2025.11.26: The Gooner Ending

Speaker 1 Salty Falk.

Speaker 1 Hey! We're recording the podcast! Gut up!

Speaker 1 Good morning to you, wherever you are, because it is Morning Subware! For November 26, 2025. My name is

Speaker 1 Bernie Burns, sitting right over there. It's the penultimate day before Thanksgiving.
Dashy Burns had Ashley, everybody.

Speaker 2 I hope your trickers are in the fridge. If they're not, it's too late now.

Speaker 1 I avoided a gobble-gobble joke on you. Yeah, so if you haven't defrosted your turkey, are you out of luck at this point? Well, hold on.

Speaker 2 It's what's the rule? Is it one hour per pound? No, that doesn't seem right.

Speaker 1 I don't know if there's a rule for defrosting. You can go crazy if you've got a microwave that's got that defrost function.

Speaker 2 Chaos. You know, no, no, I highly disagree.
I highly, they have the, I love that they call it now like the chaos defrost.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't know, the particles are extra chaotic and that's going to defrost it better. But no, all that does is like it cooks the edges and then they're just sort of like gammy.
And then

Speaker 2 you still got ice in the middle. It's, I don't like it.

Speaker 1 When I was a kid,

Speaker 1 I had a moment early on when I realized I was better with technology than people who were older than me. And I think that was kind of a thing that everybody went through at some point in their life.

Speaker 1 For me, I was over at my friend's house and we were in the kitchen doing something.

Speaker 1 Who knows?

Speaker 1 boiling an egg or whatever when the mom was in there and uh we had to set a timer and so i walked over to the microwave and used the timer function on the microwave and did they flip out the mom freaked out she was like do not do that because remember this whole thing like you couldn't run a microwave empty does that is that like i do remember that yeah like it was somehow dangerous like what the particles are gonna like escape and hunt elsewhere if they can't find food in there yeah when we first got microwaves i think everyone was kind of like we look like the people who were testing the first atomic bomb.

Speaker 1 We would sit in a bunker and look at it through like

Speaker 1 a slit in the concrete with goggles on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we couldn't run, you couldn't run them empty. So you had to put a glass of water in it at the very least.
And I was like, it's not running the microwave. It's just using the timer.

Speaker 1 And she was like, that's not a thing. And I'm like, it's 100% a thing.
And I showed her and I said, here, watch. And I hit start.
And she's like, and then I hit start.

Speaker 1 And then the microwave didn't turn on, but the timer went. And she was just like, she thought I was the the smartest person who ever existed.
Like she couldn't believe a child could figure this out.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of like weird technology like that.

Speaker 1 I'm so fucking old. I had a VCR that you had to set.
Like if you wanted to schedule the time on it.

Speaker 2 Oh, to like auto-record something?

Speaker 1 It had a tool. Like, that was so early.
It wasn't even like a digital thing where you'd set the time, which, by the way, I had to reset Mush's automatic feeder.

Speaker 2 I know. I'm so fucking fat getting into it.

Speaker 1 That cat is getting huge.

Speaker 2 Well, so here's the thing. So we got this automatic feeder for him.
It feeds him four times a day.

Speaker 2 The goal is to try to get this cat to slow down and chew his food.

Speaker 2 I think we're having the opposite effect, by the way, because he hears that thing go from halfway across the house. He's having a nice nap, a snooze, just chilling in a window.

Speaker 2 He hears that thing zoom off like a shot.

Speaker 2 And then 30 seconds later, that dish is completely empty and he's probably going to work it on the floor because he inhaled it without actually chewing any of the food. He's awful.

Speaker 2 And then also, he does the thing where he pitifully just sits by the bowl. And if you walk through the room, he goes, Meow, like, please, sir, can I have some more? And you can blink.

Speaker 2 And then you go, you can push the button. It'll give him a little bit more food.
And you're like, you earned it, buddy. Here's the problem.
I think he's learned how to divide and conquer.

Speaker 2 So he sees one of us coming and gets his little popper hat out and does the whole begging thing and then makes sure that whoever just gave him food is gone.

Speaker 2 The next person comes through, and he gets to do it all again.

Speaker 1 So, you programmed this thing when we first got it. I just reprogrammed it, so now nobody should be manually feeding him anymore.

Speaker 1 We know that's not gonna be the case, I know, but there's an option for portion size. Do you remember what you set that at? I think I set it at two.
Oh, shit. Okay, I gotta pump up his numbers.

Speaker 1 I got him at a one, which I assume is less than a two. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I assume like one is snack, two is meal, three is feast, and so on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but this

Speaker 1 VCR we had in my house when I was a kid, it was like, it had, I don't know how else to describe it, it had like a little plastic screwdriver.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a screwdriver, but then you would like move dip switches like inside of a panel in order to set the time on it.

Speaker 2 Right, like the time is in binary.

Speaker 1 And that used to be a joke. I wonder if that would even play with modern kids today that you would go over to your friend's house and their VCR time wouldn't be set.
Like that was a joke, right?

Speaker 1 Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, that that was,

Speaker 2 I feel like people got to the point where there were enough clocks around the house that would all reset themselves if the power went out that people just gave up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You would just like walk around and the time in this room is like 4.23. The time in this other room is 6.18.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but your VCR fuck yourself. Most people's VCR would just blink 12 constantly.

Speaker 1 Like you'd be watching TV and there'd be a blinking 12 like right next to it all the time because people just didn't know how to set their VCR classes.

Speaker 2 Or weren't going to bother because why do I need to look at the VCR to know the time?

Speaker 1 That joke might have been lost of time between you and me. Like,

Speaker 1 that was a running joke. Like, if you went into someone's house and there was a blinking 12 on their VCR, that family didn't know what they were doing technology-wise.

Speaker 2 Or didn't bother.

Speaker 1 Also, it was like a, I feel like there was an era where everyone had a stereo system in their living room right next to their TV. That was a very 80s thing.

Speaker 2 Yes, it was like all these different components. It was a perfect audio system.
Yep.

Speaker 1 It had the record player on top. Yep.
Then it had the below that, the separate unit entirely, which had the two cassette decks. And if you were very lucky, it had auto-reverse.

Speaker 1 Then there was another unit below that. No idea what that did.

Speaker 1 And then there was another unit below that, which was like the receiver, which would you, you could like turn your TV over to it or turn it to your cassette deck or turn it to your radio or whatever.

Speaker 2 I will say that as far as like technology dinosaurs,

Speaker 2 one thing that I never learned, one of those like technologies I never got good at is audio stuff. Yeah, I get it.
Like setting up, setting up a receiver with like a like a 5.1 surround system.

Speaker 2 I've done a lot of things in my life. That is not one of them.
Cannot do it.

Speaker 1 A Reddit post recently where they like moved into a new house and they were like, I don't know how our inspector didn't catch this and we just found out about it. What can we do?

Speaker 1 There's all these like unconnected power cables coming out of one hole in the wall. wall, and everyone's like, Those are speaker wires, dude.
You're like the luckiest person on the planet.

Speaker 1 Like, they had the previous owners had wired speaker wire through the walls and everything, right?

Speaker 2 So, there's probably, and there's probably also then like the speakers that are somewhere inside the walls, right? With like the covered in little vents.

Speaker 2 It's, it is funny the things that past generations buy. There was recently yet another save icon misunderstanding.
Oh, in Japan. Yeah, I believe it was in Japan.

Speaker 2 People were asking each other on social media, why is the save icon

Speaker 2 like a vending machine?

Speaker 1 A vending machine with the Coke in the bottom. Yeah, like with a soda waiting to be very visual jokes.

Speaker 2 And it's like, oh, God, it's another level of just this is gone. This is lost to time.

Speaker 1 All right, Ashley, should we take a call from the public here? Let's take a call. While we're talking about stuff from the 80s and dad gifts here, this is a call that we got on voicemail.

Speaker 3 This is a question for Mr. Bernie Burns.
I'm out here raking leaves in the lawn, and I was just hit with the dreaded question:

Speaker 3 What would I like for Christmas? As a fellow dad who doesn't need anything, how do you handle the question? And what kind of direction should I point people in? I'm a tool guy. I'm a record guy.

Speaker 3 I'm a whiskey guy. But even though they hear all that, they always buy some other crap.

Speaker 1 I didn't leave his name, so I feel your pain, fellow dad, out there, raking leaves.

Speaker 1 Being a tool guy, no, you don't want other people to buy you tools.

Speaker 1 You definitely don't want that. What's the female equivalent of that?

Speaker 2 Well, I've actually heard that it's when people are enthusiasts about something, don't get them something for that thing that they're an enthusiast about because whatever you're going to get them is probably crap and they've probably already got something way better, right?

Speaker 2 That's like a crafts thing,

Speaker 2 like a like fat, do they like fabricating?

Speaker 2 Do they like whiskey? You're probably going to get them something that they're going to be like, that's really sweet. And this is awful.

Speaker 1 We ran into this just recently where

Speaker 1 your dad got us a gift. We were talking about getting a smoker here to like smoking brisket, you know, in Scotland.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we feel like, like, as Texan transplants, we owe it to Texan culture to try to convert as many people as possible here over to Texas brisket barbecue, right?

Speaker 1 We need to, we need to share our culture or spread the religion of barbecue, absolutely, a beef barbecue.

Speaker 1 But your dad got us a really great gift and he got us an electric smoker, which is a very nice gift. But I remember when he got it for us, I was like, oh man, he got us an electric smoker?

Speaker 1 I don't know how I feel about that. Like, this is not at all what I was going to get for a smoker.

Speaker 1 I was going to get something that was like super elaborate where I got to get up at like two in the morning. It's so much better to have the electric smoker.
That thing works fantastic.

Speaker 2 It's nice because

Speaker 2 it's got the button on it, right? It just blinks 12. Yeah.
And then

Speaker 2 you ignore that panel entirely and you go to the next panel where you can set the, just set the temperature, set the time.

Speaker 2 And then it's got this little pocket to the side where you put in your little wood chips.

Speaker 2 And we got ourselves mesquite chips, which is something that you have to have if you're doing Texas style barbecue is you got to have mesquite wood chips.

Speaker 1 And then I learned from Mush, I just stand next to the machine and yell and hope someone comes by and sees me. That's what I do.
Just scream at everybody who goes by.

Speaker 2 They just pull out a little bit of meat and there you go.

Speaker 1 But for gifts, I did a thing a long time ago where I got tired of this question. So I established, I would never collect anything.

Speaker 1 I do collect things now, collect whiskey, but I don't expect anybody to buy me a bottle of whiskey.

Speaker 1 So I started collecting playing cards just so that people would never tell me again, you're hard to buy things for. How'd that work out? Go buy me a five.
Nobody buys me plane cards. Nobody does it.

Speaker 1 They're always like walking around talking about how I'm hard to shop for or something like that. I don't know.
What do you get for a dad? Socks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 There comes a point in every adult's life when socks is actually a fantastic gift.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's true.

Speaker 2 Right. First of all, you've worn holes in the tops of all your socks somehow, and you're always in need of new socks.
Even though like... Those lifetime guarantee socks, what are they like?

Speaker 2 Darn tough socks. What are your lifetime guarantee socks?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but then I keep hearing that those, unless you buy them like right from the company, there's a good chance they're counterfeit. Oh,

Speaker 1 it's one of those buy-for-life things where you can send it in like your Doc Martins and they'll just send you a new one.

Speaker 2 What would it be

Speaker 2 like to work in the counterfeit sock market?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I wonder too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I wonder. I wonder like half the time when I buy something, I'm like, I wonder if this is counterfeit.

Speaker 2 I hear that about Amazon a lot, that something like a third of skin products, like skincare stuff, is counterfeit.

Speaker 1 That's a great example.

Speaker 1 for tools and guys and you know buying gifts for ladies i would never buy you a set of like skincare products you'd be like why did you buy this for me you don't know what you're doing i'd be like buddy this is for oily combination skin and i'm over there going you like skincare stuff so i got you because

Speaker 1 yeah no buy

Speaker 1 skin uh yeah especially because i feel like guys have a system right first of all you have to pick your loyalty right who's your what's your team here here's can i tell you if you don't know what to buy your dad let me tell you exactly what to buy your dad go out to the garage go look at his tools right specifically go over and look at his cordless tools whatever he's got look at the battery battery, take a photo of it, and just buy another battery.

Speaker 2 That's it. You can never have enough batteries for your cordless tools.

Speaker 1 Going with your brother and sister or whatever, that's like 80 bucks or something like that.

Speaker 1 That's a perfect gift because that's the kind of thing where everybody wants another battery, but nobody wants to spend the money on it. Go buy your dad another battery.
All right.

Speaker 1 That'd be totally fine.

Speaker 2 That's the Christmas list for everyone this year. Yeah.
But Bernie, speaking of picking up.

Speaker 1 Or how about you go rake the leaves? Like that? That one for your dad? Go do that.

Speaker 2 No, no. Isn't raking the leaves one of those things that dads do so that they don't have to do work around the house?

Speaker 2 They're like, you're like, oh, we've, we've got people coming over, and they're like, I'll be in the back corner of the yard working on that project I've intended to do for months.

Speaker 2 Have fun cleaning every corner of the house.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go have a clear brush in the back of a lot.

Speaker 2 Look, I'm helping.

Speaker 1 That's right. Yep, that's it.
That's what we do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What happens if the people who come over want to go visit the back corner of the lot where the poison ivy is? I got to clear all that out. Got to get rid of it.

Speaker 2 It could be dangerous.

Speaker 1 But go buy a battery for a tool that you'll be, they'll be happy as can be.

Speaker 2 Well, Bernie, speaking of like picking teams for tools, the AP News is weighing in on a couple of things, and they're making a couple of big lists.

Speaker 2 The one that continues to confuse me is that AP News is the place to go for football rankings for your college football.

Speaker 1 100% of this. All the big games that I was talking about two weeks ago are now.
This is the weekend for it, man. Texas A ⁇ M.
Ohio State versus Michigan. I think it's on Saturday.

Speaker 1 It can be tough for me to tell because when I look at the schedule, like the Texas AM game takes place at 12.30 a.m.

Speaker 1 on Saturday morning. So that's Friday for y'all, I'm pretty sure.
So,

Speaker 1 yeah. So check out some of those games this weekend.
I would check out probably Ohio State, Michigan. That's always a fantastic game.

Speaker 1 Texas versus Texas AM, although I don't expect that to be like a really enjoyable game, but who knows?

Speaker 1 And then Indiana is playing Purdue, I think, this weekend. So those are the big ones I would watch this weekend.

Speaker 2 Well, there, and also, Stranger Things is going to be out.

Speaker 2 Related to your like 1 a.m. dilemma,

Speaker 2 I was logging into Netflix to watch something yesterday because Man on the Inside season two is out. I'm very excited.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 Man on the Inside?

Speaker 2 A Man on the Inside. That's the Ted Danson show where he's like an old guy helping out a PI.

Speaker 1 How many shows has Ted Danson had at this point?

Speaker 2 A lot of shows.

Speaker 1 And they're all...

Speaker 2 amazing.

Speaker 2 But I was logging into Netflix and when you get to the profile selection screen, they always have these banners for like, what's new, what's coming up, right?

Speaker 2 Or like, here's something that you're probably going to be interested in checking out. And there was a big banner for Stranger Things and it goes coming Thursday, 1 a.m.
It gave me the time.

Speaker 2 It told me that it was going to be on a 1 a.m. GMT on Thursday.
And I was like, why are you even bothering me with this?

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, some people are that into it. They'll stay up.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess so if you're trying that hard to avoid spoilers for part one of three.

Speaker 1 The spoilers thing becomes so hard when they put out like six episodes at a time. I'm not, I mean, I appreciate that.
I'm not going to watch six episodes in a row, right?

Speaker 1 It's like, so it's like, but there are some people who will do that and immediately want to go and discuss it. I think there's a huge overlap in that Venn diagram of people.

Speaker 1 I don't know. It's just like, you can't avoid spoilers in that like big drop binge release methodology.
You know, you just can't get away from it.

Speaker 2 I guess so, but like, why can't you just say then coming Thursday? By the time you wake up Thursday, it's going going to be out.

Speaker 1 Right. It's not a live event.

Speaker 2 Right. Like, is this a sports game I need to set my alarm for 1 a.m.
for?

Speaker 1 The good news is the Ohio State, Michigan game, the reason why I'm probably recommending that one is that one's at like 5 p.m. on Saturday, I think, here, or something like that.

Speaker 1 So it's like, it's like a noon game.

Speaker 2 That's the one everyone can catch.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's great.
It doesn't have to get up at like 12.30 a.m. and then suffer for the next three hours.

Speaker 2 But the interesting thing is AP News has another list out, Bernie, that

Speaker 2 we in particular will find fascinating, and that is their top gifts for dads.

Speaker 1 Doll batteries the whole way down.

Speaker 2 Almost. It's their list of top video games.
So they put out their top 10 list for sports and for video games. So they've got all the bases covered this year.

Speaker 1 But I found it interesting because it actually be awesome if they put like the vote numbers next to it like they do for the sports as well. And the

Speaker 1 records and other award ceremonies.

Speaker 2 But it's a really different list than the Game Awards Game of the Year nominees okay um which is something i find interesting i mean it has some in common uh claire obscure expedition 33 is at the number one spot so uh that one is in common and i would not a big surprise right no not at all it's like as far as like games that's one it came out so much earlier this year and has really stuck around in people's minds because it was

Speaker 2 Well, frankly, because it's so weird. Yeah.
Right. But it's like, it was also, it made a really unique mark this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but they lost to Helldivers, which lost to Ark Raiders. So I don't know.
I wouldn't rank it that high anymore.

Speaker 2 They're down in the 17s now.

Speaker 2 They started at 20, worked their way up to one, and then back down in 17.

Speaker 2 It's a UT dream.

Speaker 2 But no, the other games on their list, the Outer Worlds 2, Silent Hill F.

Speaker 1 Outer Worlds 2. That's like it's not University of Fallout.
It's Fallout State. That's what that is.

Speaker 2 It's Fallout Space U.

Speaker 2 It's the Space Campus. Assassin's Creed Shadow.

Speaker 1 Is there a Silent Hill one on there? Silent Hill F. What is that?

Speaker 2 I don't know. Paying respects.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make all the correlations here to sports teams. So that's like University of Miami.
That was big in the 90s. And the people who really like it still,

Speaker 1 it's going to do well this year. But no, it's like, it's not the 90s anymore, pal.

Speaker 2 All right, Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Speaker 1 That's just University of Oregon.

Speaker 1 I don't know why, but it is.

Speaker 2 The Seance of Blake Manor. The fuck is that? Yeah, that's an interesting one because I feel like

Speaker 2 it's an indie title.

Speaker 2 It's from Ireland's Spooky Doorway, and it's a mystery game where a group of mystics have gathered around in Halloween 1897 to commune with the dead, and you're investigating one of what happens when one of the living humans vanishes.

Speaker 2 It's point and click.

Speaker 1 That's BYU. Okay.

Speaker 2 Avowed.

Speaker 1 What's avowed? I don't know these games.

Speaker 2 That's an RPG from Obsidian.

Speaker 1 Oh, Avowed. I think I heard about that like halfway through the year, but man, man, what a blip.
I didn't even remember that game was this year.

Speaker 2 Ghost of Yotte?

Speaker 1 What the fuck is this list?

Speaker 2 That's a big game. It's a follow-up to Ghost Utsushima? Nope.
No? Okay. Nope.

Speaker 1 These are all PlayStation games, it sounds like.

Speaker 2 What? South of Midnight? Is that not a PlayStation game? Ghost of Yotte is, but you make it sound like the whole list is. I don't think Donkey Kong Bonanza was on the PlayStation brew.

Speaker 1 I don't think so either. Okay.

Speaker 2 I also suspect that salance of Blake Manor is a PC game.

Speaker 1 By the way, I knew what Donkey Kong Bonanza was. Do you? I did.
Do you?

Speaker 1 It's Monkey Friends, as it's called in this house.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Evie calls it Monkey Friends. She wants to play the Monkey Friends game because we went through a phase where she was afraid of monkeys.

Speaker 2 Just like she, you know, how kids develop irrational fears and they can't like logic away the fears yet? Like explaining to her that there are no monkeys nearby.

Speaker 2 They've all been caught and returned to their sanctuary in the Karen Gorms or whatever. You can't explain that away.
She's afraid of monkeys.

Speaker 1 By the way, if you have little kids in your house and you have Game Pass, get this game Wobbly Life. I never heard about this game.
It's got like huge Wikipedia and fandom entries.

Speaker 1 The website Fandom.

Speaker 2 It's like

Speaker 2 it's single player, but you can play it multiplayer, right? But it's like open world, almost in the vein of an MMO.

Speaker 2 Like the scale is, it's a big world, but it's got more structure to it than something like Minecraft because you can go do jobs and earn money.

Speaker 1 They're doing chores. They're delivering pizzas.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can like buy spaceships or buy pets or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 It's an E e-for everyone GTA.

Speaker 1 That's what it is. That's a great description.
It is a cities. Like if you said, oh, I'm not going to let my kids play GTA unless you took out all of the violence and all of the weird adult shit.

Speaker 1 It's that. It's basically like an open world gang beast in the GTA world.

Speaker 1 It's like, I don't know, I ever heard of this game. It's like the kids do love it, though.

Speaker 2 They absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 They don't mind the work in the mines. They yearn for the mines.

Speaker 1 They love it. So yeah, so that would get in my top 10, even though it's a game from like 2018 or something like that.

Speaker 2 That just means it's had that much time to grow.

Speaker 2 All right, finishing off the AP News top games of the year, South of Midnight, which is, it's a cool game because it's fantasy, but it's based in the deep south of the U.S., which I feel like is not explored enough for fantasy settings.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And then finally at number 10, The Alters, which is the survival adventure where you're an engineer left on a hostile planet. But there's a a movable base, but you can't run it alone.

Speaker 2 So you got to clone yourself.

Speaker 1 I do think it's interesting that a lot of these games, it's an engineer who gets marooned on these planets and not like a chef or an accountant or something.

Speaker 2 That's because if it was like an accountant that was marooned on the planet, that would be a very short game.

Speaker 1 It would be.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't hear a lot. Right.
I mean, that's the, that's the like thing of every story, right? It's like, well, it's very convenient that this is the protagonist.

Speaker 2 And it's like, well, yes, because otherwise the story would be very short. It would go like, they died the end.

Speaker 1 So I finished,

Speaker 1 I finished Dispatch. Okay.
And I'm starting to realize something. Like, too, it's like, I feel like I got kind of baited in a little bit.
Go ahead. This game is extremely popular.
I'll say this.

Speaker 1 I liked it a lot more at the beginning and the middle than at the end.

Speaker 1 Also, because on these goddamn games where you choose your path, I always get the worst ending.

Speaker 1 It is a trend in our house. Detroit Become Human.
I'm surprised the disc didn't burn itself and like disintegrate after my playthrough because I got literally, I think I got like the bottom 2%

Speaker 1 of all the endings combined.

Speaker 2 I'm pretty sure the clock on the PlayStation reset to 12 p.m. That's right.
Just

Speaker 2 as soon as you started playing it, it was like, I'm not having any of this.

Speaker 1 It's 12 a.m. by the way.

Speaker 2 12 a.m., whatever.

Speaker 2 But yeah, you got, you missed almost a third of the game for Detroit Become Human because you lost, like, one of your characters died, like a right.

Speaker 1 A protest character. He died in the first like two scenes.

Speaker 2 And yeah, and then so you just, you didn't experience like a third of the game.

Speaker 1 I somehow got the nanny and the little girl killed in like an internment camp. You're like, I don't, like, how did I get them there?

Speaker 1 And then they all died.

Speaker 2 Every single ending for your characters was awful. Like, I don't know how you could come away from that game feeling even like any sort of like closure or

Speaker 2 like emotional fulfillment. That must have just been a horrifically frustrating game for you.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a bad ending, but I got the negative ending in Dispatch. Okay.
It wasn't a bad ending.

Speaker 1 What I'm getting at here, though, is like a lot of these games, you know, Baldur's Gate, even though it's not a similar genre, falls in this category as well.

Speaker 1 I think Dispatch might be a gooner game. I think it might be.
Wait, what?

Speaker 1 It's all gooning. It's like people are big into the romancing and the nudity and the sex and all that stuff.
They are? There's a lot of things.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like when you go look at that when you go look at that at like the subreddit and stuff, because I want to see other people's ending, it's all just like ultra-sexualized fan art and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Wait, hold on. Isn't it like a...
This is a workplace game, though, right? Like, isn't it like you're like kind of an office worker? Oh, yeah, like in the superhero industry?

Speaker 1 Your big romance options in this game is you can date your boss or date the person of whom you are the boss.

Speaker 2 Are there any quick time events to solve the power dynamic issues?

Speaker 1 No, no, no. See, I feel like I think you're right that the crowd who's like gooning hard over this game is also the crowd who like decries like the power dynamics of some relationships.

Speaker 1 And it's funny how they lean into it for their fictional story.

Speaker 2 Well, look, it's like all the girls who get really into the like choke me daddy, like fantasy romance stuff.

Speaker 2 It doesn't mean you like that stuff, right? It doesn't mean that like you, this is a thing that you want or approve of in real life.

Speaker 1 Fiction is fiction. Right.

Speaker 2 Like, look, 50 Shades of Gray was a big fucking deal. There aren't that many women out there being like, I'd like to be tied up.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 It's like, call the cops immediately. Right.
It's like someone starts getting out the handcuffs and you're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't feel like guys are like that, though. Why is that? Why do women pursue in fiction things that they don't actually want in real life?

Speaker 1 I thought you guys were all about manifesting and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't know why that is.
Maybe guys are just unimaginative. Maybe it's part of just like the overall escapism.
It's also a world that doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 And a lot of times you have superpowers. So, you know, sure, why not have like wild gravity-free sex, too?

Speaker 1 I also think, too, when I play these games, I just naturally, I just want, I will choose the more interesting option, the one that might generate more conflict.

Speaker 1 And that just leads to a more negative ending.

Speaker 2 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 It's not necessarily a bad thing.

Speaker 2 If you're aiming for conflict, then, yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 I don't feel like the big decision in the game, one of the big decisions you make, I'm not trying, obviously, trying not to spoil anything here, is

Speaker 1 I chose the one that would be the make the most sense in the real world.

Speaker 2 Do you ever find that that's like a problem? Like real world logic you can't apply to situations in games, though?

Speaker 1 Sure, no, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's like if you try to apply real-world logic to like a point-and-click puzzle game, you're screwed.

Speaker 2 You've already lost.

Speaker 1 Do you agree with me? Like, Baldur's Gate 3, when it was out, was. enormously well received, but there was a huge gooner component.
Oh, absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 2 The fact that like, I know you can have sex with a bear is like, that's like one of one of the, one of of the major discussion points of the game.

Speaker 1 It's interesting that in a lot of these narrative games, even going back to something like Mass Effect.

Speaker 2 Right, which one.

Speaker 1 Romance partners are a massive part of that.

Speaker 2 Huge deal. Huge deal.
Like, and one, you know, one of the, to the point where when you bring that up, someone goes, oh, who do you romance? Like, that's one of the first topics of discussion. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Also, As someone who has worked on animated shows, I'm not big into cartoon sex. I'm not a huge fan of cartoon sex, explicit cartoon sex on screen.

Speaker 2 For me, a lot of that comes down to the fact that like someone was just had to draw it, right? And so it, some, somewhere in that process, I guess it loses the draw for me, right?

Speaker 2 Like where someone, someone is just drawing this thing. It's not a thing that's happening to people,

Speaker 2 but someone's drawing it. I guess I have no excuse because I'll listen or I'll read people who wrote it, which is essentially the same thing, right?

Speaker 2 If there's like fictional sex scenes in a book, then I'm not like, oh, no, this has lost me somewhere. And the whole like, it was created and it's not, people aren't really banging.

Speaker 2 It's not actual porn. So what's the draw? I'm not sure why I'm not into animated stuff.

Speaker 1 Hey, speaking of which,

Speaker 1 the guy who originally created the who framed Roger Rabbit universe has the rights back now. What? So there's talk that there could be more who framed Roger Rabbit, Rabbit stuff.

Speaker 1 But to me, that was a weird

Speaker 1 licensing,

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 you can't recreate that. I just recently watched it.
We were talking about like, like, for instance, to finish out the discussion on cartoon sex, how do you feel about Jessica Rabbit?

Speaker 2 She's hot. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, I, when I went back and watched it, I was like,

Speaker 1 I get like a feeling watching it because like all these like real life dudes, like just drooling over this girl. It's also, it's like from the 80s too.
But

Speaker 1 I don't think you could recreate who framed Roger Rabbit today because how would you get like Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse in the same place?

Speaker 1 Unless, of course, Disney buys Warner Brothers, but you know, how could you do that stuff? Like, how did they even get that done in the 80s?

Speaker 2 Right. Like, I mean, I guess it was a different time and they must have just like had some crazy party and been like, hey, I'll sign off on whatever you want.

Speaker 1 It somehow ended up as like some kind of like weird neutral territory with these fake versions of the characters where they felt okay putting both the characters in there, like Daffy Duck and Donald Duck, and then Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.

Speaker 1 It's like, yeah, just you would never see that ever again, I don't think.

Speaker 2 Maybe they just had some, like, some real licensing whiz on it. There's a couple of things, like, uh, there's a, a Sonic racing game out that's supposed to be really, really good.

Speaker 2 I've heard nothing but good things about it. Uh, and they're like, and now you've got Minecraft characters in it.

Speaker 2 So sometimes properties are just happy to like license characters to completely different companies just for the fun of it.

Speaker 2 I don't think that we would be in that situation with something like Disney in particular today because they're so very serious about their IP and about the mouse in particular.

Speaker 2 But there are companies out there that are like, yeah,

Speaker 2 what the hell? We'll sign off on it. It'll be a good time.

Speaker 1 So Netflix is one of the people now leading the charge on potentially buying. There's also a group of

Speaker 1 Saudi investors who are looking to purchase Warner Brothers as well. That would be very interesting.

Speaker 2 Man, didn't they just buy EA, like... Haven't they spent all the money?

Speaker 1 And apparently all of professional golf as well. I'm not a, I don't watch professional golf, but like

Speaker 1 that's been a big thing. Yeah, they basically bought it.
Yeah. They bought golf? Yeah, they bought, they bought like every golfer essentially and put them on this live tournament or LIV.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what they're doing. Okay.

Speaker 1 But I would think too, it's like if you look at this Warner Brothers purchase, something I've often wondered about this, which I need to look into, is if you buy all of Warner Brothers, do you get like six flags as well?

Speaker 1 Or is that just a licensing deal with the Warner Brothers characters and six flags? Like Disney has Disney World. Disney has Disneyland.
I don't know about the other ones, the overseas.

Speaker 2 Disneyland, Paris, and so on. Yeah,

Speaker 1 knowing Disney, that's probably all first party owned and operated.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, parks are a big part of their overall revenue.

Speaker 1 But I get the feeling that's not the case with the Six Flags theme parks, even though they have all the Warner Brothers characters as their quote-unquote mascots. Right?

Speaker 2 Let's see. Does Warner Brothers own Six Flags?

Speaker 2 Warner Brothers owned Six Flags theme parks from 1993 to 1998, and they sold the company to Premier Parks. So they don't own them anymore.
It must be a licensing agreement at this point.

Speaker 1 Well, whoever is the new owner of Warner Brothers, I wonder, you know, they'll either assign that deal to them or someone will renegotiate all that.

Speaker 1 I wonder how important that is to Six Flags these days.

Speaker 2 Right. Well, to be fair, I don't associate Six Flags with Warner Brothers at all.

Speaker 1 Oh, you know?

Speaker 2 I think, no, no,

Speaker 1 no.

Speaker 2 I can't even picture what that would look like. So I...

Speaker 2 I imagine Six Flags would be okay. I just picture dangerous roller coaster.

Speaker 1 I think of Six Flags. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 maybe I'm thinking of an antiquated time when I was more interested in amusement parks.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I always associate the Warner Brothers characters with Six Flags and then kind of like the knockoff Disney World kind of, isn't it?

Speaker 2 I always think of it as Disney and Universal Studios. I think of those as like the two.

Speaker 2 Disney World kind of sucks.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 I'm a Six Flags roller coaster kind of a guy and everyone will always talk about Space Mountain.

Speaker 1 Disney World kind of sucks, to be honest with you. Unless you're into like the spectacle and the parades and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 I like, I would rather go on a crazy roller coaster at Six Flags any day of the week than go to Disney World. Honestly, honestly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but in, I guess, in that vein, I don't feel like Disney World is for me. It's for the kids.
Oh, but that, look, I, and I'm an elder millennial.

Speaker 2 I understand that there are a lot of Disney adults who just like to go and turn off adulthood for the day and just have a nice time. And I think that's great.

Speaker 2 But for me, it's, it's either go to Disneyland or program the time on the VCR. Can't have both.
Which one are you going to choose?

Speaker 1 Can't have a trip to Disney World and a working VCR.

Speaker 1 Can't have both.

Speaker 1 All right, Ashley, who's going with us on our trip to Disney World this week?

Speaker 2 Oh, big thanks to Nikki P and Tony Hickard for joining us at Disney World and sponsoring this episode of our podcast at patreon.com/slash morning somewhere and roysterteet.com.

Speaker 1 I feel like we should be talking more about Thanksgiving. I guess we'll do it tomorrow, but it's just not top of mind for us.

Speaker 2 I guess we can't. I did look up the rules.

Speaker 2 So if anyone does need to emergency defrost a turkey, you can use the cold water method, which is to basically just put the frozen turkey in the sink in cold water, change the water every 30 minutes, and then it can defrost in you can defrost a 16-pound turkey in like eight hours.

Speaker 2 Now, okay, which is better than like the four days that it would be uh thawing in the fridge, and then you can like cook it for 10 hours or whatever,

Speaker 2 8,000 hours until the button pops out. So, you still got time, you still got time, you can do this, I believe in you.

Speaker 1 All right, well, that does it for us today, November 26, 2025. We will be back to talk to you tomorrow.
We hope you will be here as well. Bye, everybody.