Speaker 1: Hello and happy New Year to all of our nerd ma'am,
Speaker 1: I'm Danny Fernan. Isn't sitting across from me is gay?
Speaker 1: And I hope that you do. You do accomplish all
Speaker 1: those resolutions you said before yourself, because you got it.
Speaker 1: You got this year. It's a new year. It's a
Speaker 1: new you say bye to your old boo. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Wait, what was that you said? Say?
Speaker 1: You didn't say you said say bye to your old boo. No, people,
Speaker 1: I mean, hang on, if your old boot has been
Speaker 1: down for the count all these years, it's like now,
Speaker 1: it's like now knew me? You know that person that
Speaker 1: stuck around with me and during my bad times I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready. That doesn't make I'm out of here. I'm
Speaker 1: out of here. I need to find someone else. I
Speaker 1: want to find someone that only likes the new shiny me,
Speaker 1: not the person that was down before I made it. UM,
Speaker 1: Welcome to a difficent We are strolling down memory lane again.
Speaker 1: This week was some of our favorite moments from the
Speaker 1: podcast from this past year. Um Iffy, does anything jump
Speaker 1: out at the top of your head like a favorite moments? No,
Speaker 1: just your life, just just my life. No, Yes, favorite moments.
Speaker 1: I was about to give you something in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, there's been tons of favorite moments. I think,
Speaker 1: like I said on Twitter, you know, Hector detailing the
Speaker 1: good Doctor Who and hearing those like like hearing Riley's
Speaker 1: great story about how Doctor Who inspires her and I
Speaker 1: even you know, hanging with an old Cannon and Chris.
Speaker 1: You know, that was a good time. And like a
Speaker 1: lot of y'all, a lot of the nerd fan really
Speaker 1: appreciated us touching on the lgbt Q plus community in
Speaker 1: the nerd community, and you know that's that's why we
Speaker 1: did it. We want you to feel seen. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I was really surprised that Lucy tom Lee Brenner, who
Speaker 1: did our Halloween episode, was able to do Halloween. They're
Speaker 1: just so many of them, and she did it so
Speaker 1: well in a way that was entertaining that it wasn't
Speaker 1: just like you know, reading off of Wikipedia or something
Speaker 1: like she was she Yeah, I was surprised that she
Speaker 1: was able to do that, and I enjoyed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I we got tons of more fun like that
Speaker 1: coming in two thousand nineteen. But for right now, here
Speaker 1: are some of our favorite clips. If you have something
Speaker 1: I need to say, though we are I don't know
Speaker 1: if you all know this a part of How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works comedy. We are two comedians and we're not going
Speaker 1: to just make this an educational, boring podcast. If you
Speaker 1: want that, go somewhere else. The reason why Iffie and
Speaker 1: I got picked up and got hired and we're sent
Speaker 1: some money's from How Stuff Works to be on this
Speaker 1: network is because our previous podcast where we had a
Speaker 1: really good chemistry together, so we like sharing our experiences.
Speaker 1: If you want someone to go over minute details of
Speaker 1: a nerdy thing, this is not the podcast for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah that it feels like some people just want the
Speaker 1: boring part about nerds stuff. I think the fun and
Speaker 1: and I know some people just took their headphones are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the fun in nerddom and the information from
Speaker 1: nerdom is people's reactions, which is why we have tons
Speaker 1: of guests who are passionate about the source material we're
Speaker 1: talking about, even if we may not be as well
Speaker 1: versed in it. That way, we have at least one
Speaker 1: person in the seats jazzed up, and also we get
Speaker 1: to turn around and let them tell us about their
Speaker 1: experience and get to share that with y'all. This isn't
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, I'm gonna like, we'll we'll give
Speaker 1: you the rundown on the basics, but we're not. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna like be like pop quiz, here's all this
Speaker 1: stuff because an episode thirty six of because I feel
Speaker 1: like if we did a podcast about that, people would
Speaker 1: only use it for evil. No one would use it
Speaker 1: for good. People would only use it to argue with us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do want to say, though, are most listened to
Speaker 1: episode still is our m c U episode with Hector
Speaker 1: Navarro where Dan and I were talking about this earlier
Speaker 1: where we did go on tangents. We talked about what
Speaker 1: we loved about the films and what we didn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just like here's a factual and then Thor showed
Speaker 1: up and then this and that, Like we gave you
Speaker 1: the main highlights of what you needed to know from
Speaker 1: each film, but then we discussed and debated about them,
Speaker 1: and I think that in also laughed a lot, and
Speaker 1: I think that is what makes this podcast great. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think you guys should be ashamed of
Speaker 1: yourselves for having emotional reactions to things that you love
Speaker 1: absolutely should be ashamed of you. I really like our
Speaker 1: comic Con episode where I talked about how I got
Speaker 1: in by pretending to be with party Boy from Jackass,
Speaker 1: and like those are the behind the things things that
Speaker 1: you need to know about. And how if you you
Speaker 1: got in trouble for like I don't know you were
Speaker 1: like sextying with a girl in a O L messenger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like those are interesting fun facts to know a nerd culture. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of which, we are Verine with Kyle here today,
Speaker 1: who was an expert in Avatar the Last Airbender. You
Speaker 1: actually have a tattooed on your body? I do. I
Speaker 1: have the symbol of the air Nomads tattooed on my
Speaker 1: body with the words let go because air is the
Speaker 1: element of freedom. How many people confuse that for a
Speaker 1: frozen tattoo? Most people confuse it for either six six
Speaker 1: six uh or or they think it's a Celtic symbol.
Speaker 1: Can I see I want to see you. It's so
Speaker 1: great because I see how it could be frozen. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also have my my French my fandom tattooed above
Speaker 1: my wrist to it. Oh yeah, and I got the
Speaker 1: biggest meaning I was trying to think of a non
Speaker 1: curse word way to describe this character. One of his
Speaker 1: battle cries Imperious Rex, and we all got it pretty
Speaker 1: close proximity Imperious Rex. Because I wanted a nerd tattoo
Speaker 1: that would be subtle, uh and cool. Also I like
Speaker 1: it being a reference that not every nerd gets straight
Speaker 1: up just speaking of gate keeping, but not even like
Speaker 1: to the people feel bad about it, but like one
Speaker 1: of those like if you know, you know, because I'm
Speaker 1: a big Marvel guy, really love uh, just the whole
Speaker 1: illuminati behind it, which yeah, sorry if you don't know
Speaker 1: by now. Imperious Rex is name or the submartor's battle cry.
Speaker 1: That's what he yells when he goes into battle, and
Speaker 1: it's Latin for powerful King. It's a it's kind of
Speaker 1: like if you've descended or us send it depending on
Speaker 1: your point of view to like a level of nerd
Speaker 1: dum you know, like you'll know and then it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: you're on my level. He but for all intensive purposes,
Speaker 1: he's the worst. And people were looking at me when
Speaker 1: I had this tattoo because everyone knows I'm a huge
Speaker 1: Black Panther fan. But there was a whole arc where
Speaker 1: him and Chia were at Osny're like, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about this conflicted? Yeah? Absolutely, I I understand. I'm
Speaker 1: an m A Frost fan from it. Also, I understand
Speaker 1: conflicting feelings. You know, that's only about three writers got her, right,
Speaker 1: So I understand your your your feelings. Well. Before we
Speaker 1: totally dive into the timeline of of Avatar The Last Airbender,
Speaker 1: what was your first introduction to it? How did you
Speaker 1: for I mean, where did you watch it when it
Speaker 1: first came out on Nickelodeon's I did not watch it
Speaker 1: when it first came out of Nickelodeon because I was
Speaker 1: in high school and I was I was too cool
Speaker 1: to watch it. But then a friend of mine when
Speaker 1: I got into college, I was like, you need to
Speaker 1: watch the show. You absolutely need to watch it. And
Speaker 1: it just ended. Uh, And so I got a hard
Speaker 1: drive with the three seasons of The Last Airbender and
Speaker 1: I just ran through it and it became I watched
Speaker 1: it at such a perfect moment in my life because
Speaker 1: so many of the lessons just kind of like I
Speaker 1: don't know, emboldened me and made me a better person
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and especially helped me like
Speaker 1: come into my own as like a queer person, so
Speaker 1: like I don't know, just a lot of ways. It
Speaker 1: really helped me out. It was the best. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: also didn't watch it in high school because I don't know,
Speaker 1: so I was looking at the timeline. It first aired
Speaker 1: February twenty one, two thousand and five, and that's when
Speaker 1: it premiered, and I was in my junior year of
Speaker 1: high school. Same thing, like the area that I lived,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really cool to watch quote unquote cartoons
Speaker 1: and I was still kind of secretly watching Dragon ball Z,
Speaker 1: but that was something that I started when I was ten,
Speaker 1: so a little bit different. The dragon ball Z can
Speaker 1: span a lot of age ranges, I feel like true,
Speaker 1: but it was still weird for me to watch it
Speaker 1: as a teenage girl where I was. And then I
Speaker 1: was looking because Legend of Cora then came out in
Speaker 1: twelve and I was like, oh, I was getting married then,
Speaker 1: and then I was getting divorced, so like I actually
Speaker 1: didn't really grow up. I didn't really watch this series
Speaker 1: at all. Like I still haven't really picked it up.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm really we brought on Kyle to
Speaker 1: kind of one because you're a huge expert and love it,
Speaker 1: but also to kind of fill in the gaps for me.
Speaker 1: You don't need to write me anybody. I know that
Speaker 1: I need to watch it, along with a billion other
Speaker 1: things that I haven't had time to watch. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying those times in my life were times when
Speaker 1: I wasn't when I was married, I would have to
Speaker 1: secretly like record anime that I wanted to watch. It
Speaker 1: was so weird. My husband kind of made me feel
Speaker 1: weird for being adult that watched cartoons. It's just a
Speaker 1: reminder and again I'm saying, I know it's not cartoons,
Speaker 1: but like that's what we'll call it, and just a
Speaker 1: reminder to me that there's still so many areas like
Speaker 1: that where we're really lucky to be in an area
Speaker 1: and I think in like part of nerd culture where
Speaker 1: it's cool or or acceptable, but like there's still so
Speaker 1: many areas and probably people listening where like they can't
Speaker 1: even openly talk about it with their coworkers because they're
Speaker 1: seen as weird, like if you don't have children, especially too.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's uh, if I could go back
Speaker 1: in time and tell myself in high school, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to watch this show because it is a
Speaker 1: kid show. It is on Nickelodeon, But it was written
Speaker 1: in such a way because originally it wasn't necessarily intended
Speaker 1: to be a kid show. Um, but they randomly got
Speaker 1: a few chances at Nickelodeon and they kind of turned
Speaker 1: it into a kid show. But the themes and the stories,
Speaker 1: so much of it is so dark, like they tell
Speaker 1: such an adult story. And by the third season it's like,
Speaker 1: oh no, like straight up, like you can blood bend people,
Speaker 1: like it's it's messed up. Can can we curse on here? No?
Speaker 1: But if you do, they messed up, messed up. It
Speaker 1: is some messed up stuff. There we go. So what
Speaker 1: is bending? So water benders um when they are during
Speaker 1: a full moon changes a little bit in legend core,
Speaker 1: but in the Last air Bender, water benders on a
Speaker 1: full moon can bend the water in your body and
Speaker 1: basically turn you into a puppet, which is horrifying and
Speaker 1: it also looks extremely painful, and it's like once once
Speaker 1: it gets to that level, it's like, oh yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not playing around, Like that's that's really messed up. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: they could pull the blood out of your body if
Speaker 1: they wanted to. Man, Yeah, no, it it's so funny
Speaker 1: because looking at this timeline was everything clicks back yea.
Speaker 1: So it dropped February two thousand and five, which was
Speaker 1: coming on my birthday and my junior, does you bring
Speaker 1: this up like as many times as you can, you know,
Speaker 1: deep in my weep face, you know, I'm watching Cowboy Bebop,
Speaker 1: according which on Robin on the PHS got the Nauto
Speaker 1: DVDs given to me at this point. So yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I looked down on Avatar heavy, like the worst type
Speaker 1: of And that's why it's so funny when people gate
Speaker 1: keep because when you when you do that gate keeping stuff,
Speaker 1: you are only hurting yourself because you do, especially when
Speaker 1: you do like elitest things like that. Like Avatar is
Speaker 1: a beautiful show. I I I've popped in and watched episodes,
Speaker 1: uh kind of, I think like during season two and
Speaker 1: three because it kind of still it gained traction at
Speaker 1: my school and people kind of were talking about it
Speaker 1: and so like I peeped in and then I graduated
Speaker 1: and people were openly to so I kind of but
Speaker 1: I never gave it the honest full watch. Um and
Speaker 1: that's and it was all because of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I think another I've I've I've I was that type
Speaker 1: of person It's a it's definitely a personality type where
Speaker 1: if something is popping, you want to find a reason
Speaker 1: not to like it. I did that with m F
Speaker 1: Doom and that's one of mine. That's that. It was
Speaker 1: with m F Doom that I told myself I would
Speaker 1: never do it again because everyone loved m F Doom,
Speaker 1: Like I think around same time junior senior year of
Speaker 1: high school and I was so like, he's over rating
Speaker 1: and for no reason, like I did not even know
Speaker 1: it m F Doom song, but because everyone was so
Speaker 1: into him, I had to be the guy who was
Speaker 1: not into him. So then he first did a feature
Speaker 1: on November has Come with the Gorillas, and that's when
Speaker 1: I heard it and I your boy loved the rap.
Speaker 1: But of course I've already set up this persona that
Speaker 1: I hate himf do so so much of other people
Speaker 1: are like this is a dumb thing that if he's
Speaker 1: doing but okay, and like I was like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I'll give it to you guys.
Speaker 1: His verse on November has Come was great obviously at
Speaker 1: this this point, that's the only I heard, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man. And then it wasn't until like I graduated
Speaker 1: high school and I was like, let me just check
Speaker 1: this out because I really never have. And I listened
Speaker 1: to Food, which came out in two thousand six, and
Speaker 1: it was made for people like me. It was literally
Speaker 1: a rapper that was made for me. He was he
Speaker 1: m F Doom. He was supposed to be Dr Doom.
Speaker 1: He inter cut like old Fantastic four clips into his wraps,
Speaker 1: like stuff that would blow my mind. I didn't know about,
Speaker 1: didn't even listen to because of this random need to
Speaker 1: be superior in my and I was gonna say nerddom,
Speaker 1: but they had nothing to just to be cool because
Speaker 1: I have to go against the grave, so for me,
Speaker 1: like on its most simple form, Doctor Who is a
Speaker 1: serialized sci fi series about a time traveling alien who
Speaker 1: travels space and time in a spaceship that looks like
Speaker 1: antime machine and spaceship that looks like a police box
Speaker 1: for nineteen sixties and that's and basically travels around usually
Speaker 1: with a companion, once in a while alone but very
Speaker 1: rarely because it shouldn't travel alone. Finding people like kind
Speaker 1: of stumbling upon people who are in trouble and helping them.
Speaker 1: And that's basically the premise of the show. So it's
Speaker 1: not unlike how like the premise of Star Trek is like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we have a thing that's happening in this area space,
Speaker 1: let's go check it out and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: That's basically what Doctor Who is like. They're often like
Speaker 1: the it's kind of quirky and at the hardest, which
Speaker 1: is the ship that they that they fly around in,
Speaker 1: which stands for time and relative dimension in space, Like
Speaker 1: they'll be like, Oh, we're gonna go to this cool
Speaker 1: vacation planet, and then they show up instead of planet
Speaker 1: instead and like there's like trouble of Bruin and they'll
Speaker 1: kind of figure out what's going on and then stop it.
Speaker 1: Are they often here on Earth? Other? Yes? Okay, both
Speaker 1: yes equally? Would you say, I'll make it goes from
Speaker 1: season to season. It can be. Some seasons are real
Speaker 1: the Earth heavy. We've actually had a pretty Earth heavy
Speaker 1: several years, But other seasons they almost never come to Earth.
Speaker 1: So this most recent scene they always look human. For
Speaker 1: the most part. There are aliens that are alien aliens
Speaker 1: but for the most part, doctors always doctor looks well,
Speaker 1: humans look time from the show, Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of humanoid races on this ship. Oh so there's an
Speaker 1: episodes actually actually from the show. Someone says, well, you
Speaker 1: look human. He goes, no, you look time lord. So
Speaker 1: there are what we perceived to be human. Time Lords
Speaker 1: basically look like humans, but they have two hearts and
Speaker 1: that's like the difference. That's the big difference between them.
Speaker 1: And they also can regenerate and have like longer, and
Speaker 1: they also can they've also I'm really glad that So
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna ask some questions. Sure um, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let you continue. So do they choose what they
Speaker 1: look like when they regenerate? Some can not, all can, um,
Speaker 1: some people have randoms. Sometime lords have random regenerations. Others
Speaker 1: can choose it. It's not super dug into the plot.
Speaker 1: That's kind of one of those things where it's just
Speaker 1: like in one episode the writers thought it was funny
Speaker 1: they have this woman changed her appearance a bunch, So
Speaker 1: I guess sometime lords can. The show is so fast
Speaker 1: and loose with cannon that it's like really fun to watch.
Speaker 1: Fans then like scramble to try to like this this
Speaker 1: is what this means, because basically what happened is there
Speaker 1: was one episode in the seventies where a character or
Speaker 1: named Romana who was the Doctor's companion, but she was
Speaker 1: also a time lord time lady. They replaced the actress
Speaker 1: in the second season that they had her, so they
Speaker 1: had her regenerate into the other actress and so they
Speaker 1: just had like a jokey scene the first episode with
Speaker 1: her where Romana kept walking in with different forms until
Speaker 1: she like solidified the one she was going to take
Speaker 1: and then travel with the doctor and it was La
Speaker 1: La Ward who was amazing. So that's like, so then
Speaker 1: like when you if you play the Doctor Who role
Speaker 1: playing game and you play, like if you're playing as
Speaker 1: a timelord, you can choose like customized regeneration as one
Speaker 1: of your options. Whereas you played the Doctor, you have
Speaker 1: like you can't choose your regeneration, Like the doctor can't
Speaker 1: like consciously choose his or her regeneration happens at random
Speaker 1: random generation. So there's two questions. Yes, so I remember
Speaker 1: there was a limit on how many regenerations that the
Speaker 1: doctor has, Uh, have we reached that it's been reset
Speaker 1: because the thing is the thing with that something like that,
Speaker 1: and that's that is a thing that was written into
Speaker 1: the show back in the like seventies and when they
Speaker 1: first started like fleshing out time Lord culture. Because when
Speaker 1: the show first started in sixty three with William Hartnell
Speaker 1: the first Doctor, the phrases that I'm using time Lord regeneration,
Speaker 1: two hearts gallop, right, none of that was part of
Speaker 1: the show yet. That was all the doctor was just
Speaker 1: a weird alien and he and his granddaughter were traveling
Speaker 1: the universe in this police box that like Tartist has
Speaker 1: now become like on the show the term people used
Speaker 1: for these ships. But in that episode, like the granddaughter
Speaker 1: just called her ship the Tartist because of the initials.
Speaker 1: That wasn't like the official title for it, but it's
Speaker 1: just been reckoned over time, Like yeah, they're all called Tartists.
Speaker 1: So the original one was like thirteen regenerations, and then
Speaker 1: what happened was at the end when Matt Smith became
Speaker 1: Peter Capaldi, there was they they had squeezed in an
Speaker 1: extra regeneration when they did the fifty the anniversary special.
Speaker 1: So there's a regeneration between Paul McGann, who was the
Speaker 1: Doctor who the actor who played the Doctor in the
Speaker 1: nineties TV movie who was the eighth Doctor, and christ
Speaker 1: for Eccleston who was the ninth Doctor, they squeezed in
Speaker 1: John Hurt as what we call the War Doctor. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is because Eccleston didn't come back
Speaker 1: virtually special, so they replaced so since he wouldn't come
Speaker 1: back for it, they wrote in this new version of
Speaker 1: the Doctor to kind of fulfill his role. So the
Speaker 1: idea is like, basically when the show came back into
Speaker 1: thousand five, when it kind of like had this soft
Speaker 1: reboot where it still had the old continuity, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of a new format show. Now it went
Speaker 1: from being a serialized twenty two minute episode show to
Speaker 1: being an hour each week, and each hour was like
Speaker 1: a pretty self contained story. They introduced this concept of
Speaker 1: there had been this awful genocidal war in between when
Speaker 1: the show ended and when it came back that they
Speaker 1: called the Time War, and at the end of that
Speaker 1: time War the Doctor. It was between the Doctor's race,
Speaker 1: the Time Lords, and their greatest enemy, the Daleks, and
Speaker 1: the end of the Time War was at that point
Speaker 1: was written to me that the Doctor did something that
Speaker 1: was called the moment. He unleased weapon called the Moment
Speaker 1: that destroyed both races and he was the only survivor
Speaker 1: of the war. And that's why Echolson's Doctor is so
Speaker 1: torn and tormented because he has this guilt of being
Speaker 1: the destructor of his own race on another race as well,
Speaker 1: which is very against what normally the creed of the
Speaker 1: Doctor is, which is very antigenicidal. And like there's an
Speaker 1: episode in Classic Who called Genesis of the Daleks where
Speaker 1: the Time Lord send the Doctor, which is Tom Baker's
Speaker 1: doctor back in time to the Daleks home world to
Speaker 1: try to prevent them from ever being created in the
Speaker 1: first place, and he ends up not doing it because
Speaker 1: he doesn't feel like he morally has the right to
Speaker 1: to deny and that our species the chance to exist.
Speaker 1: And it's a really interesting, fascinating episode. And so that
Speaker 1: was kind of the the crux of the new shows
Speaker 1: that Doctor had like broken his own promise, and that's
Speaker 1: why they brought in John Hurt, like he was like
Speaker 1: he hadn't even referred himself as the Doctor. He's the
Speaker 1: one who failed to be the Doctor. And then that's
Speaker 1: why he's the other ones are all feeling guilty then on,
Speaker 1: So that was one regeneration that was squeezed in. And
Speaker 1: also you may remember during David Tennant's run this Net
Speaker 1: Present episode where he starts to regenerate and then like
Speaker 1: sends the energy out of him into a hand and
Speaker 1: turns into a new doctor. So that was like counted
Speaker 1: as regeneration as well. And so basically what happened was
Speaker 1: when Matt Smith was at the end of his run,
Speaker 1: he said, like, I've used my regenerations. I'm dying. When
Speaker 1: I die, I'm dead, and then through plot things that
Speaker 1: I won't spoil for people haven't already heard it, they
Speaker 1: like re set his regenerations. And so Peter Capaldi was
Speaker 1: the first doctor of this news cycle and they've kind
Speaker 1: of now gone like, we don't know how many he
Speaker 1: has because they don't I think. I think when they
Speaker 1: made thirteen as the number that was back when the show,
Speaker 1: I had no idea they would last and come back
Speaker 1: after a break. So it was easy to toss out
Speaker 1: like a number. It seems super fluck when you're on,
Speaker 1: like when you're all on the fourth Doctor, it's easy
Speaker 1: to go, Yeah, thirteen regenerations, We'll see whatever. Now that
Speaker 1: we're on Doctor. It's like they don't want to say
Speaker 1: a set market. We might hit twenty six at some
Speaker 1: point because we're kind of going through these people every
Speaker 1: three years or so. That's true. Yeah, I wanted to
Speaker 1: go through some of these facts about when it first premiered.
Speaker 1: It was all over them out there, So no, no no,
Speaker 1: no nos, I want to stop you because I want
Speaker 1: you to go through those facts after these messages and
Speaker 1: we are back. I wanted to touch on the c
Speaker 1: w C. They're superhero shows, well several of their shows,
Speaker 1: but definitely their superhero shows seem to be really taking
Speaker 1: initiative as far as including more queer characters. I know,
Speaker 1: there's Thunder and Black Lightning, there's Curtis Holt on Arrow,
Speaker 1: there's the Flashes, Captain Sing, there's Alex Danvers and Supergirl
Speaker 1: Sarah Lance and Legends of Tomorrow gave a sharp and
Speaker 1: Ledgends of Tomorrow. Now we have Ruby Rose as Batwoman.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw that that was announced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very exciting. I think the main character too. You
Speaker 1: know bat Woman, he's one of the most fascinating characters.
Speaker 1: And you know, if it was a few years ago
Speaker 1: and you told me that they would announce Ruby Rose
Speaker 1: as Batwoman and she would be getting tons of hate.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, is it because it's a lesbian character? No,
Speaker 1: because nerds are bad? And and if if they think
Speaker 1: you don't because you know, all nerds are the perfect
Speaker 1: casting director. All these great fan casting picks that we see.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's what's so funny. It's every time
Speaker 1: fans cast something, it's always trash, or the budget would
Speaker 1: be insane, or that person would not dedicate, like it's
Speaker 1: like get out of here, like they were upset with
Speaker 1: Was it Heath Ledger when he was originally Yes, that's
Speaker 1: so true. Fantastic um. Yeah, and there's also isn't Voltron
Speaker 1: have characters? They just confirmed it at Comic Conto. Oh
Speaker 1: and uh, thinking of even video games because I forgot
Speaker 1: this reference. Tracer from Overwatch the one of the main
Speaker 1: faces of over watching lesbians. So yeah, I would be
Speaker 1: remiss if I mentioned Stephen Universe, which is brilliant, beautiful,
Speaker 1: such a positive bright. I mean even they though if
Speaker 1: even their fans are bad bad you want to like
Speaker 1: hit I want to like roll up a newspaper slash
Speaker 1: like spray them. But I also think it's the issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, Cannon sometimes deals with this working at PlayStation.
Speaker 1: There is sometimes a huge amount It seems like it's
Speaker 1: a large number of people on Twitter, but it's because
Speaker 1: it makes people's voices sound bigger than it actually is.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times the Internet will freak out
Speaker 1: about something. It doesn't necessarily reflect the majority. It doesn't
Speaker 1: reflect sales, it doesn't reflect the majority of a fan base.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really reflect anything except for Internet. You know,
Speaker 1: Twitter height, which sometimes means absolutely nothing. It's it's bizarre. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. I know that you're good friends with
Speaker 1: Kelly Marie Tran and she experienced like so much hate
Speaker 1: that she got off social media. But the thing is
Speaker 1: that when I was at Comic Con there were so
Speaker 1: many people dressed like Rose Tico that it was just
Speaker 1: I mean, what it like. People just love her so much,
Speaker 1: But it's hard when like all you've seen as a
Speaker 1: small minority of Star Wars obsessive harassment. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: majority of Star Wars fans are super lovely, nice people.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: two with people will have multiple accounts that the log
Speaker 1: into it makes if you. You you can have represents
Speaker 1: so many different people on Twitter that it it allows
Speaker 1: to for a falsehood of what actually is. But it's
Speaker 1: also I mean, it's why you know, Kelly's not on
Speaker 1: you know, Instagram. It's because sometimes you don't need to
Speaker 1: read everything all of the negativity. Yeah, and also it's
Speaker 1: one thing that's important to know. It may seem like
Speaker 1: when you're getting all the notifications and all the people
Speaker 1: in your mentions, you know, it may seem like, damn,
Speaker 1: this is a huge amount of people who think this,
Speaker 1: but only seven percent of them Americans are using Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's seven percent of Americans are using Twitter. A fake account.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of fake accounts, and that's a lot
Speaker 1: of like that's not a lot of people. So so
Speaker 1: that and and you know what it is. I find
Speaker 1: that to be true because whenever something big happens on
Speaker 1: Twitter and you do kind of step out to the
Speaker 1: real world and you're like, have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: And someone hasn't, You're like how, But like when you
Speaker 1: see a number like that seven percent, you're like, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess not, you know, I guess I guess it
Speaker 1: isn't as as big a big a world as we
Speaker 1: think it is. It just feels that way. It is
Speaker 1: people from other countries and smaller areas as well. I
Speaker 1: was also going to say, talking on the thing of
Speaker 1: online harassment, I mean it's something that Cannon has had
Speaker 1: to deal with working with PlayStation and everything. I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you can talk at all, you get like death
Speaker 1: threats from LinkedIn. They used to be really common, so
Speaker 1: when the PlayStation never was a little bit less reliable
Speaker 1: than it is now. Any time we have an outage,
Speaker 1: it's totally common for people that have PlayStation and they're
Speaker 1: linked to profile to get death threats in your inbox. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's fairly common, and it's it's it's not it's endemic
Speaker 1: to the whole gaming industry. Like I have female friends
Speaker 1: that work at studios, and a lot of them won't
Speaker 1: even put what the name of the studio they're working
Speaker 1: at because the game will get released and then someone
Speaker 1: will be like, well, this level, this thing was misdesigned.
Speaker 1: So I'll go and find a female graphic artists and
Speaker 1: just start sending her death threats and hate mail, and
Speaker 1: then everyone just bandwagons. And I remember that was a
Speaker 1: huge thing that happened with I believe mass effect where
Speaker 1: they were blaming this one woman for ruining the game
Speaker 1: and someone had to come in and be like, well,
Speaker 1: she didn't even have that huge a part of it.
Speaker 1: There's actually these men, but you guys are targeting her
Speaker 1: and it is interesting, and you know, does PlayStation do
Speaker 1: anything to protect y'all? Like can you report these people
Speaker 1: and you know, get their accounts yanked or anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends on the social media using. I mean, Lincoln
Speaker 1: has a pretty robust reporting system for offensive material, so
Speaker 1: it's not so bad. But eventually saying that LinkedIn is
Speaker 1: like the not the thing that you should be doing.
Speaker 1: Like LinkedIn, you can see where they work and who
Speaker 1: that person is that doesn't like Twitter, I understand because
Speaker 1: you're like a random anime avatar, but like linked In,
Speaker 1: the fact that someone is oh man, I mean. But
Speaker 1: the craziest thing is you would think that Twitter would
Speaker 1: have a more robust reporting system than LinkedIn, because LinkedIn
Speaker 1: at least you're a level of professionals where Twitter should
Speaker 1: be doing everything it can. But we're learning more and
Speaker 1: more every day, and I'm gonna just leave it at that,
Speaker 1: and you know, just leave it at that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think um one thing. And this probably may sound crass,
Speaker 1: but you just sort of learned to rise above it
Speaker 1: and ignore it because it used to really bother me.
Speaker 1: And then I just started saying, you know, none of
Speaker 1: this matters, Like they're not going to do anything. These
Speaker 1: people are hiding behind a keyboard. And all the people
Speaker 1: that I went into, like, I have a When we
Speaker 1: launched the PS four, everyone got jackets that said PS
Speaker 1: four Launch Team, and I would just sometimes wear that
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking and I would have people come up
Speaker 1: in grocery stores and in malls and just randomly and
Speaker 1: they'd be like, oh my god, you worked on the
Speaker 1: PS four. Can I shake your hand? And they just
Speaker 1: like the fans are like the best part, right, And
Speaker 1: it's I think it's important to remember the good experiences
Speaker 1: more than the bad ones, because if we let the
Speaker 1: bad ones kind of occupy our mind space, then everything's
Speaker 1: gonna just it's so difficult. I feel like for me,
Speaker 1: I look at it as a glass of water with
Speaker 1: the amount of sexual harassment that I deal with, and
Speaker 1: I send it Chris, I feel like you have been
Speaker 1: such a positive I just want to take this moment.
Speaker 1: You're just you and Iffy have seen so much of
Speaker 1: the the harassment that I've dealt with trying to be
Speaker 1: in this space, and I just both are very supportive
Speaker 1: men in my life. But I wanted to say I
Speaker 1: look at it as like a glass of water, and
Speaker 1: it fills up, fills up, fills up, fills up, and
Speaker 1: then eventually I can't take it anymore and overflows, and
Speaker 1: then I kind of spiral from the harassment and I
Speaker 1: might take a break, I might step back, and and
Speaker 1: it sucks. I agree, because I want to read all
Speaker 1: my comments. I want to answer the messages, but that
Speaker 1: means I have to see all the really bad ones,
Speaker 1: and it's very hard mentally to handle that. I think
Speaker 1: the scary thing is how Twitter is like the new
Speaker 1: KKK hood. I mean, I do mean that though, because
Speaker 1: I mean people. It's so crazy how people who are hateful,
Speaker 1: spiteful individuals they do it in a way where they
Speaker 1: can still go to their day jobs. Like you must
Speaker 1: morally know deep down inside that you're doing something wrong
Speaker 1: and hateful if you're acting that way, but I think
Speaker 1: you're It's a lot of people who are on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and I think the biggest way that I've used to
Speaker 1: combat hatred is with our group meeting nerds who are positive,
Speaker 1: whether it's queer, people of color or just people who
Speaker 1: are loving, you know, people who are doing something for
Speaker 1: the better good. Whatever your group is, it's finding people
Speaker 1: in person to talk to, because I think the best
Speaker 1: way to combat the internet hate is making a present
Speaker 1: outside in person is the best way to combat that.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna don't want to get too political,
Speaker 1: but you know, a big part of the Trump election
Speaker 1: for me was processing how kind of awful it made
Speaker 1: me feel and how terrible I thought everything was. And
Speaker 1: what I eventually decided after kind of coming out of
Speaker 1: that fog, was that, you know, I can't change anyone's mind,
Speaker 1: I can't fight the hate directly. But what I can
Speaker 1: do is I can spend my time, my energy, and
Speaker 1: my money on helping the people in my community and
Speaker 1: then building that up. And that's kind of what made
Speaker 1: me get into activism. It's why I volunteer at the center.
Speaker 1: That's why the Ely Gaming Society is starting to have
Speaker 1: fundraisers for the queer youth of Los Angeles so that
Speaker 1: we can get people, you know, onto a better track
Speaker 1: so that they're not homeless or not alone, or they
Speaker 1: don't feel so depressed all the time by all this negativity.
Speaker 1: And I can say that by putting my focus towards
Speaker 1: those kinds of things, my outlook has approved exponentially, even
Speaker 1: though the news un a fairly consistent negative is crazy.
Speaker 1: Like having a positive outlet where I can take kind
Speaker 1: of that nervous negative energy and work it into something
Speaker 1: has made a world difference for me. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: you saw like you see negative homophobic like Kitako would
Speaker 1: have like a negative you know, this homophobic thing happened today.
Speaker 1: They didn't write about like our E three party, how
Speaker 1: we raise so much money for the we I think
Speaker 1: we raised I don't even know how many, like five
Speaker 1: over five thousand dollars just for video games for LGBT,
Speaker 1: you know, youth to play at the center, um, so
Speaker 1: that they can have an outlet, which is amazingly enough,
Speaker 1: by the way, video games is such a healthy outlet
Speaker 1: that brings people together. And and then seeing people being
Speaker 1: brought together who are queer nerds who are thirty to
Speaker 1: forty years old, you know, who never had that outlet
Speaker 1: and in an adult space, I think they're positive things
Speaker 1: that are happening by us focusing on our community. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that maybe the news can eventually pick up on
Speaker 1: some of those positive articles. To quote a great movie
Speaker 1: by the name of Nightcrawler. If it leads, it leads,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's the that's what the news is.
Speaker 1: In the business of the moment, the news became the
Speaker 1: business this it's less about you know, sharing the news
Speaker 1: and more so what can we do that's going to
Speaker 1: you know, activate people and get a reaction out of
Speaker 1: them and get them sharing our stuff. So, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: I find that in multiple communities and multiple things throughout
Speaker 1: the news scope, everything positive kind of gets swept under
Speaker 1: the rug because they'd rather get someone mad who's going
Speaker 1: to retweet it and then say something snark and then
Speaker 1: someone's gonna add their snark. Me usually I'm involved in that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it is. And I think that is
Speaker 1: a great advice to anyone in their communities is if
Speaker 1: you are feeling hopeless, are feeling like, how do I
Speaker 1: make a change? Everyone thinks that, you know, I find
Speaker 1: that a lot of people believe that you need a
Speaker 1: million dollars to make meaningful change, and that's just not
Speaker 1: the case. You know, meaningful change could just be as
Speaker 1: simple as mentoring you know someone who is you know
Speaker 1: just like you, or someone who you think needs it
Speaker 1: if he did. You want to go over some of
Speaker 1: your favorite games? Yeah, I'm we're just going to do
Speaker 1: a quick dash all through the games because there are
Speaker 1: so many, and I just want to talk about the
Speaker 1: like huge influential ones, uh, instead of just going through
Speaker 1: all of them that have spanned from to this very year.
Speaker 1: Uh So you had, you know, Sonics one and two
Speaker 1: two was the game. I feel like it was the
Speaker 1: staple game, the spin Dash, the one everyone played, and
Speaker 1: then three took it up a notch by introducing Knuckles,
Speaker 1: because really, that's a third character in this franchise that
Speaker 1: you now get to play. You're able to play as
Speaker 1: uh Tales or Miles if you want to be Danny
Speaker 1: when you with the second player, and they would be
Speaker 1: able to run besides you. So that was like the
Speaker 1: two player aspect. I think the next big game in
Speaker 1: the series actually came after Sonic and Knuckles. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize these were back to back. I always felt there
Speaker 1: was so much time between them, and there was a
Speaker 1: Sonic and uh Sonic. The Hedgehog three dropped four years
Speaker 1: later we get Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Adventure came out
Speaker 1: for the Dreamcast, and it was a moment because because
Speaker 1: the Dreamcast was was hot at the time. It was
Speaker 1: the reason people. Yeah, that was the reason people bought Dreamcast.
Speaker 1: And then it introduced that like Dreamcast used to have
Speaker 1: this uh I forget the name of it, but it
Speaker 1: was like a yeah that you would put in and
Speaker 1: you would put the what is it, the chow's the
Speaker 1: chows from the game, and you'd be able to take
Speaker 1: care of it outside of it. So basically all this
Speaker 1: like all the kids going crazy over the Pokemon, the
Speaker 1: poke ball, plus that you get to it was like
Speaker 1: we've been on that since since the Yeah, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: sounding like old crotching. So there were great games after
Speaker 1: that because you had um Sonico six. Yeah that was
Speaker 1: that was when your emails Yeah, oh man, well were
Speaker 1: I'm not no, no, you're right, because you're mentioning the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Because the Sonic fans, which I used the
Speaker 1: term loosely because this isn't very fan is a fan
Speaker 1: centric way to act, oftentimes will say that Sonic Adventure
Speaker 1: or Sonic Adventure two was the last good game or whatever,
Speaker 1: Sonic they like was the last. But one thing everyone
Speaker 1: kind of did agree with was Sonic which one was it? Yes,
Speaker 1: Sonic Rush for the d S, which was not on
Speaker 1: this list, which makes me smarter than the internet. Uh,
Speaker 1: Sonic Rush was super fun and in it you you
Speaker 1: played as Sonic and also your your counterpart was what
Speaker 1: was her name, Blaze the Cat And it was a
Speaker 1: very fast paced, fun game it was, and everyone agreed,
Speaker 1: because you know, I hate when I really like a
Speaker 1: game and everyone's like, no, you shouldn't like it. It's that.
Speaker 1: Luckily that didn't happen with this game. Everyone liked it. It
Speaker 1: It had a fun story, it looked great. It was
Speaker 1: such a blast Sonic Rush. But then those knuckles in that,
Speaker 1: I mean, how could you enjoy that? If your favorite
Speaker 1: I like you, I guess, I guess you're kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Super cool that you got that you got to play
Speaker 1: Sonic and Super Smash Brothers. Yeah, so cool again, like
Speaker 1: getting to be a part of something like this, Like
Speaker 1: those things just sort of like kind of fall into
Speaker 1: your lap, you know what I mean. It's like it's
Speaker 1: one of the things that kind of and it's like
Speaker 1: a crossover. Absolutely same thing with the same thing with
Speaker 1: with you know, Record und Ralph. Yeah a sudden it
Speaker 1: was like somebody called them and they're like, yeah, Disney
Speaker 1: wants you for something. I was like, for what this
Speaker 1: thing Record Ralph? And I'm like, okay, what what a
Speaker 1: what am I doing? They're like, you're doing Sonic. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: something's wrong. I was like no, I don't think you know.
Speaker 1: And then showed up and they're like yeah, we we
Speaker 1: we we wanted sound like the Hedgehog and they're like
Speaker 1: you got to use our guy. And it was like
Speaker 1: all really so because that was gonna be my question
Speaker 1: on the the side. Was it a them hitting you
Speaker 1: up and you needing permission? But so they wanted Sonic
Speaker 1: and Saga was like Roger, I would imagine it was
Speaker 1: a licensing thing. I mean, I think that's how that works. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean obviously I'm a brilliant voice actor
Speaker 1: and they were lucky to have me regardless, and it's
Speaker 1: just pure luck that the licensing. No. I actually think
Speaker 1: that that, um with most of those characters. I think
Speaker 1: that they mandate that, if you know, because when you
Speaker 1: think about something like, you know, Disney doing a Record
Speaker 1: Ralph with all those different video game characters. I think
Speaker 1: if they're gonna say, we're gonna use your guys or gals,
Speaker 1: we want to have, you know, the characters, be honest,
Speaker 1: because they had Kylie barras we you That's what I
Speaker 1: was gonna go to. Now is it seems like you're
Speaker 1: in secause you're Insanega's Wheelhouse. Now they're like, you're you're
Speaker 1: Sonic your son I mean, until I'm not. Once they
Speaker 1: see you take a self with with Mario, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you go. It's like, oh, he's doing a Twitch channel
Speaker 1: and he's he's as the character. We don't allow that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. But yeah, that was pretty much the games.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the first Sonic series that we
Speaker 1: referenced with Julio White was the height of like nineties
Speaker 1: games fever, when we had your Super Mario movies, when
Speaker 1: you had the Super Mario TV show, They're like this,
Speaker 1: you need a TV show because games are popping right now.
Speaker 1: But then after that you got I think there was
Speaker 1: the Sonic anime series before. Yeah, Sonic X. Yes, I
Speaker 1: remember Sonic X because Sonic X was one of those
Speaker 1: shows that were I was a little too old for
Speaker 1: it at that time. It came out two thousand four,
Speaker 1: two thousand five, which means I was a junior, uh
Speaker 1: in high school, and I was like, you know how
Speaker 1: old but they had video games back. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: was in it though. I was like, look, I don't
Speaker 1: care what people say. I love Sonic, a Sonic anime.
Speaker 1: Let's go. But then then we got the Sonic series
Speaker 1: that that everyone's talking about. Did I skip? Was it
Speaker 1: Sonic Extan Sonic Boom? I'm not crazy? No, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I was under my fourth wife. I think at the
Speaker 1: time that Sonic Extra is coming out, so you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: using that. Oh that's funny too. I'm trying to look
Speaker 1: up Sonic Boom while we talk about it, and of
Speaker 1: course I got videos of Fighter Chain, funny Sonoma, Sonic
Speaker 1: Boom cartoon that might be a little better, but we're
Speaker 1: so we're going to get into Sonic Boom right after
Speaker 1: these messages. All right, welcome back, Still sitting here with
Speaker 1: Aaron Powell and my man Ed Greer holding it down.
Speaker 1: This has been a fun one we've been It's been
Speaker 1: like an open conversation dropping facts instead of going you know,
Speaker 1: in the normal order. But that's what happen is when
Speaker 1: you know, when we're tapping in, it feels like instead
Speaker 1: of an episode where we're falling along with an expert,
Speaker 1: we have three passionate experts. So you know, sorry, this
Speaker 1: one's a little harder for you to fall along. I
Speaker 1: implore you to tweet us. We will keep the conversation
Speaker 1: going on. But I feel like we're doing a good
Speaker 1: job of like weaving in the top and bottom. But
Speaker 1: you know, one thing we didn't touch on, and I
Speaker 1: did say we're going to talk about playing with emotions
Speaker 1: is how people reacted to Miles and and once again,
Speaker 1: this was another thing that we were all so luckily
Speaker 1: able to experience live and direct. And it was funny
Speaker 1: when you know, while like Stanley gave it the okay
Speaker 1: thumbs up and people like us really loved it, you
Speaker 1: had those fans out there that do what they do
Speaker 1: anytime any diversity initiative launches a diverse character, switches up
Speaker 1: or red cons and add something. You had people complaining
Speaker 1: that you know, this is just a move for for
Speaker 1: political correctness and and you know you're just trying to
Speaker 1: check on PC. And you know there's many takes that
Speaker 1: people have, many responses and minds is always yep, so okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a thing we want to be represented. So it's
Speaker 1: like yelling at a dude in the tesla, like you're
Speaker 1: just trying to save the environment. Yeah. The one, the
Speaker 1: one thing that I always brought at and on that
Speaker 1: regard is when they go, Okay, you're just doing this
Speaker 1: for diversity, You're just doing this for whatever reason. Everything
Speaker 1: is just for some reason. Everything is just for some agenda.
Speaker 1: And up until very recently, the agenda has been I
Speaker 1: don't want to call it white supremacy, but let's call
Speaker 1: it white a Okay, you know what I mean. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I like to call it that. The one rule that
Speaker 1: most waves of business go back. It's called I'm white,
Speaker 1: and I say so, that's usually that's usually the reason
Speaker 1: for a lot of things. And then when we we
Speaker 1: get something like it's a comic book character, it's a
Speaker 1: fictional character, and he had your own separate but equal you,
Speaker 1: and first for a long time, exactly, they eased you
Speaker 1: into it. He didn't show up with your mom, your
Speaker 1: new daddy. Well, here's the funny thing about it, and
Speaker 1: here's my like less cynical way of doing it because
Speaker 1: I try, and you know, as I get deeper in
Speaker 1: the nerds space and as we become more talking points,
Speaker 1: I try and like take a little bit of snap
Speaker 1: energy because you know, rest in peace. John Schnapp, he
Speaker 1: always like one thing I want to take from him
Speaker 1: is just his ability to kind of like try and
Speaker 1: like ease you into it and not be the DMX
Speaker 1: of nerdom, which I am usually want to do. And
Speaker 1: the way I look at it, is it, honestly, if
Speaker 1: we're not being just straight up cynical and we're just
Speaker 1: being facts for facts. Before a certain time media was
Speaker 1: made for white people. You you knew you were creating
Speaker 1: it for a majority white person. You know that the
Speaker 1: only people who needed to relate to it is white people.
Speaker 1: But what we all know now, especially as all of
Speaker 1: us are creators, We are writers, we are actors, We
Speaker 1: we work in this industry industry, So this isn't speculative,
Speaker 1: This isn't speculation, this is just facts. When you are
Speaker 1: creating art, you're trying to touch your audience. You're trying
Speaker 1: to touch your viewers, and you're gonna do everything you
Speaker 1: can to make them feel included. You're gonna do everything
Speaker 1: you can to look on that screen and have them go, oh,
Speaker 1: that can be me. And you know, for so long
Speaker 1: a lot of people of color had to look at
Speaker 1: these white people on screen and and find themselves in them.
Speaker 1: And in the end we made it work. And now
Speaker 1: we're getting to a place where you're getting a lot
Speaker 1: of creatives who are like, let's switch it up. Let's
Speaker 1: you know, create this character who you know black kids
Speaker 1: can look up to and go like, that's me. But
Speaker 1: it's the all quote about how equality seems like oppression.
Speaker 1: You haven't, you know, get it out. And I think
Speaker 1: that that when they see they don't realize what it
Speaker 1: was like for me as little kid to be like
Speaker 1: looking up to Thor Thor don't look like nobody that's
Speaker 1: been in my family history for a hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: And I got to see myself and this North do
Speaker 1: with a belt made of cow hide and all this jazz.
Speaker 1: But you can't see yourself in a Brooklyn teenager when
Speaker 1: you probably was a teen in Brooklyn. Have these people
Speaker 1: who are balking at Miles lived Miles his life and
Speaker 1: saying they can't see it themselves in them because of
Speaker 1: his skin. And I think that's that's that's a weird situation.
Speaker 1: But like you said, snap energy, I feel as though
Speaker 1: it's also the fact that it's belying that jazz about
Speaker 1: there is no audience for this when I've gone into
Speaker 1: several comic book stores and seeing people unbidden Like sometimes
Speaker 1: I've walked into several combook stores and had a diversity
Speaker 1: in comics. Uh conversation pop up as I walked in
Speaker 1: the store. I don't know what that's about. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's time to talk about diversity in
Speaker 1: commix and how whack it is. And I'm just people.
Speaker 1: One of the main talking points they say is black
Speaker 1: people and women and lesbians or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: connect with the Latinos. They don't really read comics. That's so,
Speaker 1: and I would just love for that. That is also
Speaker 1: part of it. It is a business. There is a
Speaker 1: business reason beyond a lot of this diversity, and it
Speaker 1: is to sell to people who are playing comics that
Speaker 1: do not happen to look like regular Peter Parker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and lots of times it's just dated information and that
Speaker 1: you just kept using, like the example that a black
Speaker 1: lead you know, movie can't do well overseas, and then
Speaker 1: which is totally so surprised that black panthers this smash
Speaker 1: hit that is doing well. Look at Fast and Furious,
Speaker 1: which is a black lead movie, Like, get whatever you
Speaker 1: think out of your mind. Almost all of those actors
Speaker 1: in that movie, if they're not Latin X people, they're black.
Speaker 1: The Rock is black. I'm sorry people, it's sorry people forget,
Speaker 1: but look his daddy. His name is Dawaye Johnson. D
Speaker 1: Wayne Johnson, Okay, his name is Dawayne Johnson. He is like,
Speaker 1: no matter how much they've tried to poke up his
Speaker 1: I don't think he's ever played a black person explicitly
Speaker 1: on film, but the Rock is a black dude. He
Speaker 1: was in a faction called the Nation of Domination based
Speaker 1: on the Nation. Well he's doing the news. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: doing the new Schwitzenegger where it's like this fool's name
Speaker 1: is John Matrix and he got the thick German excit
Speaker 1: but he got all the clearances with the Delta Force.
Speaker 1: Oh well, well they do that with Dwayne right now.
Speaker 1: John Claude, Van Damage Street Fighter. Yeah, and I called
Speaker 1: him Russian, not the muscles from Brussels. So when when
Speaker 1: my some of the some of the reactions to him. Yes,
Speaker 1: there were some people who definitely balked at him, and
Speaker 1: there were also the people. Let's kind of talk about
Speaker 1: some of the people who are just like, well, why
Speaker 1: can't he just have his own thing? Oh, let's yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because there are some people
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, they're the yeah and they and they
Speaker 1: really try to try and make that strong argument of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if he had his own thing, that'd be better than
Speaker 1: just rebranding X Y Z. And really it's coming from
Speaker 1: the same place. I think. You know, I think there
Speaker 1: is a corner of people who like it is driven
Speaker 1: by racism, but I think there's another corner of people
Speaker 1: who just don't like change. I think it even if
Speaker 1: it was like you know, Rammy Schwartz and it was
Speaker 1: like just this new Jewish kid who was Spider Man,
Speaker 1: people would be just as mad. And it was just
Speaker 1: because they're like, you're changing the thing that I like,
Speaker 1: and for some reason, I'm forgetting that I always have
Speaker 1: every future iteration of the thing. And what's the funny is,
Speaker 1: like people being mad about Miles Morales, they were actually
Speaker 1: doing that thing that people try and say where it's
Speaker 1: like we are creating this own thing. But now it's
Speaker 1: a problem. It's a problem because like they weren't saying,
Speaker 1: could they create their own thing? With the eight kid flashes,
Speaker 1: we've had no one said, No one's saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: but but we get a black kid flash. Now it's
Speaker 1: a problem. Why can't he have his own thing? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: black dude running fast, kind of racist, but you know
Speaker 1: his name is Wally, which is an old black man.
Speaker 1: Well are you having with the first one? That second
Speaker 1: one feel like a reach. Can't think Wallace Wallace Willis West. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The thing I was thinking about also is given these
Speaker 1: legacy characters personally, I think I am one of the
Speaker 1: few fans that I love the fact that he's Spider Man.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that he had Spider powers, but
Speaker 1: he's more than Spider Man as well. It's almost like
Speaker 1: he's in a situation where Cassandra Caine Batgirl was in
Speaker 1: for a long time. Cassandra Caine as back Girl was
Speaker 1: for my generation, the best bad girl and she she
Speaker 1: could do so many things that Barbara Gordon could not
Speaker 1: do as a as a because she was different and
Speaker 1: she did speak, yeah, full stop. She was different. She
Speaker 1: had a bunch of different stuff, and Myles has so
Speaker 1: many different things. I would love to see him become
Speaker 1: a character kind of like the Scarlet Spider or the
Speaker 1: night Wing situation or something like that. If they did
Speaker 1: that organically, I would not think that was capitulating to
Speaker 1: racism or whatever. I would just think that was like,
Speaker 1: because if he's not gonna be the Spider Man of
Speaker 1: a universe, this whole two Spider Man jazz does weird
Speaker 1: be out? It kind of does. What are you trying
Speaker 1: to do? Is like it be like if there was
Speaker 1: a Daredevil that fought and this three three acre section
Speaker 1: of Kill's kitchen, and then a Dare Devil that was
Speaker 1: chilling in Manhattan and had better suits and better clothes
Speaker 1: and stuff. That's kind of how they did it for
Speaker 1: a minute. And now Spider Man's a poor bum again.
Speaker 1: They made him lose his company to ground him a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's almost like people forget that what they
Speaker 1: love about Spider Man is their own youth, yea, their
Speaker 1: own youth. They were sitting on a bed at fourteen,
Speaker 1: and that was reading about this white Spider Man going
Speaker 1: through his troubles, eating his wheatcakes, and that was their dude.
Speaker 1: That they know what I'm saying. And uh, well, of course,
Speaker 1: since you brought up we're gonna stop and talk about
Speaker 1: Quang's toy collection, because you know, everyone has a collection
Speaker 1: in mind when you think of someone's toy collection. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you my experience of witnessing the glory
Speaker 1: that is Kwang's toy collection. I was that who was it? Was?
Speaker 1: It a birthday? Christmas party? Knows the Christmas party with
Speaker 1: yesterday's Christy all have the best Christmas party. And I
Speaker 1: am waiting for my invite for this year's. Uh man,
Speaker 1: it's and that secret saying I got sniped. I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm not still mad about that. It was the
Speaker 1: it was so good. It was a Mickey Mouse, uh
Speaker 1: toaster where it scores Mickey Mouse. Yeah, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is dope. It's gonna be for Naomi. She's good
Speaker 1: and someone. And so just so people understand what we're
Speaker 1: we're doing secret Santa in the sense where everyone brings
Speaker 1: a gift. It's in the pilephant, white elephant. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets pretty pretty vicious. Yeah, so everyone can swap
Speaker 1: two times, so you and if you and everyone can
Speaker 1: only get stolen from two times, so if after you
Speaker 1: get stolen from the second time, you're safe. So stolen
Speaker 1: from once, it was like the last round two and
Speaker 1: I was like, I think I'm good. I had this
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse toaster and then nope, I someone stole and
Speaker 1: gave me this creepy doll that's a light and you
Speaker 1: know it's a cool doll but also very creepy. It
Speaker 1: comes with a ghost too. Yeah. Actually know someone stole
Speaker 1: the ghost for me because that was because I think
Speaker 1: that was my first thing and I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: don't want someone like, oh no, this is my bag light.
Speaker 1: But so we go um and uh. I think it
Speaker 1: was Quang who was like, you want to see my
Speaker 1: toy collection there. We were like yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, but I was I was game. After the
Speaker 1: ghost doll, I'm like, let's go. Uh. And we go
Speaker 1: to like your basement and you turn on a light
Speaker 1: and it was the most toys I've seen in one place.
Speaker 1: And this is someone who's been to melt down rest
Speaker 1: in peace. Uh, and like it was just so many
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this is what I need
Speaker 1: in life. I wish I can have this many dope toys,
Speaker 1: you know, I was really lucky that my mom just
Speaker 1: really didn't throw anything away. Um And and in all honesty,
Speaker 1: I've gone through like a lot of different times of collecting.
Speaker 1: I've I've been collecting like designer Vinyl toys for a
Speaker 1: very long time. And I actually weirdly went through a
Speaker 1: phase of where I got so over it when you know,
Speaker 1: um eBay sort of took hold of of it and
Speaker 1: like the prices just went out of control, uh you know.
Speaker 1: And and so I actually stepped away from the hobby
Speaker 1: for a long time. And then I took a trip
Speaker 1: to Japan. And then there's a store kit called Him
Speaker 1: and Rock out there, which is you know there there's
Speaker 1: like it's a chain, there's a few. Yeah, there's a chain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a chain of them. There's a you know. But
Speaker 1: the one that I was first introduced to is basically
Speaker 1: like an eight story mall where each floor is like
Speaker 1: a different like era of toy um and and the
Speaker 1: shelves are just packed and you can only fit like
Speaker 1: one person through at a time through the aisles, and
Speaker 1: the prices at the time, um, we're very um good.
Speaker 1: And I basically it was just like I'm back in Yeah,
Speaker 1: you like this. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And well you know, I I never asked this because
Speaker 1: you just kind of started doing it. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you're an artist, so you've always been around the toy culture.
Speaker 1: But when was the moment You're like, I'm jumping in this. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a toy ro com needs a toy out.
Speaker 1: It's it's honestly, um, being friends with Quong and uh
Speaker 1: you know we we've we've skipped this, but Kwang and I, um,
Speaker 1: we started this thing with our friend DJ. Yeah that
Speaker 1: when an animal pin company called Yesterdays, and so you
Speaker 1: started four years ago and slowly we became the official
Speaker 1: pinmakers for the band The Misfits, for the Walking Dead, comics,
Speaker 1: for Saga, a bunch of a bunch of comic books,
Speaker 1: and so it takes us to all these comic conventions. Um.
Speaker 1: But aside from us hanging out all the time for
Speaker 1: through through that company, UM, Kuang and our friend Justin
Speaker 1: Justin Ishmael. Um. He he makes really great license toys. Um.
Speaker 1: He's worked with Famous Monsters Magazine. He's working on a
Speaker 1: Billy Bob toy right now, which is from Showbiz Pizza
Speaker 1: and um and also the Deadly Spawn. Yeah and so
Speaker 1: and so they're always painting and working on toys and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here, dude, that's supposed to be the artist,
Speaker 1: and I don't have my toy, and some them like
Speaker 1: where's my toy? And so, uh, Jet Jaguar had been
Speaker 1: a huge thing in my collection, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of create that thing where, um, here's here's my
Speaker 1: addition to that, you know, because um, I think even
Speaker 1: if you look at fun Maker Mike from fun Coe,
Speaker 1: he was looking for a Billy Bob bobble head, Um
Speaker 1: not Billy Bob's Big Boy bobble head, and um, he
Speaker 1: was on eBay looking at it and it's just so expensive.
Speaker 1: He's like, for these prices, I'm gonna make one. And
Speaker 1: so he went to Bob's Big Boy and he got
Speaker 1: his first bubble head done. And so for me looking
Speaker 1: for Jett Jaguar toys all the time, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make my evil version and like I can have
Speaker 1: all of them. That's so dope. There's so many dope
Speaker 1: variants too, because you because there's the Doom one that
Speaker 1: we talked about that only I got. Sorry, people keep
Speaker 1: asking huong to. They're like, yo, like, can you do
Speaker 1: another one? I was like, we can't do if you're wrong,
Speaker 1: Like he's got the one off. Look you know, I
Speaker 1: would never be managed all, but don't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And um so we are running low on time, but
Speaker 1: I just want to I guess we'll t R T
Speaker 1: L d R kind of just some of the basics
Speaker 1: some of the quick questions we have because there are
Speaker 1: some things that you know, knowing y'all and talking to
Speaker 1: you all about toy you know, culture, that there's like
Speaker 1: all these like different things without like quote unquote spilling
Speaker 1: tea or anything, but just like you know, honor things
Speaker 1: that I thought was kind of cool. Like, so, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you guide that one. So I don't like,
Speaker 1: you know, say too much. So you just mean in
Speaker 1: collecting and uh everything. Yeah, basically um uh as as
Speaker 1: a maker, I think there's there's always that thing between
Speaker 1: you know. When I was getting my toy made, the
Speaker 1: number one question was like whereas it being made? Is
Speaker 1: a Japanese is a Chinese? You know, like because some
Speaker 1: collectors are very particular in that stuff and that they
Speaker 1: kind of hate on different things. And what's funny is
Speaker 1: they don't understand that collectors in Japan don't care if
Speaker 1: your toys dope, it's dope, and then we're in their collection.
Speaker 1: And so there's little things like that are interesting, but
Speaker 1: it's slowly watched away. It's definitely an old school mentality.
Speaker 1: Well that's so funny because I feel like that happens
Speaker 1: to a lot of like westernized fandoms, because I feel
Speaker 1: like it's the same way with h with the anime
Speaker 1: questions exactly, it's it's actually something that's being addressed with
Speaker 1: a lot of people that it is. It is a
Speaker 1: Western thing that that they definitely see like, hey, like
Speaker 1: in Japan, they're like, oh, I don't care, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I think that the words of foobie was for a
Speaker 1: long time exclusively used as like high end Japanese kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and then the people in Japan are like, no,
Speaker 1: it's all called food. It's all soft. It's legitimately just
Speaker 1: soft vinyl, just like anime is literally animation, and people like, no,
Speaker 1: it has to be in Japan and it has to
Speaker 1: metal ackwleness. Uh yeah, that's so crazy. So how is
Speaker 1: it um? So we talked about kind of like the
Speaker 1: creation as a pay as a paint or how is
Speaker 1: how is it for you quang? When you like what
Speaker 1: Obviously I think that the answer to this is going
Speaker 1: to be like things that look cool to me, but
Speaker 1: like how do you decide like, oh, that's a toy
Speaker 1: that I want to paint, and how do you kind
Speaker 1: of come up with the design? It comes to textures
Speaker 1: and a lot of it you get really high and
Speaker 1: I mean that because of the there's like a lot
Speaker 1: of chemicals involved and so you've got to be really careful. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a toxic pain. Yeah, that you have to wear gloves.
Speaker 1: There's like you know after a respirator. You know it's
Speaker 1: it's not I wouldn't call it dangerous, but there is
Speaker 1: a lot of chemicals involved, and that's something that like,
Speaker 1: as a toy painter you have to know because there
Speaker 1: is a responsibility to your customers. And the paint that
Speaker 1: I use specifically it's designed for final toys and chemically
Speaker 1: bonds um. And that's why when you you know, you'll
Speaker 1: take your your Marvel Legends action figure and you'll paint
Speaker 1: on it with the critics and rub off. Well, part
Speaker 1: of that chemical mixture is making sure this is the
Speaker 1: right amount of thinner and everything that goes along with it,
Speaker 1: so that it's just adhering correctly to the figure. Um
Speaker 1: and and if you don't, you know, you can spray.
Speaker 1: You know. I've had guys that will will paint figures
Speaker 1: with the critics and they're like, oh clear, code them all,
Speaker 1: but your figures end up like sticky, you know, and
Speaker 1: like things like that. Um that, you know, for anybody
Speaker 1: that buys one of my toys, I like, you know,
Speaker 1: and Rocom has definitely seen me like like really like
Speaker 1: toil over this kind of thing where I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: it's not right, Like I need another day to make
Speaker 1: this perfect, because somebody's gonna go home with this, and
Speaker 1: this is my reputation. Um right. You can't have them
Speaker 1: paying like three dollars take this thing home and then
Speaker 1: the paint's flaking off of it, you know. And so
Speaker 1: that's something I take very seriously. And so when it
Speaker 1: comes to like color combinations and various things. When it
Speaker 1: comes to the toys, I'll just look at something and
Speaker 1: see how it's textured, what it vibes with. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of like painting something that looks like something else,
Speaker 1: like your Death Jaguar I painted to look like Doom
Speaker 1: because I looked at it and it, you know, it
Speaker 1: has like this vibe of like the Iron mask, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, with the robot face and everything else, and
Speaker 1: and Doom as a character that I like. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a big Jack Kirby fan um. And that's a That's
Speaker 1: another thing people like a nerd out when they come over,
Speaker 1: is I have like a Jackkerby original um. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I always try to pay homage to those guys,
Speaker 1: you know, the things that I love. And I think
Speaker 1: when people look at some of my custom work, they
Speaker 1: kind of get like if they would like me as
Speaker 1: a person, you know, like like I try to put
Speaker 1: a little bit of that in my work to where
Speaker 1: they might be able to get my personality a little
Speaker 1: bit more, or like oh yeah, he he obviously really
Speaker 1: likes like John Carpenter movies or think things like that,
Speaker 1: like you know, certain references. Yeah, that's so awesome. Wow,
Speaker 1: those were great. Look, I'm gonna keep it real with you.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that sounds like. We record this
Speaker 1: before we couldn't put the clips together, but you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to feel like I was right there
Speaker 1: with what if it was all of the moments that
Speaker 1: we messed up them us No, I trust, I trust,
Speaker 1: I know that this that those were all of our
Speaker 1: greatest hits, our greatest hits, and we will be back
Speaker 1: next week with an all new Nerdificent, So stay nerdy.