Episode 190: Fortnite Festival - Rhetorical Techniques

[00:00:12] Hello and welcome to Gaming Together, a cooperative podcast. I'm your host Phillip and I'm here with my co-op partner, Nave. Each pod we play through a cooperative experience then relate to you, the listener, if this game is a criminal or a crime of co-op or something better off playing solo. Hey Nave, what's poppin'? Nothing. It's gonna be low energy today, I think. Tired. Yeah, this is an early morning recording. It's 1pm here. You live way in the past. I don't know what's going on in Alaska, man. I don't know why they think they're so cool that they need their own

[00:00:40] time zone. Yeah, I don't know. And it's so weird because it's like it doesn't help because the winters are apparently really dark and the summers are very bright so it's like what's the point of time, you know? Yeah, besides just to mess with us, mess with us out here on the mainland. Yeah, it could be it. All the snow just melted this last like couple days away or days ago and so now it's just swamp land out there.

[00:01:10] It looks like stalker. It does. But besides that, it's been pretty chill. We should do early recordings like more often because you're not like lagging at all. I can see you crystal clear. Well, no, they talk about that like that's the peak time rush. Like consider taking a photo of, you know, like the swamp land in the backyard and I saw the star link just sitting on the fence and it wasn't like wobbling in the high winds or anything. So I'm like maybe today's gonna be a good one because yesterday the day before we were in the back.

[00:01:39] We had like high winds going on and that thing was swinging around. Yeah, fuck that. Is it windier there than Oklahoma? I think so. Yeah, or at least there's like high wind storms, which is weird. Besides that, no, winds aren't bad. It's just at some points. It is just really bad. All right, but we're gonna be talking about Fortnite Festival. Before that, let's just check in with the games we have been playing. Nave, what have you been playing? Well, I beat I beat stalker. So we were talking about that already. So

[00:02:10] yeah, it was a heinous. It was terrible. The ending was really bad. Like not the ending itself. The ending is cool. But like the last chapter is like a gauntlet of like you fighting the most well armored, accurate, strongest gun having dudes fighting like 12 of them at once multiple times. So there's this one specific spot where you're supposed to drop down in this room. And then like you get ambushed by like these guys have rail guns, like five,

[00:02:39] five of them on the second floor taking cover. And if you get shot by one, it does like 80% of your health. And so if you get shot back to back by two of them, you'll instantly die. And I'm just like, Oh, okay, this is really fun.

[00:02:53] And the thing is that we've been pampered by the SSD for so long, that the stalker two game, it genuinely takes like 40 seconds to load, which is infuriating to me. Like I am no longer tolerant of loading times. And I it would every time I would die in stalker, I would just get on my phone and like 20 minutes will pass.

[00:03:16] I have me scrolling on my phone because I'm just so pissed off and I'm like waiting for the loading screen to go by. I died exactly 100 times when I when I rolled credits. Because the game keeps track. Yeah, were you like saves coming in? Or is that what you have to do to get through? Or are you just like hoping for the best? Well, I mean, you it's you say yeah, I mean, you save wherever you want, as long as you're not in combat. So I saved like just before dropping down and you can see one dude before you drop down.

[00:03:46] Thank God, because I don't think I would have been able to beat the game if I had to drop down and fight them like normally. Because what I would do is just lean left and shoot that guy once to trigger the fight and have everyone spawn in and then just shoot people like one at a time, like pixels of them. Yeah, it was the only way. It was so infuriating. And then there was a boss fight, where he like, he like dashes around like faster than you can see.

[00:04:14] And every time you get close to him, he just dashes away. And but sometimes he would dash out of the map. And you just have to restart. Because the fight's over now. Yeah, the fight's over now. That would have that happened probably about eight times that he dashed out. He can kill you really fast if you're not paying attention. So that's awesome. And he's hyper accurate. So when he goes far away, he can shoot you like a like a like a laser beam, basically shooting a normal gun.

[00:04:43] But he shoots like a laser beam with no recoil and you do have recoil. So it's like really tough. So what I ended up doing was just chasing him. Like, if you chase him, he does he has like an animation before he runs away sometimes. So you can get like two or three shots off with the fucking Saiga, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They just like fucking blast into him. And I did that. And then there's like three phases of the fight. I think if you if you choose different choices, that the story, this game is multiple endings.

[00:05:12] You have different boss fights at the end, maybe. But like at the end of the second phase, he spawns a bunch of like anomalies, but it's still it's still the same. And in the third phase, he goes to the middle of the room. And in that phase, I just hit in the back with my assault rifle and just shot him once over and over again from really far away. And he just didn't seem to attack me because he will fucking murder you like if you get close to him. So it's like the game forces you to do that.

[00:05:39] Like it forces you to like hide and I'm not normal. Some games aren't friendly. Yeah, even the old ones were unfriendly. They're fucking hard. But it almost I sat on it for a minute. I sat on it for like a whole day. I didn't like do my little tier list thing. And I was like, this game was going to be in a high a high A and I'm going to put it in B now. And then I ended up just putting it back in A because it's like that's the very end. You know, it's like a tepid A now because there are bugs all over the place in this game, too.

[00:06:09] I've been pretty vocal about that. But for the most part, I never really get affected by it. But the boss teleporting out of the fucking arena is insanely frustrating. So I didn't like that at all. Or dying instantly. That's not a bug. That was a feature. But dying instantly to those guys shooting me. Fuck that. I really, really liked the game, though. I've been talking in the Goop Troop. I think you saw.

[00:06:38] I've been trying to tell everyone about how amazing the sound design is. I know longtime listeners are annoyed of hearing about this. But apparently people are still sleeping on Stalker's fucking sound design. Because they were like, I don't believe you that it's better than Hellblade 2. And I'm like, I promise. Hellblade has good microphones. Like the people talking sound good. That's all that really sounds good in Hellblade. But, and then they were like, oh, but Indiana Jones, when you punch people, it goes bang when you punch them.

[00:07:08] Oh, it's so cool. Like, are you fucking shitting me? The punching sound? I'm playing Indiana Jones now. So I'm like 10 hours in. I can definitively say this game has fucking nothing on Stalker 2's sound design. Are you insane? It's like, the only thing is that it makes a funny noise when you punch people, which is funny. I'm not going to lie. It's very funny. But, and then the music is pretty good. But other than that, and like, you know, the voice actors. But it's like, there's nothing to write home about.

[00:07:38] It's like, okay, yeah. They got all the biggest voice actors. There's the German guy. He's very mad. Every time an Italian person starts speaking, I start saying, naming off Italian food, pretending I know what they're saying. You know? Oh, yeah. Ravioli, mozzarella, you know. The Indiana Jones is pretty cool. It's pretty fun. But it's like, it's a brainless game. You know what I mean? You know what it really reminds me of?

[00:08:05] It's like a Assassin's Creed or a Far Cry, but like, VR. You know what I'm saying? Like, it feels like it's a VR game. Because it's in first person, but it feels more first person than most first person games. You know what I mean? It definitely has like a perspective to it. Did you, okay, here's, I had to complain about it. So, in the beginning, when you're in the Vatican, very early in the game, this isn't really like spoilers.

[00:08:32] There's a part where you get like an assistant who is like an undercover lady pretending to be a nun. Yeah. There's a puzzle with a giant fountain where you have to open the fountain by basically putting a little like gargoyle hand. Like, you twist the hand and then you like push a little stick that pops out. Like, it's not even a puzzle. It just pushed the button. Yeah, that's how all the puzzles are in this game, honestly. Yeah.

[00:09:01] So, I climb up there and I do this whole part. I push the little thing around and then I spend like 15 minutes just walking around the area. It turns out I climbed up a wrong way and like jumped over to like a thing. I, you're supposed to like climb up a, a lower little like platform and then she walks up behind you and goes, what are you doing? And you fall over. And that like, and that lets you find the other claw. Well, I didn't know that.

[00:09:30] So, I spent this whole time like scouting around trying to like, I don't know. It's really annoying when it's like, this is scripted. This is how the player has to progress. But I did it in a different way. Like, instead of climbing up how they wanted me to, I parkoured across some windowsills to get up onto the fountain. And that made me miss a trigger point for the mission.

[00:09:54] I found that very immersion breaking and it just made the game feel clunky after that. Yeah. That was one thing that I think it was Will from Friday Night Game Gas was saying. He said, I'm pretty sure it was him. Because he's beaten Indiana Jones. He's trying to get people to play it. And then he's like, I played Stalker for like two hours and it's too clunky. And I'm like, but Indiana Jones isn't clunky? Are you shitting me? Like, that game is insanely jank.

[00:10:21] And the only reason why it probably feels better is that the jank doesn't specifically stop you from doing what you're... Like, if you punch and like, you can punch someone and not hit them. But it hits their hitbox and then it hits them anyway. Because the game is like, yeah, I know what you wanted to do. But in Stalker, the game is like, Stalker's like, I know what you want to do. No. And so I'm just like, ugh. I want to go up that. But they're like, no, go around. Okay. I will, I guess.

[00:10:51] So it's like, Stalker's a much more oppressing game than Indiana Jones is. I mean, in every meaningful, in every imaginable way. Like, it's a much more oppressing game. But maybe it's just what I like. Like, I definitely like Stalker a lot more than it. Because in Stalker, I get so angry sometimes. I don't feel any emotions playing Indiana Jones. Except I chuckle every now and then. You know what I mean? Like, every now and then, something funny happens in a story beat.

[00:11:18] Or like, you know what I really like doing is when a Nazi is like, sleeping on a chair. He's just walking up and punching down onto him. So he falls down through the chair. The chair blows up. Like, it's fucking stupid every time. Every time I see a sleeping Nazi, I punch them down. Falcon punched them into the chair. But, um, I mean, I don't know. I lose a lot of time playing Indiana Jones. And whenever I reflect on that time, I don't reflect, like, positively.

[00:11:47] You know what I mean? I feel like I've wasted my time whenever I'm done playing Indy. Because all you're doing is running around. It's like a Lego game. You just collected a bunch of shit. And so, I mean, I think it's fine. I don't think it's bad. I just think it's like, this is like a TikTok video game. You know what I mean? Like, this game is here for you to doom scroll. And then, but you haven't actually engaged in anything that meaningful. You know what I mean?

[00:12:18] See, it's weird. It's like, I almost feel like the rebooted Tomb Raider games, I got more enjoyment from those than I did in Indiana Jones so far. Yeah. I think, I mean, I've only played the first one. But, I mean, maybe I should go and play the second one. They're not bad. Yeah. They're not, you know, it's not going to change your life or your views on gaming media or anything. This is a mouthwashing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably a problem too.

[00:12:47] I'm playing this game too close to stalker two and too close to mouthwashing. Too close to metaphor, you know? So, it's like, it's weird going back to a Disney thing. It's like, oh yeah. I mean, it makes sense. It's Disney. So, what can you do really? But, I don't know. Maybe it'll get, it's got to get better, I assume. I'm in the second area now. And, I've been kind of roaming around. It's significantly worse than the first area.

[00:13:15] The first area is actually kind of like fun, you know? So, yeah, I'm in the desert now and scorpions and shit. Like, the game has slowed down because of like the scorpions and the climbing. The climbing is terrible. Oh, I hate climbing. I remember I was like, oh my god, I can mantle in this game. You know? Like, right at the beginning, I was like, oh, you can mantle and sprint like all the time. It's great. Because in stalker, it's dark souls. You can't do shit if your stamina is running low. You know what I mean? You're done.

[00:13:44] I can't, I must have died like 18 times because my stamina was too low to jump. And I just walked off a ledge and died. Because I thought I was going to jump. Like, no shit. That happens all the time. But, um, what was I about to say? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so when every time I'm climbing, I pick my phone up. Like, if I see I'm about to get, like, if I see like a climbing path, I'm just like, oh, okay. Let me get up. Let me pull Twitter up real fast because it's going to take seven years. Time to turn on a podcast.

[00:14:12] It's fucking, I get it that it's supposed to be slow and like monotonous. I get it. Like, that's the whole point of the game. But I don't like being bored. And it's insanely boring to me. It's to the point where, like, at first I was like, oh, cool. You can, like, stealth around. But then I was like, stealth is insanely slow. And I could just beat everyone's ass. So I'm just going to go around beating everyone's ass. Like, I'm just going to take, I'm going to whip that guy who has the machine gun. And then I'm just going to shoot everyone.

[00:14:41] Which, oh, by the way, so you saw, you see, like, people walking around. I don't know if this changes as the game goes on. But people are, like, walking around with guns. But if you don't pull a gun on them, they don't pull their guns on you. They're like, oh, yeah, see, fisty cuffs. Like, they want to beat your ass with their hands. You know what I mean? That's pretty chill. It's, I mean, you know, in Dark Souls, do I really need someone hitting me in the ass when I'm in a fight with another guy? No, we take turns like in Batman. Everybody takes turns attacking me.

[00:15:11] Yeah, I don't know. I mean, indie's fine so far. It's a solid B for sure. The other game I'm playing I just bought today, it's called Pico Park 2. Have you heard of this game? Yeah, it's on my wish list. Yeah, I think this was on one of the Xbox showcases. This game is a contender for the show after playing it. It looks dumb. It's insanely dumb.

[00:15:40] Especially because I made a public game, right? Yeah. I was playing with Casey and she and so a bunch of people would just keep coming in and out. By the way, it keeps track of how many people have come in and out because you don't ever see their name. It just says guest seven. And then I was up to like guest 36 or 37 at the end by the time I was like, okay, I'm done. I can't handle this anymore.

[00:16:02] Because there's always this funny thing where when a new person joins, you get to watch them not know what to do and die in the same way we've died like 20 times now. Some of the levels, the levels probably take like 30 seconds to beat like WarioWare style. But it takes like 20 minutes because everyone just can't coordinate. Like it's just so annoying. And then you'll get someone who's going to grieve. There's so much griefing in this game. There's so much grieving.

[00:16:31] Especially because there's this one where you're like flying a plane and shooting. But you can shoot your friends in the ass and that'll kill them too. So it's like as soon as someone shoots someone and kills them on accident, that person at the beginning will try and get behind them. And they're like going back trying to not get behind each other. It's like they're trying to shoot each other. It's fucking so dumb. Listeners at home, this game Pico Park looks like a 2D pixel art, just like light platformer mostly.

[00:17:00] But I assume each level is different like WarioWare and you just got to solve the room. But there's like a lot of you. Like what's the max player count in this? Eight. Eight. It's a lot of people to be in one level. And the level scales for how many people you have. So it's like there's this one level where we had eight people at first and then people get pissed off and rage quit. And as people left, the platform got smaller that we were supposed to be balancing on. And I was like, oh my god, no.

[00:17:30] But wait, do you guys have like physics? Can you like jump on each other's heads and stuff? Yeah. But if they're on your head, you can't jump. But that's the thing that you have to do is sometimes you have to stack like three or four people high to reach something. It is. It's painful because everyone always wants to be the one to jump on the head. So it's like, okay, I always have just like just jumped on my head. Just jump on my head. Also, everyone. I have a screenshot. All these are the default character. There's a bunch of different heads you can have. They're all the same head.

[00:17:58] But like you get your like cat ears or like a Santa hat or like like a, you know, just like different things on your head. And so another thing is like I think this game is like on the Switch or something or maybe on the PC. But or maybe even on phones because I had crossplay put on. But people could tap. Like I was seeing like dots, like people tapping on the screen. And I was like realizing. At first I was like that's weird that like just random particle effects are happening.

[00:18:27] But then I realized that they're like touching one of the people and like drawing a path. Like go this way. You go that way. That's pretty cool. You can also you have like quick pings. So you could be like sorry or like no. Like it's so funny when we're almost over the level and someone dies. And you just because if you die, if anyone dies, you have to restart all the way back. And so you see like green go no. Whenever like someone dies, it's so funny. Or people will be like stop, stop.

[00:18:58] Like it's fucking awesome. But it's very also very frustrating. There's this one level where everyone's connected by ropes. And so if someone falls down, you got to pull them back up. It's really fucking stupid. Pretty clever game. Yeah. Pico Park 2. Frustrating. Apparently there's a dark world. It looks like Super Meat Boy a little bit. It's like slow Super Meat Boy multiplayer. But yeah. But just like Super Meat Boy.

[00:19:25] I think there's a dark world where when you beat the game, you have like extra hard levels. I don't know. That makes me gives me Ajita. That's really all I've been playing. For games I've been playing, the biggest one is I've been playing 999. Nine peoples, nine persons, nine doors, nine something. I don't know what the nines represent. But it's published by the same people that published Danganronpa's. So it's real good.

[00:19:54] Only instead of being the ultimate children, you are very confused people in a replica of the Titanic. I've talked about this game before. And I'm playing in the Japanese. I think I'm near the end. But this game has like five endings. And you can even see that when you first start the game, like the flow path or whatever. There's like five different endings and I'm already locked into one of them. I'm hoping it's a good ending though. We'll see. We'll see.

[00:20:22] Did you ever actually finish this game? No, I only played a little bit of it. And then I was like, oh, this is going to be a lot. And then I'll come back. And then I never did. I forgot. Yeah. There's one puzzle at the end which requires a lot of math. And I don't know. I'm like math is hard for me sometimes because the whole premise is like we're going to take three numbers because everyone has a number and it's all the numbers one through nine. And you add those numbers together.

[00:20:52] And then that equals like, for example, let's do, you know, six, three and nine. So we got three plus six. That's nine plus the other nine. That's 18. You then have to add those two numbers together. So you have a one and an eight from 18. So then your number is nine. There is so many puzzles that are solved with this mechanic. And I am very tired of it at this point. Like I am. Let me see. Eight hours into this game.

[00:21:21] You figure I get better at it because they're like, oh, you need the number three and you only have six of the nine numbers or something like that. Which six are you taking? Because then you need to give the number four after. We're talking about before we disconnected. I was talking about the Yadagano workbook. Oh, yeah. How's that workbook going? It's going all right.

[00:21:46] I'm like a I'm like a little over a little under halfway through now. Just doing it whenever I'm bored, listening to just listen to something, listen to a podcast. You know, you have any favorite mnemonics to help you remember them. Like tall looks like a T next to an A.

[00:22:09] I mean, I guess I think that, but I don't I don't like think it whenever I'm honestly, I don't use the mnemonics very much. I think those help. I don't know. I just I think they do help, but it's just like I just never thought I haven't thought about it. And it's already too late. I've already I've already been not too late for new mnemonics. Well, I mean, I don't need help learning, remembering most of the Yadagana. I just know them now. Oh, OK. Yeah.

[00:22:37] I don't need to know that tall looks like a T next to a because I know what tall looks like. Yeah. But I mean, maybe I could do it for the Katakana because the Katakana I'm like mostly done memorizing now at this point, too. But for the kanji, I'm just going to have to because there's nothing you have. There's no way to just there's there's nothing you can do with like so many of them. The kanji books literally like almost the size of both of the other books put together.

[00:23:07] So fucking stupid. I mean, you're doing pretty good. I've been sending you screenshots of Teasing Master Takagasan and having you translate them and you're doing pretty good. Yeah, they got them all. Yeah. Well, I mean, I can read them. I don't know what a lot of the words are being said. So some but I'm like it because the contextually I can see what's going on in the picture. So I'm like, that probably means this. I don't know.

[00:23:34] Like one time I wrote out because in Katakana it said Merry Christmas and I didn't know me. So or like there was a the line that extends the vowel. So it's merry like and like multiple ease. And then Christmas is a kura kudisumusu. Yeah, kurasumusu. And so I didn't know what that word was. And you're like sounded out. And I was like, oh, it's it's Merry Christmas. I get it.

[00:24:04] There's so many words like that, too, where I'm like, I have no idea what they're saying here when really it's just an English word with that's written in Katakana. Yeah. It makes me feel weird because it's like in Duolingo, it's like you learn this many words and so many of them are just like. I can't think of any right now, like telephono. I wonder what that means. Computer. What does that mean?

[00:24:34] I don't think I'm learning words, but that's also helping me learn Katakana as well. It's like a lot of roku and I'm like, oh, that means rock like rock music. But now I remember rock like what all from like that word like that's really how I'm like remembering most of the Katakana and in Hidagana is because like I remember Sue and she because of the word sushi. And so like I just remember those two like in that way.

[00:25:02] So when I see one, I'm like, oh, sushi, that is the second one. So that's the second half of sushi. But you start doing that with kanji, too, because there's a lot of just compound words or words that are made up of compound kanji. And you're like, oh, this is the second half of tomorrow, which I mean, it's like, you know, bright or new. So you can understand it in a different word when it's the first part of the compound. I think so.

[00:25:33] I don't know if you can see it now. I don't want to show you, but it's like three. I think I I've gone through like 35 kanji now, but most of them are like these are the numbers. So, I mean, that's kind of buffing the buffing it up. I'm like, OK, which is weird because knee is two. And in kanji, it's the two lines. But also that's the Katakana. And I'm like, that makes it insanely easy to remember what knee is. That was easy.

[00:26:02] But but it's also like weird. Right. Yeah, it is. Because like, is it is it Katakana this time or is it kanji? Does it ever matter? I don't know. It probably does matter. Yeah, because like if it's the kanji next to it could be two and then the kanji after it. It's like, what is that? It's two of that. Or it could that two could change. Or I mean, the knee could change the kanji and it might not even be knee anymore. Might be something else. Oh, yeah.

[00:26:30] This is the two can also be almost like futou. Something like that. It isn't always knee. Oh, like and they even be like weird ones to like if you have like the the two next to it, like the 10 and then age, it becomes like Hachi. Like the golden dog. Yeah, it's all over the kanji book.

[00:27:00] Because it's like this is the kanji for pestle. But with. So it's a bodybuilder over a box. It's like Rai in front of it. It's next year, but it's not. It's not Toshi anymore. It's it's one. OK, thank you. Thank you, Japanese.

[00:27:26] Yeah, we did semi get a ride in from one hour, one decision saying to explain this. And it's a. Did you see that short? I saw it, but you had already replied to it. And so I was like, oh, I'm not. Oh, yeah. And so I didn't even watch it. It's a fun little short where two Japanese guys are talking. They're like, OK, so what is the kanji for mouth or whatever? And it's just a box. And it's like I say mouth and it's like coochie.

[00:27:53] It's like, all right, what is row in katakana? It's just a box. Oh, yeah. They're the same one. It's like the logo. I've never seen. I've never seen them next to each other. When you're typing it, it looks like row is slightly smaller than coochie. Yeah, that happens a lot. Like you said with me. It's very funny that coochie is his mouth. Right.

[00:28:21] Like it's weird because it's also slang for vagina. And yeah, that is. That's a thing. But also, how do you say? How do you what is the Yamaguchi? Is also a box, right? Like I don't remember what Yama is, but the Gucci at the end is also a box. I'm pretty sure. I mean, yeah, it's very possible. I think it's not just a place or. Yamaguchi is just a name. But yeah, I don't know if you can see, but it shows.

[00:28:52] It's the same. I don't know. That's crazy. So it's Gucci in front of the one from mountain. What is that? Kanji. Yama. Mountain. Yama. Yeah. So when Yama and Ro is after that, it's Yama and Gucci. I want to. I don't. It makes me not want to learn. But also, it's like, I just got to get over it. I got to not think about it and just keep working. And eventually.

[00:29:20] Because the hit at Ghana seemed hard too at first. And I was like, I don't know if I can do this, but now I just know it. So it's like, oh, this is actually like simple. You just got to keep doing it. And then eventually you just know it. Which sounds stupid, but that's actually how it works. Sounds really stupid. But that's Japanese Corner. That goes around to our Patreon section. Here at Gaming Together, we work hard to provide excellent co-op content for you, the listener. If you have the means, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

[00:29:50] Link in the description. Here's our current supporters. Thanks for all your support. And Dave, the reason that I'm able to read that is I don't read that first part where it says this is the list or this list is the list of our supporters. Whatever. You messed up last time. Yeah. There's a lot of random things that I'm like, I wonder how long this has been here.

[00:30:18] Like, I don't really look at the notes too hard. Yeah, there's some vestigial remnants in the notes that are not used. Yeah, like our gallbladder. Yeah. Let's take a quick break. Then we'll come back and help some assholes in need. Music plays. Okay. And we're back.

[00:30:44] It's time for us to go online and assist gamers in need to help them find out if they are in fact assholes or not. Nave, I gathered some more assholes. Nave, I'm not. Specifically related to Marvel rivals. If you could guess, there were a lot. Nuh-uh. Where? Let me see. I see two of them back to back, yeah. Yeah, there's like three in there. There's more, but I didn't have time to get them all. We'll get them later. And I really like number seven. I think I want to read that one. All right.

[00:31:13] Knocking one out right off the bat. I mean, I read it and it's wild. But, you know, it also... Yeah, we'll get into it. This is from Navarp1, who's posting on his main account. He posts a lot on... True Christian. A lot of comments in there. Yeah. Oklahoma. He's posting in r slash Oklahoma.

[00:31:44] No, he is not. Is he really? Yeah. Specifically about how the Oklahoma State Department of Education are proposing a rule requiring students to provide proof of citizenship. That'll show up. Yeah. He's posting a lot in, like, Christianity. Like, arguing. He likes to argue with Christians, it looks like. Oh, so is he pro-Christian or anti?

[00:32:13] I think... I think he is a gay Christian. And so he's arguing with people who don't like gay people. Oh, so he's on the inside. Yeah. He's infiltrated. He keeps posting in every... So he's posting in being gay is a unique sin. He's commenting on homosexual acts are a sin. He's arguing for homosexuality. So... Oh, okay. He's in here dropping verses. He said Leviticus 1822, Judges 2111, Numbers...

[00:32:43] God, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a whole lot of that. So this guy is well-read. But he plays Marvel rivals. Yeah. Unfortunate. Well, it makes sense, you know. All right. Let's get into it. Am I the asshole for not turning off my video game and taking an account flag as a quitter? Hmm. Okay. My family spends two weeks together as a family every year for Christmas.

[00:33:08] There is my wife, son, Junior, and I, my sister, her husband, and their son, Rex, and our parents. Rex is less than 10. I like son, Junior. Okay. Yeah. I don't know why that was necessary. Okay. Okay. Zoe, which he did not list who Zoe was, but... Name dropping. Yeah. I'm assuming Zoe is the... Oh, okay. Yeah. Zoe is the mother of Rex.

[00:33:38] So it's the brother's wife. No. No, it's his sister. No, it's his sister. Okay. Yeah. So his sister, Zoe, says... This is like a fucking Indiana Jones puzzle. They have to keep moving between three notes. Like, which fucking one? What am I doing? Zoe made some requests about video games and Rex. Rex was not allowed to play video games before noon. I was not allowed to play first-person shooters around Rex.

[00:34:08] Okay, that was the only request. Pretty cut and dry. I don't know why he needed to bullet point them out like that. It could have been one sentence. It could have been. The morning of, I woke up early and went to the main room and started playing Marvel Rivals, Rivals, italicized. How did he do that? I don't know why. It's funny because he's able to italicize this, but his list of the family members is just all over the place. Yeah.

[00:34:38] All right. This is an English podcast. Anyways. Later, Zoe and Rex came out into the main room and she started prepping breakfast. She asked, hey, can we turn off the game while Junior was playing as Rocket? Okay, so he's playing with his son and they're playing the game together, I guess. Or he's watching his son play. I was going to say, I don't think you can play at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So they're watching the kid play whatever. All right. So our OP responds. Well, it's weird because it says he's playing it.

[00:35:08] And then they're like, while Junior was playing Rocket. So I don't know who's playing it. He's kind of an unreliable narrator. All right. He responds. We're trying to do our daily missions. Can we finish those? She said, sure. Just hurry. After Junior's game, I take over and I switch to Mantis. Ah, yes. If we would have just waited. If we would have just waited, all of our questions would have been answered. We're trying to detective it too hard. Yeah. I switch to Mantis. Rex was sitting on the couch spectating.

[00:35:37] My father was in the room. Zoe was still working in the kitchen area. Okay. So, you know, Rex is watching now and he's not supposed to be watching first person shooters, even though he's playing as a healer, as Mantis, you know. Yeah. One mission left, a challenge mission to get 10 double kills. I started a quick play game and selected Punisher. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. That's where he messed up. Gun guy. Yeah.

[00:36:06] Almost immediately, Zoe called out. Navar, can you pause that game? I responded. No, this is a game or this game is online. There isn't a pause feature. The matches only take a few minutes, though. Zoe says, well, you need to turn it off right now. I responded. I can't. I'm in a match. If I quit, my account will get flagged. Quitting hurts everyone on the team and they penalize you for quitting. I could get banned. My whole account could get banned. Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:36] Over one quit. Yeah. Maybe he quits all the time. Maybe it's like, you know, he's on probation right now. Yeah. He's on probation. So that's why he's so skid style by it. Oh, things are happening. Zoe walks over, picks up the TV remote and turns off the television. She walks back to the kitchen area with the remote. I turned the TV back on and tried to explain by saying something like, I'm in the middle of a match. I will stop as soon as it is over.

[00:37:06] If I stop in the middle of my match, my account will get flagged me for quitting. Zoe then walked over, took the controller, unplugged the PS5 from the wall. I walked over to talk to Zoe and she just went off on me. She said something like, I asked you not to play any first person shooters when Rex was around and any reasonable person who examined Marvel rivals would conclude that it was a first person shooter game. You agreed that you would not. You also agreed not to play any video games before noon.

[00:37:36] This is why I don't spend much time with you Navar. You use rhetorical techniques to manipulate the situation to get your way. When I told you that it was okay to finish your daily missions, I didn't know how long it would take. You always do this when you manipulate the semantics of the situation in such a way that you achieve the exact outcome that you want. I refuse to allow you to abuse me in that way. You are an abuser, Navar. Jesus. Am I the asshole for not turning off my video game and taking an account flag as a quitter?

[00:38:06] Okay. Do you think she really said all of these things verbatim? Do you think he internalized all of it? And he was like, this is exactly, like he's got a photographic memory about this one moment. This seems very verbose for just a quick chat in the kitchen. Yeah. He's also like, my father was 12 degrees to my right and behind me to my, like behind my left ear. If I turn the sun, the temperature was exactly this.

[00:38:35] The time was this to the, to the millisecond. He's really got this whole situation played out, you know, which kind of gives me red flags a little bit. Yeah. He's, there's some weird details. Specifically since this is weird. Does that Rex isn't allowed to play video games before noon? And, but Rex isn't playing video games. He was just watching. Uh, is Marvel rivals a first person shooter?

[00:39:06] Well, no, it's, I think it's third person. I'm pretty sure it's third person. Is it not? Yeah, but it doesn't matter. It's like a shooter. Yeah. I would have nailed her on that. I'm like, bitch, this is a third person. No, because that's what she's calling him out for, for using rhetorical techniques to manipulate the situation to get his way. You're like, it's not a first person. That doesn't even make sense though. A rhetorical technique, rhetorical means like, it's like a question that doesn't need an answer.

[00:39:34] Like a rhetorical question is like, when I'm like, I'm like, uh, I don't know. I don't know. Philip, you're here. And then, uh, you're here. Right. And I don't expect you to be like, yeah. And I'm like, I just, I just, I'm just continue. Like, that's what I'm continuing my sentence. Right. I'm just like saying, I don't know what exactly does rhetorical mean? It doesn't mean whatever they're saying at. It relates to the art of rhetoric and rhetoric is the art of effective, persuasive speaking

[00:40:03] or writing using figures of speech and other compositional techniques to change a listener's point of view. That's what rhetorical means. Yeah. Well, I guess you could say like a rhetorical question is being used to possibly alter someone's perspective. Like, let me pose this to you to try to make them think a different way. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a question that you don't expect an answer to is what I think, but maybe

[00:40:31] it's like a question in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer. I mean, I get, I, yeah, I guess I had a baby's first understanding of what a rhetorical question was, but, um, this seems insane, right? Like a dramatic escalation. But also it seems like this has obviously been boiling over for a while.

[00:40:55] Just, just if your fucking sister's having a fucking, a fucking conniption over it, just stop. Like you're not going to get banned after one match, man. You're not. I quit. I quit matches all the time. I fucking, especially Marvel rivals, Marvel rivals. They, the people, at least two of the people on your team deserve the fucking loss. I imagine they're probably bad. Plus it's a quick match. It wasn't even like ranked or anything.

[00:41:25] Was it quick? Oh yeah. He was saying that. Hmm. It just seems crazy. It seems like the, the sister probably didn't say all of this. I would imagine. Um, this seems like just something that he made, he was trying to go out of his way to make her sound crazy. I, I bet. Yeah. Okay. He did some replies though.

[00:41:54] Uh, he, he says, I'm going to hijack the top comment to say that the overwhelming opinion is correct. I should have recognized a lot of things much faster. Honestly, reading the comments and thread has really helped me understand my sister's perspective. I nearly didn't make this post, but I'm glad I did because I think it gained a lot of value from it and insight, not in the just specific situation, but broader situations I have in my life. I want to clarify a few things. One, I agree that the kid is more important, I assume more important than the game.

[00:42:23] Uh, Rex and I were engaging with each other and junior as well. Oh, so Rex and no way. I was like, there's an extra kid. So he has like a son and a junior, but no junior is there. Rex and I were engaging with each other and junior as well. And the three of us were socializing no matter who had the controller at the time. I would have let Rex play had my sister not had a prohibition on Rex playing before noon. To clarify my understanding that the prohibition was about Rex playing before noon, not me.

[00:42:54] From my perspective of the situation, I didn't go back on my word. I again understand after reading the replies here how she thought I did. Okay. Okay. So we're once again getting into like semantics of this situation. I don't, I feel like I'm going to be honest, man. I feel like he should, he really did, should have nailed her on the third person thing. Cause it's weird. Like when you, it's like no first person shooters. I'm like, okay.

[00:43:20] When I hear that, I think doom, I think call of duty. I think, you know what I mean? I don't think Marvel rivals. I wouldn't even think overwatch like right off the bat. Like if someone would be like overwatch, I'm like, Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Like there's, I think, cause the reason why she doesn't want him to play first person shooters, I imagine is the violence. Right. Yeah. But there's not, it's like cartoonishly dumb violence in Marvel rivals. Yeah. No one dies.

[00:43:48] I think it's like, yeah, it's like, let alone it being a third person shooter instead. It's like, it's cartoonishly. Like, is he not allowed to watch Marvel movies? Cause they have worse violence than anything that happens in Marvel rivals. Right. I think so. Yeah. Like, I'm pretty sure in one of the fucking movies, somebody's like brain gets exploded. Right. I'm pretty sure that's a scene that I saw on Twitter somewhere.

[00:44:19] I don't think, I think she was a bit aggressive with the, you know, unplugging the console and stuff, but he also wasn't great either. Yeah. Let's just go with a light. Everyone sucks here. Yeah. I think everyone sucks. Honestly, it's like this person is extremely weird. Like I need you to turn off. Like, it just seems like a control freak thing to do. So maybe this is something that happens all the time. Maybe like, I don't know. Like there's some, this is some line he crosses all the time that he doesn't stop playing the

[00:44:47] game instantly as soon as, cause what did he need to stop playing the game for anyway? He doesn't say, no, she just says, Hey, I need you to pause the game. So like, I don't know if she needed help. Yeah. Like I assume she probably needed help making the food or something, but why couldn't the kids help? You know, are the kids like that young? Rex is under 10. They can 10, a 10 year old can help make food. Yeah. It's like, Hey, hand me, hand me that knife.

[00:45:17] Uh, throw, don't throw, you know, what did 10 year olds do in the kitchen? I don't know. Um, I don't know. Yeah. Everyone's fucking weird. Uh, I, you just got to understand, recognize when somebody's like about to, about to fly off the handle, homie. What is his name? Navar? Almost nave. Yeah. Almost. Uh, just recognize when someone's about to fly off the handle and just submit, you know, it's much easier than if she's going to come and turn the fucking TV off and go crazy.

[00:45:47] It's like, okay, just do what she wants. Cause this is obviously an unwinnable situation for you. If you, if you allow her to get the TV remote, you're done. Like you're not going to be able to keep that TV on anymore, buddy. So just go do whatever she wants you to do. All right. Do you have one you want to share? Um, I don't know. Let's do, what number was that set? Let's do 11, seven, 11.

[00:46:16] Uh, as I pick something that was deleted. What was this one deleted? Yeah, but I think we got it. I might've only gotten the title. Hmm. All right. Let's see if it's in here then. I got a lot of, I'm seeing a lot of YTA as I'm scrolling down up. There it is. I found it too. All right. I'm going to duplicate this so I don't lose that. So I can go back to the top.

[00:46:45] I didn't notice. I didn't even read what the title was until just this moment. Yeah. You picked a strong one. Am I the asshole for finding out my brother's stepdaughter is on OnlyFans? That's a lot. That was a fucking sentence. I just, I just said, um, we can't see who wrote this because this is all deleted. So that's a shame. Maybe their sister found out about it or brother or whatever. Okay.

[00:47:16] Um, at Thanksgiving dinner, my sister-in-law was bragging about how much money her daughter makes as a gaming streamer saying she makes over three, almost $300,000 a year. Oh no. I can see where this is going already. She even showed me a picture of her, of a new car. Her daughter just bought and the license plate was clearly her username. So I looked it up and showed her the daughter's Twitch account that same moment. She was really surprised. I was able to find it.

[00:47:42] And she said she had never seen it before and that she doesn't know anything about this online streaming stuff. Since I'm a gamer too, I was very intrigued since that is a lot of money. I checked her Instagram account under the same username later that next day because her Twitch followers were very low for the money she claimed she was making. Oh, he's sleuthin'. I suspect something else was going on. So I was curious on her Instagram profile.

[00:48:07] I saw photos of her in her apartment, a link to her OnlyFans account and her Venmo with her real name attached. It seemed obvious to me that this was probably where her money was coming from. And I became concerned about the safety risks of having so much personal information, so easily accessible online. I thought it was important to bring this to my brother and his wife's attention because if she's making that much money, then it's possible someone might take too strong of an interest and she could have a potential stalker situation on her hands.

[00:48:37] When I brought it up, my brother's wife immediately became defensive and accused me of crossing a boundary just for looking at her daughter's public Instagram. She claimed I ruined their family day after Thanksgiving and she even escalated things by claiming I had some kind of perverse interest in her daughter, which I found both absurd and inappropriate. I didn't look any further other than noticing the pictures of her apartment and all the links to her OnlyFans and Venmo.

[00:49:03] My brother, instead of calming things down, sided with her and said I crossed the line by even looking up her Instagram profile. I tried explaining that my intention was purely to alert them to a potential safety issue, something I thought that they would appreciate, but the whole situation blew up. They turned the focus onto me, blaming me for overstepping boundaries for even looking at the public Instagram account and rather than addressing the actual concern about their daughter's public presence and the risks it poses, they blamed me for ruining everything.

[00:49:33] I felt so bad for the stepdaughter as the explosive way that my sister-in-law responded makes me think that she went crazy on her too. I imagine she would have a heart to heart. I imagine that she would have a heart to heart with her and ask her if she felt safe doing this or something along those lines. TLDR, am I the asshole for looking into my sister-in-law's public Instagram account? All right. First off, do you think this is real? Uh, yeah.

[00:50:03] I mean, yeah, it could be real. I don't think it's real, but I mean, like, it could be real. It's not, like, so crazy, right? Yeah. I mean, people getting, like, OnlyFans, you'd have to be, like, a pretty successful one to, like, be making that much money, right? I don't think OnlyFans is that, like, lucrative. I'm not sure. I checked the Twitch earners, though, and the estimated income from just, like, subs,

[00:50:33] uh, even for, like, the highest earners is, like, around $100,000. Nowhere near $300,000. Oh, yeah. So, there's no way to get that from Twitch. What's the average OnlyFans? See, that would be, it would be weird because it's, like, it would be weird because that, how skewed would it be?

[00:51:02] Oh, yeah, see, hold on. It says, most OnlyFan creators only make $150 to $180 a month. $2,000 a year. High-profile celebrities will earn $100,000 a year. So, maybe this is fake, yeah. If she's making, that's a crazy amount of money. That is an insane amount of money. But, okay, maybe he's just over-inflating the number just for the flex. Yeah, or maybe she was.

[00:51:32] Like, maybe, I don't know. Like, maybe someone's lying about how much money, but they, they did get a car. You can get a car with not making $300,000 a year. But it's, like, I, I think the situation could happen, like, pretty easily. It's also, like, I don't, I don't think that he's, I don't know about this crossing a boundary thing. There's a lot of people that think this person's the asshole. I think probably the proximity to Thanksgiving.

[00:52:00] Maybe, maybe wait a little bit longer before, maybe, like, let some time pass between, like, the holiday family time and shit, you know what I mean? And bring it up. Yeah, probably not good timing. I mean, these, these parents are definitely just defensive, right? Because it's probably extremely embarrassing for them to, like, that their daughter is, like, like, if they didn't know she had an OnlyFans and, like, it was just presented to them, it would probably, it probably caught them off guard.

[00:52:29] You don't think they know anyways? No way. They never checked her Twitch stream? Well, they said that they don't know anything about it. What they said was that, like, the mom said that she was surprised that he could find her Twitch profile just off of looking at her car because the car had the account on it. So, like, if they knew, if they knew anything about her Twitch, then they would know that that was what her license plate was, right? Probably?

[00:53:01] I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of strange things in this. Yeah, I don't know. If they're, they might just be older. You know? Could be. It's weird. I don't know. It's really weird. I mean, it would be weird to not know. But, I mean, if you're living with your parents, you're not going to fucking show,

[00:53:28] you're not going to be like, oh, look at the fucking pictures I just made for my OnlyFans. You're not going to do that. You're obviously going to keep that private. So, there's a potential they just didn't know and they were caught off guard and just super, super defensive about it. Because it's not crossing. If it's listed on your fucking Instagram, then it's like, you didn't do anything. You just saw it there. Like, that is a public thing, right? That's your public profile. Yeah.

[00:53:58] I imagine her, I imagine she has a different Instagram for her personal life, right? And it says it's her public profile. Well, I mean, it's a public profile. But, like, I imagine she has, like, we have Gaming Together Instagram. And then I also have my own Instagram somewhere else that no one knows about. So, it's like, I imagine her family's following her normal Instagram. And then there's a gaming one that has the fucking. But it's also weird to have, like, this is my Twitch account. Well, is it really?

[00:54:27] Just have a link tree with all your fucking shit in it. And, like, the OnlyFans is just thrown in there. Pretty real weird. I don't know. It's so strange. And the other thing, it's like, this is his. He's the uncle, right? Yes. So, he's literally just talking to his brother slash sister at this point. Saying, hey, you know what your kids are up to? Yeah.

[00:54:55] One of this is, like, you're the asshole assuming she's 18. Then yada yada yada. Yeah, she's 18. You have to, like, put your ID and shit. Like, you have to send them pictures of your ID and shit before you start doing that, right? I'd assume so. This one says, I'm a cam girl and that's a gross invasion of privacy. Keep her identity a secret, not going behind her back. What? Her identity's not a secret. It's a public thing. It's a public facing. All of this is public facing. A lot of these people are like... It's on her car. It's on the side of her car.

[00:55:24] A lot of these people are insane. Yeah, looking at these comments, it doesn't make sense. Assuming she's an adult, you're the asshole. Why do so many people think that the girl is making a lot of money on OnlyFans and is under 18? How would it be possible? I can't even imagine a world where that... Like, how would that be possible? I don't know. I don't think this guy's an asshole for being a detective and then asking questions. Yeah. I mean, it's like, oh, you're concerned for her safety. She's not a child. You have no control over her. That's not what he's... He doesn't think he has control over her.

[00:55:53] This is crazy. None of these people... Like, literally... Literally... I think it was last year. A fucking dude drove across America and set an OnlyFans, like, Camgirl's fucking car on fire. Like, some OnlyFans women have been killed because people get pissed off that they get a boyfriend and then they go after them. Like, this is real. It's fucking real.

[00:56:18] If she's making a ton of money, then maybe she should be spending some of that money on a fucking bodyguard. Right? Like, there's something. Okay, here's some things. People are arguing that the issue is that he is, like, against the way she's making her money. And that's why he did it, to try to, like, get her in trouble with her parents, even though she is an adult at this point.

[00:56:49] Yeah. The $300,000 thing is insane. I really didn't understand how fucking crazy that was until I'm looking at the numbers right here. Yeah. They're saying if he was actually concerned about her safety, he would approach her directly without going through the parents. It doesn't seem like... I fucking... I don't know where the fucking post is because I've scrolled away from it.

[00:57:14] But, um, from what I remember from reading, I don't know if he, like, specifically went to the parents. I can see a world where they were the first people he saw and then he was just like, this is going on. Like, you know what I mean? I can't find the post. I fucking scrolled way past it. But, uh, I don't know. Maybe... I don't know if he went to the parents because he thought that they...

[00:57:42] Because if she lives with them, then they have some agency over her, right? Like, not that they control her or anything. But it's like, hey, this is happening in your house. You know what I mean? It'd be kind of similar to, like, oh, this person's making $300,000 on Twitch. No, they're not. They're actually selling dope, right? It's not the same. But it's like, you would want someone to be like, hey, your fucking daughter's selling dope. I just need you to know that. Just in case some weird people come around.

[00:58:10] Like, so you're aware of the situation. It's a lot less likely that OnlyFans is going to do anything like that. But, yeah, I don't think he's an asshole either. Are the parents an asshole for freaking out and calling him a bad detective and all that stuff? The mom is definitely an unhinged fucking freak. For being like, oh, you have a weird sexual interest in your niece. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? But, no.

[00:58:38] Other than that, I think the mom is the only one that probably... The dad... It's like, I would... It makes sense if they're, like, defensive about it. Like, they're like, oh, fuck you, you know? But if they maintain that energy, then they're assholes. But the mom's definitely an asshole for flying off the handle like that. Oh, yeah. But then it's like, how else do you expect her to respond to that situation?

[00:59:06] Oh, there's a judgment bot in here. Oh, yeah. I scrolled past this. So, it says... He offered some explanation. It says, I looked at my brother's stepdaughter's Instagram account. Is this just a TLDR? It says, I looked at my brother's stepdaughter's account Instagram. Found that she has OnlyFans. A lot of personal info on her account. And alerted him. My brother and sister lost it across... Yeah, this is just a TLDR. That's not an explanation at all. Fuck you, judgment bot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing that we kind of glazed over is that like...

[00:59:36] If there's a lot of personal info connected to the OnlyFans, that's probably not good. Right? Most OnlyFans people are pretty anonymous. You know, they go to like pseudonyms and shit. I don't know. Be careful with your information out there, guys. All right, let's take a quick break and then we can come back with the meat. Music plays. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And we're back.

[01:00:06] Fortnite Festival. Main stage. Play in a band with friends or perform solo on stage with hit music by your favorite artist in Fortnite Festival. On the main stage, play a featured rotation of jam tracks. Compete against friends for the best performance or team up to climb the leaderboards. The festival is just beginning with more jam tracks, music icons, concerts and stages coming soon. Take your stage to the Fortnite Festival.

[01:00:34] And I clipped this earlier and there were 20,000 players active playing the Fortnite Festival. That's more than some games. And just one sub game. Grinding that battle pass, you know. Yeah, so... History of Preconceptions. We've already kind of talked about this, but... Epic Absorbed... Was it Harmonix? Yeah, Harmonix. Yeah.

[01:01:04] The creators of Rock Band. And they went on to make this for Fortnite. And Fortnite now has, you know, like 90 different islands, they call it. They have, like, the Rocket Car Soccer. They have Lego World. They have... I don't know, like the Rock Show things. They have Battle... Fortnite Battle Royale stuff. I keep forgetting what they're called. And they have, like, all the custom games. And now they have Rock Band.

[01:01:33] They've had it for a while, actually. Yeah. This has been on our list for quite a while. Just sitting there, marinating. Yeah. And it's... We're gonna get into it. I played maybe, like, two hours of it getting ready for this review. And that's pretty much all I could play because I would get disinterested pretty fast. Yeah. It does kind of have that energy, doesn't it? Well, it has some issues.

[01:02:02] Because it is literally just like... It's like Rock Band. Like, there's four different instruments. You load in. You pick your instrument. You pick your difficulty. And then you just play through a list of randomly selected songs. Well, you can select the songs. But it's from a pool of, like, 20 songs on rotation. I thought it might be interesting. Well, actually, how long... Do you think you played a lot this week? I mean, overall... I mean, I probably played, like, four hours this week.

[01:02:32] And overall, I think I've put in, like, maybe 12. Yeah. Because I played it on and off. Yeah. It's a little timestamp. Our biggest Instagram reel is from Fortnite Festival. Oh, yeah. Like, how much does it fucking have? Yeah. Let's go look at it again. It's the one where there was a bug where the Fortnite Festival people would, like, freeze in place. And I was playing Linkin' Parks in the end. And I was the Flamingo guy.

[01:03:04] Here, do you want to look at it? Do you remember this reel? Yeah, I remember it. But here's the reel. But it's got 46,000 likes. 468,000 views. So, I mean... Should we just make Fortnite content? Yeah. I don't know. It makes me sad. It is very funny, though. So, I mean, it is funny, to be fair. That is a funny reel.

[01:03:31] But he's just, like, frozen in place, playing the bass. Recently, they've come out with the Hatsini Miku crossover and Godzilla. Yeah. You know, you don't think about one without thinking about the other. Oh, yeah. And I have had both on my bands, just as I've been playing. Because, of course, people are buying those skins. They love to buy those skins. Yeah.

[01:04:00] There's tons of fucking Mikus running around. Like, speaking of Miku, like... I heard that song. There's, like, three Hatsini Miku songs, like, on the list. But only one that people are picking over and over and over again. Which one is it? Over and over and over. They call me Miku. Miku. Ooh-wee-wee-wee-wee. The fucking... I put it on our Instagram for the mouthwashing episode. Because I just had...

[01:04:26] I was playing Fortnite Festival when I was putting that up to get fucking uploaded. And so, I just had it in my fucking brain. Like, it's just been burning in my brain. Dude, that song's a banger, though. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, it's not bad. It's not something I want to hear, like, 20 times in an hour. You know? Oh, yeah. I don't... And there's a lot of people using this song. Which, we could talk about that real quick.

[01:04:55] The way the game kind of works is you join into, like, you have your default Fortnite lobby. You then join into a main stage festival lobby. Where you can go up and, like, pick songs. And you get auto-loaded with, like, three other people. You can also pick songs. Or you can bring people with you. And then, after that, queues in. They actually load up the songs and you guys play them. Now, it is...

[01:05:23] There's weirdly long load times for this. Like, do you think it's, like, actually, like, downloading the song each time or something? Like, it is strange. No, the problem is that Fortnite is available on, like, 76 platforms. Some of which don't have SSDs. So, we're sitting around waiting for the people playing on Xbox 360s. Their Samsung 6s. Yeah. So, it's taking them a little while to get connected.

[01:05:50] One of the weird things about this game is that everyone can kind of pick whatever instrument they want. And you can swap in between songs. Which I think... That part, I think, is pretty cool, actually. Very cool. But the thing is that you get more points if everyone's playing different instruments. But everyone can just stack guitar. Which is what always happened. Everyone was either playing the vocals or the guitar. And I never saw another pro guitar.

[01:06:18] I was the only person playing with the actual rock band guitar the whole time. You can tell because there's, like, a little, like, plus sign or something on the icon. Yeah, people really saw that. Like, look at this nerd playing with a pro guitar. I was also the only person playing on Expert. I never saw... Like, I don't think I ever, the whole time I've ever played this game, saw somebody playing on Expert besides me. Everyone's playing on Easy or Medium. No way. Which kind of makes sense. I had so many people playing on Expert. I even played it with my daughter, and she also switched to Expert. That's crazy.

[01:06:48] I never saw anyone. So, me and Phillip never played together. Yeah, sadly. Yeah, I tried to get on last night, but I took a little long to put the baby down. And by then, I guess you fell asleep. Or something. No, Dontre came over at, like, 11.30. Like, maybe, like, 15 minutes before you were like, alright, I'm ready to go. But Dontre was here now. So I was like, oh, I can't play now. You can't force him to play Fortnite Festival. Yeah. I couldn't even force him to play Indiana Jones. He watched me for a second. He's like, this game looks fucking terrible.

[01:07:17] And I'm like, yeah, I imagine you don't like this. I can imagine this isn't something you like. Alright, so yeah. Getting into a song takes a long time. Going through all those lobbies and loading screens. Yeah, and it's not like Rock Band where you can make, like, a big set list. I just realized online you can, you set it to how big you want the set list to be. So you can make it, like, 8 or 12 or whatever. And then in this game it's always 4.

[01:07:46] And then you have to go back to the lobby. I don't think, I don't know if you go back to the lobby with the people. I think you always dis- Yeah, you always disconnect. Yeah, so that's kind of weird. But, um, because in Rock Band, you know, you're stuck with the lobby until you leave. Right? Which means, which is the primary thing that I don't like about the game is that I just keep hearing the same fucking songs over and over and over again because of that. You don't have to play with people though. You can see if everybody wants to join in and play one song. Yeah, you can play alone.

[01:08:16] Yeah. I heard the stupid fucking Justin Bieber song over and over again. I heard Miku over and over again. And then there was one other one that I just can't remember. It's just left my brain. And then I would pick, like, fucking Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold or something. Like, I would be playing something, like, I want to play. Everybody disconnects. The second you get into your song, you're like, oh, that's fine. Well, honestly, I think only one person disconnected. Honestly. And it's whenever I picked a Green Day song and then someone left.

[01:08:45] And then we just played through the rest of the set. And I was like, I don't care. I want to play this Green Day song. Yeah. So you had some sync issues with your audio video when you were setting this up? I still currently have sync issues. I've just given up. Another Instagram post, one way more recent, is a picture of my notebook as I was desperately trying to sync this up.

[01:09:09] I probably dedicated, like, five hours total this month. Because before I even knew that we were doing Fortnite Festival, I saw the Hitsune Miku stuff coming. And Casey was like, I want to play Fortnite Festival. So I was like, okay, I'll sync it up. I literally, I'll sit there for, like, an hour trying to fix it. And it just won't work. I don't understand why it's so bad. Like, I was saying in the... I was getting fucking angry, dude. Like, capital A angry. In the fucking group chat.

[01:09:38] Because, like, I just fucking hate when things don't work the way they're supposed to. You know what I'm saying? I think one of the things I said was, I could be drunk high and half asleep. And I could calibrate Rock Band 4 in, like, 20 minutes. Right? Like, I would figure out how to calibrate it in, like, 20 minutes. Normally, I'd calibrate it, like, right away. Like, I could just fucking do it. But Fortnite is, like, the calibration is completely incompetent.

[01:10:04] And everything I went online, every time I went online, literally everyone is like, don't use the main calibration. It doesn't work. It literally lies to you. So it'll fuck your shit up. And so you just gotta do a bunch of fucking, like, rituals to fucking... Some people are like, record the fucking game. Go into editing software. And count the milliseconds that are actually... And I'm like, I'm not doing that. That's way too fucking much. So what I ended up doing was just randomly putting numbers in.

[01:10:34] Which is, like, what a fucking gorilla would do in order to fix this. But it ended up getting me to a point where I was, like, not at the worst spot. Like, I can play the song. I just have to ignore the music. Unfortunately. And so, especially if it's something that starts getting fast. Like, once it starts getting fast, I am basically, like, a whole eighth note ahead of the song. Like, that's what my notes are.

[01:11:00] And so I just have to zone out during the fast part so that I'm not hearing anything. And it doesn't influence when I fucking play. And then once it gets slow, the note hit detection is, like, wide enough that I can basically listen and play at the same time then. But I don't know. It's just trash. It's fucking complete garbage. Yeah, I didn't have any sync issues. Mine seemed pretty on point. That's crazy. Yeah, so I don't know. It's like, I wonder if it's my TV.

[01:11:30] But, like, again, I can sync Rock Band up on my TV. I can sync Rock Band up on so many different TVs. So there's just something weird about Fortnite Festival's thing. Also, you were playing... Were you playing on Expert? Yeah, of course. So I wonder how hard Expert is on the controller. Because you're not doing fucking... I guarantee you you're not doing 16th and 32nd notes on Expert on the controller, right? No, definitely not. So that's interesting. I want to talk about it is that it is overly generous with basically hammer-ons.

[01:12:01] Like, that are, like, going on in between each note. So it'll basically just have, like, arrows that they... Like, I don't know what it looks like on Guitar Pro or whatever. But the arrow's on the controller. So... Okay. It has hammer-ons where as long as you don't push another input after it, it just automatically hits it for you. Yeah, that's great. Well, that's why you think it's on point. If I gave you a guitar, you would be like, this shit sucks. And I'd be like, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's fucking terrible. Because it's like, when I'm doing the fucking...

[01:12:30] I was playing Godzilla and Godzilla has those fucking guitar solos. And, like, I'm like, I can't fucking... It's like, I can either perfectly hit the hammer-ons or I can perfectly hit the tremelo, which is the one note being played repeatedly fast. But, like, I can never hit both. Like, no matter what my sync is ever. I can never hit both. So it's only... It's either the visuals are very good or the audio is slightly off, so I zone out. Or the visuals are off, but the audio is good.

[01:12:59] And I can never, ever get those two to sync up. And I bet if I started using the controller, it wouldn't be as big of a deal. Because the game is predominantly designed around the controller experience and not the guitar experience. Because only, like, a fraction of a fraction of the players are playing with the guitar, right? Oh, yeah. So why do they give a shit about that? Yeah. But, yeah, I was feeling a lot of frustration.

[01:13:25] Because, like I was saying, when the notes aren't fast, the hit window is wider. But as soon as the notes get fast, obviously the hit window has to be way, way, way more specific. So that the game knows what notes you're hitting while they're rapidly flying by. Here's something I don't understand. Even when you play the vocals, it's not like Rock Band where you, like, sing into a mic or anything like that. You just basically do the same thing you were doing when you were playing lead guitar. Where you just hit notes. Like, what's... Yeah.

[01:13:56] Why don't they throw, like, a little just pitch detection? It could be trash. And people would love singing karaoke to this. If they're using, like, their built-in Xbox PS5 controller mics or something. Well, they added the pro guitar way later. So I imagine that they will probably add the pro instruments afterwards. If this game keeps going. Because it seems like it is. Because people are buying the songs. Like, I bought the songs. I spent, like, 30 bucks buying a bunch of songs.

[01:14:25] Which, how was that experience? Because, like, for listeners at home, there is, like, a rotating free list. But you can keep the songs if you pay 500 V-Bucks. Which is, like, roughly $4.50 depending on if you bought in bulk or not. But you can also buy, like, passes, right? Or, like, clusters of songs. I don't remember if you can buy clusters of songs. Because I probably did for the... Because I bought, like, all the Green Day songs, I think. I bought, like, a couple Metallica songs.

[01:14:54] And it's just funny because, like, whenever someone owns a song, everyone can play it. But nobody ever picked any of my songs that I owned. So it's like... Okay. It doesn't really... So it never really matters. But it probably is a better experience if you're playing with friends, right? Because then you could... Because this is something that me and you did in high school. And when we would play rock band, we would buy different songs from each other. Because we were always playing at each other's houses and not online.

[01:15:21] So then we could play online with a way bigger library of songs because of the... You could kind of do that in this game as well. So are you sure that other people in your lobby could see the songs that you own? I don't know. Because I don't think I ever... I don't think I ever played with somebody that had songs. Like, I think I was just constantly playing with, like, children the whole time. Because I... It's hard to tell because they probably bought the more popular songs that were on there anyways.

[01:15:51] I mean, yeah, maybe. If you buy the songs that are free, then I don't think it's... You can tell if it's free or not. But I don't know. I never really looked too far into it. I mean, I did play with Casey a little bit, but I just wasn't paying attention. I was way too... Back then, when I was playing with Casey, I was really trying to calibrate the game. I wasn't really... Because I was, like, not even really playing. The good thing about this game, way better than Rock Band, is that you can go into the calibration settings during the song.

[01:16:20] So, like, you don't have to keep fucking leaving and coming back like in Rock Band. Like, you can literally pause it, go to the visual settings, fuck with it there, and then go back and see if it's better. Right? It's never better, but at least it's there. Like, at least you can do it. Oh, speaking of that, is you can also change your controls mid-song. Because while I was playing on controller, I tried many different control patterns. Because I have been playing a lot of DJ Max Respect on my Steam Deck and everything.

[01:16:48] So, I'm already, like, have my controls kind of, like, fine-tuned. They do not give you a lot of options as far as control switching there. You can do, like, one button for a lane. Whereas, like, in the Max Respect games, you can be like, oh, I want the middle lane to be right on the D-pad and to be X. So, I can do either or. Or I want the right button to be right bumper or B, depending on, like, what's going on with the other buttons. I get whichever one's easier for me to hit.

[01:17:18] I'll, like, swing around to those. And so, I did, I made a lot of mistakes where I thought, like, oh, I can just press X here. But X isn't tuned to the middle lane. It's right bumper or something like that. And I find it annoying because they almost design around that where they expect you to use the X, Y, B for, like, the right five buttons. And then use the D-pad for, like, the left two.

[01:17:42] So, like, they'll, when they chart the chords, they specifically never chart on the same side. Like, they never do, like, Y and B as a chord. Which isn't, I guess, you know, it doesn't really matter. But it's just weird because it almost feels like this is baby's first rhythm game, kind of. Compared to what we've been playing in the last couple years. Where I'm like, wow, this is a poo-poo doo-doo easy mode. There's no way to fail.

[01:18:11] There's no, like, precision. It's just like, hey, if you generally hit it within an eighth of a note, it's going to give it to you. Like, full points. It does have perfect, like, perfect hits on there. I don't know if it, maybe it's just not on the controller or something. But on the guitar, you can hit perfect. And that kind of is, that helps you calibrate a little bit. But it, like, it only made me angrier.

[01:18:42] Like, knowing that it's like doing the beginning of Godzilla, the down, down, down, down, down. It's so slow. But it's like, I'm not hitting perfect. But I'm like, I guarantee you that I'm hitting exactly where that note is. Like, I don't know how else to explain it to you, Fortnite. Yeah. I don't know. The controls are weird and not great. But they're not terrible. They're not unplayable.

[01:19:11] Like, this is a pretty good party game. And it kind of sucks because I feel like that's all it can be at this point. Well, the thing, too, is that, like, it's not, we keep saying it's like Rock Band. But one huge thing that it's not like Rock Band about is that only your track is on the screen ever. Oh, yeah. That sucks. You only ever see, like, the people's, like, star power, or it's like Overdrive, the Overdrive levels and something else. I can't remember. Maybe it's the multiplier that they have. Yeah, I think it's the multiplier.

[01:19:41] Yeah. But it's still, like, if you activate Overdrive, you can, everyone gets the Overdrive, everyone that's playing. That's still there. One cool thing is that, like, you can activate Overdrive at a quarter. Like, the moment you get Overdrive, you can use it. Rather than in Guitar Hero or Rock Band, you always have to wait until it's at least 50% full before using it. So, it's like, I don't know. Those are little weird changes.

[01:20:06] A lot of these charts feel like they're just ripped straight from Rock Band, but some of them aren't. I don't remember what song I played, but I immediately was like, oh, this is not, like, the Rock Band chart. It's a song on Rock Band, but it's like, oh, this is an updated chart. So, that's pretty cool. They're actually paying attention to some of these songs. Yeah? They can't all be direct copy and paste, because I think it's an adaptation of the controller.

[01:20:35] But then again, you probably get a different chart if you're playing Pro Guitar opposed to Controller Guitar. Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying, is that on Pro Guitar, you're getting all the chords. Do you get three-note chords ever on the controller? No, I don't think so. At least not that I remember. Yeah, see, you are literally just playing Rock Band when you have the guitar plugged in. Like, I don't see those. I don't ever see arrows. I have no idea what you're talking about. It just looks like Rock Band whenever you play on Rock Band. That's pretty cool. With the Graeme guitar.

[01:21:03] So, but I don't remember what caused me to say all of that. Oh, we're just talking about the charts being different? Oh, yeah. Different levels? Yeah, the charts are definitely probably different for the controller. But, like, on the guitar, there are some, I don't know, some pretty fun, weird charts. Like, playing a rap song and, like, doing the keyboard on the guitar and, like, playing a random part. It's like, oh, I hear what I'm playing. That's kind of strange. You know what I mean?

[01:21:32] Like, it's a weird feeling playing it on the guitar. Even though on Rock Band there are some songs already like that where you just play the keyboard randomly. Like, a notable one is Circe. Like, Circe? Circe or whatever? By Ghost. Where halfway through the guitar solo, it transitions into, like, an organ solo and you play it on the guitar. But it fucking, it's like the best part of the solo. It's, like, super fun. So, I don't know. The note charts are good, yeah. The hammer-ons feel good.

[01:22:01] I just wish I could get it synced up. I don't really have a lot of me points for this because it's pretty, like, despite being, you know, the biggest game ever, it's pretty basic. One thing to note is the songs, when you buy them as jam tracks, that's what they call them. I just like songs. You can use them in the Battle Royale mode to just, like, an emote to play and it puts, like, a little circle around and people can join you when you're playing. And they can play other songs than what you're actually playing to.

[01:22:30] And it just, like, syncs in. Yeah, it's pretty cool. The funny thing is that a lot of the songs, when they have bad lyrics, they don't have vocals. Whenever you play them near people who have, like, the kid mode turned on or whatever. Or I think if you play them in the Lego mode, like, if it says, like, butt or something bad.

[01:22:57] They don't sense your butt, so they just don't play the vocals. It's just the instrumental. Bummer. Can't expose the kids to good music. Oh! One really fucking funny thing. So, one of the things that Four Eyes is known for is all the fucking retarded emotes. Right? Like, that you can do. Well, you can emote during songs whenever you have a moment where there's no music playing. Like, when you don't have a part.

[01:23:25] So, if it's, like, an acapella part and the drums go away. Like, you can just start fucking doing the Dougie or the Bernie or something on the stage. And so, while the person's doing the Bohemian Rhapsody vocal solo. Like, you just see somebody fucking flossing behind you. It's so awful. I don't know. Meanwhile, it dresses Godzilla or something else. Master Chief. A giant fish. A giant fish. And they're playing the guitar solo to one.

[01:23:52] Like, it's like, it feels fucking weird, man. The world has changed quite a bit. Yep. I don't have any other me points. Want to take this into final words? Yeah, let's go. Alright, so. This is kind of tough because. I'll take this first final words. It's a recommend for me, but. I don't know. It doesn't feel good.

[01:24:21] Growing up with, like, rock band. And then even, like, as the genre has grown around us. And playing, like, DJ Max Respect and stuff like that. Like, anytime I play this, I'm like. I would rather play any other rhythm game. Almost. Like, it doesn't feel. The controls aren't tight. The charts are okay. You know, but just. The ease of use features of, like, being able to control, like, hyperspeed and stuff like that. Just not existing in this.

[01:24:49] It makes it feel like a Mario Party minigame. And not like a full rhythm game. Which, that's, you know, what it is. It's a sub game of Fortnite. It's not. Hyperspeed does exist. It does? Is there a way to activate it? It's. No, it's in the. I mean, yes. It's in the settings. Right next to the calibration. So, I have it set on, like. You guys need to look harder then. Yeah, I have it set on, like, 175%. Like, it is hauling ass. Because that is the only way I can cope with the bad calibration.

[01:25:17] Is that I just don't have enough time to see the notes. Which, listeners, if you're unaware, hyperspeed is basically a way to make the notes move faster. So, it's like they appear and they're gone faster. So, it just zooms in on a part of the track, pretty much. Yeah, it's basically cheating. It's not cheating. No. It feels like. It's stupid. It's like. It fucking feels impossible to play some songs without hyperspeed, man.

[01:25:46] Because otherwise, it's like the notes get really long and, like, close together. It would be, like, a weird way to say it. It's like, whenever you zoom out on the track, it's like if you were editing an audio file and trying to edit from maximum zoom out for the whole track. You're like, I just need to cut this one section. Seems impossible. And then you zoom in. And you're like, oh, I'm only looking at 30 seconds. All of a sudden, I can make the finest of cuts. Opposed to looking at a two-hour podcast.

[01:26:17] Like, I don't know how you edit, Nate. But I don't edit looking at the full stream. I put it into chat, GBT. And I just let it edit for me. That would be so good. Yeah. But this is definitely. I'd recommend DJ Max Respect over this. But if you're looking for songs that are actually popular, probably play this one. Yeah. So play it. Kind of. Yeah.

[01:26:45] It is an insane bastardization of what Guitar Hero and Rock Band used to be. But, I mean, and it's not even like. It's like Guitar Hero has always been silly, right? Yeah. It had like this. It had like soul. Like something about this is soulless. A lot of things about this is soulless. And I think a lot of. I think people who even enjoy this game would agree with that. Like they're like, yeah, it is a little soulless. But I mean, you just gotta. If you just embrace the absurdity.

[01:27:13] I think it's very silly. I mean, Stephen, you talk about like what is at the core of a lot of rhythm games. And it's like the scores. It's hard to chase scoreboards when the songs are rotating, you know, every week. Yeah. Well, that's to encourage you to buy them. Of course. Also, the game. The songs have a. Like a cutoff date.

[01:27:41] Like they have a date on the on the screen. It's like on February 27th, 2025. This song will no longer be purchasable. And I'm like, I kind of like that. Yeah, it's really clear. Okay. I know exactly when I when the window is if I want that song or not and stuff. But I mean, as opposed to rock band where rock band songs were just always up. They just are all up all the time. And I think they're slowly getting delisted like over the last year.

[01:28:08] But they're getting delisted backwards. Like from the oldest stuff down. So I don't know. Sorry. I mean, I recommend it. Yeah, that's it. I just I recommend it. It's free. So, I mean, it's always that's always the fucking. It's always the thing. This definitely feel like one of our our coolest recommendations or it's like it's a game that you can play. If you want.

[01:28:37] I mean, I don't think we're as hard on it as Marvel Rivals. I'll give Marvel Rivals its flowers. I don't need to calibrate that game. So that's pretty good. If you were to rank them real quick, would you rather sit down to play some Fortnite Festival or Marvel Rivals? I would rather play Fortnite Festival desynced than Marvel Rivals. I'm right there with you, too. Well, it depends. Do I have to play with randoms?

[01:29:06] Because if I could just play by myself, that would be better. Like because I don't I'm done with the Miku song. It was funny the first eight times. Well, you know, you can always go in there and just fill out the roster with your own songs. Like the second you load in, run to the little computer thing. I think you can pick more than one song. I don't think I've ever loaded in and people were already there. Like, I feel like I always end up joining people. Oh, yeah, it's possible, too. Yeah. Like you were just filling the slot. Yeah.

[01:29:38] All right. But that covers that. Nave, what are we playing next week? Fuck, I don't know. I forget if I already established it. I'll have to go through my Discord and see if I've talked to anyone. Well, maybe you'll find something. Maybe it's Piku Park. I don't know. Piku Park. That'd be pretty cute. It might be hard to find people for that. That game is like aggressively annoying sometimes. I don't know if I can beat that in a week. I'm going to have to beat. This is going to be a game I have to sleep on for a little while. I don't know.

[01:30:06] Maybe you think you could finish Indiana Jones in a week? Maybe. Maybe. And then get somebody on here that really likes it. Just talk about Stalker 2 instead. About how Stalker 2 is better in every way. Oh, that'd be so good. Yeah, definitely do that. So, thanks for joining us this week, co-partners. Maybe next time we can all gather Mass Chief, Miku, Doom Slayer, and, I don't know, Thanos for our rock band Rock Out next time. Bye-bye.