Return of an Old "Mystery Guest" | Fireside Chat 267

Join us on the Fireside Chat as we speak with a returning guest, who wishes to remain anonymous in the description, but you know him! He has worked in the animation industry in the past and was pushed out of his job by the #metoo movement.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, we're live. Hello everybody, and welcome to Honey
Badger Radio. My name is Brian and this is the
Fireside Chat and today I am on with an old,
an old guest friend of the channel, Luke Weber. I
don't want to like withhold the mystery any longer, but
we have our reasons. So Luke Webber or fresher Luke
as he is known on I guess for by some.

(00:22):
I mean, I know I've known you as Luke for
as long as we've had you, you know, around, which
is like a few years now. Yeah. Yeah, how you doing, man.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
It's a great honor to finally be back here on
the Oh Honey Badger Radio channel once again to talk
about things and whine about stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I try not to whine. I'm generally an optimistic person
by nature, but no, I get it, because you know,
sometimes you need a vent, especially when you don't think
anyone's like understands your situation or your position.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I mean it's uh, yeah, it's getting pretty fast
out there.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
We're we're living in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
A lot has happened since I've last been on, and
the world's become a little bit darker because of it.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I guess. I'm sure you can tell what I'm talking about, but.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
That's putting it lightly.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I think, yeah, well, I'm trying to put everything as
lightly as I can.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
But yeah, yeah, I hear you. So anyway, so the
last time we talked was a few years ago, so
like what what sort of like I don't know, like
what what's changed? Like, what's what have you been up to?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I mean nothing, Well, things have changed, but things haven't changed.
I'm still you know, blacklisted from the animation industry. That
obviously is never going to change because leftists can never
admit when they're wrong. But I mean, in regards to
things that have changed, I'm doing a lot better mentally,
and I'm working on doing a lot better physically.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm living a nice, quiet and peaceful life, which is good.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's part of the reason why I'm doing a lot
better mentally. What else, and I'm just you know, I
guess maybe you could call this my retirement phase. I
don't know, it feels like.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
It, so, like, do you I remember when we talked
last you were kind of like driving in lyft or
an uber to make ends meet or at least like
on the side or something.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Are I was doing kind of side stuff. Not really,
I have like a day job now. It's unrelated to
what I used to be do working in animation. Yeah,
but it's you know, given everything that's currently happening in
the industry right now, it's probably a good thing to
sort of become I guess, more versatile in that regard

(02:38):
and more useful, just you know, how to say, you're
basically you know, AI is becoming so is increasingly becoming
more sophisticated in that regard, and so I think it's
probably a good time to sort of learn practical.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Skills and use those two become more useful. It's probably
a good way to put it.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Do you still like tabs on and like what's going
on in the industry? Like do you still have friends
or people you know that work there and you sort
of follow what's going on with it because you mentioned
you know something about how the industry is these days.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I do still keep tabs on it now, and
then I'm still on the mailing list of like the
guild and some other places. Oh okay, and I'm mostly
I tend to just chuckle to myself now when I
read those emails, because I can sort of read behind
the context of sort of the front they put up
where it kind of trying to pretend that everything is

(03:34):
hunky dory. In regards to friends, I don't have any.
I mean, aside from one, only one person that I
still keep in semi regular contact with.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I don't talk. I don't talk to outside of other
people who sort of.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Similar to me that I've managed to find to have
come to me and they've told me their stories and
how they've and one of those stories is that they
haven't had any work in the last two years. And
I'm sure you can guess what kind of demographic those
people are. Demographics like you and me, Brian, And but yeah,
outside of that, I don't I haven't contacted anybody in

(04:11):
the industry. Nobody in the industry is bothered to contact me.
I'm still basically the industry boogeyman that they use non grata, right, Yeah,
you know, they when whenever I kind of pop up
or they kind of catch me talking about something that
they don't like me telling the truth about in regards
to what they're up to, then they, you know, they

(04:32):
prop me up as that straw man saying you know,
I'm the devil and that you know I'm dangerous and
you know all the usual bs.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
So yeah, yeah, so we do have some new people watching,
so like maybe we should give them a bit of
a refresher course on Yeah, they're very clever. Okay, yes,
we should give them a refresher course on fresher and
what and like what is it we're actually talking about,

(05:01):
because I think that the context isn't all there, So
tell us a little bit about what you did in
animation and then like what kind of like happened to you,
just like a short version like the.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Cliff notes of my life story.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, I mean we could we could get a little like,
you know, take whatever time you need so that people
see where this is coming from, because I do, I
do think that it's not unimportant, you know. I think
I think it's actually really important stuff going.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
I guess it's important to you know, maybe it's sort
of like a law update or a just just to
put things in.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Context so to say. Mean, yeah, so my name is
Luke Webber.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
I guess you could say I have like twenty plus
years experience in the entertainment industry. Ten of those years
were in Australia, which isn't really saying much because Australia,
well back then, Australia don't really have much of an
entertainment industry.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
To talk about.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
And as you can probably guess from my accent, I
am originally from Australia. I moved to the United States
at the end of two thousand and nine and the
beginning of twenty ten in order to look for work
working in animation as a result, partly due to the
financial two thousand and eight financial crash, and so I
worked as a storyboard artists in Los Angeles at a

(06:15):
lot of the major studios like DreamWorks, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers,
who else I'm joined at Blank Disney and a whole
host of other studios.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
The company it starts with a D D.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Dickheads.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Maybe I don't very very humble.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, so, yeah, I worked at all these studios. You
can probably find my IMDb. You can see it all.
There have a very extensive IMDb. So I worked in
all these studios mainly as a storyboard artists. Well that's
what I'm credited as mostly for about ten years up
until about I guess the beginning of twenty eighteen, when
the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke and Me Too happened. Consequently,

(06:55):
there was a silent coup from all the females in
the animation industry who saw an opportunity to take control.
They did, and one of the first things they did
was to create a blacklist of white, straight white males
who were also talented that could potentially be.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
In pole being.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Obviously, Gole'll provide pushback, and my name was on that list,
and I was accused of all kinds of incredibly heinous
things stuff even to this day, I don't know one
hundred percent might have been accused of. I never had
my day in court, I never had my chance to
face my accusers or defend myself. And being blacklisted and
having my reputation fundamentally destroyed as a result, I've more

(07:38):
or less been able to get any kind of regular work.
I guess since twenty nineteen was probably the last time
I had any industry work, and so.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Since then I've been working.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
I've mostly been trying to survive as an independent artist.
And what else I feel like I'm forgetting something Ryan.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
No, I mean, like, I guess there's a few notable
did you did you work on bluey? Was that you?

Speaker 2 (08:04):
No, I didn't work on Blue. Blue is an Australian production.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, that was an Australian thing you worked on.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Though I didn't work on Blue. No, Blue is a.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Moment Okay, Yeah, I guess that's right. But anyway, no,
I think that that makes sense. I mean we talked
a bit like when I had you on before. I
think we talked about this Women in Animation Guild, Yes,
which is essentially like a union or they work with unions,
and they were using unions to push men out of
the industry and replace them with women. And they had

(08:33):
this initiative called fifty to fifty by twenty thirty something
like that.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah, so it was like it was especially fifty to
fifty gender parody across all creative fields by twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Twenty twenty five, that's right by this year, by this year.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
So yeah, and they've achieved that goal. So they should
be packing up and leaving.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
I shouldn't. I mean, like, if there's but if there's
more than fifty percent women, that that still counts as
like you know, like we get seventy five, that's okay too.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, so a classic Marxist tactic.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, and so yeah, they've Well, the thing is that
they they very quietly took that mission statement down from
their website, but it's still up on their Twitter.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
So yeah, so you got let me ask you this,
When you were doing that job before all this madness,
would you say that was a very like a dream
job or like a really satisfying job.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes for you? No, yes, well yes and no.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
I guess when I first started. I guess when you
start any job, there's like a honeymoon phase.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Initially, when I first started it, it was it was great.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
I gotta I got to finally get a taste of,
you know, how actual meritocracy and a proper working studio
production actually worked. I was getting paid good money. People
liked my work. Everyone was very supportive, and it was great.
Over time, as I worked at different studios on different productions,

(10:05):
things became less and less pleasurable.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
I guess there's a good way to put it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
I think I might have talked about this before on
the last time I was here, But things things got
a little bit more weird as time moved on, and
as I'm being an animator one of the skills you
have to learn is being able to observe sort of
things objectively around you. And I was kind of noticing
a lot of stuff that was happening and sort of

(10:33):
thinking that that didn't really seem right. But it turns
out my instincts were true, and I was ignoring them
at my own peril.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
So there was like some bureaucratic things that you didn't like.
There was a cultural thing.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
It was like it was like office culture, because yeah,
the Marxist feminist ideology was very slowly, like a Cansas,
starting to sort.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Of embed itself in. Yeah, I didn't really notice it more.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
I didn't really notice the most until I was starting
to work on Gravity fulls, which is like around twenty
fifteen or so. And yeah, that's when I really started
to notice that when the showrunner started to act in
particular particularly discriminative, discriminatory ways.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Are you talking about the Stephen universe guy, No.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I'm talking about Alex Hirst.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
That, yes, Hirsh that was I'm trying to remember his name.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, Well, I don't want to give him the benefit
of like saying his name, so I just say the
showrunner of Gravity for yeah, yeah, yeah, because again, like
this happened a long time ago, and yeah, that's long
in the past and I'm now living my life as
I am today.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Okay, and the usual as Simps still accused me of
being obsessed with it when I'm really not.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
I'm just doing my own thing, right.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
So, what's like the most heinous thing that you know
of that you've been accused of if you don't mind
talking about, well, the thing that these are false allegations,
we should know what they are, because this is, you know, yes.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
It's it is awful. Well, the most heinous thing that
keeps getting brought up. It's kind of a bit I
don't know, it's really convoluted because it changes with every
time it's it's it's acute story changes, The story changes
every time it's thrown in my face online. Yeah, but
the crux of it is is that on gravity Falls.

(12:28):
For some reason, I had this mega crush on one
of my fellows, story worker co worker, fellow storyboart artists
by the name of Dana Terris, and that I wanted
to bang her and that she instead wanted to and
some reason she was flooding with the show runner Alex
Hirsch in front of me, and so I threatened her,
threatened to rape her at knife point if she did

(12:49):
if she didn't date Yeah, that's the current iteration of it.
If she didn't do that, and that's why I got
fired from Steven Universe.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
That's crazy, Okay, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
So yeah, so it doesn't make any sense because I
I did freelance on Steven Universe before I worked on
Gravity Falls. So whenever I hear that, I'm like, Okay.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
That's interesting. And again, so that's the most heinous thing.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
The other ones the usual false accusations of sexual harassment
and me being a raging maniac or some of the stuff.
The other one is that I'm like some kind of
crazy Inceel who got fired from Steven Universe because I
was screaming at Rebecca Sugar, the showrunner, demanding that I

(13:30):
am somehow be shipped. Somehow I am supposed to have
a relationship with one of the characters on the show,
which is which.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
We were ridiculous. Yeah, you need to help me understand this. Okay,
a fictional character on the show you're supposed to have
a relationship with.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I don't what, Well, let me clarify.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
So back when I was still quote unquote friends with
people like Rebecca and all the and the people in
the industry before I was persona on Growder. After I
basically had to know, breakdown from all the bullying I
had sustained on Gravity Falls, I was just like, I
want to draw something that's gonna make me laugh. And
so I drew all these pictures of this character that

(14:11):
I created, you know, just to I guess you could
call it an NPC sort of interacting in cute and
adorable ways with this character on Stephen Universe called Pearl.
And Rebecca really liked it, and she posted it up
on the Stephen Universe blog, the drawings, and you know,
she thought it was great at the time, and she

(14:33):
told me that herself, and so I did another. I
did like a follow up drawing showing her any and
sort of like saying quoting them saying that because they
were all kind of you know, they thought it was
funny as well, and I was like, okay, great, I
could make everyone laugh. And so now they take those
drawings and they show them to me and say, oh,
you know, this is the proof that this is the
proof that you got five from Stephen Universe.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm like, what are you talking.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
About weird stalking behavior or sexual harassment in the h
drawings in.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
The form of drawings that I did, which I still
have the originals of. I should definitely try. I should
definitely try and like auction those out because I'm sure
they're very valuable. But but yeah, that's that's sort of
the other with sort of I'm no gatcha that they
think they have so it, but it always confuses me
every time they bring it up and they're like, this,
you broke like I drew that.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, what are you trying to say? That's that's sort
of the other thing that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
It's that they're being basically, you're experiencing people that are
using things that you did out of like you know,
for fun or even being a little bit thoughtful or whatever,
and it and it's it takes work to create these drawings,
and they're trying to use the most uncharitable interpretation of
what you did to try to like, you know, hurt

(15:49):
your reputation exactly and damage your name.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
I'm definitely gonna I'm definitely looking forward to the day
when I take them to court when you do what
when I take them to court?

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Oh, yeah, are you doing that.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, I'm working on it.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Over the years, I've been sort of compiling screenshots and
receipts stimilar use against them, And I'm happy to say
that that they very is approaching very soon.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Well that's exciting. Yeah, and I think it'll be well, well,
I guess we'll see what happens, but I think what happens,
it'll be a big like, there'll be closure, at least
you have a left of a great weight off your shoulders.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Well it's more or less just to like kick kick
those little chuds in the balls.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
But yeah, that'll feel good too.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, but yeah, more or less that's what it is.
It's like.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
And this this happens to me a lot online whenever
I'm critical of Dana online because she is a raging,
psychopathic narcissist. I know that sure, and and she is
a bully, and she is a very shallow and vindictive person,
and so normally I don't really comment on anything about
her because again it's the past. But just recently I

(16:57):
did criticize sort of her motivations of her recent pilot
that just aired as usual, the usual sense came out
of the woodwork and did again went the same through
the through the same rigamaru that we just described again,
taking taking everything I've said and done online, using the
least charitable interpretation to ruin my reputation, and taking everything

(17:20):
out of context despite you know, anything that is the
contrary to that.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
So, like if you, I know that you've you know,
struck out on your own a couple of times, made
a few books. I have one of them. I have
Forsaken Gods, Yes, which is you know, I like that
there isn't a lot of dialogue in it, Like that's
I think that's hard to do. You're telling the story
with the images. But I think for Saken Gods has
a lot of legs on it. And I know that
there's like you have good ideas, but like if you

(17:46):
were able to, would you let's just hypothetically, should you
like strike out on your own and just do your
own studio, make your own stuff if you you know,
if you like had like a start your own business
in Yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
If I if I had, if I had a million dollars.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I would totally Yeah if you had a million dollars yet.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Like yeah, I mean I would, Yeah, I would totally
love to start my own studio and offer work to
a lot of the same people in our demographic who
have found themselves out of work for ridiculous r Yeah
that that would definitely be a pie in the sky
dream of mine for sure. But with everything, the way
that that that machine works is you got to the
fuel is money. You need money to get the wheels rolling.

(18:26):
I I am making a little bit of money and
I'm trying to work towards some semblance of I am
a lot more stable, in a lot more stable place
than I was last time I talked. Yeah, but that,
but you know, even then, I'm still not quite self
sufficient yet where I can sort of be a in
a in a ideal state to sort of contemplate that service.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, so like you you, but you have like attempted
a couple of kickstarters, and what I I don't think
it's because well I don't know, maybe maybe you know
better than me, But you've attended some kickstarters. I guess
like they didn't end up being fulfilled for whatever reason,
at least some of them didn't.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't know the story for every successful kickstarter I've done.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
I've fulfilled Okay, Okay, Like no, I mean like they
met their funding goal. Not not that you didn't ship
the stuff out. I'm sure you didn't work.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You're talking about the failed kickstarters.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, how many how
many of the well, okay, how many kickstarters have you done?
And how many have I think I did?

Speaker 3 (19:31):
I think I've tried well. I think overall I've tried well.
I mean, if we're just talking row numbers, I think
I tried five and two. I think maybe two or
three succeeded something like that.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
The ones that succeeded were the second gods ones where
I hit my I hit my funding goal. The ones
that didn't succeed were animation crowdfunders, and it was usually
for the same thing, which is why that number is
like five and not like say two or three, because
I would put it on I would put the animation
project on Indiegogo and it wouldn't fund, and then I'm like, okay,

(20:08):
well let's just try a different platform, right, And so
I'd go to Kickstarter and I'd try that, and that
wouldn't fund. I'm like, oh okay, and then I would
try you know. It was sort of my process of
kind of like trying to throw stuff at the wall
to see what would work. And so ultimately the lesson
I learned was animation doesn't work unless you have, like,

(20:30):
you know, a solid follow up base. But for comics
can actually kind of work a little bit because people
want physical media. But I'm sure maybe you have some
insights on that as well.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Right well, you know what, I haven't really paid attention
a lot to the because I'm not really sure what's
going on with the whole comics skate or comics books
industry thing. There's a lot of weird infighting and yeah,
yeah stupid, and I don't yeah, I kind of like
have because look the way I see it is, I
just want good stories. And I don't know, I mean,
I've seen some of the projects and I didn't find

(21:04):
them all that enticing because I'm looking for something that,
you know, like I think, I mean, what we need
is something that's gonna like really like break it open,
you know, like I don't know, like what happened with
like the Fantastic Four, Like when Stanley's whole story about
you know, they were taking the furniture out and he,
like his wife was like, just write what you want

(21:26):
to write. And he wrote that this might not even
be real, like it could be a bullshit story, but
it's it's it probably is a bullshit story, I know,
but like we like, I guess we'd be something like
with that much impact. And I a lot of what
I see coming out of comments Gate is either derivative
or it's almost like a parody of itself. And I'm like, well,

(21:48):
this is fine for now, but it's more short term.
It doesn't really have like it doesn't have the potential
for lasting, you know, for lasting like sort of timeless content.
I think that's really hard to do. So I'm not
even like blaming anyone for not trying. I think it's hard.
But I will say, and this isn't me like kissing
your ass, but I do think that Forsaking God's has

(22:10):
the potential to be something really like special, you know,
because it isn't from what I can tell, it's it
isn't like just like I don't know, like one of
the like Iron Giant or the old King Kong cartoon.
Nobody remembers that King Kong cartoon, but it was like
it was a little boy and he was friends with
King Kong. That nobody remembers that. Oh it's old. I

(22:34):
think it's from the seventies. It might even be from
the sixties, but it was from the Yeah, And it
was like a Saturday morning cartoon. And there was this
little boy for some reason. He was in the jungle,
but he wore like regular clothes, like a striped shirt
and some you know, shorts, and he was friends with
King Kong, and and you know they would King Kong
would save him from things. I don't really remember.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
I just I just remember as King Kong does.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, as King Kong does. Friends with kids, women not
so much.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
She's just well, he.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Wants to keep them. He's just trying to protect them,
the kids.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, he lets the kids go his King Kong's morrals
are very finely tuned.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
I'll end the joke. Though.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's harambe. It's just it's just a precursory. It's radioactive
mutant harambe.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
But anyway, so people are wondering, we should probably like
get into this real quick. But I didn't put your
name on the title because you you have you have
people harassing and stalking you online. Yeah, what is this
has to do with the thing we were just talking about?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
More or less.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, so yeah, yeah, I've had a stalker basically harassing
me and following me around everywhere online, I guess non
stop for like the fast the past six five, six,
seven years something like that.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Whoa, yeah, you know what they want.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
They want to be angry at me. They want to
I know that they definitely want me to be a pedophile,
because that's all they ever call me.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
And again they do. They sort of use the.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Same tactics that we've talked about before, taking a lot
of past stuff that I've said and done, taking it
out of context and using the least charitable interpretation and
throwing it in my face. It's gotten pretty serious and
he's definitely going to be the first person that I'm
going to be taking to court.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
You know. The person's a man like you know.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
I don't know who this person is because they use
multiple soccer accounts. I think they're on like their thirtieth
soccer account, and you know, and I blocked the account
and then they scream at me from behind the block
and then they realize they're not getting whatever narcissistic supply
that they're after, so then they make a new soccer account,
you know, drop into my replies on my purse, accuse

(24:48):
me of being a pedophile. The same old thing, the
same old, repeated, broken record process that they've been doing
NonStop for the past five to six years, and then
I blocked them and the whole process starts all over
it again. I mean, that's that's the least egregious thing
they've done. I won't talk about the most egregious thing
they've done because I'm not comfortable talking about it, because

(25:09):
it's really it's really really egregious. It's sort of what
they've done has basically been it's basically given me like
the magic bullet to basically take their ass to court.
And once, you know, once I get enough of the
funds to get a lawyer, that's probably going to be
their very first thing I'm going to do. Yeah, just

(25:30):
just finding out who this person is and confronting them
and making sure that they pay for what they've been
doing to me like unchallenged for quite a few years.
So party, and I appreciate you. Part of the reason why, yeah,
you haven't put my name on there is because I
requested it. Because again, they constantly search for me in

(25:50):
the algorithm to see where I'm going, and I've done
other When I was doing the crowdfunders for Saken Guards
and stuff like that, I was going to other people's
streams to try to promote it, and where whenever I
would advertise it and say I'm going to be on
this stream, they'd show up in the comments trying to
intimidate me, calling me again, calling me a pedophile, calling

(26:11):
me a loser, you know, calling accusing me of wanting
to rape Dana and all this odther bullshit.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah, and it just I'm just absolutely fed up with it.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
It's absolutely bullshit, and I'm looking I am definitely looking
forward today when I to the day when I get
to unmask this maniac.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, I'm just sort of like scanting through your x
account to see if I see any any of this behavior.
I guess you've been not blocked, but you're like unable
to access your Oh yeah right.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Now, right now, I am my account has my my
my what would you call it. It's it's been I
can't comment, I can't like, I can't like.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
You've been limited in limitablity.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yeah, because well, yeah, recently because I criticized Dana my account. Yeah,
they flagged my account and it got Yeah, and so
for the next eleven hours, I can't really do anything
because I poked the hornet's tests because I mildly criticized
Dana terrorists.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
And so yeah, and so if.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
You want engagement, the new apparently the new rule is
is just you press the big red button that says
mildly criticized Dana terrorists.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
That's how you get engagement.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
I do see though, that you do talk a little
bit about things happening in the industry. Yeah, and your
sort of takes on it. I guess something happened with Disney.
They're set to get a primetime adult animation block in
twenty eleven. Oh so that was almost quickly scrapped because
of the program's pitched for it.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, it turns out that was really old. Actually, that
was back in September. Yeah, so it's an old story.
But okay, yeah, but uh, but yeah, I do occasionally
I still do talk about what's going on the industry.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Right now.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
The industry is in massive decline thanks to the UH.
I guess the endeavors of what organizations like Women in
Animation have been doing. The this is the fruits of
their labor. So, uh, you know, it's it's more or less.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
So it's so like the women wait wait, wait wait,
I'm sorry. Women in animation have essentially achieved their goals,
and they're probably gonna do more than just achieve their goals.
It is the year where that should happen. And they're
getting a bunch of women making goon material for women?
Is that? What is am I right about? That? Is
that happening?

Speaker 3 (28:28):
I don't know about goon material, but all I.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, lesbian romances.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
And lesbian romance grooon material.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Women, Well, I think women have Have you seen what's
happened with women's literature? Oh yeah, and I use the
term literature. Yeah, it's doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
That is doing a lot of heavy lift lifting. I
know exactly what you're talking about. The thing I don't think.
I'm not sure if your audience might have known this
or not. Everything that's happening animation industry right now has
been happening in the publishing industry for like more than
the last ten years. Yes, so it doesn't surprise me
now that. Yeah, literature in general and publishing in general

(29:12):
is kind of going the same way, or at least
Western publishing in general. Yeah, because it's the same kind
of thing. The people who make the decisions and what
gets published and what doesn't women and women aren't looking
at you know, is this a good story, Is this
something that has meaning to it that can reach an audience,
and if so, what audience is it targeting? So to say,

(29:34):
they are looking at who is writing the story and
how they could possibly use that identity to somehow capitalize
on the virtue economy, which is an imaginary thing. And
as a result, because they're not choose, they're not picking
things based on the merit of the actual work and
how good it's, how well it's made. Again, they're basing

(29:56):
it on whether or not it's their friends and they
just need to, you know, make sure their friends get
some money. And yeah, it's it's again. It's it's in
massive decline. I'm pretty sure their sales are going through
the floor. It's the same thing that happened in comics.
They're trying to recover, but you know, that's probably going
to take the next whate ten to twenty years to
try to get back to where they were at some point. Yeah,

(30:18):
and even then that's not even going to be I
don't even think that's going to be feasible, because now
most of the new generations have sort of been trained
out of wanting to read and pursue comics.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
And I think the only thing that.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
They really have going for them at the moment is
that there are obviously a lot of comic book movies
that they're missing out and a huge opportunity here to
sort of sell more comics because the movies don't match
with some of the comics don't match.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
With the movies well, and the and the movies are
failing to like the yeah that everyone involved in writing them,
they they have forgotten, at least when it comes to
sort of established intellectual properties that when you take over
as a writer, it does. It's not you. You're a
steward of it. So as a steward, you're supposed to

(31:03):
like respect what it was historically and try to maintain
the spirit of that thing. And they have completely abandoned
it because they're egotistical, insecure narcissists that need everything to
be about them all the time, and so they're telling
stories that they like because it's about them, but no
one else gets it, and it doesn't It doesn't work
like I was on the flight I went to Canada

(31:25):
to for a meetup last last Best like we had
we were gonna do a show earlier in September, but yeah,
the meetup and the schedule if they just clashed. So
because I had to go to Canada, we delayed it
for today and I was on the flight back and
it was like a long flights, like four hours, and
so I was like, well, there's nothing to do, and
they said that nowadays, if you guys don't know, you

(31:46):
know how they used to have in flight movies. Now
they have it to where you can use your phone
to watch movies for free and like whatever you want
they have, Like, well they have a selection. So I'm
looking through the movies. I can't really find anything. The
only thing they had was what was it, the Thunderbolts,
the Marvel Thunderbolts, And I was like, oh fuck, I'll
watch it just to see how bad it is, because
I know it's not good. And I didn't finish it,

(32:09):
and I was like, yeah, nobody, these people don't get
what this material is. Like, it's so it's and it's
not just in the films, it's everywhere. It's moved so
far away from what it was. No one remembers what
it was. It's vanished in just in the spirit of
what it was. And so when you know, and I
think that just you know, putting people in these roles

(32:29):
based on their identity markers, as you were saying, it
doesn't It doesn't help because nobody knows what it is
they're supposed to be doing. So all they do is
write what they like. And I think a lot of
these people came out of Tumblr and they were they
were convinced they were great writers because you know, their
Tumblr stories got like ten likes from their friends or something,

(32:50):
and so they get in the industry and they start
bringing that with them. And the worst part is is
that to some degree that stuff is a bit proven.
Like you see that what was it, Fifty Shades of
Gray was basically a fanfic of Twilight, and they just
turn it into a series of books and then it
became a trilogy of movies, and so all these people
on Tumblr are like, well, they did it, why can't

(33:11):
I do it? You know, Yeah, can I have my own?
Anastagia Steel?

Speaker 3 (33:15):
And it's the blind leading the blind basically, yeah, And
it is that's a common problem in Hollywood where because
of everything we've just described, essentially, yeah, Hollywood in general
has just lost its competitive edge. I mean I'm kind
of glad about it now. I don't live in La anymore. No,
I'm happy to watch them crash and burn.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
But I mean, yeah, well they kind of have to
at this point, all of these creative industries they are,
they're gonna have to completely implode so that they make
space for the talent. And and I think that when
that happens, people are going to expect talent too, Like
we're gonna be want because we need stories.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
We need to we do yeah, do we need stories?
We need people to be inspired.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
I think going at it with people on Twitter recently
about how they were complaining because I made a statement
where they were taking a tweet out of context where
I was saying. The original tweet was like last minute
lesbians and a kids cartoon, right, I saw that, Yeah,
the banger tweet of all banger tweets that I've done,
like apparently, and I actually got really good numbers on that,

(34:21):
And it was just at the time when I made it,
I was just like, Aha, it's just you know, a
throwaway joke. But again, all the crazies came out of
the woodwork, and the same rigamaru happened that we've already
been through.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
What Okay, but it's true. So I'm mis see if
I can share this with the audience, I'm gonna try
to well.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Anyway, just to continue on the story. So someone was
someone took a screenshot of that tweet, and I said,
and they were trying to say, you know, is this
you bro? And I'm like, yeah, that is me. I
don't think it's very appropriate for children to be exposed
to advocating homosexual content. To them, it's like and to

(34:58):
sort of talk about that of a deeper level, it's like,
right now, you know, we are facing a real danger
of population collapse because our replacement levels are nowhere near
where they need to be, Like, we are far below
replacement levels. And yet they're championing this idea of having
a homosexual relationship which leads to actual no actual offspring.

(35:20):
And when you push back on that, they say, well,
you know, homosexual relationships are normal, and I take great
issue with that.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
They're not normal.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
And but another argument or non argument that was thrown
my way was saying, you know, there's there's plenty of
heterosexual relationships shown on TV. Why are you complaining about,
you know, the scant few homosexual relationships shown on in media,
And that's actually a false argument. There's I would argue
that there's literally no or very little heterosexual relationship shown

(35:50):
to mainstream media now the day it's it's almost all
homosexual relationships. It's any homosexual relationships that are shown are
often put on a pedestal and shown that this is the.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Stand or platonic ones, like where exactly like where the
male and female relationship is purely platonic, or even one sided,
with the man pining for the woman but the woman
not reciprocating exactly.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Exactly, or vice versa. And you know, and to your
point and sort of you know, this is also my thesis.
You know, it's becoming very clear that, you know, society
and humans, if we want to have a good society,
like a positive society and positive humans that's healthy, then
we need positive and healthy feedback loops. And the way

(36:35):
that you begin those feed back loops is through the
media that people ingest. And if they're ingesting a message
saying be gay, do crimes, then you're going to be
no next generation, and you're going.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
To have rampant crime.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
But if you have a message that says, you know,
get married and reproduce, you know, rest in peace form
of Japanese Prime minister, get married and reproduce and you know,
build a health the family, then that's going to you know,
inspire people to want to do those things. And so yeah,
we are reaching it feels like we're reaching a very
terrible inflection point and we're starting to get towards the

(37:12):
business end of it right now.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Wow, So you're okay, I will say this. I'm impressed
you are more outspoken than you were last time I
talked to you. I think you were playing it really safe,
or maybe you just weren't as certain, but you're definitely
more like you have let fewer focks to give these days.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
True. Well, yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
I do.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
That is you know what, You're right? That is true.
Back in the day, I guess I was. I guess
I was still trying to deal with what had happened
because there was such a shock to me. And these days,
you know, I think it's pretty fair and everybody else,
a lot of people very much agree. And the last
election did, in fact kind of prove it. It's that
we're kind of basically sick and tired of this fucking

(37:50):
bullshit and getting pushed around and getting hounded and all
this other shit is just myself, and I would assume yourself,
and I would assume your viewers, and I would also assume,
and I hope I'm not wrong.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
I hope I'm wrong or not wrong.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
That a large portion of the general population are really
just sick of this fucking bullshit. We're tired of it.
We're tired of being told that the way that we live,
which has been ordained to us by God to be
prosperous and to multiply, because it's through increased populations that
we are able to increase our sophistication, and through sophistication

(38:28):
we can further divine the answer the answers that God
has laid out for us in the universe that He's
created for us to explore. Right now, what is currently
being you know, sort of fed to us or jammed
down our throats, I would argue, is very anti human.
It's anti life, it's anti hope. And yet it is

(38:54):
they continuously contort themselves to try to gaslight into thinking
that it's normal and it should be celebrated.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
And I'm just not for that shit. I just fucking
hate it.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
It has no place in children's entertainment.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Absolutely not pre each brother. Yeah, no, that's the thing.
That's really the thing is why aren't we just calling
it what it is. It's creepy as shit. It is
creepy lesbians in a kid's cartoon. It's creepy as shit
to do that. And because they assume that children are
not in fact impressionable, and we have seen how impressionable
children can be are yeah, you know, and I think

(39:32):
what we what we show them and the stories we
tell them, is it matters. Like their brains are just
like sponges, like they're absorbing all this information and they
know that, Like that's why they're that's why they run
the education systems exactly. They you know, like the people
in your studio that you worked around, they were all

(39:53):
educated by the same system.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
So yeah, yeah, they were educated by that system. I
lucky I was educated by a different system in a
different country.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yes, yes, you perhaps were, although I don't know as Australia.
Australia is pretty woked these days. Yeah, it was delayed.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
They're shipping in the immigrants by the truckloads. Now Australia
is more or less basically almost lost at this point,
and I'm kind of glad I left that place.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Yeah, but it's uh.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
And that's partly the reason why I take such issue
with a creator like Dana Terrace, because if you see
in that tweet right there, there's that image of the
owl House with the two self inserts of.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
Hers the owl houses right here, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah, yeah, And it was basically her version. It wasn't
even a fucking good show, like on a very conceptual level,
because it was essentially a gay version of Little Witch Academia,
Harry Potter and Pokemon kind of smashed together. So already
it doesn't get it doesn't get points for originality. Yeah,

(40:57):
but just the fact that again it's it's probably I
would say it's the prime example of sort of promoting
this shit to kids. But even to this day, Dana
is still celebrated. She just recently aired a new pilot
called Knights of Guinevere on It's this YouTube channel called
Glitch Productions, which is funny enough, an Australian company run

(41:17):
by male feminists Asian male feminists. You know, it's got
eight million views. But yeah, she despite what a bully
she is, what a narcissist and a psycho she is,
she is still celebrated. And I you know, I take
issue with that fact. I mean, if she were to
turn around and say, look, I was wrong, I want

(41:39):
to try and do better, and she did like a
one to eighty, then maybe I would be willing to
give her some grace. But she hasn't reneged done everything.
In fact, she's mostly just doubled down, and it's mostly
just her first world trauma dumping and sort of trying
to explain to everyone how gay she is now.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
So well, that's what. Yeah, it's all self served. That's
it almost always is.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
To It always is self serving, and you can see
it in their storytelling, like all of their storytelling is
selfish storytelling. It doesn't try to reach out, don't go
through my fucking Twitter.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
I've done it. I've done it. It's too late. I'm
not sharing this with the audience.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
It's okay, okay, you guys can follow my ex It's
just that at pressure. Yeah, but yeah, it's you know,
and so whenever it really I guess it kind of
disturbs me whenever I criticize her even slightly when her
symps come out of the woodwork, and I'm like, okay,
so you people aren't very right in the head because
she was, you know, just just to go back to

(42:40):
sort of my past a little bit, you know, she
was one of the main people who was responsible for
destroying my career, showing my reputation and getting me kicked
out of the industry. Because again, it's this whole ultra
turboginocentric view that a lot of the males in the
industry who still have can the subscribe to about putting

(43:01):
women on a pedestal and just sort of acting as
subservient slaves to them, hoping that they'll be eaten lost
and uh. And that's probably one of the other reasons
why I don't really talk to anybody in the industry anymore.
The ones that I do talk to are the ones
who can't get any work, and they generally tend to
be mostly upstanding dudes.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah, okay, if you guys want to send any super chants,
rumble rants, or super chows, please do so. You can
send us a superchow at feedbadgeer dot com. Force last,
just the tip. It's usually the best way to send
because you can make it a longer message and we
get most of what goes through. I mean, there's still
a little bit of a cut for the people who

(43:42):
you know, provide us the services to allow that. But
it's a lot better than YouTube, which takes like close
to half or half what half your super chats.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, I'm glad I'm not on YouTube anymore. Fuck that.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Rumble is better.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, but I think it still needs some work to
make it.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
More fun, No, for sure. I mean when it comes
to the rumble rants like you get more, you get
almost all of it. But yeah, like YouTube, Google, they're
they're definitely getting big for the Bredges. But I gotta
I gotta rumble rant. Speaking of Rumble, mister oh three
oh three gives us five dollars and says I really
enjoyed forsaking Gods. It has such an amazing world and it
would be a shame if it ends where it did.

(44:19):
Has Luke considered continuing it via non enemy platforms like
ericteralized rip assend Or and I guess he was gonna
say more, or Dan Pan's Burning Star Comics.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I have considered all of those options. The problem with
rip Assent is that he takes a huge cut.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, I'm not saying that what Eric does is wrong
and he shouldn't be doing it.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
He's very successful at it.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
He's he understands that it's a numbers game at the
end of the day, and he's he's played it excellently
and he deserves all the uh success that Yeah, all
the kudos, all the success that he's getting. A lot
of people, a lot of people have been sort of
trying to have or at least in the Putts, they've
been trying to dog pile on him as well, trying
to tell him how to run his fucking business, which

(45:02):
I don't know, but that's a I think I feel
like that's a different story for another time. In regards
to dan Fan Atrish, who's actually a good friend of mine,
I have sort of considered that I don't kind of
want to overshadow because right now she's sort of building
out her thing and I kind of don't want to. Yeah,
Dan Fan, I don't want to overshadow her stuff, so
to say. But I mean I have considered it as well.

(45:24):
In regards to second guys, itself. I mean, I do
want to continue the story. I you know, was it
chapter volume two? I guess chapters three to four. They
have all been written out. They're not finished per se,
just because part of it is just sort of like
a time constraint because I have a day job and
you know, I'm sort of as I I think I

(45:46):
said to you offline, Brian, I'm kind of sort of
in my semi retirement phase. Yeah, but I mean it's
there and I know what the story is. But yeah,
it's like as I've gotten older, it gets it gets
a lot harder for me to sort of get stuff
out and for for sacond gods, I wanted to look
absolutely pristine and spectacular and and so that's sort of

(46:09):
another thing as well, because it's in full color. It's
not black and white, and so the coloring aspect is
a whole other that's a whole other bed to wrestle
with or yeah, yeah, and I and again, I want
to do a good job. I wanted to look good
and yeah, it's it's tough. And part of the problem
with that is also you know, again it's a numbers game.
There's not really that And this is partly my fault.

(46:32):
I'm not blaming anybody except myself. Part of it is
just whether or not there's enough interest and incentive, and
if there's enough interest, if there's enough incentive, right, like,
if I was to like sell do like say five figures,
like say twenty five thousand dollars on a kickstarter, theoretically,
if I was to do another kickstarter for like the
next volume, then I'll be like, okay, so there is

(46:55):
sort of interest. But you know, I've tried to sort
of do like reprints and those haven't funded and other things,
and that partly comes down to the fact that I
haven't I haven't really been willing to play the cloud
economy game, so to say, where I'm just streaming every
streaming every day, doing the Dog and Pony Show, reminding everybody,
partly because I don't like that. I don't like this

(47:17):
idea of people as brands, because people are infallible and
people make mistakes. Yeah, it's why does my throat always
draw up when I'm like in the middle of something
very poignant.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
That's okay, all right, but.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Yeah, I mean that's how I see it. I'm not
trying to make up excuses, it's just things have sort
of slowed down for me a little bit, and so
I kind of have to really prioritize what I want
to do.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
And how I want to live. And right now I am.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
I have another comic series called Something Man, which you
might be interested in.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Something Man.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it's on my gum Road.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
I'm going to go look it up now, not this second,
maybe maybe the second maybe no no, not this second,
but Something Man. I'm gonna look it up. Yeah, tell me,
you guys look it up while we're talking, but not
not until the stream is over.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
So just just go to the Twitter and it's the
pin tweet is the link to my gum road and
you click.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, and it should be that on the on the
main page, not on the individual page for the same
Oh yeah, gum Road. Yeah, yeah, I see it.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I see it. I see Forsaken God's Volume one. But
if I click on your name, I see something Man.
Oh yeah, sure I saw this. I I saw this
in your feed. Yeah, kind of like a what do
you call them? A Sentai hero.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
And I think it's Centai.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah yeah, Sentai yeah yeah, yeah, like a power range
sort of.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
It's sort of a Centai show, but it's probably the
most political.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Work that I've done. Yeah. Interesting, I don't know if
you want to bring it up on screen.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I will. I will hold on, let me, let me,
let me get let me grab that really quick.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Then I think you can prompt me with the questions
and I can, yeah, divulge wisdom to the people.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Something man, All right, let me see if this is
gonna show up. Yes it is, Okay, well I can
see it. Yep, this is on your gum road and
this is the cover. Looks cool. I like the light
stand for something or fall for nothing?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Right? Correct?

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Let me see what this is like? A summary here.
After the Second Civil War, the government of the United
States of America was overthrown. Society collapse soon afterwards, and
in its place, the Collective Territories are Greater Americas CTGA
was formed, turning the once free nation into a communist
future dystopia filled with social credit scores run by an
authoritarian AI, and a new generation of citizens that exhibit

(49:38):
amazing supernatural abilities who are rounded up and used as
cannon fodder to maintain the new regime's grip on power.
One of these individuals is a young woman named forty
three with the ability to observe and analyze her world
around her that most cannot perceive. She can feel only
a strange sense that the world she lives in is
a miss that is, until she meets a serm certain

(50:00):
someone or something. Yeah, like super like this. Oh wait,
so this is out this book?

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah, so that's issue one and that's that's two dollars.
I think that's forty Yeah, I'm not sure how. I
can't remember how many pages it is. Maybe thirty pages,
maybe forty pages.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Sure. Yeah. And gum Road I've never used it, but
I guess you can just read the like web comics.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Or the gum road is like way you pay for
it and you download the PDF.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah yeah, that's that's what That's what I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's cool. Yeah, I'll probably buy this.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Hooray.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah you sold one, sold one, I mean I sold
three of them. Well, look, if you guys want to
support a Luke, you should and and I mean I
appreciate that you're so this is like your most this
is the thing too. And I know you're you're running
out a time because you have to go. So you
said you're gonna make give me like.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
An eye I can I can go a little bit
longer if you need.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
All Right, all right, yeah, that'll just me my Patren
show shorter. So but yeah, So I think that it's
it's really good that we're just like sort of like
talking frankly about these things, you know that stories, you know,
people say that they don't want stories to be political.
I hear this a lot, and I've been saying from

(51:17):
the beginning that you can't really avoid it because if
your story is saying something moral, than it's saying something political,
like fundamentally, and when you say political, I think what
people think of is sort of like the sort of
modern you know view on politics, like we have to
talk about you know, political parties and like different kinds

(51:38):
of governments and no, no, no, no, it doesn't mean any
of that, like like that's actually getting a little bit cheap.
When you're you know, telling a story, what you should
be looking at is like larger abstracts that represent you know,
the same thing, and you're and you're talking about universals
like universally preferable behavior I don't know what else to

(51:59):
call it upb and you're applying it in your stories
like why is why are we rooting for this character
that you want us to root for, well because they're likable,
Like why are they likable? Well because they do the
right thing, or because they do the right thing despite
you know, all odds or or all the temptations not
to or whatever it is. And that has to be
based in some something that looks like morality, so you

(52:23):
can't really like avoid it. And I think, I mean,
I don't know, maybe maybe people are realizing this now,
but I think that for the longest time they just
be like I don't want any politics. It's like, yeah,
but but there's no avoiding that you are going to
say something moral, like unless it's completely you know, indifferent,
like I don't know, pac Man probably is a moral

(52:43):
you're just trying to live and not well, yeah, but
like but there's not there's not a lot there either,
Like there's not much to it, you know, so well.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
I mean unless he's start until he picks up the UZI,
there's not really anything.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
There with Yeah, but yeah, I think that like if
you're just saying, you know, I don't know, you're trying
to make a statement, like it could be based in
some Greek Aristotelian philosophy, you're still saying something that is moral,
which is ultimately something political. But but the thing is,

(53:19):
I think that the reason why I'm bringing this up
is that I think the left gets to control things
because they get to make other people feel like really
really ambivalent about morality because they tell them that it's
being political. And so people are turned off by politics altogether.
But the left doesn't care. They just keep going. So

(53:40):
like you you end up with a vacuum, like or
you know, you get people that like they they go
too heavy handed the other way because they think they
need to like counter it. And I don't think that
works either. That's that turns people off. You know, like
making these kind of like you know, chick tracked type
comic strips that like involve people like going to hell
or whatever. Yeah, I think that that's not way to

(54:01):
do it either. Like you have to like do it
in a way that is relatable. It's important to be relatable, authentic,
and let's say optimistic, I guess in a way. I
mean even with the darker stories, you can do that too, ye,
And then I think that that's going to like get
people roped in, you know.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Yeah, I mean I would agree with most of that
in regards to something Man. Yeah, I get what you're saying.
The problem is is, yeah, the left has absolutely taken
over and completely twisted the idea of making a political work,
and so in making something Man, I kind of wanted to,

(54:43):
I guess, show people how it's actually done. I don't
know if you have any specific questions about the book,
but for me, I kind of wanted to take sort
of these ideas of sort of what it means to
be authoritarian and to live in sort of this authoritarian world,
and how sort of ideology can be used as a
cudgel to control Peece, but sort of look at it
not in a sort of a jingoistic way where I'm

(55:04):
trying to portray either one side more favorably than the other.
It's more about showing people as people and how they
sort of react and interact and deal with sort of
the situation that they're in, or like the larger world
that has sort of been constructed. It's sort of I
don't know if you remember when Donald Trump was first

(55:27):
sort of running for president at all. Course, So the
thing that really that really got stuck in my brain
because sometimes I'll see things and something will get stuck
in my brain. I'm like, hmm, it'll start sort of
percolating on that one thing. And one of the things
that sort of like stuck with me was when Samantha
Bee was first was originally on The Daily.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Show, right, yeah, and she did the skit where.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
She was like, you know, I'm reporting from the future,
which is Trump's America, and you know, she's like, you know,
covered in dirt, she's kind of dirty looking, and you know,
the backdrop she's on kind of looks like dilapidated and.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Stuff, acalyptic, kind of kind of apocalyptic. And she's like, oh,
I'm here in Trump's America. I'm a woman in Trump's America.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
And she had like this giant iPad on her wrist,
sort of like strapped her wrist, and she said, well,
you know, currently, my current stud of status rating is
a six, so it means, you know, I can I
can buy food, and I can walk freely without the
assistance of a man, but I can't vote. And when
I saw that, I was like, huh, that's really fucking weird.

(56:34):
But they would go to that nth degree. Yeah, that
was that was kind of like the crux for the
idea of something man, because it's the same kind of thing.
It's like, you know, they have this sort of essentially
all these these superpowered people are sort of basically in
this prison camp and they don't actually have names. They
have numbers, which is where the main character is called
forty three. But rather than the numbers where if you're

(56:57):
if you have a bigger number, you have you have
a better rating, it's actually the opposite, where if you
have a lower number, you have more privileges, so to say.
And the number ratings are based on sort of like
the immutable traits. Like the main character forty three, she's
this young black woman, and so she's sort of like
in the top fifty of privileged inmates. But they don't

(57:18):
call them inmates. They you know, they call them like
agents or whatever they get. They give them like these
sort of obscure terms to sort of like sort of
like smoke and mirrors, you know, stop make sure that
they don't ask too many questions, and so they give
they give these terminologies different names, which is another thing
you know, feminist leftists like to use.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
They like to manipulate language.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
She's sort of being put in charge of these missions
to sort of like capture and retrieve other like superpowered
individuals who are coincidentally young kids and sort of bring
them back to the compound that they're all imprisoned in.
And even though she's being put in charge, she always
fucks up and she knows it, but she can't figure
out why she keeps getting put in charge.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
And so yeah, that was that was sort of the
I guess that was sort of the the me taking
sort of that this joke that Samantha be made and
sort of going, you know, what would that actually be
if that was like an actual.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
If that was real? Like what would be the implications
of this, you know what I mean? Like how would
they maintain order? Like how would they keep people in line?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
So to say?

Speaker 3 (58:21):
And so that's sort of how I that that. Yeah,
that was the main idea for something man. And so
I thought, you know, it's not enough to just have
it about this character. You need sort of another character
who's sort of the antithesis to the entire world, much
like a superhero, you know, like a unique individual who
sort of goes against the grain and fights for something,

(58:43):
for a brighter future, so to say. And and that
is like the character there who doesn't actually have a name,
and so you know, originally I was going to call
the book you know s for something, but I thought
that sounded too.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Much like Ray Bradbury.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
And yeah, instead I came up with something man because
he has the yes on his forehead and so the
yes stands for something, right.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Uh huh uh huh. I like that concept. So you're
really like, you know, it's it's it's always important if
you're an artist or create a person is to create
a challenge. You're gonna take probably the least entertaining person
Samantha b And you're gonna make this entertaining.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yeah, Like I like challenges, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it
seems people.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Don't really appreciate that aspect of me trying to take
the impossible and make it possible.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
No, I think it's great. I think it's yeah. I mean,
I'm sure most people don't appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
But well, the thing is is like this, this, this
podcast right now or this live stream is the only
time I is the first time I've ever explained that
to anybody. I hope everyone appreciates where I'm coming from.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Yeah, No, I appre I mean, you always, like, you know,
give a lot of consideration of what you're doing when
you make it. I really like that one. It was
like an animation called a pilot. It was like a
pitch for like aeon a dungeon crawling thing. That was
really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Yeah that's still online.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
That's awesome. Yeah, I think that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Yeah, they've they've tried to take that down as well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yeah, of course they have. Yeah, of course. So let
me ask you this. We'll we'll wrap up in like
five minutes and maybe if you want. Yeah, I'm going
to do a patron show and then I got other
things I gotta do. But let me ask you this
in light of well, a couple of things. One, so
you got stalkers or at least one, Yeah, okay, one
for sure, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
One for sure. Maybe there's more. I'm not sure. I
can't tell you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah, one for sure. And it seems like their goals
are just to like I don't know if it's because
if you like just disappeared, they probably like have nothing
to do, like they so their goal seems to be
to make you go away in some fashion. Yeah, silence you,
you know, destroy your reputation, and who knows why they're

(01:00:52):
doing it. It almost doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
But well I can I have a I guess as
to why, but continue a theory.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Well, it's it's it's simple. It's because I it's because
I criticized danataris.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Right, because you criticize the milady.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Yeah exactly, I mean, yeah, they're all I mean, they're
all simps at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, So okay. But like the thing is, though,
in light of recent events, does this not put this
kind of harassment in a different light? Like this this
kind of behavior, like you know, I've been saying for
years that censorship, which I think this counts as to

(01:01:33):
a degree. I mean, he doesn't have the power to
like remove you, but he wants you to go away,
so he's doing this. Assuming it's a heat I could
just be like some angry lesbian that doesn't like what
you're doing with the lesbians. They do have really nice
their their stats for domestic violence are pretty good. Pretty

(01:01:54):
But but do you think because I've always said that
censorship is just a rehearsal for murder, and do you
like to think about that? Do you think that these
if you died, do you think these people celebrate your death?

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Absolutely, yeah, I absolutely would.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
And that's the other reason.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Now now I think I think both you, Brian and
a lot of people are starting to figure out why
I don't share my face.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
On the end, no, I know, I know why. I mean,
I know, I get it, Like I like, I'm aware
of this danger.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Here's the thing, I kind of saw this coming.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Like years away, and so I made an active effort
to not sort of communicate particular personal details about myself,
such as things such like they they're really obsessed with
how old I am, right, and so if they can
figure out how old I am, then they can figure
out sort of get into the ballpark of when my

(01:02:50):
birthday is. And these are all kind of identifiers that
they used to try to track you down. And the
first sort of I guess you could say the first
barrier is sort of a bead on what you look
look like, because if they can get a photo of
what you look like, then they can spread that around
and because of the Internet, then some then that that's

(01:03:12):
you're very likely going to get pinged because of it.
And then from there, if they can get what you
look like, then they can figure out where you live.
And if they can figure out where you live, they
can figure out sort of how to find out more
information about you, and then then and then I can.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Just escalate from there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
And so I've always done my best to sort of
be as careful as I can about that kind of stuff.
But you know, some of my form appears who I
don't talk to anymore, who are who are comic skates.
Still they would constantly like make fun of me of it.
It's like, why are you hiding, dude, why aren't you
showing face? And I'm just like, if I try, if
I have to explain it to you, I don't think

(01:03:49):
you're gonna understand. And then just they never got it.
And and I see lots of other people do the
same thing, and it's like you people are playing you're
playing dice with with with your you know, with the
integrity of you being alive every day when you do that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
So yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Well, I know a game developer who worked on a
lot of she she was a she's an industry veteran
that it's sort of like you. Actually she's living like
kind of off the grid and she like has a
farm and she raises rabbits, like she doesn't make she
doesn't do that anymore. And it was because she's had
her life like therese in a attempt made on her

(01:04:31):
life because she was critical, you know, like woke commie
feminists during gamer Gate and beyond that, because it's you know,
gamer Gate is just where a lot of people saw it,
but it's everywhere, and yeah, so I completely understand. I mean,
my face is already out there. So I'm just kind
of like, Okay, I I know what the risks are,

(01:04:51):
but uh yeah, I mean I can't really do anything
about it, but I'm not gonna shame other people for
wanting to take precautions at all, because I understand that. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Yeah, and the I guess the other thing I wanted
to say was, you know, we're going through some very
troubling times, and usually when troubling times start to happen,
the first people who are on the shopping blocker artists. Yeah,
and so that's sort of the other aspect that I
knew that from the start, and I was like, yeah,
it's it's time to sort of, you know, hunker down

(01:05:22):
and sort of cover your tracks, because yeah, things can
go very south, very quickly without you realizing it. And
if you can sort of I guess blend in like
the Gray Man, then you have at least a little
bit of a head start to sort of get away
from it and sort of try to escape and you know,
take care of the loved ones. It's also part of

(01:05:43):
the reason why I don't talk about like, you know,
family or friends or any projects I'm working on that
aren't already out.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
It's yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Bad enough that most of the animation industry knows who
I am. Sort Of part of the good thing is
is because I'm from another country, sort of there's a
limit to sort of what they know about me, which
is also good because it means that my you know,
my parents and my siblings are protected in a way,
which is something that I think is important because they
didn't sign up for any of this shit, and I

(01:06:15):
definitely would feel incredibly guilty and incredibly bad if any
of this showed up on their doorstep. And uh and
that's more or less when I wanted to say on that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Well, you know, there is a guy I watch. Okay,
this is gonna sound like super boomerash, but I still
have a Facebook page because I have family, and that's
where I like sort of keep in touch with them.
And I go through Facebook reels and there is a
guy who has a channel called Punky Doodles. You ever
hear of Punky Doodles?

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Never heard of Punky Doodles.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Oh they're so great. They're little, they're little short videos
with his drawing. I'll send you a link, but then
you have to have a Facebook. I don't know if
you don't, you do, okay, I don't. Oh you don't, okay,
Well I'll show you what it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Is because this guy, yeah, I've seen this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
You've seen the okay, yeah, yeah, he's just like here,
I'll unmute the tab here and I'll play you know,
one of these. You're funny, and I thought, like, you
could totally make these.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
I could. I am fought too ambitious.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Yeah, it's just like two drawings with like one linus
I kind.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Of well he animates them a little bit, a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
But he makes Yeah, the jokes are actually good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
They are. Yeah. There, it's it's good stuff. So but anyway,
let's see any any final thoughts anything you wanted to
ask us. And before we wrap this up, by the way, guys,
if you can check out Forsaking Gods and uh he
has gum road. He's got a couple of books there,
show him some love if you could. It is good.
I'm not just saying, and they're really you know, it's

(01:07:43):
like a couple of bucks. Well Frizing got seven dollars.
But yeah, I mean that's that's like there's volume one.
It's like two or three books or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Volume one is two chapters, so it's like one hundred pages.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Yeah. Oh that's huge.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
So that's a pretty good, pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
Deal, I think, yeah, really good. Yeah and something man, Yeah,
and some and something man. So yeah, go ahead, I'll
drop a link. Actually, I think if you go to
his ex it's like the top, it's like the pine.
Yeah yeah, yeah, so you can just go check that out.
It's like right here, Fresher Luke at Fresher Luke and yeah,

(01:08:19):
please support you there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Do you want to talk about the patroon Patreon?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Yeah? Sure, your patreon studio Pantoma. Yeah yeah, here it goes.
So yeah, so what tell me about the patreon?

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Yes, the patreon two dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
The link is the link is in the I put
the link to this in the description.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Did you did? I appreciate that there you.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Looked you checked, you were following up on that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
I always checked because I want to see the thumbnail
and see what you do for Yeah, it's two dollars
a month. Currently it's sort of on hiatus because I've
got some pressing work that I need to get to
over the next Yeah. But if you want to, you
can join it for free as well. You want to
have access to the posts. But it's mostly just trying
to fund the animation work and just showing the behind

(01:09:06):
the scenes stuff. Yeah, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
So a question. Another question I meant to ask, are
you at all threatened or concerned about aiaking taking your gerbs?

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
Well, not now, because everyone's lost their jobs more or less. Yeah,
and I haven't had a mainstream job in like six
or seven years, and so I'm not really I'm not
threatened by AI. I see it as a very viable
and every time I bring it up, the usual suspects
come out of the woodwork and chastise me for advocating
for it. I think it's a I think once it

(01:09:39):
gets to a certain stage where it's like actually good
and usable and consistent and versatile, then and be truly viable,
and it'll be great. For independent creators like me, because
it'll essentially level.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
The playing field. God hope, God willing, God willing. Yeah,
I think audio visual.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
Sort of con tent and entertainment will sort of become
like you know, vinyl and cassette tapes when they were
at the height of their heyday. It'll be sort of everywhere,
so to say, and people hopefully, you know, my most
optimistic way of looking at it is that hopefully everyone
will then start to judge the works based on the.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
Merit and the quality of the work.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
And the quality of the story is rather than say,
you know who's making it and you know what ideologies
it's trying to push. I'm sure there'll be some of
that in there, because I don't know if we're ever
going to escape the cloud economy. Yeah, but I want
to try and stay optimistic just in the sense that
I think it's probably going to be the most powerful
tool for somebody like me. I'm very much looking forward

(01:10:46):
to utilizing it and shoving in in the faces of
all those people who tried to make me homeless.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, is
going to make it to where your connections are not
going to matter as much as your ability to tell
stories that people with and I think that AI can
help with that. It won't be able to replace, you know,
like I don't think a real like innovative you know, spirit,
but I think that it can be a very powerful

(01:11:11):
tool that helps I mean, like at least as far
as I know right now. So but and yeah, it
could kill most most importantly, it'll kill the gatekeepers. It
won't be any Yeah. So well, we'll have to see
what happens. I mean, it's you know, it's it's who knows.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
G I baby.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Oh okay, Well, so I gotta wrap it up here
just because of time. But I am going to be
going into the Patron Show, so you guys can hang
out with me there. I don't think Luke is gonna
stay for that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
I can. I can stay for that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Can you get into the Discord though?

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
I could try? Okay, wait with Discord buddies, aren't we.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
I think so?

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
But I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
It's been a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Yeah, I will, you know, just shoot me a message.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
I will, Well, don't leave. I'm gonna I'm gonna go
it out here and then we'll just see if you
get you in the Discord then okay, So with that said,
we're gonna go into the Patron show. I want to
thank Luke for coming on. Well, definitely have you on
again soon. There's so many more things like we could
have talked about. We're just like short on time. Yeah,
and I hope that you will come back.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
I want to thank you Brian, and I want to
think Alison that you guys have really been there for
me when the chips were down and I've never forgotten that. Like,
trust me, when Alison was giving me that work for
like twenty fifty a pop, that was like that was
like a light in the darkness like that that really helped.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Well that's good. Yeah, well your work it deserves you know,
it's worth it. It's it's always it's always really really professional.
So yeah, thank no, thank you, and I want to
thank you guys most of all for watching. There's a
lot of thinking going on. So I'm gonna end the
show there. If you guys liked this video, please hit
like subscribe you're not already subscribed, hit the bellf notification.
Leave it's a comment. Let us know you guys thinking

(01:12:53):
about what we discussed on the show today. You can
find Luke's links down the description, and please please please
share this video because sharing is caring. Thank you guys
so much for coming on today's episode of The Fireside Chat,
and we will talk to you all in the next
one ends right.

Speaker 4 (01:13:07):
Activists are machines, dude, Okay, they are literal machines. They
are talking point machines. They are impossible to fucking deal with,
especially if you have, like, especially if you have like
a couple of dudes who have good memory. On top
of that, too, holy shit, you're fucked