was a character. Yeah, one of our established like demons, I think killed

the child. And so that was a little dark. Yeah. And it was cool. To think killed the child. And so that was a little dark. Yeah, I wanna be clear. To talk to the demons. I wanna kill the concept of a child, not an actual child. I wanna kill an adult pretending to be a child is really what I wanna kill. Yeah. Oh, so in the LARP, you cannot be,

you canonically cannot be someone under 18. You cannot be a minor. Right, that makes sense. Unless you are actually a minor. Like your character is- This person found a loophole around that. They were an NPC. They were an NPC.

Okay, all right. They had permission. Yes. All right, let us see. We're gonna bring up at least one more person here. I got Reverend Baez here. Let's bring up- Talk to me, Reverend.

Reverend, come on up, Reverend Baez.. Let's talk to me Reverend. Reverend. Come on. Forgive me for I have larped. Reverend. Are you there? I am here. All right. I hear you Reverend loud and tell me about LARPing. I love what you guys do. My first experience with LARP is about 30 years ago. do. My first experience with LARP was about 30 years ago. I went to study abroad and had found some tabletop role players and they did some LARPing. And my advice for people who are not sure whether they would like LARP or not, just get out there and hit someone with a foam sword. It's fun! Because for me, that is so much fun. And that's what got me into it at the time. That's kind of what kept me into it is, man, it's just fun to get out there and whack things and whack people with the with foam weapons in a way that's still safe for everyone, of course, more or less. So that was that that's a fun experience.

Reverend, where were you when you were doing this LARP? It was in the UK. I was in in Norwich, East Anglia. It was in the UK. I was in Norwich, East Anglia. Cool. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And as an American, of course, it helped people had accents canonically associated with fantasy role-playing there, so that was good too. That's right.

Did you put on an English accent for that? No, no, no. But I was incessantly made fun of as in the game for my foreign appearance and foreign accent. Um, so they had, they let that carried over into my, into my character in the game. And Reverend, what was your, um, what was your LARP based on? I, we heard an earlier caller say 3.5, excuse me, 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons was sort of the basis. Uh, was yours an original system like Mary Lou's LARP?

Yeah, I think it was original. It was, they had a big rule book there. I had never seen it before. You know, it had point buys and stuff like that. So I think it might've been a homebrew system while I was over there. I also did play in the vampire LARP, um, as well. Uh, and that is, that was one, um, very much, I was very much thinking of the mazes and monsters, uh, kind of analogy when you were talking about that, Jared, cause that

struck me. There was a little too much bleed. Well, a lot too much bleed in that one. I think maybe because it was something that you could, people would, they meet in pubs and they meet like, you know, in restaurants outside outside of us like a safe warded area they would meet in the real world and and and it would very much carry over like people would suddenly be talking as as their characters you know outside of an explicit time and place to each other and and that that got a little uncomfortable at times i think too much bleed for me in the, I think maybe that was the fact that it was more of a real world kind of setting that lent itself to that. So you're saying that the vampire LARP had too much bleed.

Oh, I'll set them up and you knock them down, Jerry. Thank you so much. You had another comment. Go ahead. Well, what I was going to ask you, if you guys were going to stay on LARP or not, if you're going to move on, that's OK. But one question I did have for Mary Lou, because I'm out of LARP for a long time. But you mentioned fantasy LARP. We talked about vampire LARP.

But I'm curious, are there LARPs for things like Star Wars or Star Trek or Marvel or some of these other universes that people are so fond of. And so what are some of the more popular ones? Yeah. Thank you, Reverend. I mean, I'm sure there are, right, Mary Lou? Are you aware of any?

I am. So the friends that I've made at My LARP, My LARP is very much like a high fantasy themed LARP, you know, sword and sorcery. But my friends that I've made through LARP go to lots of different LARPs. There's one, Neotropic, I think, is a cyberpunk-themed LARP that's all sci-fi and futuristic. Then there's, gosh, what's the one that's all sci-fi and futuristic. And then there's – gosh, what's the one that's like – it's a post-apocalyptic. And so it's like Mad Max themed and everybody is in cars and trucks and it's more diesel punk and that kind of thing. It takes place in the desert.

Very Burning Man. Neotropolis, yeah, is the sci-fi one. And Laundry Clean Boy, what's the post-apocalyptic one? Wasteland, I think. There are tons of different LARPs for different vibes, which I think is so cool. Lots of people go to – yeah, Wasteland Weekend, that's the one. Lots of people go to them all and have characters at all of them. And I think that's so cool. It's awesome.

People just like to play. That's awesome. I want to do a Star Trek LARP. Let's find the Star Trek LARP. I would get a full Federation suit, skin tight Federation suit. Skin tight. So tight around my breasts But I would love to do that. You know what? Look I told my wife

That my friends want to get me into the LARP and her reaction was oh God no and You know, I already have a lot of nerdinesses, but I think I think I'm gonna do this So right now I'm gonna ask you Mary Lou, can you walk me through character creation for your LARP? Tell me again what your LARP is called. It is called Twin Mask. My LARP is called Twin Mask.

It is a high immersion medium combat LARP. There are other LARPs that are more high combat. We are medium combat. You can avoid combat completely if you want to, but it is very much a huge part of the LARP. So Twin Mask, you can look it up. McD posted the link. I'm in the rule book right now, and I'm going to take you through the steps of character creation, and I am so excited. I can tell you about my character if you have questions about my character. Sure. I mean, whatever helps. Here's what I think. If I ever went, I would want to be

in the same faction as you because I would be afraid to be off on my own. So tell me about your character. That's super normal. I joined a culture because Zach was in that culture and I knew I would have friends in that culture. I think for the sake of this experiment, let's just create a character that you vibe with. Okay, that I vibe. When you're coming to the LARP, you can join my culture. But also you can hang out with whoever you want to hang out with.

You can spend all your time with people from my culture and not be from our culture. Does that make sense? Right. Okay. Yeah, totally. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

I could even be someone who's at war with you, but maybe I'm a traitor or something like that. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I'll tell you, the base, our world has its own lore, its own worlds. McD maybe could put the map on the screen of our world, but it's got its own continent. Yeah, see all that good stuff. Leave this up for a second, McD, if you don't mind.

The continent on the right, that's the expanse. That's where we all lived. But canonically in our world, every single person in Port Fray, you see on that continent on the left, on the island of Tyr, Port Fray is the city that we play in, is dead. We all died on the Expanse in our first life. And everybody was resurrected, returned to life in Port Fray because of a magical phenomenon that we don't understand. They're doing research into it, but essentially, your business was unfinished. So all of our souls have returned to life in Port Fray on the island of Teer.

We only stay alive in Port Fray unless you're super, super powerful and then you can go on Odyssey later. We could talk about that. That's why we have people from dozens of continents and cultures all in one city. Why we're all together and why nobody leaves is because we all died in the expanse in our first life and returned to life in Port Fray. That's why all of our cultures can interact and why it's sort of like this is your new life. Maybe you were from Dace in your first life and you're Dacian, but in this life, you decided you wanted to be friends with people from the Celestine Empire.

And that's just what you've chosen to do in your new life. I'm really liking the sound of the Celestine Empire. You might. You might actually like the sound of the Celestine Empire. I'm liking the sound of it. Yeah, it's very cool. But first, the first thing we want to do is you want to choose a bloodline. So classic high fantasy, we have humans. And we have our elf cognate, which they're called a fendal. cognate, which they're called ephendal. Ephendal.

Yeah, ephendal. Elf is like a rude term for them. But they're essentially elves. They've got pointy ears. They live forever or really long. They're elves. They're celestial-blooded. Someone in their ancestry was a celestial, which is like angel blooded.

An Asimar. Like Asimar, exactly. There are demon blooded, like a tiefling. There are dragon blooded, like a dragonborn. Okay. Fae blooded. Like a fae. Like a fae, yeah.

But not full fae. A full fae would be on the same level as like a celestial or a demon or a dragon, which are like God level. You cannot play a full demon, full celestial, full dragon, full fey. Or a newborn dream, and those are the characters that are like concepts, right? A newborn dream?

Yeah, listen, that's new. You're not making a newborn dream, right? So like- A newborn dream? Yeah, listen, that's new. We're not, you're not making a newborn dream, okay? Newborn dreams. I wanna be a newborn dream! No, I won't allow it. The dream of wagons. You, okay, yeah, if we were making wagon, you would be a newborn dream of wagon, for sure. No, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do any of that.

Let's, but let's do some bloodline other than human just to make it interesting. What I'll tell you is, what I will tell you is that humans and a Fendal get 40 points to begin with. Celestial blooded, demon blooded, dragon blooded, and fey blooded, the blooded lineages, they only get 20. So that is your incentive. Because they have bloodline advantages, I'm assuming. They have abilities that are bloodline only, bloodline restricted. However, if you do choose one of those bloodlines, you have to represent them somehow in your kit. You can't just say, oh, I'm celestial blooded. I have to be able to look at you and go, you're celestial blooded,

or you're demon blooded. My character is demon blooded and I have horns, curled, ram's horns, and fangs. Someone would look at me and know, oh, you're blooded, right? Like you either are demon blooded or fey blooded or something, something's up. So you have to commit to that if you choose one of the blooded. In other words, makeup is gonna be part of it maybe. Makeup is a huge part. Yeah, you're gonna have to do a little theatrical makeup. So look, since we're just making the character for fun,

and since I don't feel like spending 40 points right now, that feels a little labor intensive, let's go with a dragon blooded. Hell yeah. Okay, dragon blooded are super cool. So that means you've got to paint on some scales or wear some scale armor or have a tail or like cool dragon horns. Lots of people have cool dragon horns. I think I was thinking about learning how to do carnival fire breathing That is not allowed that is the one thing that is not allowed. Okay, not a lot. Yeah open open flames

Open flames is like our one big thing. Wow. I found something you finally found it. You found it Yeah, you could you could learn how to hmm Pantomime fire breathing? No, that's okay. I think dragon blooded is cool. You can learn how to juggle. What about juggling?

You can try to learn how to juggle. Cause I like to think that my mother had full on intercourse with a dragon. Wow, you'd be half dragon. That is, that would be rare. That's, that would be rare. That would be rare. I think you'd, so you have to like get your backstory approved by story staff to make sure that it fits in the world. I think you would, I think you would run into some, I'll say pushback to me. I love it. I love it.

That's okay. I'm okay with my great, great, great grandmother had full on, like we're talking intense physical sex. Intense, emotional, physical. With a dragon. Sex with a dragon. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think, yeah, it's gotta be necessary. And then, okay, now we're gonna choose your culture. And then, okay, now we're going to choose your culture. And this is the fun part. Okay, great. Okay. There are literally like 20 cultures, and I can explain all of them to you, but I'll explain maybe just a few that are like emblematic of the types of cultures. And then you tell

me if there's a type of culture that I haven't explained, like I want to be from a place that's kind of like this. I might be able to tell you, oh yes, that would be these guys. Some examples. Castle Thorn is very much like the grand mason or knight's templar. They all wear armor. They're all about battle. They're very like a lawful good. They fight for good, Knights Templar, but like rigid law and order. There's the Celestine Empire, which is sort of like French enlightenment. They're very refined, but they're all about intellectualism and healing and research and there's like royalty. I'm loving it.

It's a little fancy. It sounded good. Yeah. Okay. Amazing. There's Kestrel, which is like Gaelic and Irish. Yeah, here are all the cultures. Yeah.

They're super cool. Yeah, here are all the cultures. Well, here they are. Yeah, they're super cool. Kestrel is like, yeah, you can tell from the fonts. You can tell from the fonts. Yes. Gaelic and Irish. The fonts tell a story. The fonts are telling a story.

Telling a story. Listen to the story that the fonts tell. Cole is our pirates, like pirate dirty stinky, like fun, swashbuckling pirate culture. Dace are our fancy pirates, like Montenegro, like they wear like Venetian masks. Okay, I get it. That kind of thing. They're very, very wealthy. Like the Venetian vibe, I get it. That kind of thing. They're very, very wealthy. Venetian vibe, yeah.

Exactly. The Nadine are classic all-black necromancers, super-warring empire. They're the baddies. If you want to be Goth and play- Ooh, I love Goth. Super-Goth. Their empire is the queen of- Although I'm not sure if I want to be part of a culture

that sounds like it's named after a diner waitress. I see. They would probably kill you just even for saying that. Nadine, we got a four top. They're waiting for their eggs. Nadine. Sandra, it'd be like the Sandra empire. Don't tell them I said that. They will kill me. Yeah, I'd be like the Sandra Empire. Right. Don't tell them I said that.

They will kill me. Yeah, I won't. The Drear are our beloved lovable cannibals. They- What? They, yeah, they like dress in like bones and furs and it is the highest sign of respect to like eat your loved ones when they die. Wow. The Coat are like Mayan warriors.

Myre are like evil wizards, like building and tinkering mad scientist. The Saik are like desert wanderers, like desert nomads. Not to be confused with my culture, redemption, which is a desert city. We are like desert warriors, like the Aiel or like the Fremen. The Trahazi are like Irish traveler Romani. I know this is a slur, but I don't mean it as a slur. Gypsy culture.

Yes. Yes, sure. And then there's Paradox, which is the land of the fey. So Paradox Dawn, where there's the good fey, and Paradox Dusk, where there's the malevolent fey. The Breach is the like demon-infested desert where my city, Redemption, stands alone. Wow. And are there any cultures? What else am I forgetting? No, those are the big ones.

So pretty much any- This is awesome. Yeah, pretty much any kind of like, there are analogs to like the real world, but it's really not one-to-one and it's encouraged to not be like, I'm Irish, you know? It's you know, you're Kestrel and it's different, but they're inspired. So is there anything else, any other like, any cultures that are speaking to you? Yeah, the Celestian Empire and Meijer are speaking to me.

Very cool. Okay. So it depends on like, what do you, what do you want to get up to? Do you want to get up to trouble or do you want to get up to? Do you want to get up to trouble, or do you want to get up to being good and being a hero? What's the vibe that you want to hit? I want to get up to trouble. Or in your past life.

I want to get up to trouble. You want to get up to trouble? Then we're going to go Mire. You're going to be Mire-ish. They are super cool. Let me read you more about them. They are super cool. Let me read you more about them. The kingdom of Meyer takes pride in its lack of morality

and unflinching willingness to commit unambiguously evil acts. While all cultures have nuance and none are monolithic, the city state roots out and destroys any who would hinder the atrocities they commit in the name of learning. So they're mad scientists for sure. Yes. Oh, they're like the evil Celestine Empire, the other one that I was interested in. Oh, totally.

Wow. I didn't really think about it that way, but totally. They are like the evil Celestine Empire. Yeah, Celestine would be like, those means do not justify the end. And Meyer would be like, the end is the only thing that matters. Here's why I'm picking this. This is something I'd like to do in the LARP. At one point in the LARP, I'd like to be going like that. Very myrish. Yes, absolutely. So let's, I don't want to rush you, but let's, let's kind of

hop to like maybe one of the later steps. Like with these 20 points, where am I throwing them? What am I doing with them? Absolutely. Okay. So we can start with 20 points. You can also take a flaws. You can take flaws that give you more points. Yes, up to 10. I recommend the

first flaw that I recommend is either fading memory or fractured memory because that's four points. That means that you don't really remember. Fading memory means you have some memory, but it's going away. You're losing it. You're slowly losing all of your memories from your first life. Fractured memory is that you don't really remember. Maybe you remember the moment of your death, but you don't remember your life. Or maybe you remember your life, but you don't know how you, or maybe you remember your life but you don't know how you died, and through role play and through meeting other characters, you might discover your past.

I love that. So I'm going to be myrish, but I have a fractured memory. That's why I might be hanging out with good guys or people that aren't exactly evil, because I don't remember how evil my life was. So you know, it's like, you know, like when a bad guy gets amnesia and becomes a good guy for a while, but then they slowly find out that they're a bad guy. And then what do you do? Do you keep being a good guy?

Do you have to repent? See, there's a big choice there. There's a choice built into that, you know, a moral choice. Love it. Love it. So you get four points from that and that's great. Oh, I have a bug bite right here. Ouchy.

Gross. I was at the baseball game last night. I can't even tell. You look fabulous. Thank you so much. I was at the Dodger game. Go Dodgers. Go Dodgers.

We won by a lot. Okay. Two more background flaws that are super fun. Sovereign zeal or religious zeal. There are a bunch of different religions that you can have. Honestly, screw that one though. Sovereign zeal is way more fun for you. You have a heightened sense of nationalistic pride. So if anybody ever insults your nation or your culture,

you get like unreasonably angry. You must make a valiant attempt to defend your nation's honor. Failure to do so will demoralize you, preventing you from using your combat abilities for the next 30 minutes. Okay, I can see how the flaw, that flaw, for example, encourages role playing in conflict with other

players. That is a very LARP ish kind of a flaw to take. Look, let's we, we unfortunately we don't have all the time we'd love to have. How do I get a magic spell? How do I get fireball? I'll get you a magic spell. Okay. Take one. Take one more. Okay. You're taking, you're taking, we're giving you, we're giving you sovereign zeal. We're giving you sovereign zeal that gives you two more points. And then, you know what? We're also giving you, another fun one is illiterate. You can't read. What? I refuse to take it. You get four points.

Okay, you refuse to take it. What about? Reading books are really important to me, even in a fictional scenario. Okay. What about oath bound, which means your word is your bond. And if you say, I swear something, you have to do it or else you take damage. I'll take it. Okay. Oath bound. Okay. Now you have damage.

Wow. That is quite an oath. You take, actually you take corruption. It's really bad. Corruption is like soul damage. And the more corruption you have, the more likely you die for real forever Okay, I actually do like that because I would like my character to possibly become more and more corrupt. So yeah, absolutely I'm into that

Okay, amazing. So you want to do magic? Do you want to do magic or you don't do you want to do combat? I want to do magic dude. Hell. Yeah. See, yeah. I also want to do magic. I'm big on magic. Magic is expensive. Magic is really expensive. So you can buy, you're going to have to buy five mana so that's five points. What am I at, like 26? You have 30 so now that's, yeah, five mana, 25. Then you have to spend four to even be, have magical aptitude. So that's 21. Magical aptitude, I'm taking notes. Six points on the school of magic that you want to know.

So there are five schools of magic. Alchemy, makes potions. Channeling, does like healing or like life energy. Divination, tell the future, see into the dream plane. Sorcery, your classic battle magic, the elements. Warding, which is like shields and runes. Dream magic, no you can't do dream magic or blood magic or necromancy or summoning.

You can't learn, you have to learn those in-game. Sorcery, I want sorcery. Hell yeah, I'm a sorcerer. I'm a grand master sorcerer. Great. So then you'll have to take six points in sorcery. If you want, you're then a novice. You're an apprentice.

A novice. So that's first level apprentice. There are four levels. Apprentice, journeyman, master, grandmaster. You're a grandmaster? I'm a grandmaster, baby. Wow. You have to invest like lots of points in that.

Can I take the flaw impotence? Um, that doesn't exist. You can have that in your backstory, in your canon, just to have canon. That's definitely in my backstory. My junk just does not work. Yeah, you're impotent. And I'll be bringing that up immediately when I meet other characters. Okay, amazing. Love that.

Do you want to be an, you could actually be a journeyman. You have enough points, I think, if you want to make me a journeyman and then journeyman and then let's put a capper on this cause we have to move on to our next things. But I, I just want to say just in a kind of review for this, I want to play this character already. It seems so cool. All those cultures seem so cool. Who is behind all this? Who created this world?

This is really an amazing immersive world. Do you know? Yeah, his name is John Bassett, who started it, but he and his friends just like got together, I think it was like 10 years ago. Some of my friends were at the first gathering and it just kind of grew. It's from lots of volunteers.

People just really enjoy it, but there's a whole staff of like dozens of people who write the story and who run the logistics of check-in and all of their character sheets. Oh, put up my character sheet, McD, if you can, for an example of a character sheet. Yeah, shout out to John Bassett and the Twin Masks, right? Shout out to you guys for giving us so much to talk about today. Yeah, that was awesome. And maybe we'll show Mary Lou's character sheet here in a minute. So you can see an example of a point by.

But, you know, I think I'm sold. I would want you to spend some money on some extra health. We'd take you a resistance and a willpower so you can resist some spells. And do I, you're gonna be pretty squishy. It doesn't sound like you get a lot of skills like in other role playing games. So, so you, when you can do magic,

there are some core spells that you get. So there's my example character sheet. I, you will have 30 character points. I have 130, right? So I can do a lot more than you can. Thank you so much, McD. You can see here I've got my mana. I've got 20 mana.

You'll have 10, right? Because you're a journeyman and I have 10. You have a lore of guerrilla warfare? Oh no, it's a zero. I do. I do. It's a restricted lore. I had to? Oh no, it's a zero. I do. It's a restricted lore. I had to participate in a certain mod to get that. I am oathbound.

I am oathbound. I've got military experience and magical aptitude. But with your sorcery, you get core spells. Some core spells you can do are, you can bind if you throw a packet at someone and it hits them, you can say bind and they can't move their limbs for three seconds. You can do an elemental strike,

so you can throw a packet and say, two fire and they take two fire damage. You can throw a packet. Oh, you're throwing beanbags. Oh yeah, we're throwing beanbags baby. That's how we do magic. Oh, I definitely want to be a sorcerer because I love throwing beanbags at people. Yeah, you literally get to throw beanbags at people. It's so fun. And I love toss across. What is that? Is that a Pokemon? And cornhole. Cornhole. Well toss across is like, it's like tic tac toe, but you throw the beanbags and then the cornhole. Cornhole. Oh! Well toss across is like, it's like Tic Tac Toe,

but you throw the bean bags and then the cornhole. You're gonna love Sorcery. I'm a huge cornhole fan. I love a TTRPG, well not TT, but I love an RPG that incorporates cornhole. Yeah, it absolutely does. Mary Lou, this is such a beautiful thing. I'm gonna, I wanna talk more about this,

but unfortunately we have to move on to our next topic. We got to move on, but guys check out the twin mask. Lark questions ever. And lightning bolt exactly attack Mac lightning bolt, lightning bolt. Yes. Um, listen, uh, you have to talk to my wife and uh, I need you to convince her to let me be, uh, absent for a weekend to go do this. To get permission. Okay, fair.

Yeah, fair. Because I am a wife guy and I do what she tells me to do. To your credit. Yes, it's a good thing. It's a good thing. I am unashamed of that. All right, coming up next. Coming up right now, we are going to talk about hate watching, which is a very strong word, but I would define that as watching.

I think we all do this as nerds and I think it's a fascinating phenomenon. that you yourself know to be not good, that you are like, you know what, this is not good, but I want to watch it anyway. Maybe it's even something that you actually hate. You're watching it to like shake your head and go, what a crock of shit. Or maybe it's something where you're just like, you know what, this is a very poor quality

and yet I can't look away. So I wanna start by asking Mary Lou, do you have anything like that? Is there any kind of franchise or genre or thing in your life where you watch it even though you know it's not good? Yes, absolutely. So I love to have opinions, right? But I don't hate watch, I think, in the pure sense of the word, because why be like that, you know what I mean? But I love to watch things that I know are bad

and know how bad they are and still love them. But I think the closest I've ever gotten to pure hate watching is the later seasons of Battlestar Galactica. Um, Battlestar Galactica is so good. And I say that with all my heart. I love it. It's awesome at the beginning.

It's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. Amazing TV, amazing sci-fi, great stories, great characters. The last two seasons, last season especially, I just, I watched like, why? Why are you doing that? What do you mean? It gets really, really in the weeds.

It gets really bad. It fritters away all of its goodwill and it has tremendous goodwill from like the first three seasons, right? And I had friends be like, you maybe just like stop. Just don't watch the last season. It's not worth it. And I was like, I have to finish this.

I have to finish this journey. I have to see it through. And I sometimes like wish I didn't because, or you know what I did is that I black holed their like true ending. And I like wrote in my head what it should have been what it seems like obvious how the story should have ended. And I was like, that's what happened. Yeah. And then I sleep soundly at night. But that's the closest I've been to pure hate watching just. But that's the closest I've been to pure hate watching. Just ugh. It was not enjoyable at the end.

It starts out, but that's a show that started out excellent and then went downhill. Yeah. So that's one way I think we get into hate watching. I have been watching, I've watched every episode of the Rings of Power on Amazon. The most expensive television series ever created based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. That show, without getting really, really into all the details, has tremendously poor writing. It's just really, really poorly written.

I'm not gonna slag the acting in the show. I think it's quite good. I think that the production quality is high. I think it's quite good. I think that the production quality is high. I mean, it would have to be. It's the most expensive show of all time. So it is beautiful, but I think the writing is just abysmal. And yet I am such a gigantic fan of Tolkien and his world that I will even watch this.

I just want to spend time in that world. I want to spend time with just, but it's so stupid. Cause I just want to spend time with like the names and the accessories and the objects in that world. When really what makes Tolkien good are not like the, you know, what makes Tolkien good, aren't just like the stuff in the world. What makes Tolkien good is his writing and the meaning behind it, you know, what makes Tolkien good, aren't just like the stuff in the world. What makes Tolkien good is his writing

and the meaning behind it, you know? But for some reason, and the emotion. I've also, I also just watched all of the Daredevil series, which we talked about on here. I'm a gigantic Daredevil fan. And the show was like a solid 5.5. And the show was like a solid 5.5. So it was hovering just above. Mids.

Yeah, it was very mid, very mid, very met in my opinion. It's almost worse. It's almost worse than a super bad show. So I guess the question I wanna ask and what I would love for the nays to sound off on. Yeah. Why do you watch? Why do we watch something that we think is not good? And then also, should we be wasting our time with stuff that we know is not good? Like maybe we should spend our time because you kind of were getting, we're getting cheated, aren't we? Like they know that we'll watch a Lord of the Rings show, whether

it's bad or good. So they're getting our eyes on it, right? They're getting our Amazon subscriptions and stuff like that. And they don't really have to make a good thing because they're just throwing money at it and it doesn't matter. And that's really insulting. I think there's a lot of stuff like that where they're like, you know, this isn't going to be good, but it's Marvel

So people will watch it, you know Yeah, so I'd like to get calls right away if anybody has a thought on this I see that Harry 1385 is ready to speak and of course if you guys have thoughts on the LARPing topic from earlier That's great, too. Oh a Harry just disappeared here. All of my hands up. Oh, here we go. I got Jay Nobueno. Harry, if you want to get on later, I'm going to welcome you to do that. No, Harry's on with us. What's up, hair bears? Oh, Harry. Harry McD got me. Hey, what's up, Harry?

Hey, what's up? How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Yeah, I think I was saying in Discord, like I've not hate watched. I don't hate watch stuff, but I will passively watch things that aren't very good just to be caught up on the conversation around it, like the Marmosa. Like you don't want to be left out. Yeah, well, I do enjoy the conversation around it. And so like, you just want to be caught up on these things and not get all bind.

It's very easy to fall behind. I think I'd pose it. I watched all of Iron Fist, even though that was not good as well. Wow. But I would also skip it. Like I would be watching it and I would like, you know, fast forward through bits

that I just knew weren't gonna be important. Oh my God, Harry, that bothers me that bothers me so much that you would watch something and fast forward through it. Yeah, but if they don't respect us, because I was curious. I genuinely thought it would be. But you're not that curious. You're just skipping parts. Yeah, but there are aspects that you know, just don't matter.

Like there'll be a really bad fight scene and you don't need to watch that. Wow, interesting. I would say the one thing I would draw the line on is I will not go to the cinema to hate watch something. I will never do it because that's... Pay money to hate watch. Yes. Well, pay directly money and sit in a theater where you'll just have to be there for two

hours. I would just... No, I could never do that. I know guys who do that. I know guys who are like, I see every Marvel thing. I see Morbius. I see Craven the Hunter because I just want to know what the train wreck looks like. Here's what I'm going to ask you about TV though and fast forwarding through it, Harry and Mary Lou as well. Are you familiar with the phrase ambient television? Yes. Yes. You know what I'm talking about? It's TV that's- Like Emily in Paris.

Emily in Paris. It's TV that is specifically made for you to look at your phone and do other things while you're watching it. Is that how Iron Fist was actually working for you, Harry? No, not at all. OK. I understand that that's the thing where they tell creators to have characters say stuff out loud,

because they're assuming people aren't physically watching the show with their eyes. That's true. Iron Fist was just, and it was also like I wanted to catch up and watch Defenders, because Defenders I thought was quite good, even though a lot of people hated it. I quite enjoyed it a lot and I included Iron

Fist and I like the Iron Fist character for the most part and so why so you know I just wanted to you know it's it's a character I like and now he has a TV show and I'm like well I should watch it right well that's how I felt about Daredevil and I also like that you're bringing up it has a TV show yeah that's what he's talking about it It was a Netflix show. I thought you were talking about the movie. What? I didn't even know.

There's not an, I don't think, is there an iron fist movie? Not the Marvel iron fist, I don't think. Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, no, that's okay. Iron fist in Marvel is like this martial artist guy with a hand that can become super hard from a special martial arts technique.

But if you're worried about it, Mary Lou, don't worry. He is white. He is a white martial artist with a lot of Asian imagery surrounding him. What? That's fun. Cause who can do martial arts better than a white guy? A rich white guy as well. A rich white guy. Uh guy I'll have you know.

Amazing. Thanks so much Harry. He killed a dragon sized dragon. Yes, he did. Call me when he kills a snake sized dragon, okay? Call me. Thank you Harry. So Harry brought up a really good point,

which is that some of this sort of hate watching or not completely invested watching is happening because all of these franchises are all tied together now and like this big web of like MCU stuff. And you don't want to miss anything because they hide all those gems in. Right. You got to collect them all. You got to get all the Pokemon. And you know, in a, to a lesser extent that applies to like Game of Thrones stuff or I don't know. There's

other stuff that has like a whole kind of multiplicitous sort of structure to it. So I get that. I get that. But I wonder if we should be encouraging that because sometimes I feel like some of these Marvel shows or even these Marvel movies are just a collection of references to other stuff. Yes. Right? Yes. Yes. It's a trick.

And that's bad. And we can't, it is bad and it's lazy. Yeah, and it's not good. And they can't, no, no. Also jokes, references aren't jokes. References are not jokes. People, they go like, hey, remember in this movie when that happened?

Right. That's not funny. That's not a joke, that's a reference. It's lazy. Guess who we got, Jared? Who? We got Sydney in the house. Where's my girl?

Oh, amazing. Hi, guys. Hello, how are you? Hi got Sydney in the house! Where's my girl? Oh amazing! Hi guys! Hello! How are you? Hi Sydney! I just wanted to talk to you guys. I literally couldn't figure out how to get into the Discord. The chat had to help me. I saw Twitch chat teaching you how to get into the Discord.

Hi, everybody wins. Big fan, first time caller. Hi. Sure, yeah. Longtime listener, hi baby. Longtime listener, uh, yeah, hi. Sure, yeah. Long time listener, hi baby. Long time listener. Yeah, to throw onto the Marvel talk, it's like the friskies of cat food. It's like the worst for you, but it's the cheapest.

Least nutritionally valuable, but yeah. Exactly. I wanted to say, I don't know if it's considered hate watching, but similar to Mary Lou, like you know it's bad, but you're already watching it and you can't look away like a car crash. Yeah. I really liked, hate liked the Vampire Diaries.

The Vampire Diaries. Okay. The TV show that came out when I was in high school. Sydney. What? You would get along with Hot Boyfriend. Hot Boyfriend loved and watched all of it by her diaries. It is so, have you ever seen it, Mary Lou?

No, but I'm aware. Let's say I'm aware of it. Holy shit. It is, Jared, it's not only bad writing, it's bad acting, bad episode arcs, bad character deaths. Like it's all the bad things you can imagine in one show that went on for so many seasons Yeah, it's so fun to watch I think the actor in me to like being in high school and wanting to pursue acting

I was like damn if they could do it. I could surely do it better You were like I could be on CW, right? Like, if they could be on it, I could be on it. Uh, but yet, like, like bad fantasy too. Like, I just enjoyed watching it. It was vampires and like, then it got into werewolves and banshees and like all this other stuff. And I like that aspect. So I stuck with it. But it was bad from beginning to end. Not good, but I really enjoyed watching it.

Do you think there was some core of it that was good, or do you just kind of like vampires? Or do you think there was redeeming qualities to it, some redeeming qualities? There were certainly some redeeming qualities. Every once in a while, they'd throw a character. Everybody's very good looking. Well, that's, well, Mary Lou, that's the other thing.

Everybody's super hot, so that, that's the other thing. Everybody's super hot. So that's plus that you look at them. And they kiss. Yeah, and they kiss. And there's tension. So they play on that classic CW. But I think every once in a while, they would give a character a really good arc

for four episodes. So you'd be like, whoa, I'm actually a little bit invested. I really don't want them to die. You know, this is intense. But then they would do the classic bad fantasy stuff where it's like, my twin comes back and you know, just like really, really bad stuff. And then you kind of go, oh no, they haven't changed.

They're the same. They're the same toxic show. But that's my hate, watch. That's all I got. It's beautiful. That's amazing. Thanks, Sydney. Man, I love you so much. I love you and I want you to hang out more.

I know, I love you guys. And Mary Lou, you have opened my eyes to LARPing. So thank you so much for being on. Sydney, you would thrive. We're all gonna go to the LARP. We're all gonna go. Yeah, same with Jared though. It's gotta be with you guys.

I only wanna do it with you. So next time I'm in LA. Right, of course Jared though. It's gotta be with you guys. I only wanna do it with you. So next time I'm in LA. Right, of course. We'll make it happen. Thank you guys. I love you guys. I'll keep watching now. Okay, thanks, Sid.

Okay, bye guys. Yeah, we'll have Sidney on again. That reminds me of Riverdale. Riverdale is the perfect show that is so bad that it's good. And it's because they actually like leaned into that and it's unironically kind of brilliant how bad it is. I didn't realize this. I thought it was just like not fun bad.

I thought it was just bad bad and then I watched an episode of season six and it was so insane. There was a comet that came every like 50 years and one of the characters was like a reincarnation of her grandmother, but then she switched bodies with her grandmother. So her grandmother could die and she could live for, it was so funny. Um, I, I, I watched it cause I, we did, I did our mutual friend Sarah's, uh, podcast about it and oh my God, I mean, truly so insane. It's it's fun. Like it's so bad. It's good. And that's different. I don't hate watch something that's so bad. It's good, but it has to be really crazy and and Riverdale season six or whatever is off the chain unhinged

craziness. Um, so that makes it to me good. I have something good. I have something polarizing. That I've always been a fan of. I think lately I've been vindicated. Lately I think pop culture has come to my side that it's actually good. For the longest time we were maligned. I'm a big fan

of the Star Wars prequels. Oh, you idiot! Try me. How dare you? They're actually good. They're so fun. And yes, they're bad, but-

They're bad. Yeah, but fun. I think Star Wars- But also good. I think Star Wars is 90% bad. I do, I think it's 90% bad stuff. Well, I don't think it's actually bad. What I think it is, is that it's for kids. Do you know what I mean? I saw the prequels when I was legally a child, right? And loved them

then and still love them now. But that's because people forget, the people who didn't like them were adults because they're things that don't make sense. But there are things that don't make sense in the original trilogy. But Mary Lou, I don't want to get too deep into the prequels right now, but the original Star Wars trilogy was for kids and adults. Adults, a 50 year old and a nine year old could both enjoy the original trilogy. George Lucas weirdly got this idea in his head that the whole thing was for kids. And then specifically in the prequels targeted the kid audience. And it's one of the things, one of the many things, but I appreciate that you,

that you're an apologist. That's, uh, that's take some bravery. Vastly prefer the prequels to the last three. I think the last three suck. I, but well, they have, there are some redeeming qualities, but I think the prequels as a whole, fantastic. Let's get one more caller up here. Herbaderr, Herbaderr.

Herbaderr. Throwing you up here. Let's see if it's working. Herbaderr, are you there? I don't know what happened. Herbaderr,'m throwing you up here. Let's see if it's working. Herbader, are you there? I don't know what happened. Herbader, I threw you on the stage and you've disappeared.

I don't know where you went. Herbader! Okay. Back on my screen. I'm gonna keep looking here. I think, oh, here we go. Fengus, Fengus, I'm gonna try to throw you on the stage. Here you go. Fengus, do I see you?

Am I putting people on the stage incorrectly, McD? Why are you- Are you creaking them out? What's happening? There's Fangus. There's Fangus. What's up, Fangus? How are you doing?

I'm good. Can you hear me? I can. Sure can. Do you have some thoughts on hate watching or watching things that aren't good? I'm kind of curious. I might have missed this. I had to step out for a second, but like, do you-

I'm glad that you weren't paying close attention. Exactly. Thank you. I was- do you include like trash TV you watch, but you enjoy watching like bad reality TV? Because I think that's hate watching. If you consider it hate watching, then yes. I don't know, because it's like a good time. Like me and my wife watch bad reality TV and laugh and make fun of it and it's fun, but

it's not quality. Are you focusing in on it or are you also on your laptop, also on your phone? Oh yeah, it's pretty passive. It's just like when something really notably awful or dumb happens, you know? Do you hate more or less than 50% of the character, of the people in the show, like as people in real life? Oh, I don't know about real life. Over or under 50%.

The way people act in reality TV makes me like hate them very badly. It's a certain type of like- And I think that's hate watch. Okay. I hate watch like a lot of bad reality TV. Love to hate. Yeah.

The only other thing I could think of was like Disney plus shows and until I got rid of that, just like Marvel and Star Wars, like everybody's saying because we all love them. Thank you. That's okay. Thank you, Fingus. So here's my thought on like the hate, that the hating the people on reality TV, you know, it used to be we watched TV and we liked the characters or we were supposed to.

And then this sort of change happened and it coincided with the internet and it coincided with like the comment sections being filled with insults and harassment, which is that our brains changed and we decided like, ha ha, fuck these idiots, like of shows that we were actually watching. And I think not to be like a super old fogie, and certainly my wife disagrees with this and a lot of people I respect and love disagree with this, I think it was a bad cultural change. I think it is a bad cultural change that we watch programs where we're like, fuck these shitty idiots.

I think they're stupid. Ha ha ha. I think that're stupid, ha ha ha. I think that that's maybe a bad thing. I disagree with you that I don't think it was a change. I think we've always done that. We just like went to the zoo and we're like, look at the monkeys, they're so dumb, they're so much dumber than me. Or you know, people would just like be racist or something and be like, those other people,

they suck. But now we just do it to reality TV show people because they're real. But let's say it's just a modern freak show. I'm not sure that the freak shows of the past were good either. Hey, we have her badger back and I really want to get her badger on because I was trying to get her badger earlier. Her badger. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Her badger. Did you have thoughts on this? Yeah. So I am a 36 near 37 year old man that still watches dragon ball stuff. Let's go. I know it's bad. I know the story's not good, but every once in a while something cool happens. Absolutely. So do you watch it passively or are you watching every minute and kind of remembering? I assume you've watched it more than once.

I have watched it every minute. Absolutely. And I think that's an investment in a community, right? Anime does produce a lot of content, right? Think about One Piece. It's got thousands of episodes. Not every one of them is good, but there are some that are so good

that it makes the whole thing worth it. I wouldn't call that a haywatch. Yeah. But it is interesting, and I think it'll be relevant in a little bit that you brought up your age, because Dragon Ball definitely, I think targeted at 12 year olds, right? Right.

That was for kids for sure. But also we love it as adults. Herbiter, why do you think you keep coming back to the Dragon Ball? Cause every once in a while something cool happens? Yeah. Um, I think that's it. And there are story beats that I eventually hope one of the writers will write. Do you watch the episode and think to yourself, like, why am I doing this? Why do I do this to myself?

Especially in the last few arcs, they've like teased it like a character arc or something that might happen in the future, or they'll bring in a character that you haven't seen in a while. You're like, oh yeah, awesome. And then it turns out that that thing actually didn't matter at all. Yeah. Interesting. Well, that's just part of why it's bad.

Have you heard of fan fiction? Check it out. You might be good at it. I was big into the Harry Potter scene when I was in high school. There we go. Amazing. Yep. Well, thank you, Herbadeur. Thank you, Herbadeur.

I think we've explored some aspects of this topic, but hop on the Discord and in the chat and just, you know, let's talk about it some more. Because I would never get tired of talking about this. But speaking of hate watching, because Mary Lou is such an expert, and I mean a recognized expert on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, I wanted to talk about a little bit about the Wheel of Time TV show. The third season just dropped.

I'm about, I'm two or three episodes into the third season. I've been, I've watched the previous two seasons. So you know what, let's start at the beginning and let's see if we can get all the way to the TV show. How did you get into the Wheel of Time? I got into the Wheel of Time because my best friend Sarah, who has the Riverdale Season 6 podcast, our mutual friend, she recommended it to me because I'm a huge sci-fi fantasy nerd.

I love a long fantasy book and took me years to get around to it because I thought the cover was dorky and it is. Oh, I love the old covers dorky and it is. Oh, I love the old covers. That's my favorite part of the series. Go ahead. Oh, and now I adore them, right? Like all the covers are so,

the art is so iconically ugly and bad and great, colorful and nonsense. I think it's beautiful, weird. Exactly. What weird aesthetic differences. Okay, go ahead. It is beautiful, but it's also ugly, you have to admit. The shapes of their faces.

No, I love the painted fantasy paperback covers. And it makes me sad that now if I go to Barnes & Noble and I look up the Wheel of Time, they have these like new covers that don't have any kind of representative imagery on them. It's just like all font. Okay, go ahead, I'm sorry. I do agree with you on that. I agree with you on them. It's just like all font. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I do agree with you on that. I agree with you on that, but it took me forever to read it. And then I finally did and instantly got hooked, read all 14 books. They're each like, you know, a thousand pages. There's like 4 million words in the series. And I've reread it multiple times. You reread it multiple times. Wow. I've reread it twice. I've read the firstread it multiple times. You've re-read it multiple times, wow.

I've re-read it twice. I've read the first three a few times. The fourth is my favorite. Sarah and I talk about it constantly. We had a YouTube channel called Maidens of the Spear where all we did was talk about Wheel of Time. So yeah, I have a tattoo, a dragon tattoo, because of the Wheel of Time.

So I'm into it. You are the dragon reborn. I am the dragon reborn. Well, I would be if I had two dragon tattoos on both arms, but I only have one, which just, I'm not the Karakhan, I'm just a, I'm blanking, I'm just a clan leader, it's fine. Is it good? So we were talking about hate watching or getting into things that are not great sometimes.

Is the Wheel of Time good? I assume you love it. Book series? Yes. However, I admit we as readers know about the slog, and that's the around book 10. So maybe like 8 to 12 people disagree about what the slog is, but there are some books in there that are very boring because they're all about like trade agreements and like treaties and like signing things and political intrigue. And some people like that. I like it. But there is a slog.

And then we watched the show and the first season is bad, but I liked it. The first season is bad. I tried to defend it. I tried to hold out hope. No, the first season is pretty bad. What is bad about it? Too few episodes. Too much happens.

Not enough. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of the pacing is very strange. Too much happens in too few episodes, but you're speaking as someone who's read the novel. So you're seeing all of the, you're seeing more than one of these 1000 page novels crammed into a few episodes, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. It feels hurried, right? It feels hurried. And so the characters seem kind of stupid or crazy for the decisions that they're making because like they have to make these choices to get to these places for the plot, but it doesn't really make sense sometimes or they're fighting and they seem stupid. They spend a lot of time

on things that I think are less important, although I like changes. I like when things change from book to TV because it keeps it fresh and exciting for me. Sure. I like when things change from book to TV because it keeps it fresh and exciting for me But yeah, it's just not good TV. It's kind of kind of pacing is weird. Yeah the pacing I would agree with that. I'm coming in having read like four of the books, but like 25 years ago So I don't really remember much about it So I'm I'm watching and I I, I have to admit, I think earlier I told McD, I don't like the show. The truth is I think it's not a good show and I like it. That's the truth. It's not a good show and I like it. But I would agree, the pacing feels really

weird because you can tell, even if you're not familiar with the books, you can tell they're cramming in a bunch of stuff. Um, and, uh, I, but I think the production values are good, but it runs into this thing that I've seen in a lot of fantasy TV, uh, I think it's true in the expanse, which I call a handsome, the handsome face problem where the actors are very beautiful some of them, but they're not maybe like the best actors ever. Yeah. Yeah.

There's some of that going on. I hate to say that because there's some great performances going on in the show too, but- And even like the same person will have like an incredible performance in one episode. And then in the next episode, I'll be like, wow, you're lucky you're pretty. And so yeah, it's a little hit and miss in the performances. They're trying to do a lot. The show is trying to do so much. I mean, if you think about like how much simpler it must be to make, for example, a cop show, right? Because like, for example, a cop show, right? Cause like everything, you can use clothes

that people wear now. You can use buildings that people walk around in now. And you know, this isn't even historical. This is a fantasy world. So you, I think that they've done a really good job actually mixing different styles of architecture, styles of costuming. Yeah. There's like some Japanese influence. different styles of architecture, styles of costuming.

Yeah. There's like some Japanese influence. I agree. I think the costuming, yes. And honestly, I'm going to be, I'm going to be, I'm going to keep a 100 with you. That's all Robert Jordan, baby. Like he, he did that in the books, but I think the production design has been really incredible in making it come to life.

There have been some choices that fans don't agree with. For example, the Sean Chan's armor. And there are some choices that I don't agree with, like the Sean Chan women who channel, they have these like mouth things that look like pacifiers. Though that's bad. That's ugly. You don't like that? I don't like the way that's bad. That's ugly. You don't like that? I don't like the way that it's round, it looks like a passing. What it immediately said to me is they are subjugated

in a way that is terrifying. Absolutely, I just thought it should look different. It looked kind of silly maybe. Hey, let's get one caller, Mary Lou, before we move on to our final segment. Yeah, get up here, talk to me, wheel of time. Let's actually, McD, can you bring up Asteron? Can you bring up Asteron?

Can you join us? Hi, Asteron, can you hear us? What's up? Hey, Ray. Hi. Did you have something you wanted to throw in about the Wheel of Time? Well, I was big fan of the book series, but whenever I hate watched the first series, the only thing I've ever hate watched was the first season the book series. But whenever I got, I hate watched the first series, it's the only thing I've ever hate watched.

Yeah, a lot of people did. Was the first season of the show. And I haven't gone back since. So, yeah. You're not alone. What wasn't working for you? I mean, you watched it all the way through, you say you hate watched it.

What's the main thing that wasn't working for you? I think it was just some of the extra things that they put into the show that I didn't really care for. Like when they spent two episodes on the ice and I in her water, that we, why do we care about her? And then like, why do we care that he dies? And he kills himself? Like, I don't like, he's been there for all of two episodes. Stepping. Like it just, it didn't, that didn't work for me. I know there were some things behind the scenes

with Matt's character, Matt's actor, that kind of rearranged the production. They switched actors for Matt. Yeah, they switched actors. But like the first actor, like he just up and left. And that like, Yeah, in the middle of the season. Yeah, so I kind of give a little bit of grace for that.

But it was just some of the extra things. And it was COVID, yeah, it was bad. The season finale was especially bad. Yeah, the, and then the, when they, I think the first thing that bothered me was when they gave Karen a vice and then immediately frigid at the end of the first episode. Like that, you couldn't have handled Karen's wolf thing any better than that. Like that's what the trooper had to go with. It sounds like a lot of your problems. I mean, these things were maybe not handled with with a great amount of skill, but it sounds like one of your main problems is changes

from the book. Is that true? No, no, I was within the series willing to accept that they would have to change things. It's such a big series. You can't do a one-to-one analog from both shows. It just doesn't work. So I went in there with an open mind, willing to accept some changes, especially cutting out some story beats and maybe doing some other things. It's just when they added things in there that they could have used that time to like those two episodes where we spent on these two characters that were in the surplus like that could have been spent like following the plot a little bit closer like that sort of thing like it's it's not that they made changes it's I disagree with changes that I made that makes sense

yeah that's a really common criticism Asteron you're in good company. All right. Well. Yeah. I understand a lot of the changes they made because of TV. You have to do a lot of like show don't tell. It's hard to explain the Warder-Bond without seeing it. It's psychological, right? Yeah. It's physical and emotional and psychological.

I see why they made the changes. I will agree that I don't think the changes were done well. But I think a lot of the things that they added could have been great. Some people love the step and arc with the ice and the water who died. But I agree that the changes were done for TV and to try and capture an audience that had never read the books, but it was really frustrating to book readers because we were like, why? And the answer is always TV. TV audience. You know what's crazy is? I'm going gonna keep watching. That's the craziest thing. We all agree that it's not awesome.

I like that. I'm glad. And I'm gonna keep watching. I watched a couple to kind of get ready to talk to you and then I was like, I'm sorry, this is not good and I am into this. I don't know. Yeah.

I can't quite explain it, but Show Don't Tell is what you brought up and that is a perfect segue into our final segment, Debate and Switch, which is very connected to the Wheel of Time. Today, we are gonna have a debate about Brandon Sanderson, the author of Brandon Sanderson. He finished the last few Wheel of Time books. He was the author who was designated

to finish those last few novels and finish the saga. He is a gigantic writer. Today we were gonna argue for and against Brandon Sanderson. And I'm gonna kick us off with my premise, my contention, that Brandon Sanderson is a bad writer. And then Mary Lou will come in with the counterpoint. So let me begin. Brandon Sanderson has written over 80 books.

He has sold 40 million copies, Mary Lou, but he is a bad writer. People rave about his magic systems. That's supposed to be the big selling point on Brandon Sanderson, but his magic systems are over explained and they are devoid of style or nuance. There's no, there's no mystery to them. The same goes for his societies and cultures. They're always over explained, over structured. They lack ambiguity, right? His characters are flat and one dimensional. And as a writer, he tells you rather than shows you. And I feel that maybe coming from a devout religious background, he sort of misses one of the fundamental truths about life, which is that it has no easy answers.

I think in Brandon Sanderson's worldview, there are direct answers to all the questions of life. Certainly in the world he creates, there are, okay? And Brandon Sanderson wants to give you all the answers. Okay. This makes his stories feel a little immature. He brags about the length of his books, but more writing does not equate to better writing. The entirety of the Lord of the Rings is like 1300 pages.

That is the length of wind and truth. 1300 pages. That is the length of wind and truth. 1300 pages. That is not extra quality. That's morbid bloat. He writes morbidly bloated books, but all of that would be forgivable if he didn't think he was funny. He thinks he's funny. This man has the sense of humor of a nine-year-old

and forces a joke on it feels like almost every page. I could have gotten through more of his novels if they weren't crammed with his inane witticisms. Perhaps he should have spent less time on magic systems and more time reading good authors or watching stand-up comedy if he's such a gigantic comedy fan, although maybe he's only a fan of his own comedy. Generally, I feel like these books are YA and I'm not into YA novels anymore. I'm 45. I like

to be challenged by the books that I read. And I feel like the popularity of Brandon Sanderson is because a lot of readers like to be comforted by the things that they read and feel not and don't like to be challenged. And so I will not be reading any more Brandon Sanderson books because I feel like there are too many books and life is too short. Okay, that is my spiel. I hope that incensed someone. That was my intent. But now Mary Lou, you're going to give the counterpoint.

The floor is yours. Counterpoint, Jared. I read The Way of Kings and I liked it. Was it too long? Yes. Was one of the main characters, Shallon, described every time she was spoken about as a funny, hilarious, sharp-witted, brilliant mind. And then all she said was puns. Yes. Oh, that's so painful. Puns are not comedy, by the world and the lore? Yes. It's a mystery and I can tell that there's something going on there. Do I think that a hard magic system takes the whimsy and mystery and joy of magic out of fantasy? I do. Yes, it does.

Do I think that Brando Sando is a really big nerd with a lot of money? Yes. Well, that's unquestionable. Do I think his thoughts on the Wheel of Time TV show are inane, yes. Did I enjoy his last three books of the Wheel of Time series? Yes. Do I think that they were some of the worst books in the series? Yes. Do I think that the way he writes women is borderline offensive?

Yes. Do I want to read more Way of Kings? Unfortunately, yes. So bait and switch. Yeah, Brandon Sanderson is a bad writer. I guess. He's a bad writer and I love it a little. Oh, it's bad though.

It's bad. Yeah. It's really bad. Well, I really appreciate your very nuanced take there. I think you really captured the complexity of Brandon Sanderson. And I wouldn't have thought that there was any complexity before you kind of got into it there. Yeah.

Yeah. The complexity is it's bad, got into it there. Yeah. Yeah. The complexity is it's bad, but I like it. Yep. Uh, well that seems to have been the theme to the show. Um, Mary Lou, thank you so much for guest hosting. Guys, if you are, if you have something to say about Brando Sando, hit us up in the discord, we want to fight with you come back next week unfortunately Joe O'Brien will be back but we're gonna get Mary Lou again soon

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