Paradox Pizza: Serving Up Time Travel with a Side of Funeral Invites

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Richard and Karl explore the philosophical implications of time travel narratives in fiction while weaving through personal anecdotes about funeral invitations and professional boundaries.

• Karl shares a story about receiving a funeral invitation for an ex-employee from the employee's grandmother
• Richard discusses his recent academic adventures and collecting promotional swag from campus events
• The hosts break down five frameworks of time travel in fiction: fixed timeline, dynamic timeline, multiverse, time loop, and non-linear time
• Analysis of time travel execution in various media including Steins Gate, Back to the Future, Dragon Ball, and Marvel's Avengers
• Discussion of why some approaches to time travel storytelling succeed while others inevitably create plot holes
• Exploration of philosophical questions including whether decisions made under emotional manipulation are truly free choices
• Hypothetical scenarios including which animals would be most sarcastic if they could talk and societal impacts if the moon became a mirror
• Debate about whether to accept a job as a lottery-winning friend's personal chauffeur

Make your funeral interesting enough for us to attend - perhaps with a Super Smash Bros tournament where the winner gets your belongings.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Richard and Carl present Deep Space and
Dragons.
I'm Richard, but you alreadyknew that.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I am Carl, and I'm not sure if you knew that or
not, because I didn't sayanything up to this point.
That's reasonable.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
And, I guess, welcome to Deep Space and Dragons.
You're over 100 episodes in, soif so, kudos, and this is the
first episode you listen toImmediate Technical Difficulties
, immediate Technical.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Difficulties.
Oh, you just cut out for asecond there.
I'm sure that's fine as beingpart of the podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Oh, lovely To be fair , though, since I've updated my
setup and they can just hearthis on the live recording,
since I've updated my setup andthey can just hear this on the
live recording, my mic is on adifferent line than it used to
go through, so it's entirelypossible that it only has
technical difficulties to you.
Oh yeah, that's possible, causetechnically my audio is going
into the thingy, my jigger, verytechnical stuff, me absolutely

(01:00):
putting like on my resume beingoh yeah, I have knowledge
recording, I record a podcast, Iknow recording technology.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Sure Very technical knowledge.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So what's new with you, sir?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, OK, so Fair warning Going to be just going
to be a little bit dark.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh, but OK.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I'm morbidly curious.
First things first.
I call it six degrees ofseparation.
The number doesn't reallymatter, but there's a theory
that you, anyone, has a friendof a friend of a friend, and so
on and so forth that can connectthem to anyone in the world,

(01:48):
and the theory is that thenumber of connections it takes
to connect any two people in theworld is surprisingly small.
I'm going to need you to pausefor one second.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Attention viewers.
If you're playing, what Is CarlGonna Say Next Bingo at home on
your bingo card?
Good luck guessing where thisis going.
You may now resume.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
So the theory is that that number is surprisingly
small, as in less than 10.
So like up to nine friends of afriend of a friend could
connect you to say the presidentof India, reasonable could
connect you to say the presidentof India.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Reasonable.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Right.
I mean not that you'll everactually be able to use those
connections, because they'rekind of vague and tenuous, but
Says you, I'm low-key internetfamous.
Yeah, so, but See, part of thereason that I said that's going
to be dark is because in 2022, aterrible tragedy happened.

(02:52):
It was absolutely awful.
There was a mass murderingspree in Saskatchewan.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's like the one of the sixth largest murder spree
in Canadian history, orsomething like that we really
need to get around to gettingthat disclaimer installed that
we're of the sixth largestmurder spree in Canadian history
, or something like that.
We really need to get around togetting that disclaimer
installed that we're a parodypodcast and people shouldn't sue
us.
Please continue.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
But interestingly enough I personally have worked
with several of that massmurderer's relatives.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
That makes sense.
It's Saskatchewan.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well, I mean just thinking about that just for a
second.
It's like I know that guy'srelative, you know me, you know
me, uh.
And then it's like that opensthis mass murderer up through
six degrees of separation tolike everyone in a huge number
of people in ontario and thenfrom there it goes across the
world because ontario has lotsof international people and it's

(03:57):
like that's.
It's crazy how uh fewconnections it takes to connect
people to famous people orinfamous people or whatever.
That's not really the point ofthe story.
The point of the story is thatone of these relatives of the
mass murderer he I'll call himMr Mustard.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, Colonel Mustard .

Speaker 2 (04:24):
He started working.
He was inard, so he startedworking.
And he was in high school whenhe started working and summer
comes around and they're likehey, what's your availability
for the summer?
And he's like, oh, I can't makemore than like $300 a paycheck
because I'll mess with mygrandma's social security.
And I look at him and I'm like,okay, I will mess with my

(04:45):
grandma's social security.
And I look at him and I'm like,okay, you do realize you could
just work full time and makemore money in one paycheck than
your grandma makes on socialsecurity for the month.
Like, yeah, just work hoursinstead of trying to limit your

(05:09):
hours so you don't mess withyour social security.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Like it's a whole thing.
Just it's a whole thing.
Our system has flaws.
It's like when I recentlylearned that when you go to
services ontario to apply forjobs, they put into the database
how many people are searchingfor jobs, because that can
affect the number of people youcould import as workers when
people claim people aren'tlooking for jobs.
So like our system isinteresting, to say the least.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, in any event, the idea that he could just work
and make more money than socialassistance blew his mind and
changed his life.
It was we as a business.
We didn't really do anythingspecial for him.
We just hired a young kid, gavehim hours, paid him reasonably,

(05:57):
but for him it was like thislife-altering thing.
That was the stepping stone forhim and his family to start
getting out of poverty and hecould actually start to support
his family.
And, quite honestly, heprobably had too much
responsibility for a kid his agebecause, like I said, he was
still in high school and then hewas basically the breadwinner,
winner of his, of his family butoh no, that must be terrible

(06:22):
I'm just saying I feel for youngpeople who have yeah, I'm still
a firm believer

Speaker 1 (06:27):
in trying to make the world better for people after
you.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
So instead of giving a soliloquy, I'm like no, I just
agree, despite my sassiness, Ido fully agree with that
statement um, but you know so,to us he's a regular employee.
To him we're we're a lifesaver,um, and you know he works with

(06:52):
us.
He's a decent employee, he's anice enough guy, but eventually
he has, to like, move somewhereelse and he can't work with us
anymore if this story ends withhim being a mass murderer.
No, no, no, um, but ends withhim being a mass murderer.
No, no, no.
But several years go by, I geta phone call that someone

(07:15):
complained that their food iscold.
And they're like, oh yeah, andI'm Mr Mustard's grandma.
And I'm just like it reallybugs me that the grandma, Mrs
Plum, we'll say Good motif.
So, mrs Plum, it really bugs methat after well over a year of

(07:42):
him not working with us anymore,that she throws around his name
like it has a year of him notworking with us anymore.
Uh, that she throws around hisname like it has some sort of
weight, like again to us he wasjust an employee and he hasn't
worked there in years.
And it's like well, that's nicethat you're mr mustard's
grandma, but like we don't, thatdoesn't mean we're going to
give you a special service,anyways.

(08:05):
So I was actually slightlyannoyed with Mrs Plum.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
So I'm going to give a hot take on that one before we
get back to your story.
As someone who's worked inacademia the last four years, I
went in for a meeting yesterdayand ran into three people I just
knew through synthesis.
And then I was meeting with myprofessor.
He's like wait a minute, you'renot a student anymore.
Come to the back of the officeand grab a coffee through like
synthesis.
And then, yeah, I was meetingwith my professor.
He's like wait a minute, you'renot a student anymore.
Come to the back of the officeand grab a coffee, because now
you're just an employee so we'rechilling in the back of the

(08:32):
office having a coffee, and thenhe's like I'm like I, I'm like
I'll finish up my.
He ran out of time for a meeting.
He's like, oh, just take themug, it's a free giveaway mug
anyway.
So i'm'm just like leaving,walking out of the office,
having like stolen slash, beengifted a mug, and where I'm
going with this is like I'm finewith people I've worked with

(08:52):
years ago getting a specialfavor.
That's fine.
If it was Colonel Mustarddirectly being like yo, it's me,
colonel Mustard I'd absolutelygive him a staff discount on a
pizza.
Or, in my current life, givehim a free discount on a pizza.
Or, in my current life, givethem a free mug from a
department that no longer exists, because what are we going to
do with that merch anyway, butit's when people try and claim
other people's friendship astheir status, where it's like,

(09:16):
yeah, I would absolutely giveredacted student I tutored who's
now working as a tutorthemselves a free thing.
If I have free things, sure,but tutor's uncle gets nothing
right like right like I get afree mug.
Go like someone walking, belike oh, I'm richard's mom, can
I have a free mug?
No, don't give my mom a freemug, she can earn her free mug

(09:40):
okay, but so probably anotheryear passes.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Get another phone call.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
I'm still scared with your disclaimer, like how
tragic the story is going to get, but please continue.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Well, so this time is Mrs Plum, and she introduces
herself like I should know whoshe is, even though I've only
talked to her like twice in thepast three years or whatever.
Um, well, then she says thatshe's, uh, mr Mustard's grandma.
I'm like, oh, mr Mustard?
Well, how's he doing?
Not good, he died.
Oh yeah, and she called ourstore because, uh, again to us

(10:25):
he was just an employee, to herand Mr Mustard, we worked
closely with him and you know,like I say, it was a
life-changing experience and Ijust I really had no idea what
to even say to this person,because they're calling to be
like yeah, we know that you andyour boss, side note, he has
decided they're calling to belike yeah, we know that you and

(10:47):
your boss, side note, he hasdecided that he wants to be
called Angry Bird for thepurposes of our podcast going
forward.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
I think Emperor Palpatine would be a better name
, but that's neither here northere.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
I mean to be fair.
If someone listens to ourpodcast and submits random
questions, they can get mugs,but also I appreciate them
suggesting code words.
If someone listens to ourpodcast, like, actually I'd like
a code name.
I strongly respect that.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Anyways.
So she's like, yeah, mr AngryBird and his wife and you worked
with Mr Mustard and I just wantto give you all the details
around his funeral and viewingand service and whatnot, because
you guys might want to come.
And I'm like, yeah, that'stragic.
I take down all the information.
Looking back, I realize Ididn't even.

(11:37):
I don't know if it'sappropriate to ask how they died
, I don't know but like, but Ididn't even ask what happened.
Thanks to the power of myautism, I absolutely would have
asked how they died.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
I don't know, but I didn't even ask what happened.
Thanks to the power of myautism, I absolutely would have
asked how they died, because Idon't have the ability to read,
that kind of social interaction.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah well, I don't know.
Is that actually inappropriateto ask?
I think so.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Out of the moment.
It's weird because for me I'veabsolutely had people like I
don't know if anyone's everactually directly asked, because
for me I've, like, absolutelyhad people like it takes I don't
know if anyone's ever actuallydirectly asked me that obvious
question.
So it's like like it's likehow'd your dad die?
I'm like we'll read the storyin the globe and mail.
But like people don't normallyask that I normally volunteer I

(12:19):
think it's the protocol is towait till the information is
volunteered willingly.
But also I don't have tax.
So I would literally be likehow do you bite?

Speaker 2 (12:27):
it.
I mean, I was trying to beprofessional and take down all
the information.
Oh yeah, if I'm on the clock,I'm a different human being.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
What I do is I click mute on the phone and ask my
boss what I'm allowed to say.
I deal with students andsensitive information all the
time.
I am so happy to move it up thechain like I have like my
respectful researchingcertificate.
That's like don't pressurepeople for information.
Let them know how informationwill be used.
I'm like I work in pr.
There is no way I'm lettingpeople give me unsolicited

(13:00):
details of their informationwithout looping in my boss first
right, right, uh, so I takedown the information.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's like 11 30 at night when she actually calls.
So, miss, mr angry bird is notin in the store, obviously
reasonable that's for gruntslike you but then he comes in
the next day and he's like ohhey, did you hear that?
you hear that Mr Mustard died?
I was like, yeah, I put allthat information on your
whiteboard.
He's like, oh, mrs Plum calledtoday and I was like, oh well,

(13:32):
she called last night to tell methe same thing.
And so, like I know my boss,I'm like I don't really think
that he actually, like werespect human life, you know,
and every human has value.
Do you make pizza?
Yeah, we make pizza.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's like you don't work a life or death field, if
that makes sense.
Like I literally went through atraining for a research project
I'm on and it was about like wewent through a whole lecture
about when dealing with heavyemotional topics, the weight on
them and the guilt they can havewhen you're trying to enforce
the tough parts of your job onpeople to help people by
restricting their freedoms andthe actual PTSD that causes.

(14:15):
Yeah, you make pizza.
This should not be in yourwheelhouse right and and so I.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I'm like I'm pretty certain that he does not go to
funerals for his ex-employees.
So I just I outright ask him,because it's like, yeah, do you
normally go to funerals forex-employees?
Like it doesn't seem likesomething you would do.
He's like, oh, oh, no, I don'tnormally do that.
I'd go to your funeral, thoughthat makes sense.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Like he listens to your podcast, like, yeah, he
would go to your funeral, he'sthe one with the carl tattoo,
allegedly that would be awkward.
There is no way that's true andthat would be the best plot
twist of all time at that pointit would be mildly concerned.

(15:02):
We were actually godsmanifesting things.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
He does have a tattoo that I've never seen, so At
that point I'd be mildlyconcerned.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
we were actually gods manifesting things he does have
a tattoo that I've never seen,so I don't know.
It's definitely your face on aneagle, an eagle's body with
your face Yet again.
No way, that's actually true.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
But yeah, it's just like there's not really much of
a point to the story.
It's just like, um that I meanthere's not really much of a
point to the story, it's justlike well, the question was
what's?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
new with you and this was definitely what's new with
you.
This wasn't an impromptu moviereview.
If anything, this is more ontopic for what's new with you
than a lot of our what's newwith you sometimes I'll be like
what's new with you and you'relike, have you read Ender's Game
?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
that's funny, but yeah, it's just like.
It's very strange.
Like you say, it's a pizzaplace that I work at and it's
these sour, sour topics don'treally aren't normal for pizza
places and I understand why MrsPlum thought that, like because

(16:10):
the interaction, therelationship is very one sided,
where we were a huge, hugebenefit to them, but they were
just like a little blip on ourradar because, like they just
they did a job and we paid them.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
So it's wild to think about, right?
So my first thought was I don'tgo to funerals anymore, just
full stop.
It peaked.
Unless they're giving mechicken wings and paralyzers,
why would I go?
Right, but it's like, do youthen cater pizza to this funeral
?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Oh, I mean, that was actually my first thought was
that they're asking, going toask us for, like donations or
something.
I was just like I probablywould have asked my boss, and I
actually think that my bossmight've said yes, cause I mean,
he word of mouth is the bestfor is our favorite form of
advertising.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I mean it's true, it would not cost your place much
for us to advertise it as asponsor of this podcast.
I'm pretty sure we low-key.
Do it because I never throwshade at the pizza from your
pizza place.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Employees, sure, but never the food uh, but no, he
was just genuinely thought that,um, that we would be interested
in attending this funeralPeople go to weird phases of
their lives.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
When I first moved out and was working at Robin's
Donuts, it's like that would bea place people would have
thought to reach out to if Imysteriously vanished when
current me has a much morestructured social circle Right
right.
Vanished where current me haslike a much more structured
social circle right right.
So it's like a lot of it too islike the stage of somebody's
life.
How much of like work is theirsocial circle?

Speaker 2 (17:55):
but so to bring the whole story full circle there,
so miss plum calls, tells meabout the funeral.
Then she calls back like two orthree minutes later and she's
like oh yeah, there was thisother guy who was working there
as a driver.
Does he still work there?

(18:15):
Because he's Mr Mustard'srelative and we don't really
want them to find out about this.
Huh, and I'm just like, and Ihappen to know for a fact that
there's a relative on the sideof the mass murderer.
We don't really want them tofind out about this.
Huh, and I'm just like huh andI happen to know for a fact that
there's a relative on the sideof the mass murderer.
I don't know if that's actuallyrelated, but I thought that was
just like huh.
I wonder if he was like livingwith his grandma to avoid a

(18:42):
potential life of violence andcrime.
Not saying that everybody inthat family would be a criminal,
but I mean it's crazy that yeah, that's some wild pizza drama.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's kind of funny to me that your like day-to-day
life is more dramatic than mineand I'm in toronto uh, well,
yeah, so I mean long and short.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Well, tldr, I guess I did not attend the funeral, um
and uh, for us, life goes on,I'll.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
I don't imagine I'll ever hear from mrs plum again
yeah, like funerals areinteresting, like I would never
want to be in charge of planningone because it's like who do
you invite to a funeral?
But also it's like funerals arefor the living, not for the
dead, and I don't really careabout the living.
So, like my thoughts onfunerals are like I understand

(19:37):
why you guys need to do this,but it's like not for me, which
I'm not sure is a stance I'mallowed to have for funerals,
but I'm having it Like not forme, which I'm not sure is a
stance I'm allowed to have forfunerals, but I'm having it.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
So what's new with you there?

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Richard.
Well, I kind of like bulletpointed it where I've been doing
a lot of like working on myfreelance, going to meetings,
working on this research projectand stuff, finishing books and
things.
So I've been very likescatterbrain productive.
Like I said, yesterday I wasmeeting with a former professor
having a coffee in the officetalking about business, uh,

(20:14):
campus restructuring andpossible opportunities for me in
that learning that I'm actuallyqualified to teach a certain uh
, some one-on-one level classesif they were looking for jobs,
which is interesting.
See, I don't actually know likewhat powers my degree gives me.
So some of my meetings areliterally hey, I have this
degree, what powers does it giveme?

(20:35):
It's like you could probablyteach college success.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
I'm like well, that's cool oh, so it's like a like a
green lantern degree kind ofgets you, of course.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, I mean to quote what I said to my mother
earlier today.
I did a four-year course inprofessional bullshittery, like
it's creative writing andpublishing, aka professional
bullshittery, and then postingit places for people to read it,
but like when you compress itdown.
It's like, well, what jobs didit let you do?
I'm like, what jobs need toinvent stuff and then print it

(21:09):
so people can read it?
I don't know all of them.
Literally all of them need oneof me, right, right, yeah, it's
like uh but your, your master'sprogram is at a different
college slash university.
Oh yeah, so colleges can dofour-year degrees, even though
they're mostly one and two-yearprograms, and then master's

(21:31):
programs basically have to beout of a university.
Okay, so I have to upgrade.
Yeah, I'll be mean about it.
I have to upgrade to auniversity from a college.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
I'm still a little bit confused about what the
difference is, becauseuniversities just seem to be a
collection of colleges, butthat's neither here nor there it
also like really depend likecanada's, just setups a little
different too.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Where it's like I'm pretty sure the difference
between college university andcanada is the like number and
level of programs they offer.
But I'm not actually 100 onthat, but I do know to get a
master's or a doctorate you'vegot to go to university,
university and it used to be.
To get a bachelor's you had toas well, but then more and more
colleges started offeringbachelor's programs.
It's a whole thing.

(22:14):
But yeah, tldr on that one is,my life has been a lot of
meetings, sunshining birdssinging me, having to get free
coffee and scones while I listento people talk.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's pretty great.
No one offers me scones.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Like actual scones are great.
So, like this was a relativelyuneventful week for me, although
I did meet up with a friend ofmine this weekend and we started
going through LEGO Horizon ZeroDawn.
Horizon Zero Dawn so it's agogame based on another video game
which I've never seen before,but lego is really up their game
with this one so you know howwe played lego city undercover

(22:58):
and it's like not every accidentjust um so zero the horizon.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
I believe that was a playstation exclusive game which
then got legified and publishedmulti-platform, including on
the switch.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yes, yeah, okay so the thing that impresses me
about is remember lego cityundercover how like most of the
game was lego but the groundwasn't lego, the particle
effects weren't lego.
Da, da, da, da da.
Yeah.
So for this horizon gamethey're.
One of their goals was to makeit a playable lego movie.
So every part of that game islego.

(23:36):
When you take steps, there'sthe one square tiles flipping in
the air.
Everything from the confetti tothe ground to the lighting is
done lego movie quality.
So like we're playing our co-oplego movie quality lego game.
But having never played horizonzero dawn, it's like it'd be
like what an only knowing rubyfrom ruby chibi.

(23:58):
So like the idea that theversion of the story I know is
the legified version is likeobjectively funny it's pretty
funny.
As I'm just being like impressedby the graphic fidelity on this
4K TV watching a Lego gamebeing like this is like
extremely well crafted.
I think the one that got me waswhen the robot T-Rex fired its

(24:18):
death laser.
You could tell it was made outof stacked transparent bricks
being launched at you and I'mlike, yeah, this is super
committed to at you.
And I'm like, yeah, this issuper committed to the bit.
Also, I just love me a goodLEGO game Like LEGO City
Undercover is probably in my top10 games.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
LEGO City Undercover was a great game Like it entered
.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
I have a certain love for games that you can actually
beat from start to finish.
Like a game where, like you anda friend can just play through
it at a reasonable rate, is agood design to me.
Right Between that and livingmy life, that's what's new with
me.
I really enjoyed LEGO HorizonZero Dawn.
We had a lengthy conversationof what products would be best

(25:02):
when LEGO-ized Right and I'vedone a bunch of meetings Gotten
hella free coffee cups recentlyGot like five water bottles over
the last week and like six mugs.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Why are you getting so much?

Speaker 1 (25:17):
free swag.
Well, I went to the IndieAuthors Conference, which gave
me a swag bag, a bunch ofbusiness cards.
I went to another, uh, so wehad the fold festival happening
in bradson, which is thefestival of literary diversity,
which is a whole lot of panelsand events and things.
So it's like it was basicallybook week out here, and when

(25:41):
it's book week I try and go toas many events as I can and most
events have swag.
And then meetings at the campus, because 30% to 60% of program
offerings got reduced due tobudget, which means there's
programs that no longer existthat have swag, and I'm like hey
may.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
I have swag please.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
I even got a USB power bank that's branded.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
A branded USB power bank Right.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
So, yeah, no free swag.
I have so many tote bags youcan't possibly imagine.
Imagine because every injurypublishing house, every event,
every panel, every arts, likeevery arts organization, because
Toronto's like the six citiesor whatever, and like there's a

(26:36):
Brampton dark organization, whenthey have event they'll have
swag.
The Mississauga artsorganization will have swag.
The Toronto arts organizationwill have swag it.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
The Toronto Arts Organization will have swag.
It sounds like maybe yourmicrophone got jostled a bit.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Testing, testing, now that sounds better, excellent.
So yeah, I collect tote bagsnow pretty much.
If I had sewing skills, I couldprobably just keep my wardrobe
up to date by disassembling andreassembling tote bags.
However, shall we pivot intothis week's topic, which

(27:14):
tragically isn't?
What games would you like to belegofied?
And instead is time travel,because I, so we've done some
time travel stuff on thispodcast before.
I'm not going to go through 100episodes to make sure we don't
talk on the series we've alreadytalked on.
But time travel is also likeone of the most common things,

(27:35):
so it's like as a writing device, as someone, people in the
fantasy and sci fi space, likewe usually are.
Yeah there's a lot of timetravel.
Yeah, there's a lot of timetravel, like I'm certain at some
point I've talked about SteinsGate and just how brilliantly
like, balanced and wrapped upthat show was.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
But I'm curious to see why you're going into time
travel, so I can follow along onthis journey well, um, the very
first thing, uh, main reason Ithought about time travel is
that there's a um the actressthat plays Penny from the Big
Bang Theory, kaylee Cuoco.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
I believe so.
She has the voice as HarleyQuinn in the animated Harley
Quinn show.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Can I give a?

Speaker 1 (28:20):
side tangent that I gave in my body horror sci-fi
identities class.
Okay, so, creating a backwardstime machine?
We haven't figured out how todo it yet, but we already have a
forwards time machine and it'scalled hitting someone
unconscious with a brick.
Yeah, okay, that's it.
That's how you travel forwardin time.
You just hit someone with abrick and they'll wake up the

(28:42):
next day, hopefully.
Moving people into the futureis real easy.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
So yeah, kaylee Cuoco , c-u-o-k-o.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I don't know how you Kind of the podcast probably.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Hopefully, but whenever I see a movie with her
in it, I'm always curious whatrole she's playing.
That isn't Penny, or that.
8 Simple Rules, and the lastone was called Roleplay.
I didn't really like that one.
It wasn't that good.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
No Dungeons or Dragons.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
There were no Dungeons or Dragons, just Kaylee
Cuoco.
Being a Cuoco, she was a superspy.
Actually, I believe that onealso actually launched an
episode about tropes.
That we did because it's thefish out of water story, where
the one family member is thesuper spy and the other one

(29:47):
finds out.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, yeah yeah.
I am going to say, though, shehas surprising range, and by
range I mean the Metacriticscores of movies.
She's in ranges wildly.
She'll do a movie, and be likethis is a perfect 10 out of 10.
And she'll do a movie like thisis is a perfect 10 out of 10,
and she'll do a movie like thisis a three.
And I'm like you.
Just, you don't determinewhether this movie succeeds or

(30:12):
fails by yourself, and I don'tknow how I feel about that good
or bad?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
uh, you know, oddly enough, role play is from 2024.
The movie I'm actually wantingto talk about, which is about
time travel, is called meet cute.
I thought it was, butapparently it's from 2022.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Should I hit you with a brick so it comes out in 2025
?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Anyways, but the movie Meet Cute.
She is an absolute psychopath.
She finds a time machine thatlooks like a tanning bed.
Then I don't.

(30:54):
There's something in the storyabout how you can go back in
time, but you can only be backin time for 24 hours at a time,
which is kind of a weird andconfusing plot point.
That doesn't.
Time travel is difficult, butlike when Dragon Ball Super gave

(31:14):
you a flowchart she goes backin time to have a first date, a
meet cutecute with this one guy.
She goes on this meet-cute withthe guy like 365 times, like
the entire year.
She just keeps going back 24hours to meet this guy again and

(31:36):
play through this first date,the Groundhog Day method yes,
I'm familiar.
And then she gets tired andstale date, the Groundhog Day
method yes, I'm familiar.
And then she gets kind of tiredand stale because she's always
living the same night, but she'sscared to move on because her
life sucks.
So then she decides to travelback in time even further and

(31:58):
spends every day, every Sunday,for three months of her
meet-cutes childhood.
She dresses up into disguise,names herself like Uncle Charlie
and plays catch with him sothat he'll grow up to like
sports more, so that when shegoes back to do the meet-cute
because even though thingschange she still shows up at the
same bar at the same time.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
There's things on the time stream we call plot points
, and sometimes you just have toput those in so your movie can
happen.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, yeah, I mean that's true.
But then she doesn't like thenew version of him and Charles
is back in time to knock herselfout in the disguise so that
they don't play sports with thekid.
And then it turns out that shehad told him about this nice
cable guy when she was younger.
And then on the final night ofthe meet cute, he takes the time

(32:54):
machine and he is the nicecable guy from her childhood,
and so it's like a selfreferencing loop where obviously
he must have found the timemachine in the first place
because she mentioned it in oneof her time loops, but then it
caused her to find the timemachine.
My first question is doself-referencing time loops like

(33:17):
that bother you?
Do self-referencing time loopslike that bother you?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
So to go to Steins Gate, which has a kind of
self-referencing one, the corepremise of Steins Gate being
they accidentally, with amicrowave, build a time machine
that lets them send text back intime.
The text moves you into analternate timeline.
That alternate timeline resultsin his best friend dies and

(33:44):
then, like the second half ofthe series, is him effectively
undoing each of the time travelmessages that were used, like
one was one person used one toalter their father's death, so
they had to, like let theirdeath father die to save this
one person.
Another one managed to changetheir gender via message, which
was an interesting concept.
For it's like I learned that ifyou eat these while pregnant,

(34:04):
it can affect the gender, and Idon't like my gender, so I'm
going to send a message.
I'm like okay, anime, I thinkyou handled trans issues
gracefully.
I'll get back to you on thatone.
Steins Gate, but like the ideawas that it was the classic
messing with history is bad.
And then Steins Gate was aseries of OK, I have to undo all

(34:26):
these things that seemed likethey were good messes with
history, but then the finalthing was having to scam history
effectively where it's like OK,in the original loop where it
looked like my love interestdied.
I just had to scam myself intothinking my love interest died,
so everything played out.
The hard thing is aself-registerential time looping
thing like that.
I've only seen one seriessuccess.

(34:48):
Two series successfully do itbecause it's hard to do.
So Steins Gate succeeds where,when it was originally a visual
novel, the only way to get theending was to undo all the
emails and make the finalpainful choice to let the person
die to then save them.
And another series that did thetime loop well was actually

(35:09):
Attack on Titan.
Of all things, the name of thefirst chapter is, to Myself,
20,000 years in the 5,000 yearsin the future, and the other one
was like To Myself the lastchapter.
First chapter had oppositenames and you see him wake up
with tears in his eyes in thefirst panel and it's like, yeah,
the the time looping nature ofattack on titan, where he knew

(35:30):
he had to write, he was going towipe out humanity, thus
ensuring he wiped out humanity,was fascinating.
Now there's a lot of thingsthat went wrong after the time
skip of attack on tit, likefollowing characters they didn't
care about, Right, but it didthe time travel well, so I don't

(35:51):
mind it, but you're so likelyto shoot yourself in the foot
doing it.
It's like how the original FateStay Night trilogy were
technically three separate timeloops because he kept getting
the bad ending of becoming ahero and then getting summoned
back to this war to havememories of himself going
through it until he reaches thefinal conclusion of Screw it,

(36:15):
which breaks the loop.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Right, hmm.
Well, so did you dislike Fate?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
stay night's time loop.
Oh, I love fate stays night'stime loop.
It was.
He went through three alternatestories and you think there are
standalone stories of, oh,here's three alternate routes on
my visual novel.
And then you learn actuallyit's, it's a time travel story.
Oh then, because it's like, oh,it's, you go through this one
story arc and then go throughthe next one, and then by the
third one you realize, oh, wait,each story arc, because it's
like, oh, it's, you go throughthis one story arc and then go
through the next one, and thenby the third one, you realize,
oh, wait, each story arc, allit's basically every route in

(36:48):
this visual novel actuallyhappens right.
So instead of like picking yourchoices and choicing matters,
like, no, no, every choicetechnically played out, it's
just really hard to do, like alooping time travel uh, a
looping time travel story isjust tricky to do.
Good luck, but I don't hate itfundamentally.

(37:11):
But then we get to like Doctorwho and Star Trek that can't do
a looping time story to save itslife, or CW's Flash to save its
life, or cw's flash, where it'slike people always want to do
the time travel story, whereit's like, yeah, the time travel
is a closed loop and the meansfor the time travels to stop the
time travel and there's noparadoxes.

(37:31):
And I wrote this perfectly andthen they don't ever write it
perfectly and you end up withlike literally the flash, having
to have ghosts come deal withit and the timeline's just
broken and doesn't make sense.
It's like, yeah, it just isbroken.
It's bad.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well, okay, so I mean , like it really like the, the
simplest way to do time, timetravel, is just to travel back
to the past and never go back tothe future.
Because when you go back to thefuture, because when you go
back to the future, that's wherethe paradoxes start to occur.
Hashtag back to the future.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Or, like I love to rant about, in Marvel infinity
war, they straight up explainedthat we don't actually travel
into the past, you're going intoan alternate future, and they
explained it perfectly.
And they kept.
America ruined it.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Oh, I knew that was going to come up because that
was like they had it.
They were good to go.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
They won.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
It was so good until they decided that they needed to
give that meta ending to ChrisEvans for his character Right,
and it's like no, the metaending is ruined.
You're almost perfect timetravel movie.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Because when we look at the five main frameworks of
time travel first, we have fixedtimeline where it's
deterministic and it will alwaysplay out the way it's going to
play out and anything you dowill always happen.
Right, I'm struggling to thinkof some specific examples, but
it's usually along the line offate's a bitch.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Right, the very thing that when you, it's the idea
that when you try to preventsomething Through time travel,
that causes the thing.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
And I'm trying to think of examples when that
happens really well, likethere's examples where it
happens Like I think Terminatorfor the most part is fixed and
there's like it still happens.
But I'm trying to think ofother examples of fixed timeline
stories, because usually theway you would tell that story is
, like the character coming toterms that they can't fix it.

(39:33):
They usually have to justaccept that they've been
defeated.
Right and yeah, nothing'scoming to mind right now.
But it's also a great way towrite a time travel story.
If I travel, travel back intime, and this thing I tried to
prevent can't happen because Itravel back in time, it's fine.
Then the next one is thedynamic timeline, like the Back

(39:53):
to the Future butterfly effect.
You're going to ruin yourseries.
You can't write a good Back tothe Future.
Good luck, the idea that youtravel back to the past and to
the present.
That is easily the one thatbreaks the most often, Like the
one you were talking about justnow was a dynamic timeline.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah, that's the one where you have to have plot
points for your story to makesense.
For example, with Back to theFuture, he goes back in time, he
changes the way that his momand his dad meet and that causes
his siblings to have a muchbetter life, but somehow does
not cause any changes whatsoeverto his life, such that he still

(40:36):
meets Doc Brown at the exactsame time in the exact same
parking lot and Doc Brown stillgets attacked by the Iranians.
But like exact same parking lotand doc brown still gets
attacked by the iranians.
Uh, but like like how, how didhis time travel affect his
siblings and his parents so much?
But then somehow not affect him?
And then what happened to thehim that actually was in that
timeline?
Like, do you overwrite peoplein timeline?

(40:58):
Like, uh, back to the future isis a great series of movies,
but a lot of that is nostalgia.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, and then when you look at Steins Gate, steins
Gate had a dynamic timeline, butits big point was the little
branches all meet back up tocentral things unless you manage
to shift it and divert itenough.
And the whole premise was theydid change the timeline, which
causes and also steins gate forthe most part had like small

(41:24):
changes if we sent one text backright, but it was like, yeah,
no, it was.
This made things worse.
This resulted in time travelbeing a thing, cern going evil
and then them all being machinegun down because they invented
time travel and the only way tolike get fix that timeline was
to not invent the time travelright.
So it was an interesting waywhere it's like there's still

(41:46):
going to be some flaws in it.
So it's like the dynamictimeline is probably the most
interesting one but would be thehardest one to write right.
So next we have multiverse.
That's the easy one.
That's how come dragon balljust successfully did time
travel, despite being written byAkira Toriyama, who once forgot
what Super Saiyan 3 was in aninterview?

(42:07):
Cause, yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
I think a more interesting multiverse example
is the Legend of Zelda uh fine.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
But like the Dragon Ball, one's a good example,
though, because you can easilygo like trunks made time machine
and move to an alternatetimeline.
And he just straight up goesyeah, nothing I change here will
change my future.
That wasn't work, so I came fora different reason.
I'm like you know, you're right, okay, you just you win, you're
right.
Every time you use the machine,you're just creating an
alternate reality, and it'sliterally just dimension-hopping

(42:44):
, you Right?
And I'm like, yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
I just find it super interesting, the Legend of Zelda
example being, that when youtravel to the future, in the
length of the Link to the Wow.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Ocarina of Time.
Yeah, I was thinking Link tothe.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Past.
No, that was Ocarina of Time,where you travel forward into
the future, and then thatcreates a timeline where the
young hero never returned.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
So it's interesting because the Hyrule story is like
we're going to make thesethings that were never written
to go together go together.
Right, right, right.
But if we look at Orchid Riteof Time, in a vacuum not
counting sequels, prequels orany of that nonsense it still
works for the way they have itset up, except for one exception
, which is the Song of Storms.
The Song of Storms.

(43:45):
So you teach him the Song ofStorms as a kid that you learn
from him as an adult.
Okay, so that is just one ofthose time remnant situations of
.
That's just a paradox, becauseeverything else of like, oh yeah
, what you change in the past,really doesn't change what
happened in the future much,except for, like, planting bean

(44:07):
plants.
So it's not really alternatetimelines for that one, it's
actually dynamic timelines,which is a shame because if they
committed it to being alternatewhen you go to the past, but
when you change in the past, inthe chain, you defeat him in the
future and then it gives youthe knowledge to the past and
you make a good timeline andthen it never happened, would
have made more sense, would havesucceeded, but no, they went

(44:31):
dynamic.
Then we got the Groundhog Day,the time loop the edge of
tomorrow, where you're stuck ina loop till you break the loop.
Unlike our PAL dynamic timeline, the time loops is much cleaner
.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, groundhog Day, groundhog Day, Happy Death Day,
edge of Tomorrow.
They're all very interestingmovies.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And there's one of these episodes in every
long-running sci-fi series.
Star Trek has one.
I'm sure Star Wars runningsci-fi series, star trek has one
.
I'm sure star wars has onesomewhere.
Stargate absolutely had one.
Stargates was really funny uh,actually.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
So actually here's something.
Um, one of my asked my friendsabout time loops, whether or not
he uh what he liked about them,and he's, like you know, my
favorite time loop isn'tactually a time loop.
There's a series that's calledPerson of Interest and there's
an AI that the good guys areusing to track down criminals.

(45:34):
And then the criminals havetheir AI that they're trying to
use to track down the good guys,and the good guys are all
trapped in a room and you see asequence play out all the good
guys die and then it rewinds,like the classic videotape, and

(45:54):
starts over and it goes throughit and it turns out this AI is
just processing all thepotential possibilities and
playing through them.
And you watch the AI.
It turns out this AI is justprocessing all the potential
possibilities and playingthrough them, and you watch the
AI think through all thesepossibilities and it's not
exactly a time loop.
But every time all the heroesdie, it replays, goes back to
the beginning and then, as theAI starts running out of time,

(46:16):
it starts taking shortcuts, belike insert witty quip here.
That is amazing.
It's like it's not a time loop,because it's actually just all
this processing happening at thesame time, but it is time
loop-esque, which is veryinteresting, yeah and then the

(46:37):
last one is non-linear time,which is like a rival.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Good luck.
It's like past, present, futureall coexist time is a stacked
dimension.
Rather, it's nonlinear time,which is like a rival.
Good luck.
It's like past, present, futureall coexist Time is a stacked
dimension rather than a flowingone.
You're looking at differentpoints of the timeline
simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, good luck, well , I mean.
So to me that kind of seemslike it most closely aligns with
our actual scientific knowledgeof the time-space continuum.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, but I'm going to put this out there.
You can't write afourth-dimensional movie.
Arrival got real close, butlike if you can't physically
perceive it because our brainscan't perceive it, it's kind of

(47:27):
hard to write a compellingcharacter-driven narrative where
the rules of it are onlyequations on a board because,
yeah, the non-linear time isstatic.
Free will may be an illusionbecause you're just observing
different parts, but theobservation changes the outcome
sometimes, and other times itdoesn't.
All right, now write a book andI'm like characters, right?

(47:52):
So then you have things likeArrival, which was like almost
more about them processing thedeath of their son than the time
travel.
Because, yeah, travel.
Because, yeah, as someone supergenre savvy, arrival took some
effort when I had to write apaper on that to be like, okay,
so how does this work?
And it's like, oh yeah, there'stense just slips in this story

(48:17):
deliberately, like mad tedang isa lunatic, but that's unrelated
.
But yeah, so those are the waysAt least my class had it sorted
For different kinds of timelinetravel.
Did I get them all?
Did I like miss something?
Because really, it's probablyactually, like I said, five, but
it's probably four.

(48:38):
And Groundhog Day istechnically Either fixed or
dynamic, depending on how it'sset, but the time loop comes up
enough that I called it its ownyeah, well, no, I'm pretty sure
time loop is its own thing, liketime loop is a like its own
genre.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
There are so many time, like you say, time loop,
sci-fi episodes, time loopmovies, and they, a lot of them,
actually do put interestingtwists on it, but at the end of
the day it's just you reset backto a specific point and then
you have to live through thatday of sorcery on sale on amazon
.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Use the time loop where I think I told you I had a
character that can basicallyset a five second save point and
go back to their save point andtry again infinitely.
But we're stuck in a fight thattheir ass got kicked in so many
creative ways that they livedin this time loop until they
just eventually gave up andstabbed themselves.
And the next chapter startswhere they walk up to this guy

(49:34):
who draws their blade and thenjust kills himself and they're
like, why did that happen?
And one of them's like I don'tknow, know, I guess that was
just a freebie.
But you go through the chapterit's like, yeah, they kept
trying and it's just every timethey thought they won, they just
lost in another horrible waybecause they're incredibly
busted power of rewind time andtry again.

(49:56):
There was just no win conditionin this fight they just
couldn't rewind time far enough.
Yeah.
So it's like oh, there's onebit where they catch an arrow in
their teeth, jump off a sword,do a spin kick, and then they
pull out a gun and just shootthem.
Basically it's like oh, Ididn't even realize they had a
weapon.
I never got this far.
It's like a Dark Souls bosswhere it's just like oh, this is

(50:20):
just.
I see, once you defeat one, theother one powers up.
That's unfortunate, okay.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
A certain magical index.
Yes, I recall there being apoint where the main hero, his
hand, stops magic attacks orwhatever.
But he goes into a battle andthen things get reset and then
he keeps like he ends upactually remembering parts of

(50:52):
the reset and gets further andfurther along in his ability to
actually fight this battle.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Was that actually a time loop?
So here's how the time loopwent.
It was each time he fought thisfight the villain was trying to
break them.
Specifically, their wincondition was I need this person
to give up.
They forgot every time whathappened because they're in a
time loop, but their musclememory remembered, so is their

(51:18):
mind like they like reset it,but their reflexes got better to
what was actually happening inthe fight until they eventually
won Right.
So it's absolutely a time loop,and I'm not sure like even how
good my recollection of itreading a translated light novel
was.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Right, right right.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
But, like, the thing that makes the whole time loop
work is that you're stuck in theloop is an abnormal setting and
you're stuck in it until thething breaks it.
So there's never a paradoxreally, because it's like the
paradox is the loop.
So it's like, yeah, you justhave to break the loop, that's
the goal.
So break it and then nothingthat happened in the loop ever

(51:56):
actually matters until you getall the pieces you need to get
out of the loop.
Ie Majora's Mask was one of thebest time loops ever made,
because the entire point is like, yeah, everyone's exact man.
The fact I actually programmedlike a working groundhog day
into that where everyone was intheir locations with their
dialogue and then you'd loopthrough.
I really enjoyed the time loopscam.

(52:17):
That guy wrote down on yourhand a stamp for how much money
he owed you with his own sortingsystem because he couldn't keep
track of people, and it's likethe only reason you kept your
money through each time loop washe could see the logo on your
hand saying how much money heowed you because he drew it.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Although we'll say one thing Steins Gate did that
made their time loop slash,dynamic timeline work really
well is they're only sendingmemories back, not stuff.
For the most part, because whenyou send back stuff, paradoxes
happen easy.
When you send back memories uh.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
so then, like, what do you think about, uh, days of
future, past, with that kind oftime travel?

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Days of Future Past is the dynamic timeline travel
where it's like, yeah, we sentback his consciousness, which to
me feels more like in line withhow time travel would actually
work.
Right, but like Days of FuturePast if we're going the comic or
the episodes, sure, but thenumber of plot holes Fox

(53:23):
Studios' Days of future pastintroduced into that series is
unfathomable.
Like they literally changed acharacter from being a six foot
tall black man to peter dinklage.
So like when you're doing amovie and you're doing movies

(53:43):
that are years apart and thentrying to be like time travel is
a thing, it's like your moviesalready aren't consistent.
If you're not playing the timetravel game, why would you even
mess with that?
That's true.
And then you get the marvelnonsense being like we have
world lines and we prune thelines, and then there's Keystone

(54:04):
people.
I'm like just stop inventingMacGuffins, just say your time
travel doesn't work.
You have a new MacGuffin everytime travel movie.
Because it doesn't actuallywork, because it gives the
obvious question of why not justchoke out baby Thanos?
Oh man, it's just so funnybecause they had it and then
gave up um the uh one.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
One of my favorite uh time travel movies, uh is, uh,
the butterfly effect.
It's not dr strange, no, I, Ireally I can never remember if
this was actually the theatricalrelease or not because there
was an alternate ending, but itreally like.

(54:49):
Firstly, it's acharacter-driven drama and I
don't watch a lot of them, but Ido enjoy character-driven
stories and so like the maincharacter played by Ashton
Kutcher, which is another.
He's such a doofy actor andthen he played this serious role
, which is another reason it'sinteresting to me.

(55:11):
But anyways, he realizes that Idon't remember exactly how he
triggers it, but he can go backinto the past to change things,
and then he comes back to thepresent and the changes start to
materialize.
He's trying to create a betterlife for the person that he
loves, and everything that hechanges makes their life worse,

(55:34):
until he realizes that the onlyway to fix things is to go back
in time and choke himself out inthe womb.
That seems correct.
I was just like I love itbecause I can't believe that it
went there.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
So what's really funny is like that's technically
the final boss battle ofEarthbound.
If you pay attention, Is you'reabsolutely fighting the final
boss, at the time when he's themost weakest.
And when you pay attention tothe visuals, you're like no, no,
that is actually what'shappening.
Yeah, so Earthbound went thereAlso, I think.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Chrono.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Trigger would count as a dynamic timeline.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
That's a dynamic timeline.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Where it's like Chrono Trigger.
It was like there wasn't fixedthings that were guaranteed to
happen at all.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
Hmm, chrono Trigger's a weird one, though, because
it's like you don't think toomuch about the time travel in
Chrono Trigger, like it's there,but it's more set dressing than
anything.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Yeah, I don't know.
Chrono Trigger might be morestatic than you think Because,
like you say, it's like setdressing rather than an actual
integral, like you're notactively trying to change the
timeline.
Like you are, but you aren't yougo somewhere to like retrieve

(57:02):
something?
But I do really love Coronatrigger.
The kernel trigger is probablythe game that I played the most
endings.
I've games, multiple endings.
I don't think I've everactually hundred percent of any
game that has multiple endings,but I think chronic trigger I
got close probably because crowtrigger was a reasonably length

(57:25):
game yeah, it was a reasonablylength game.
I think I managed to run throughit like five times because I
really wanted to get the crazyprism armor for all the
characters and then you get toFinal Fantasy VIII, which is the
worst time travel story everwritten.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
It just doesn't work, no matter how you think of it.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Okay, so full disclosure.
I have played through and Ithink I've actually beaten Final
Fantasy.
I through VI, correct.
And then I just dropped off themap.
I just dropped.
I have not played anythingFinal Fantasy VII or up.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
You did the right thing.
I'm proud of you.
That's correct.
So people love Final FantasyVII or up.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
You did the right thing.
I'm proud of you.
That's correct.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
So people love Final Fantasy VII because their brains
were still developing at thetime.
But Final Fantasy VIII has oneof the most nonsensical bullshit
, nonsense plots of anythingever.
It's like the more that youthink about it, the less sense
it makes and it hurts my brain.
Okay, it's just not.

(58:31):
And then, like the fall fantasy, 7, rebirth, re, whatever are
doing like multiverse, timeline,dynamic, linear, where, like
literal ghost things, you couldsee we're trying to enforce you
to follow the timeline, but thenyou break the ghost things so
anything can happen.
Now and I'm like this game's sofar up its own ass.
It's coming out its own mouth.
It's very pretty though, verygorgeous game.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Okay, but so Final Fantasy VIII?
It had time travel.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
So how can I put this ?
So you would pass out and havedreams and during your dreams
you would pass out and havedreams and during your dreams
you would junction yourabilities and stats into
characters that were operating20 years in the past.
It was kind of vague whether ornot you were controlling them
or not from your presentcharacters.
Okay, and then the main villainis in the future, trying to

(59:22):
send themselves into the past,to then send themselves further
into the past so they can goback further enough to conquer
the world.
I see which sounds good onpaper, but then you see the way
they tell this story.
You're like no, Hmm.
Yeah, okay, because, yeah, it'slike the main villain is

(59:43):
possessed by a sorceress fromthe distant future whose goal
was to compress all time into asingle moment, a plan called
time compression that would giveher godlike power over
existence.
Okay, and then to defeat thesorceress in the past.
You were sending your dreams tothe past.

(01:00:04):
Then you meet the person yousent it to.
It just doesn't work.
I tried, I tried so hard.
I it's like here's a richardhot take and it's gonna be an
arrogant statement to make, butif I can't follow the plot of
something with my literaltraining and skill set, it's
it's fault, not mine.
I I firmly believe that ifRichard tries, he reads the

(01:00:29):
articles, the Wikipedia, playsthe game, finishes the book and
tries to understand it and can't.
It's broken.
It's just broken at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Just fundamentally broken.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Can't be done.
No sane person can do it.
Someone tells me oh no, finalFantasy 8's plot's simple.
I'd call them an idiot and Istand by it.
But with that we're reachingthe end of our episode, so I
should probably pull up ourrandom questions of the week.
Unless anyone in the streetshanded you a vanilla envelope,

(01:01:07):
no, it's truly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I did not get a random question for someone in
the streets, but I do actuallyhave a random question you do
have one from the streetsexcellent from the ghetto
Anyways.
So the question is, if youcould drive Rude and a friend

(01:01:35):
Won the lottery and one of theways that they want to spend
their money Is to hire you as achauffeur, do you Accept the job
without question, accept thejob conditionally, or decline
the job because you're worriedit will ruin the relationship?

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Accept the job with four specific conditions.
First question which friend wonthe lottery?
This is very important.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Yeah, see, I mean hypothetically, it would be me,
because I spend a lot of timeimagining what I would do if I
won the lottery.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
And that was one of the things For you conditional
acceptance, because here's myspecific terms and conditions
for this lottery that youtotally won here.
Yeah, okay, so I'd absolutely Aget my license specifically for
this purpose and then drive youplaces, but first you'd have to
pay for me to get my license,right, and I'm only your

(01:02:28):
professional full-time drivermonday to friday, eight to four,
and then you have tospecifically request me to drive
you places outside that windowbecause I'm a writer, right.
So if I have guaranteed incomefrom my millionaire friend, then
, yeah, driving is my day job.
Sure, I'm on call to drive.
You're paying me full hoursBecause you're not actually

(01:02:52):
going eight hours a day drivingplaces, so like yeah.
I'll work two hours and you canpay me for eight so I can work
on my book in between or on thecar, because it's like, yeah,
I'm driving you in a nicevehicle and you're like
committing crimes or something,or like throwing hookers at each
other or playing one-to-onescale dnd.
I could just be working on mybook on the laptop and when you
come back in, put my laptop backunder the seating to continue
driving you places.

(01:03:12):
So yeah, absolutely, but I haveto put in the conditions that
it's a regular job, because I donot live that life where at two
in the morning you're like, ifyou're like I was an emergency,
help me.
I'm like, okay, but I'm takingnot just, I'm on call 24-7 and
my life is to drive you toplaces.
Standards brah, but I wouldmove back to Saskatchewan for

(01:03:34):
this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Oh, wow, I mean I guess I have enough money to
move you and pay you to learnhow to drive.
Yeah, and who knows, maybe yourcertificate is still good, that
you're super close to getting aSaskatchewan license.
Let's be honest, if you're likea lottery winning millionaire.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
I'm just paying a better driving school and
they're probably just going tobullshit my way through this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
Okay, but I mean, I don't have to name names, but
are there friends that you wouldrefuse to be a chauffeur for?

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
So there's a friends that you would refuse to be a
chauffeur for.
So there's a few friends Iwould refuse.
They're simply too whimsicaland unreliable.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
There's not very many , though they wouldn't respect
your uh nine to five workday oreight to four workday, whatever
you would prefer correct.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Then there's people like you, directly in the middle
, where I would do it, but Ihave to put down some terms and
conditions, right, right.
And there's three people.
I would just say yes and notquestion it, because there's
that responsible and reliable ofpeople like, for example,
jeremy jeremy, I would just sayyes, because he ain't going
anywhere.
I'm driving him to school andpicking him up.

(01:04:43):
No, no crimes are happening.
No chaos is happening.
It's a safe bet.
My friend redacted yeah, she'sthe most sensible human being
I've ever met.
I'd absolutely agree to that.
They're only hiring me becausethey want me to want what's best
for me in my life.
It'd be a very reasonablesituation right now I have a

(01:05:06):
couple more friends that arecloser on the Carl spectrum
where I'd be like you.
You seem like safe, but there'dbe a few times I'd have to pick
you up at three in the morningand hold back your hair as you
vomit in a bucket.
That's who you are as a person,and I'd have to put some rules
in place just in case when thisinevitably happens.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Right, Right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
Uh, right, right, right.
And for the record, I don'tthink you're the cause of my
reasonable request.
I need to put rules on youbecause you have people who are
chaos in your life.
That you're using your driverto save them, that is very
likely I get a text at two inthe morning.
Be like huh, we need to save mybrother and and I'm like okay,
fine.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Me personally.
I was just.
I've been thinking about thisand most of the people I've
asked, at my workplace at least,have just said yes, that they
would accept the job.
Most of them have said therewould be some conditions.
One person outright refusedbecause they were worried that
it would ruin the relationship.
Most of them said there wouldbe some conditions.
One person outright refusedbecause they were worried they
would ruin the relationship.
It's like I was thinking aboutit.

(01:06:13):
I was like I said this oncealready in this episode.
But it's an unbalancedrelationship.
But then, as you say, you'renot actually spending that much
time driving a person around, soit maybe would actually be okay
Also this is worth noting forme driving a person around, so
it maybe would actually be okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
This is worth noting for me as a person.
So as a grad student, I'm amooch to my friends because of
the life I live.
It is a not well-kept secretthat I right now will do work
for people for money, becauseI'm a broke student who needs
gig work.
That's like the situation.
So if you're like, hey, I'moffering you this job, in my

(01:06:50):
brain you're helping me, like ifyou were to be, if you lived
here and said, hey, vlad, I'llgive you 20 bucks to mow my lawn
.
Yeah, I'm a student right now,I would take you up on that
offer.
20 bucks will help me probablycharge you 50 because of
transport.
So that's kind of like I'm.
For me as a grown-ass man in my30s, the power dynamic of doing

(01:07:10):
gigs for people isn't a powerdynamic.
I'm a freelancer.
There's not much differencebetween you paying me to drive
you places as you paying me towrite you a memoir.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
That's just how the change works.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
So I don't find it to be an unbalance of power,
because my exit's simple youstop paying me, I stop driving
you.
You're a dick, I quit okay, solike I'm not indebted to your
money really at all, which isthe perk of being a grown-ass
adult.
Now, hot take, if you made thisoffer to your girlfriend, that

(01:07:50):
would get fucked up Becauseyou're like oh, I will pay our
living expenses, but you have todrive me places.
That becomes an unbalancedpower dynamic Because she can't
really say no.
In that situation where you'relike, okay, I'm a millionaire,
so do what I say, that becomesquestionable, right right.
Situation where you're likeokay, I'm a millionaire, so do
what I say, that becomesquestionable, right, right.
Where I could theoretically, ifyou like, went mad with power,

(01:08:12):
punch you in the face withknuckles that say resign on them
, and then when you wake up inthe morning and see resign
punched into your face, I'veresigned.
So that's how I view the powerdynamic.
On that one, I'm like, oh yeah,I'm already a suck up right now
, so sure yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
I, like you say, a lot of my actual friends are
pretty chaotic, chaos incarnate.
So I would definitely beworried about that power dynamic
and I think for the most part Imight actually refuse to be
someone's chauffeur right, butyou wouldn't refuse to be mine
because I'm actually reallyboring.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
In practice, I have complete faith you would
actually do it, no questionsasked.
Probably, yeah, probably.
Because you're like oh, what'svlad gonna take?
Do have me drive him to thebookstore.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
Sure, I'd install a nintendo Switch in the backseat,
like okay, did you use thistime to find another random
question?

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
oh yeah, I just enjoyed this one so I have a
funny one, a philosophical oneand a strange one.
Okay, so here's the funnyquestion.
It's similar to one we'vegotten before, so we might have
to skip over it.
But if animals could talk,which species would be the most
sarcastic?

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
which species would be the most sarcastic and why?

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
so the obvious answer is cat, but I don't actually
think it's true.
I think the most sarcasticanimal like in real life would
probably be something that'sself-assured and confident, so
it can get away with beingsarcastic as fuck.
So my money is on somethinglike a like in real life would
probably be something that'sself-assured and confident, so
it can get away with beingsarcastic as fuck.
So my money is on somethinglike a platypus, where it's like
toxic and could kill you, butit's also doofy.
But I also feel like and callme if I'm wrong I think polar

(01:10:00):
bears would be extremelysarcastic because, like they've
lived such a rough life but arealso could just crush you into a
ball.
It'd be because, like they'velived such a rough life but are
also could just crush you into aball and be like hey, polar
bear, how are you?
He's like so good with the icecracking.
So my money's on polar bear.
They have that mix of.
I could kill you if I wanted to, but also you guys have screwed

(01:10:21):
over my entire life, but alsoI'm a bear I think, uh, raccoons
, raccoons would be verysarcastic yeah, although I feel
like sassy records would beabsolutely.
I don't know if they'd be moresarcastic, like.
I think they'd be more likequippy, like, but yes, I agree.

(01:10:42):
So our, that was a funnyquestion.
Here's a philosophical question.
Is the decision?

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
truly yours to make if someone forced you to feel
emotions before making thedecision.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Is the decision truly yours to make?
If someone forced you to feelemotions before making the
decision, if it was based onemotions, you didn't choose to
feel.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
If it was based on emotions, you didn't choose to
feel.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
It was based on emotions, you didn't choose to
feel so, like for examplesomeone's like hey, will you be
my chauffeur, but you justlearned they had cancer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Did you?
Was that decision really trulyyours to make?

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
I mean yeah, I'm going to say yeah too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
It's an interesting question to be like.
If you're emotionallymanipulated and you make your
decision in court, you can argueI was emotionally manipulated,
but I still think youfundamentally made the choice,
whether it was under duress orfalse presenses aside.
But then if it's like straightup under duress, like I was
afraid for my life so I madethis decision, it wasn't really

(01:11:48):
yours, that was extortion atthat point.
We have words for that hmm, nosee, I think that you still made
the choice to call their well,to not call their bluff yeah,
but like having lived in therough streets of downtown
Calgary, I don't think it wasreally my choice when a person
pulled a knife on me and said,give me your money, well.
I guess it was really my choicewhen a person pulled a knife on

(01:12:08):
me and said, give me your money, well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
I guess it was, but, like I mean, sure it was
incentivized to be one way orthe other, but ultimately, you
know, if you just say no, andthen it turns out like with gun
violence, a lot of the timessomeone will pull out a gun and
they actually are just as afraidof that gun as you are and they

(01:12:34):
won't use it.
And so, like I don't know ifI've told this story on the
podcast before or not, but therewas someone in a parking lot or
a store.
They had a gun, they had it ina baby carriage for some reason
they see some people walkingacross the street, they call
them over, they want to likefight or whatever, and then they

(01:12:55):
pull out the gun and they'repointing at this person, right
and the other person, withoutbatting an eye, they just slap
the gun away and deck the personin the face.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
You know that's so action movie coded though.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Like but it's just like the person who had the gun,
they felt like they were inpower, but they didn't actually
intend to use the gun.
And so it's like, yeah, thisperson was under duress to make
a choice.
But ultimately they're like,yeah, I'm gonna call your bluff.
Yeah, I'm probably not callingthe bluff with a gun Me neither.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
I think the safer choice is to not call the bluff,
but I mean on my to-do list,though, is for someone to pull a
knife on me and me cut theirarm off with my cane sword I
don't actually own?
a cane sword for legaldisclosure on this podcast.
Alright, and our final questionthe moon suddenly turned into a

(01:13:56):
giant mirror.
What weird societal orpsychological changes do you
think would happen?
So the moon is just a giantmirror and if you look up, you
see your own reflection in it?
Huh, my brain's like, my brainwants to go physics with it.
Right, but the question issocietal or psychological

(01:14:18):
changes to the moon?
If the moon's just a giantmirror Because my brain wants to
know logistics more thananything Like, if I look up, do
I see my own reflection in themoon mirror?
Hmm, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
So I don't know how big an issue this is with wind
turbines, but I have heard thatsome wind turbines, the fans are
very large and they end upcreating a lot of reflection to
the point where it couldactually be.
You have to have a certaindistance between the turbines

(01:15:00):
and roads to make sure thatreflections don't get in the
eyes of drivers and whatnot.
And the moon, surprisingly Well, not surprisingly If you think
about it.
It makes sense.
And the moon, surprisingly well, not surprisingly, if you think
about it.
It makes sense.
But the moon actually is in thesky during the day roughly half
the time that you can see themoon.
It's actually in the daytimethat you'll be able to see the

(01:15:20):
moon.
So the moon cycles for daytimein particular would be like that
would be insane.
How much that would affectpeople being able to drive or
affect people being able to workin tall buildings with beams of

(01:15:44):
light just blasting in throughthe windows.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Werewolves would have to retire and the poets would
revolt.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Feng Shui would have a whole new meaning, because you
literally have to have yourwindows facing a specific way so
you minimize the amount ofreflection you get from the moon
mirror.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Honestly, you know what would probably happen we
would destroy it.
Mankind would not let that moonmirror look up and know that,
like earth, is being reflectedon us.
We'd lose our bloody minds andwe'd blow the thing up, complete
faith that that's the outcome.
It wouldn't even take long likeearth would unite on the
singular goal of smashing themoon mirror.

(01:16:21):
Really spray painting it, yeah,but with really spray painting
it, uh, yeah, but with that.
Thank you everyone for tuningin.
Send us random questions.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Drink water, I guess yeah, yeah, self self care.
You know, make sure you go seea doctor when, when it's
necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
I'm gonna here's like a bit of some questionable
advice in the episode with planyour funeral to be interesting.
If you want me to attend it,like, like I don't know, make
everyone wear fun hats orsomething.
Liven it up a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
Geez, it's not like someone died around yeah, you
gotta plan your own funeral tomake sure that it's interesting
enough for me to come yep, thatis the takeaway of this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Oh man, yeah, I'm gonna just stop recording on
that one.
I'm happy with the finalclosing thought being make sure
your funeral is interestingenough for vlad and carl, or
richard and carl, to attend yourfuneral.
Because we go into no boringfunerals, I still vote Smash
Bros Tournament.
The winner gets your belongings.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
A swag pile of your belongings.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
There's so much more fun ways, although I still kind
of want to get launched intospace so I can be used to smash
the moon mirror.
Well, yeah, and episode done.
Go live your lives, bye.
Oh, we were still recording,yeah, but now we're not.