Oh, that horrible things that happen. No, you're really missing the point. That's a great opportunity for is like, oh, I'm out. No, it's a horrible thing. You know, some things are just flat out bad. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast and welcome to the show. I've been hearing your voice for such a long time. It's finally great to meet you. Daniela Benalla. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Obviously, we're going to dig into your podcast and storytelling this month being storytelling. Really, history is the ultimate storytelling. Right. That's exactly what it is. And we were laughing before the show. A lot of us, when we encounter history, it's in a boring classroom setting. And the narratives that get shared typically involve memorizing lots of dates, but there's a lot more richness to history. And that's really why Johnny and I enjoy your show and digging more into the actual stories behind history. And what grew your fascination with history? I think to me, I grew up as an only kid before internet. So you have a lot of ways to get bored, right? So to me, being in my brain, making up stories was what I started doing, I don't know, I was three, four, five.  So to me, it was like, okay, time to turn on imagination. And so history was awesome because it would give me material to work with. I would have something gathered and what I see outside the window every day in a modern society where I lived. I had access to all these other ways in which people have lived, dressed, look like, did all these other stuff. And I was like, this is awesome. It gives me so much more material to play with. So really was, for me, history was about storytelling from day one. And that was Milan, Italy? Yeah. You know, for all of us, when we go to Europe, we're exposed to so much history. It's quite overwhelming. And I was telling AJ today that your show and some others like yours had given me the opportunity to learn about stories in certain cities because when you're exposed to a museum or you go to a city, you're exposed to thousands of years of history but you have no context. And it's all hitting you in the face at one time. But if you can narrow down and follow one narrative through, you can learn so much about that city. And then it's connections to other eras and other times. Totally. You know, the funny thing, though, is that even though Italy's obsolete, there's everywhere you turn, there's something that's 2000 years old or something. I really didn't care about Italian history growing up.   Who cares? I'm interested about stuff happening across the globe, not this time. Now I dig it. Now I can appreciate it because when it is not, I don't take it for granted the same way. So now when I go back, I'm like, man, this is amazing. But when I was growing up around it, I was like, yeah, don't care about this part. Give me the other stuff. Give me anything but European history. And was there a story or a period of history that really hooked your imagination at the start? You know, one thing that I, I think there's something fascinating in pretty much any time period. But the things that I tend to gravitate the most toward tend to be tribal stories. People living as small tribes, whether you are talking about prehistory kind of stuff or whether you are talking about 150, 200 years ago, American Indians on the Great Plains. That kind of tribal life where your whole society is made up of like at most a few hundred, maybe a thousand, 2000 people. So it's all a face-to-face community. You know everybody. Everybody's part of it. And you are, there's no state above it.  There's something about it probably because that's the way as human beings we have lived for the longest period we've been around. They fascinate me. They kind of speak to me on a level that's like, this is who we are at the core. This is how what made our DNA for 99% of the time we've been around, you know? So I find that really intriguing. Of course that's the hardest one because there's usually very, there's pretty much nothing written. So in terms of sources to reconstruct is not the easiest thing. One of the things I enjoy about the show is when you run into those places you give as much context and facts as you can and then you give a few different narratives to allow your audience to choose from. From the sources that you've read. Which is great because I think we all understand the media that we're living in today is we've caught it being so slanted so many times that it's difficult to trust. And I certainly would wish the media would play that role as well. Like listen, here's what we know and this is up to you but it's force-fed. And when you're hearing such history presented that way it's quite refreshing almost as if you have a bit of a hand in how you're perceiving it and what it means to you as well. Yeah, because ultimately anything has a bias. I mean, there are two levels of bias. There's the dishonest bias which is like I want to kind of shove my point of view down your throat so I'm gonna tweak all the evidence to make you believe what I believe. That's messed up, we get it, that's dishonest. But there's another level that's completely unavoidable. You know, whereas the first one is avoidable the second one isn't. Which is just by virtue of who you are like the storyteller or the journalist the person framing the story. There are gonna be topics they are more into than others. So you're gonna shine the spotlight on those topics more than others. Even if you're trying to be as objective as humanly possible, you can't. You know, you can be as objective as you possibly can. That doesn't really mean you are truly objective. And so it's good to be honest about it. It's like, look, this is the stuff I'm into. This is what I find. This is why I come to this conclusion. You do what you want with it. You see the path, you can either follow that or you can take those elements and take it in another direction. And obviously in your research when we're talking about tribes and communities where spoken history is really what we're talking about here there's not even, I would argue, the historians that we have today who have been steeped in the research but those are just stories that the community shares about events that are happening to them. How do you tease out the disinformation and the spin that's going on in these narratives? It's hard. It's really hard because I mean, it's like even in something that happened a hundred yards from here, there was gonna be 10 witnesses or gonna tell you 10 different stories and they are all right there and it's happening right here right now. Let alone when you add time for stories to change, the person who wasn't really there by heard it from his cousin, second remove who told him that maybe. So, you know, the room for mistakes is huge. And I think that's understood with all history that there's the legend and there's the history. The legends we know, we usually know a few of variation of it. The actual history we can tease out and make educated guesses about. It's about as good as it gets. And in your fact-finding missions to build out these narratives on the podcast, obviously there's a lot of time spent and we understand that, as Johnny was laughing about earlier, to the victors go the spoils, right? And we've even seen now some of our historical figures that we grew up looking up to, stories have come out about their checkered past and maybe the history that we were taught in schools isn't truly the way it happened. How do you tackle those issues when you encounter them and building up the narrative? Well, and that's what I always found weird because what you're referring to is often called or by nationalism. I mean, every country, everyone want to make their founding father, their whatever the good guys, right? The whole story is we are the good guys and by default that means the other guys are the bad guys but there's this, and to me, I don't get it because it's like, why? Nobody's gonna accuse you today of being responsible for what somebody has done five generations ago. So you can be honest about it. If it looks like the record is kind of shady, how about we call it for what it is and be... So that mechanism of like, I have to defend somebody who had lived generations ago against the evidence makes no sense to me. To me, it's like, I'm all for nuance. I'm not saying you need to just point the finger from where you sit today, saying what they should have done 200 years ago and they are all terrible people. But at the same time, also call it for what it is. There are certain lines that you don't cross and when somebody does cross them, I don't care the time period or when, there are not too many ways to spin around in slaving babies. That's bad in all times, in all situations. It's like, that's it. So I always find that, and also that topic, you shouldn't judge the past by today's standards. It's always funny because it tends to be brought up when somebody's judging the people you like. Now, when people are judging the people you don't... Then it's totally fine when they are judging the people you don't like. Right, the enemies are fine, the heroes, let's not question. But suddenly it's like, no way, it was a different time. You should understand, and I did actually, there was a series that I did with Daryl Cooper from Arthur Made Podcast, where we kind of covered this one story from the 1860s, which was this massacre of the Cheyenne at San Cric, and then Daryl cover, Milai massacre in Vietnam. And it was funny, because I remember on my public page on Facebook, we were talking about historical massacres and things like that. And as long as we were talking about Nazis or communists, they were like, can you believe those terrible, horrible people? And then suddenly Milai is like, well, you have to understand, they were under a lot of pressure and it's easy to... I'm like, where was all this human understanding when he was the other guys? It's like, the same rule should apply. Yeah, and unfortunately, when we look back at all of our histories, there's going to be some light moments and there's going to be some dark moments, especially when war is involved. And I think this is what makes, with all these new formats with the technology we have to be able to tell these stories over 11 hours, do you really get an opportunity, at least for you and Daryl and Dan, to humanize some of these characters to such a level that for the first time of hearing this, maybe the story you've heard in history class and all through your life, but the new context that you have where you are now looking at this and this character as, he's just like me, but he was in this situation. And now you're completely sucked in because dates are just that, they're logistical, but when you put it in context of a story, now your emotions are engaged. And the more you can humanize these characters, the more you're engaged and emotions are flying. And when I'm trying to turn people on to some of this stuff, and they're like, how long is this? Oh, this podcast is only 11 hours, don't worry about it. They're like, what? I don't know. And however, we were just talking about Daryl Cooper, it's like the minute that is laid out, you're instantly hooked. You want to go through the whole experience. No, and that's the same thing. I remember when I first was introduced to Dan Carlin's work, I listened to, there was this series that he did on the full of the Roma Republic. And so of course, growing up in Italy, I've heard that story about 72 million times. So I listen and I'm like, okay, it's cool. I dig it. I'm not yet 100% sold to the first episode, but I'm like, it's good enough. I'll check more, right? And then by the end of episode two, I'm there at the edge of my seat going like, what happens next? And then I catch myself because I'm like, I know exactly what happens next. I know all the characters. But that's as good as a storyteller as he is that suddenly he slowly, because it's not like he's over the top from one second one, he's like, draw you in. It's a slow process of drawing you in and once you're in, you're in for real. He does a phenomenal job with it. And when did you realize that podcast was a medium that you wanted to participate in and start sharing these stories? Well, I had a really weird intro to podcasting because I think my first podcasting experience was in 2011 and he was in the deepest end of the pool. You can possibly end up because I think he was the very first I ended up in was Joe Rogan podcast. And I didn't know what podcasting was, right? And back then and still today, Rogan's podcast with you more. Absolutely. I mean, today even more so than back then. And so I remember walking in the studio and there was a Brian Redman and I'm like, Joe hasn't come in yet. And Brian was there and I'm like, podcasting? Kind of like, what are we doing here? It's like radio, but you can cast. And I was like, okay, good. I got it. We're good with that. And so it's like, suddenly after being on Joe's show, I realized just how many people were listening. And I'm like, damn, that's a whole medium that I was ignoring that I didn't know about. And now I'm realizing what a big impact it has on so many people. So then I started becoming kind of a guest on a bunch of podcasts. And then lots of people were like, hey, you should start your own thing. And so I guess, sure, you know. And initially I started more Joe's type of show, more guests and chats and interviews. But then that's when I started putting two and two together and I'm like, okay, I teach history for a living. I am podcasting. My probably my favorite podcast is Dan's hardcore history. Doesn't take a genius. Maybe I should do the same, different from Dan but with my own spin, but get into it. And there was plenty of room with each of one of his episodes taking 10 months. Right, I suddenly be having these two episodes a year, right? And so I was like, but even that was funny because from the moment I decided to start it to when I actually released the first episode, probably year and a half one by, because what I was thinking is I don't wanna do, you know, I do all the research and then I released one or two episodes and then, okay, I see you guys in eight months. You know, I was like, I wanna have enough lined up that I can then buy myself some time to do the research for episode nine or something, right? But I've, I guess I'd steal, despite knowing how history work, I kind of underestimated the amount of work that goes into it, which is insane. It's like every time I get through a series, I'm like, never again, this is painful. Because you need to become an instant expert on something and you don't become an instant expert. So you need to go to at least like 10, 400 page book and read the same story at zillion times before you start seeing it from all these different angles and then you really know your story. Obviously, you saw this as an extension of teaching, just to reach more people. And we certainly know that you put a lot of work into building out these stories. How much comparatively goes from the work of the story itself, but also character development so that the audience can connect? Yeah, all in all, I'd say an average hour and a half to hour episode takes probably about somewhere between a hundred and 200 hours of work behind it. So it's a lot because first you need to read all the books and you take all the notes on the books. Then you come up with sort of the bare bones of the story. And as you read more books, you add elements to this bare bone outline of the whole thing. Once you have the whole outline, okay, now you have a lot of information, but it's tedious as hell, so you need to now spice it up. So you need to, you know, connection, things that as you read come to mind, references to pop culture, joke that comes in or characters, how you want to flesh them out, why should anybody care? Which is ultimately the key question on any storytelling, right? It's like when you're telling a story, I see it a lot in school when people teach. People walk in with the assumption that somehow people would have attention. I'm like, nobody will you check, you know? It's like, nobody, it's your job to hook people in. To hook people in who shouldn't, you shouldn't assume that they care even a tiny bit about the topic. Okay, it's your job to make the story interesting enough and ultimately human enough, you know, something that anybody who has a heartbeat can relate to, that they are gonna have some angle by which they are intrigued because you ultimately are talking about human emotions and things that, you know, the same way as if you put on a Hollywood production, it's designed to appeal to a ton of people through just basic human stuff that most humans can relate to. Same thing goes if you teach a class, same thing goes into a podcast, same thing goes into anything really. And talk about that hook for us when you're developing out and maybe you can give us an example of a recent episode for you, how you come upon the hook and how you set up the story so that the audience is engaged. Sure, so for example, earlier we were talking about kind of complex historical figures and relating to and connected to what you're asking about the hook.  It sounds like a full story, but you know, not that deep. And so I started reading and reading and reading. And on some level it was interesting because there's the aspect that turns you off. You know, when you read it today, he clearly grew up at a time that was insanely racist. So some of that definitely comes up, particularly in his earlier writings. He got better over time, which is something that helps in liking, right? But he starts from a place that was, that was everything he breathed around him was the culture was super racist. He never saw a war he didn't like. You know, he was a hardcore warmonger. So it's not my ideal guy in terms of foreign policy or he had those issues that you look at it and you're like, that's a little problematic. But at the same time, there's so much to him as a human being there. You can, you know, there's a lot of history that just, you know, like when he's very young and he's severely asthmatic at a time when people hadn't figured out the proper treatment for asthma.  And so, you know, it's a miracle that anybody survived. But, you know, he was facing that kind of stuff, always being sort of this weak, Nordish guy in his books because he was always having, struggling with a body that wasn't serving him well. And somehow through luck, through working out, through seeing things he built for himself, much stronger, healthier body, so much that he kind of builds a cult about this idea of physical effort. That's one of his big things. When he's really young, like he's still in his early 20s, he got married and his wife would just give birth to a baby daughter, dies the same day as his mom dies. So he comes home and is like, that mother, that wife, here is a two-day-old kid to take care of. So, you know, there are these things that you could not care less about US foreign policy or politics or anything. You cannot, but stories like these are something that anybody can at least, if not really through personal experience, at least imagine what I mean and be like, damn, if I was in that situation, how would I react to something that strikes such powerful emotional chords? And so that, right there is your hook, right? That right there is like, okay, now I'm invested in this person. I wanna see how they handle it, you know? So understanding the struggle that they've gone through, obviously we have these historical figures that we all revere and look up to because of the stories that we've heard over and over again, but there's always that turmoil going on, no matter who the hero is. And really hooking into that is how you get that audience engaged. Yeah, one thing I noticed is that most of the characters I'm interested in, and I tend to, I like all of the stories I cover, but I tend to dig extra, the biographical ones, where there's a clear lead that you follow through their journey. But most of them are mildly mentally deranged. They all have serious issues. I find them lovable for the most part, but they are not the most always well adjusted human being ever. You know, so it's, I mean, like I think the first biography I did was Crazy Horse. And it's basically the Native American version of The Punisher, right? It's exactly The Punisher story, just with, and you know, you just see, you picture what it must have been like to go through all those experiences, mountains of heartbreak and tragedy. And you're like, okay, I can see how the guy would have some issues. You know, you still like him because there was a very sympathetic side to him. But at the same time, yeah, there's some real stuff going on there. There's a lot of evil woven into that story. You know, it's something else that you speak about and bringing up The Punisher.  And for the most part, you look at what they're putting out and it's easy to say that when through these podcasts, we're hearing incredible story after incredible story. And it's like, well, if they just did a little work or unless they've gotten conditioned to, well, it's not really about the story. It's what we need to, we know what's going to be coming in. Yeah, I mean, Hollywood is funny because I've been in a lot, a lot, a lot of meetings about developing TV series and movies and things. And the number one you think you breathe in the room at all times is fear because the thing is you have to invest millions of dollars. This is not an investment that you can afford to screw up. So there's always that, okay, this checks out, this checks out, this checks out, but what could possibly go wrong that's not gonna get us our investment back? And of course, when you approach it that way, nothing is gonna pass the test because unless like Marvel movies, it has been done already 5,200 times, nothing has been proven that for sure it's gonna work no matter what. And inevitably at some point, they have to take a chance, but you kind of see this process where they are like, no, no, no, okay, pick this one. You know, it seems so random because sometimes you're like, really, you stress so much about this thing which looks like a pretty good commercial success. And then you approve this, it's like, so a lot of the times the mechanism behind it, I think that they are under so much pressure because the money involved is so insane and outside what we can normally think of that it's inevitably super conservative. And I don't mean political conservative, I mean conservative in terms of choices is you don't want to do something new because you could fail.   And when you put your magnifying glass to these moments in history and you're building out that outline like you discussed, how do you pick that timeframe and come up with the introduction to the story, the hook, what you're gonna focus on and then also sort of the payoff at the end because it's really your job as the storyteller to pick, okay, day one, day zero, and okay, this is the end of my story. And some of these struggles, I mean, they're still going on to talk about tribal issues. Sure, yeah, some of those things are, yeah, that's where, to me in some way that becomes the most interesting part because yeah, you're framing the narrative. You have all the facts, but you're giving it an arc and the arc is not obvious and the arc is something you have to figure out. So what is that would interest somebody right away in the first five, 10 minutes and now you wanna close it. Like right now I'm working on this super long series that ends with something really dark where there's this, I don't know why today's just, it comes up this way, it's like massacre number 3073. It's like, I swear it's not all like that, but it ends with the wounded knee massacre.  Is that really where I wanna go with this? It's like, come on, man. It's like, you don't wanna put a ribbon around it and make it sound like, oh, but it's all a happy, it's not, it's a terrible story. But okay, how do I frame it? Because no, I'm not gonna do that to people. That's just a bad way to end stuff. And so then I shifted the focus to, okay, that does happen in 1890 and it's horrible and it's terrible. But in that same story, there's also a story of survival against overwhelming odds. There's still a story of Lakota culture that I've been looking at leading up to wounded knee getting squashed in just about every way. Legally in terms of religious persecution, in terms of the massacre, it's like it looks still somewhat thriving today, still finding a way. And so you're not negating everything you have built up until that point, but you give it a spin that doesn't go into, it's not gonna have your listener going to shoot themselves after they are done. It's like, that was a great podcast.  That's not the goal. So obviously there's the hook that moment that all of us as listeners humanizes whoever the main protagonist or character in the story is and then from there, you gotta zoom out and give context, right? Why does this matter? And what's going on historically to put it in its place? And then you have conflict. And a lot of what we'll go into in a bit involves a lot of dark conflict, massacres. But you are looking for something at the end to conclude in a way that the audience feels they've got some value out of it and they can take a positive spin on it.  It feels heavy as hell, nasty things happen. But if that's your conclusion, then it's like, what's the point? Why didn't get up in the morning if that's how you're gonna feel about everything, right? So it's like, you look at all the darkness but you also want to find whatever angle that also allow you to either deal with it or thrive despite all of it. And I mean, at some point, I remember talking with Don Carlin where we're like, why most of the stories we tell are just terrible? Why is it always warfare and bloodshed and this and that? And the point he was making is because those are some of the most extreme stories in human experience and the more powerful the emotions that you put on the table are, the more invested you get into how the characters navigate those situations. And I get that, but there was a moment there where I was like, okay, but I also wanna do something different. And so at one point, one of the podcast that I was, one of the series I was super happy with, I did these two episodes on the life of this one, Zen Monk from the 1400s, EQ Surgeon was my old time idol because his main priorities were Zen, sure, that's great, but mainly also drinking and women. And it's all live, while there's plenty of obstacle and conflict and thing, the guy manages to be happy in spite of the context he's in. And you know, the context like most historical context is gonna be a tough one, you know? But you don't feel it in his attitude, you don't feel it in his writing, you don't feel it in the way he relates to sing. And so I found it refreshing. The guy was like, most of his stuff is about sex, happiness in the moment, and just the sense of a guy who has a tremendous zest for life. And I was like, oh man, that's refreshing once in a while to put the accent on that, not only on some terrible conflicts taking place. Epic doesn't have to always mean bloodshed and goer. Epic can also be a happy story. You could say it's a character study. Yeah. Of a very complex character. And of course it's going to relate to a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. You know, one of the things that you mentioned of being extremes of the human experience, I can personally relate to some of how I now look at working out or how I go about my day directly as a response to some of the stories that I heard of this extreme of human experience. It's like, well, if that person could live through that, why am I freaking out right now? And in fact, I need to get it together. And to be exposed to that and care through the storytelling, do you think that is a bit of the professor coming through where it's like, well, let's make sure everyone learns something at the end that is so it's just not a slasher flick? Yeah, because ultimately it's like, why are we doing it otherwise? To me, anything storytelling included needs to be about elevating the quality of life. If it doesn't do that, then we're wasting our time. Maybe we're wasting our time in a fun way, in a ha-ha and entertaining way, sure, not everything needs to be about elevation of quality of life, but kind of. To me, that's the point is we all wanna live happier, more fulfilling lives. So storytelling, to me, is awesome because of what you're saying. It provides archetypes. It provides kind of role models that they don't have to be perfect, even because if they are perfect, you can't relate. It's like, that's great for you, but it has nothing to do with where I'm at today. They need to be somebody that you can relate to who managed to do something amazing in spite of all the demons pulling you down.  Yes, but there's a way to rise above it. And I love hero stories. That's, to me, that's what you need in any story, powerful characters that make you feel good about being alive ultimately. Yeah, I think everyone's story is a story of survival. And some of these stories that you choose are the ultimate situations of life and death for these people. And of course, the hero is gonna struggle with decisions, is gonna struggle with negative outcomes, and then hopefully rise above it so there is a life lesson that can be passed on when you're telling these stories that are involving mass violence, mass occurs, death, a lot of darkness. How do you draw the line from when enough is enough for the audience of like, how deep do I wanna go into the darkness? And how do you find your way out of that so that the audience again can move on from just all the death and destruction? Yeah, I'm, you know, one of the things that I'm gonna tie back to what you're asking regarding storytelling, but like one of the things that, for example, I don't like about the more positive thinking approach to things is that they tend to oversimplify answers.  No, you're really missing the point. That's a great opportunity for, it's like, oh, time out. No, it's a horrible thing. You know, some things are just flat out bad. There's no spinning them into nobody, really it's good. No, it's bad. And let's be real about it. Okay, let's deal with what it is. Once we have looked at it long enough and we are knowledge that it's crap, then let's figure out, okay, it is crap, but what do you wanna do about it?  So how do you take terrible cards that you have in your hands and be able to play them in a way that's empowering? I'm a big fan of that process. You know, acknowledge the darkness, look at it, see it in all its ugliness, and then try to move forward. I tend to find that in many cases, the more sort of motivational self-help tend to skip that step. They are, yeah, I was kind of dark, but you know, it's really amazing. It's like, no, no, no, too soon. You know, it's like, because to me it feels fake. You know, to me it feels like you're not being real. You're not being honest about what that feels like. And ultimately you're also making it sound too easy. Like for somebody who's coating it, it doesn't feel good to be told, no, no, really, it's a great, it's like, come on, man. Have first empathize with what it means to be in that situation, then you can move forward. But if you don't go through the process, you're never gonna move forward in a way that's real. You may in a way that's like fake self-talk, but not in a way that goes deep. So in answer to your question, I think it's very important to just be, to dive deep, to look at the darkness for all its ugliness, and then help people kind of come out from the other end. So they are not, it's like darkness, darkness, darkness. Okay guys, see you next time. It's like, no, that's terrible. You know, you don't wanna do that. But to show a path out. What's certainly a large theme of philosophy of losing yourself or reaching the darkness in order to find your way back and truly know who you are. Because how can you know who you are if you haven't put yourself in that position or have been there? And there's many different ways of going about that. But until you come back there, and I think Joe just posted something about that as well. And we see it in certainly in philosophy. Every tradition has that story. And you guys have certainly shown it in your stories that you tell. Yeah, it's important because that's life, right? Life is conflict, life is loss, life is failure. But it's not all that life is or it doesn't have to be. And so it's like showing that path through the hard stuff, through the failure, through all of it. And again, not rushing it. Because when you rush it to me, you're missing the real ability to come out strong from the other side. You know, you don't just go, I'm weak. I'm gonna live two weeks for two days and now I'm strong. You know, take your time. You need to process that. You need to really feel it. So that when you come out, it's real. There's a real strength behind it.  You realize that you weren't quite as though everything is for the best kind of thing. And so that's kind of how I approach it in all the stories. I have zero problem with dealing with really hard stuff, but I also wanna show an arc. Because otherwise again, I can tell the pressing stories all day long, but why are we doing it to ourselves? That's not the point. And we talked about this in our Toolbox episode about essentially there are the details and the facts and the logical part, but really when we're telling a story, we're painting with the emotions and getting people to resonate with the emotions. Cause that's what's universal, right? I may not have been a warrior. I may not have grown up in the 1800s, but the emotions and the conflict that those characters are feeling, well, yeah, I can relate to that. Are there tools or techniques that you've developed over time to paint those emotions more vividly?  I think not everybody's wired the same way. So some people have easier threshold to cross into. Like I remember as a kid, if I would watch a movie, he felt like I lived it. He felt like I was the character, right? And so then I would see other people watch the same movie with me and two minutes later are cracking jokes. I'm like, no, how are you not stealing that space? It's like, that was a powerful takes a while to digest it all. And so that's when I realized, okay, maybe I have a different mindset where my immersion into the story goes to a kind of another level, which is not good or bad. It's just more intense for whatever good or bad that it may be. And so to me it's like, okay, how can I distill some of that for somebody who may not do the exact same process I go through? How can I create the hook faster? And that's essentially, and so it goes back to the same emotions. If you happen to feel them more intensely, well, it's even easier to then be able to communicate them to somebody because they feel the same thing. They may have just not dwell on it as much. Right, so in your preparation, you're emoting and sitting in there and methodically with the character to build out that structure before sharing it. Definitely. And of course, one of the things that we enjoy about your podcast as well is you do add humor. And there is moments where you would think in these dark stories, humor might not work. How do you go about adding humor to these stories? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, part of the way I grew up was you find something funny in the weirdest situation, right? It's just part of the gig.    And again, it can be force. It can't be, hey, I know that being, finding humor and tragedy is great, so let's, you know, because you feel it when it's first, you need to come from who you are really and just your attitude of like, yeah, here we are. So let's find a way to go through this. With the deal with some of your sponsors and luminary, I remember when you had guaranteed a certain amount of shows and certainly knowing that the workload that you have with everything else that you're doing and teaching and martial arts and the other podcasts and what it takes to put together the research for one of these stories, I'm sure at times you feel run down or just beat up or just uninspired because you've put so much out there. How do you deal with those times? I mean, there's, yes, sure. And there's definitely the clock ticking. You're like, okay, this is great, but you need to get another story next month. So hurry up a little. But at the same time, I think there's a level where, you know, if I probably have some documents where I listed just kind of brainstorming some of the stories I like to cover. And you know, there's enough material for the next 72 years. So I'm just like, you know, there's an element that while, yeah, it's a lot and man, I'm tired and this and that, there's also a sense that like, oh, I can't wait to get to tell this story. So it kind of motivates you to, eh, let's pick up the book and start reading and go through it because it's a good story and I can't wait to dive into it.  I enjoy studying them, I enjoy telling them. So while the workload is definitely intense, it's a topic that I'm super passionate about. So it helps.  How do you work through that? And I know a lot of our audience thinks about stories and it's like, well, that's not ready. Or I don't have this component or I don't have the humor. How do you know when it's ready to share? To me, there has to be, like the number one requirement is epic. You know, if I have even one moment in a story where I'm like, man, that's such a powerful moment. That's such a great line. That's, then I'm like, okay, okay, we can work with this. We can work because if, I'm sure if I find that one, there are gonna be other moments in the story that are powerful. And so if I get that moment where I like, I can't wait to, like my daughter always, she's 10 years old now. She's always asking me to tell her stories, right? And so it's like, if I get to tell a five minute story to my daughter, that's short enough to keep attention span going, but powerful enough to get her super interest. Then I have something that I can develop in something larger, right? So is there are these little snippets that you know, you test them out. Can you keep the attention of a child and keep them at the edge of their seat? Okay, you can, boom, you got a story. Then you can develop it and that to it, you know. And obviously, how has this parlayed into your sharing your own stories and your own history of being a student in history and now having this podcast where you share these historical stories, how is that translated into your personal storytelling? I mean, to me it's like, that's why in fact, when you guys told me, oh, we're gonna chat about storytelling. I'm like, perfect because that to me, everything is storytelling, right? That's like in everything I do, whether I'm teaching, whether I'm writing, whether I'm doing the podcast, whether I'm hanging out with my daughter, storytelling is in everything and it's what makes, give meaning to life in a lot of way, gives you strength in moments when you don't have it. So like all we got into some degree are stories and they are what makes the difference between perceiving external reality, a situation and perceiving external reality and you are excited and can't wait to tackle it. So I just, and I play the same process with myself. There are all the times in life when you're dealing with heavy stuff, when you're struggling, when you feel run down and having in the back of your mind some stories that you focus on to give you that energy for that extra step, give you that energy for okay, but I'm not totally crushed by this yet. It goes a long way, because it's very much kind of Joseph Campbell, the hero's Jordy kind of thing, you know? We talked about that in the toolbox and we all can resonate with those stories when we see them elsewhere. It's now seeing our own life through that same pattern of being able to share it. And that's where, you know, like right now I would love to be able to write another book but again, because of the podcast it's really hard to find time for anything. But like the last book I did was something that was weird because it was sort of autobiographical in a lot of ways, actually, pretty much always which always felt weird to me because I'm like, that's some vain crap.  That, it felt really wrong in a lot of ways but at the same time I realized that there were some parts of that story. And I mean, it's not that I was born in and you know, it's not that kind of, it's a thematic autobiographical thing but like on certain themes, I'm like, I can talk about this in a philosophical, more principle-driven kind of way and sure it can be interesting but when you make it personal, when you make it, okay, this is me in that situation. Not as this is how you should act in an abstract way and it's always way too easy and way too clean. It's like, no, that's the reality. This is what I know, this is how I feel. This is how I tackle. That I realized anytime I tell stories in that way, people respond 10 times more and not just respond like, oh, I want a bigger audience, responding it helps them more because they can relate more. And so I was like, okay, that's a different way to go about storytelling because suddenly I'm the main character in a tale. I'm like, oh, okay, that's different. And of course you can't really, you know, you tell it but it's harder whereas when you're talking about somebody else it's very easy to see how somebody will perceive that story. When you're talking about yourself, you don't because you know yourself too well. You're like, well, you think that was awesome? Okay, I'm glad you feel that way but I was kind of winging it and I'm glad it worked out but so it's that in itself is a bit of, but in some way I think there's a process where almost everything you touch has a little bit of autobiographical element because whatever story you tell is ultimately told through your process framed by your experiences, the lenses you have developed to look a reality through your whole life story.  So a little bit of that is going to color any story you tell. I think that's so wonderful when you get to hear a story that meant so much to you as a child, hear it as an adult with a completely different lens and that story still carrying the same power but it means something completely different to you. Big time, big time. And that's the evolution, right? It's like when you are looking at something from this angle and suddenly you realize that there are many, many other angles to tackle the same topic from. And of course these stories that we share they become memories for others and that is our own history being shared and passed on. So the more compelling and engaging the story the more the other person can relate to the story. Well that is a story that will be shared more and ultimately make you stand out and become more memorable. That's the game, right? That's how you're playing the whole, yep. Now we touched on this a little bit earlier but we know that because of exactly that we're perceiving the world in a certain light and no matter if we're sharing a story about ourselves or we're sharing a story about a historical figure our perception and perspective is gonna be woven into that story. How do you tell or what is your barometer to judge if a story has been spun too much and maybe fake history? And they've colored the lens of this to be something that's just unrealistic and how do you get to what you believe is the truth in these stories? I mean, so of course you need to have enough reliable sources and that's not always easy because there are a bunch of stories for which there are no reliable sources and then you're like, okay, this is the legend, this is based on what we know about the context to what we can assume, make educated guesses but ultimately it's legend. Then there are the ones that are part legend, part, there's something that all the sources agree on, okay, we're good there but then there's plenty of room for things that's reported in this one guy 50 years later, maybe not, and you tell it that way, you say, hey, this is how the narrative goes flowing but part of that flow may not be real. We know this and we know this and then somebody argue that this is what happened in between. Maybe it did happen, this is what we have as evidence that it may have happened but make your own mind about it and so you can either enjoy it as purely storytelling or you can assume that it's actual history and it's anybody's work to figure it out. Now I know we've talked a lot about the history podcast, you have another podcast that Johnny finds really enjoyable and we had just some simple questions here to end around exactly that because it really aligns with a lot of the concepts that we talk about here on the show about value and being giving to others. Well, one more question before we get there, I was kind of curious about, obviously you brought the being a professor angle to the podcast and telling these stories. Now after podcasting for so long, how has that changed the way you present information in the classroom? Yeah, I don't think it has because I never saw myself as, I always saw my teaching in academia as I'm a ninja who's somehow got in and just don't tell anybody because I'm not really like that kind of thing. To me it's like I approach teaching as storytelling with depth, with, you know, you do the historical process, you wanna be accurate, all the good stuff but ultimately I approach it in that fashion.  So in that regard, there's no change because it's the same way as in the classroom you don't have the same time to go in depth in certain topic but you do the same thing quicker.  So my teaching has been kind of the same errors. And I would assume the goal for your students is to go just deep enough where they'll do the other four hours that you didn't have the time for. Right, and you know, you throw it out there and if you dig it, there's a lot more. And if you don't, goodbye. You know, that's, yeah, that's kind of the idea is I'll try to make it fun. I'll try to entertain you. I'll try to make sure that you learn something. And then if you want to go deeper, great. So one of my other joys that all this technology has brought certainly history has been one of them and my other is philosophy and knowing that you are very, not only in the Western tradition but also the Eastern tradition in the other podcast being drunken Taoism, right? I always sometimes that word throws me off. AOC, the art of charm. We, one of the things that we have a philosophical core and that philosophical core is what is the value that you're bringing to your interactions and to the world around you which pretty much flows really nicely with Taoism. And so when it comes to storytelling and it comes to living in that tradition of bringing value to others around you in a day, anything that you could speak of and through that point. Yeah, I think one of the things that interested me about Taoism is that unlike most any philosophy or religion that you need to believe certain things to be that thing, you can be 100% Taoist in worldview without ever having read a damn thing about Taoism or knowing what Taoism is. Because to me, what interests me about Taoism is that it very much speaks the language of life. It's kind of like somebody who sits at the window describing the way the universe works. It's not even to argue with. It's not something you need to believe or disbelieve. It's like, look out the window and that's exactly how reality works, right? So I find it refreshing because it's, even though it doesn't feel like that, because you know, you read the Dara Ching and depending on the translation it can get really complex and it's not for everybody to get into. Once you break down the basic principles, they are everywhere in anything, you know?  And whether you know it or not, they are the exact same thing. So you can derive the same insight from completely different fields to, and really they help you navigate life easier. And what are those principles that you live by? For example, there's, like the first line of the Dara Ching is funny because sometimes it's translated as the Tao that can be explained is not the real thing. It's not the eternal Tao. And it's like, well, that should also be the last line of the book, right? Because then if you can do it, then why are we wasting time? And he's telling you, look, words are great because that's how we communicate as human beings but they are a limited tool. They are verbal symbols. They are trying to describe reality with. They're not the same thing in reality. And so much miscommunication takes place all the time between people. So many arguments are based on symbolic semantics rather than reality. So he's always telling you kind of like, okay, we're gonna be using this, but remember language and the real thing are two different things. So that's something that's always helpful, but on a much deeper level, when you ask about principles, like even something like the Yin-Yang symbol, it's telling you, like whoever designed it way back thousands of years ago was a damn genius because it's so perfect in its simplicity, right? So much of the view of duality that exists in the world is like there's a clear cut line between one side and the other and one is good and the other is evil and they are fighting each other across this rigid line and it's based on conflict.  Male, female, cold and hot, sun and dark, everything is made and there's always a balance between those two things. If you are able to find the right balance in the right situation, boom, everything is gonna be easier. If you don't find the right balance in the right situation, your life is gonna be harder, simple as that. In a ways like a philosophical kind of surfing, everybody gets it that you need to be in balance on the board on top of a wave. The skill is in reading the ocean, reading everything around you so that, because balance doesn't mean you're always in the middle, leader. That's not balance, that's being dogmatic in a different way. Not in a completely black or completely white, but it's, I'm gonna be dogmatic in the middle. It's like that, it would be nice if life was that simple, it's not. You know, one of the key things of Taoism is everything is constantly changing. So your skill, your ability is to learn the right balance in each situation that's constantly changing as well. And in some cases, balance may not look like balance. In some cases, you are tilted 95% one way, but it's exactly what's needed at the moment. Two seconds later, the balance has shifted and so you need to tilt it back real fast. And in that sense is, that's why I find surfing a powerful metaphor for what Taoism is about because it's essentially teaching you how to navigate life.  It's like learning how to cook, it's like learning anything that's an art to some degrees. You have principles, you learn those, but ultimately some people are gonna have a genius for it. It's like your grandma was an amazing chef and goes, no, not ready, not ready now. And they make the call in the right moment and that tastes 10 times better than a minute later or a minute earlier. That to me is something that fascinates me about Taoism because it's built on being completely not dogmatic in nature. It's telling you that's how life works, but a lot of it experimentation and a lot of it's contextual. Yeah, that acceptance for what is happening and that flexibility to adjust to what's happening. Flexibility is key, I mean think about, and again to give an example of how you can apply it to everything. Let's say you have kids, right? You think I need to give structure to my kids, they need to have discipline, they need to do this.  And your ability is to be able to read the situation and go, that's not what this guy needs. With him we're gonna do something a little different. There still will be some of the discipline but a lot will tone that down a lot because what they need instead is more kind of giving them responsibility, letting them make choices, be a little more free. And it's not that one model is good or bad, is one model is perfect for one kid, one model is perfect for another. If you apply a good model in the wrong situation you're still screwing up. And I think obviously with the study of history, this idea of humility and being humble. Even when we think about our heroes and the legends and the stories that you've investigated, they're all flawed, everyone is flawed. Even the people we look up to and elevate are flawed. So we need to look at our own flaws in the same way and be humble and have some humility. On one hand and at the same time being kind of being kind to yourself. It's like it's great to have high expectations but amen, we understand. Everybody screws up, is up on yourself a little. And even that speaking of Taoism is a temperature, right? Some people are way too quick in making excuses for themselves.  Some people are way too hard on themselves. And so it's like, I appreciate this drive for self perfection but tone it down three notches because you're driving yourself crazy. And so even that is this kind of balancing act that you know. It's not one or the other, it's not an either or. As we get older, we slowly start to put that balancing act for ourselves and still at times it can be difficult. Some of the characters that you've covered, their balancing act certainly looks a lot different than probably any of ours. Diogenes being one of them. And there was a few other characters that you had put together. And I love the comparison that you made of him to Gigi Allen, which I died. And I'd been waiting for somebody to put, I had thought I was the only one that had made that connection. But when you look at those people, and like Bukowski seems to be one of those characters as well who cannot live very conventionally but yet you're getting something and an intelligence and an angle that only they can bring to a situation to give you a better view of it that no one who lives a straight life or a well balanced act can put together. Yeah, sometimes there's power in being off balance. There's something to be, that you can get from that as well. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you guys. Obviously, we've mentioned your podcast a bit here but where can our audience find you and all this phenomenal work? So all the, I think the first 47 episodes of History on Fire are all freely available on iTunes and all most of the other things. Most of the new ones are just exclusive to Luminary. But if you haven't checked the podcast before you have a long way to catch up to. So there are many, but all the new ones are on Luminary Premium. So that's the way to go.  It's easy enough once you spell the name correctly to find all the relevant links. Well, thank you for joining us. It was a real pleasure. Thank you so much. But I feel alive with you.


Welcome to Toffty TV. These are my three takeaways from Everton One Manchester City 3 at Gullison Park today. I'm going to start with Gerri Mina. The big Colombian, six for five, isn't the most cultured of centrebacks, but I think he had a good game today against City, up against Gabriel Jesusus, fantastic, up against the Guero later on, you know, dailing, and I thought he was very, very solid all the way through. Defended well, got us off the situations at times, got important blocks in. It was a real threat in the Manchester City penalty area, you know, could have scored a couple of goals. And I thought he did really well. I mean, people, some people, you know, will criticise him because of the way he looks awkward on the ball due to his size, but I think he's got the makings there of being a really good centreback for us. I don't know whether him and Keane is an ideal partnership, but that's the partnership we've got at the moment. Will Everton in January go and try and get Jumer out of Chelsea again? You know, again, he's not started for Chelsea today. Or will they look for another quick centreback? I'm sure they will. I'm sure that's going to be a priority in January for them to bring another one in, someone who's mobile and quick. And then I suppose it'll be up to Keane and Mina to fight it out then if the manager does that. But, you know, I think sometimes people are too critical on Mina and expect, well, I don't know what they expect, but to me, I thought he was, I thought he had a good game today up against one of the best sides in Europe. I thought he did well. That's just my takeaway from it. I thought he's getting better all the time. And I thought he did well today. Second thing I want to talk about is the players' performance. You know, obviously, the last couple of weeks, in my opinion, we've played without any real desire and any real fight. Bournemouth away.  And we didn't match them well enough. You know, lost down then. And we come home against Sheffield United. They were very organised, well organised, but at the same time, they took it on the heart and the determination. And we went hiding and shoved nothing against Sheffield United, particularly in the second half last week of gooders and had all the ball and didn't do anything with it. And I think today, you know, obviously there's been question marks over the manager. And they'll continue. And that's fine. But I've got no issue with people who question Marco Silva or people who don't like him. That's everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But I think the players today have had a go for them, for themselves and for him. Ultimately, we weren't good enough. We're up against the top-class side. But we had a go-go and we stuck at it.  I'm never happy with a defeat. I expect us to win all our home games on care who would play. But today, I feel as though we've had a bit of a go, you know, I think. Had we attained in a performance like we did last week, aye, we'd have been hammered out of sight, and I'd be standing here seeing them. But we've had a bit of a go today, a bit of a response. I'm not happy we've lost the game, not at all. I'm not happy with our league position at the moment, not at all. I'm not happy seeing teams like Bournemouth and West Ham and those kinds of teams. Palace in the top four or five. I'm really not happy with any of that. But it is what it is at the moment. And we all have to roll our sleeves up. Fans as well. We've got a stick with it. Mark O Silver continues to lose games. He's not going to be here very much longer. Is he? It's as simple as that. It's a result-based business now, and he has to get results. And at the moment, he's not getting them. But I thought the team had a go for them today. And ultimately, it hasn't been enough. But I think there was some shoot-out recovery today. But we'll see where they carry on next week. Next week now for me is a really big game at Burnley. And we have to go there with the same attitude we've had today. We've got to work hard. We've got to stand up. Because Burnley will kick us and throw long balls in, at us and keen and meaner. They're going to have to defend for their lives. And we're going to have to take chances when we get them. We've had chances today and haven't taken them. So next week is going to be key. And finally, take away from today was a brilliant performance by Seamus Coleman. You know, we've all questioned Seamus' start at the season. It hasn't been great. But I thought today was fantastic. I thought he'd work so hard. His final ball of time is still so annoying though. But he done brilliantly for the goal. There was a couple of times he went past four or five players. I thought he stuck to his task really well against Staling. You know, but just the couple of times that stopped there being a brilliant, brilliant performance was when he got himself into the good areas again. It just delays. The one where he fights Staling off. And I think it's two-one at that moment. And he gets wins and out muscles and runs across and brilliantly into the box. Just throw the ball across and someone's got a tapping. He hesitates, hesitates and Staling gets back. And it's, you're like, you're 30 years of age. You've played in the Premier League for 10 years. You know you haven't got a minute on the ball. Just get it across. You've done your bit. If people aren't, isn't it? That's up to them. You can point the finger then and you put a great ball in. But that aside, I thought he was excellent today.  It was good to see. And it's good to see knowing that that's Siddhibi. Is there ready to come in and is putting them under pressure. So good response from Sheamus today. That is it for my three things. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Check out the maths reactions myself and Peds on there as well. Check out Peds player ratings. That should be interesting. I'm sure you'll cover Jordan Pickford's performances in that as well. Give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't. And if you want more videos, go over and join us on page. And thanks for watching. See you later.


I didn't like it even playing it on this thing. Gerps! More like purge. You didn't go for burps? Burps. I can belch on command. Do it. Oh. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. I can hear it dude. Wow. I'm Jamie. I regret everything. Hey everybody and welcome back to Come, Come where we come between the comments for comments. So you don't have to. Exactly. We don't want you to do it. Alright. Don't do it. And we've got here today. Who are you? I'm Ricky. You're Ricky. I'm Rachel. I'm Ricky. It's a good choice. Good pledge. Jamie. No. He's Ricky. I'm Jamie. Liar. Hi there. Alright. And today we're going to be commenting on some videos here. So Kill and Spark, that sinking feeling, that Nolan McBride said, being from Amish country myself, I really want more lore on this Amish Dragonborn community. Are there Mennonite Dragonborn communities as well? So I'm the DM and I can tell you, yes, of course there are other Dragonborn communities that don't like technology and live out in the wilderness on their own. I personally don't know a lot about Amish other than all the me-hating Weird Al songs about Amish people. That's something against Amish that's more against Weird Al. It's probably pro-Amish, right? They're probably on Amish's side for that one. Probably. It's an Amish paradise. This is the song, right? Yeah, Amish Paradise is the song. Yeah. Weird Al imagines a better future for the Amish.  And that's why Ricky hates him. Essentially, I plan to know Amish Dragonborn and then Kyle was like, I want my character to come from an Amish tech-hating background. And I was like, great, of course there's communities of Amish Dragonborn everywhere. This is called the world building. Yeah. This is commutative storytelling at its finest. I'm really happy with Kyle's character. I like all the characters from Killed in Sport. I really like John's character too. I have split feelings about John's character. I love how John is playing John's character. I wrote the name. I did note the name. I was planning on a good Tom Tom call out at some point. Yes. The Captain Garmin for the Goblin Guide. Because he's a navigator. Oh, it's a GPS brand. I just got it. From C. Sucha, who says, it's a shame the series has so little views, but I love it. Oh. Guess what? I also love it. Go watch it. Door Monster Podcast. Subscribe to the second channel. Yeah. Please. It's not all just Kyle and Allison reruns. But that's also good to watch too. But yeah, it comes up pretty regularly actually. It goes up at least once a month. Rounds-ish every three weeks. I got to work on the next episode after this. I'm reading the comments for targeted ads. And the first comment I'd like to read is from Nillen. And it says, I was about to hit the skip bad button, but then I was like, wait, is that Kyle's voice? Yes. It's like Kyle's voice. That's actually very valuable data because that means you'll watch an ad if Kyle's in it. Thank you for your feedback. Oh yeah, absolutely. Good data. By the way, should we be passing the mic? I think we should pass it a little further from your face. Hold on.  That's pretty good actually. That could be us up. Yeah. This is fine. I honestly didn't recognize Kyle's voice at all from the beginning of the ad. Because he's doing the power thrift voice, right? Yeah, but I didn't know Kyle's voice could get that low. Oh, it's definitely digitally growled. It's definitely digitally growled. That's still impressive. I'm still impressed with that too. That was Allison. I don't know. Oh man. Either way, great job on the beginning voice of that ad. The whole video is actually, I think it's one of our best reviews. I really like it. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It terrified me, but you know. No, it's a terrifying prospect because we just audibled into this script. I won't say last minute, but it was probably last minute. And we just like, all three of us, Kyle Matlock and I just all went separately and just in one day wrote our bits independent of each other. We're like, should we compare jokes or a script you're doing? We all said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we all said, well, I wrote mine. We filmed it. And then we put it together. And I mean, we did a lot of concepting before we actually did it. The only thing we knew was like, we have the name of Kevin. Right. We started with the name of Kevin. That's all we had. No reason. Absolutely no reason. Kevin. Kevin. Yeah. You, we're talking to you. Nobody else sees this. Because of Kevin. Seize your investigations, Kevin. People not. I know. Let's just go this way. Yeah. I do have another comment and I'll read it in ASMR voice. No, I won't. I'm sorry. You can John, you can cut that out if it's horrible. This comment is from the nerdy simulation. Spanish dub Sailor Moon is legit fire though. No joke. So where did you hear this? Because it's actually the word is fuego. But it's a good idea. Definitely. So I've been in El Paso areas quite a bit for family. And you can watch like everything in Japanese there. But no, sorry. Everything, everything Japanese in Spanish there. It makes sense. And so I remember watching a like Saturday morning cartoon block with my cousin in Spanish. And I sort of didn't understand what was happening. But my cousin was like actually the voices are better in Spanish than they are in English. Wow. And they said that then the Spanish Simpsons joke is from somebody else. Another YouTuber says that Spanish Simpsons is better than regular Simpsons. So I sort of stole that for Sailor Moon. I've always, but I've heard like legit that like. Yeah. If you want to watch the opening of like Japanese, sure. English, great. And then Spanish dub. Spanish dub teams are like eight plus. So I've heard like all of two episodes of Spanish Sailor Moon. It was pretty good. Nice. I've never really, I've never watched Japanese Sailor Moon. I think they do. I am watching Japanese Sailor Moon exclusively. Really? Soggy is grading and I love it. That makes sense. She's your Soggy. Yeah, she makes sense. I mean she's like I can't make the noise. I can't make the noise she makes. Sailor Moon's name until I moved in with you guys. I thought her name was just Sailor Moon. It is. But sometimes Moon lights as daylights. She's some lights as Usagi. Okay. Good morning Usagi. Well in the English dub right her name is like Serena. Serena, I'm pretty sure. Really? Yeah. Gross. Yeah. I mean it makes sense because. Which is like a light spoiler when you think about it. Yeah it totally is. Is it? Like the Williams sisters winning Wimbledon? That's what it spoils, right? No it's I mean it's a problem. I haven't seen that season yet dude. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  Yeah. What video? These are from Gateway Editions. That was fun to film. That was immensely fun to film and very frustrating and that's what makes it rewarding. Right. Alright from The Magic Rabbit, relevant. Rachel's acting is so unique. I'm so glad she features prominently in another video. Oh that's so nice of you. I really love when we find a role that really lets you be like as Rachel as possible. Right. You should be watching Connors. You should also be watching Connors. Oh yeah. It's like Thursday at 7 stream. Yeah we stream on Twitch and Rachel just draws incredible amazing things and Ricky and I pretend that we are relevant while that happens. I'm just since living here it's just like oh I'm pretty good at oh Rachel's better than me at that. Oh I'm pretty good at but oh Rachel's better than me at that. The Magic the Gathering. No not that. The voice acting streamer is the best voice actor. You're definitely the best artist. You're definitely like great at acting too. Like you're just everything. Oh that's really nice of you. I think my acting is unique. You just can't stand still. That was the problem for me. Yeah. It's best when we give you happy go lucky characters because you cannot stop smiling. Right. So you just have to be like if we give you the right character who's just like always smiling no matter what like perhaps even creepily so. Perfect. Perfect. So when I'm trying to write to your characters I always think of the We Demand Wales video. Oh that was great. That was really in my element. Like enthusiasm. Your characters must be enthusiastic. You know how there's like that thing about you know paid actors to go to liberal events. Yeah. Right. I should be one of those if the job exists. Well those are angry people. They don't hire you. They want angry people. I thought it was supposed to be like paid actors. Is it like you're a paid actor to like be in like the crowd for like being Every time I say conspiracy theory changes so. I don't know. All I know is that I'm definitely a good enough actor and nobody's contacting me about it so. I know you're thankful as recovery and I'm very sorry about everybody being on you about the mark. Huh? Oh it's okay. Is it okay to not have the mark? No during the filming. I mean hopefully no one in the comments was like she's off her mark like that's a very specific behind the scenes thing to notice. She didn't look. Although supposedly somebody said like if you start looking for actors like spotting their mark in movies you'll never unsee it. Just any time they're walking just watch with a quick glance down as they stop. Everyone does it. Everyone. Yes. I want to just curse knowledge. That's it. Will Smith in season one of Fresh Principal Bel Air looks to the next person to speak faster than they start speaking. And he mouths their words. Because he was so nervous. He's so nervous he just memorized everybody's lines. The whole script. Aw. Right? Aw. At first I thought it was like kind of rude that he would like look at them and mouth their lines like come on get on with it. But that's a cute justification. We just got to get this. Yeah. And if there's a Robin Williams movie ever anything that obscures anything, any like prop in the scene has a script behind it. Because Robin Williams is terrible with scripts. Because Robin Williams is terrible with scripts and like you can see him every now and then like look at it. Like in like Mrs. Doubtfire, any like cooking utensil at any point, like there's scripts behind them and he's like looking at them. He looks down to cook at the pot. It's kind of hilarious. Yeah. Right. Wow. Don't recommend that. That's a tone or four. That's a tone or four. If you're an actor. Yeah. Spoodleys is also true for like one of the like Marlon Brando on Apocalypse Now. Uh huh. Like he was like, I was just like drunk in a hotel room and didn't want to learn the lines. And he was like, he's jumping at cue cards. And he's like, it's part of the reason for like the super close-in shot on him is that like they just that's they had to get it out of everything else out of shot. Yeah. From some internet guy, I thought that was going to be based off the doctor's speech on the rings of Akatan. I cut that a lot. Apparently it does sound somewhat similar to this doctor's speech. Which part? This is the bit where I go rambling off on my my the character sheets in the rain speech. Yeah, the Blade Runner speech. It's a Blade Runner speech. It's stolen, beat for beat for Blade Runner. It homage, it homage's. So what did Doctor Who do? It's, did they, did they steal from Doctor? Which Doctor? It was, it was a match with episode. It was a pretty good episode. It was a match with episode. I didn't see it. It's got like two good Doctor speeches in it. But this one is, it's a great speech. It's a different, it's an angry, you don't know what I've been through speech. Whereas Roy Baddies is definitely a, oh I wish you'd seen the things I've been through but now no one will. It's actually, they're almost exact opposites. So there's probably some influence there.  I got memories that'll make you bleed. So they're both about being completely unrelatable. Oh yeah. When is MassMath get edgy? Well that's relatable. MassMath get edgy? MassMath, yeah, he gets angry. He's a very good angry Doctor. He's got like righteous flame, righteous wrath. Yeah, MassMath gets mad. I think way more angry and edgy than Tenet ever got actually.  I don't know.  MadsMath. Ugly mad. MadsMath.  Right.  He does kind of like a ventriloquist dummy. Yeah. Oh man, the no eyebrows thing, not to body shame but, I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like his lack of eyebrows. From Bookman Echwala. I mean statless games are great. I'm here to role play, not do math. I don't know. I think this is, I definitely started my role playing games journey by just collaborative storytelling with random people around me. Math is for blockers. Math is for blockers or DMs as it seems to happen an awful lot. Yeah. You know what is not for DMs? What? Scheduling the next meeting. Apparently it's not for DMs. Scheduling the next meeting. That's what it is. We've got way too much on our plate and so we shouldn't do, I'm so glad that we all have such functional, supportive player systems. Right. That's just kind of an impressive complaint. In the words of the great Brian Wilson, wouldn't it be nice? If we were older? Anyways. Then we wouldn't have to wait so long to have another session. It's true. Yeah.  Anyway, I think, I think statless games are great. There's like, this is one of the reasons why Ivy is really good, is it lets you just ignore stats when you want to ignore stats. I like, there's a couple like loose statless games, like kids with bikes. Yeah. Which is like, loose statless. Or like, it's just like, every stat, you just pick one of the seven dice and that's the stat. Oh. And so it's just like, you're going to be really good at something and you're going to be really bad at something that's the D4 and that's the D20. And it's just like, sometimes you roll. But mostly it's just like, you just do what you would do. It's a like, Goonies style. Right. Stranger things style. I've been a kicker on the idea for a system, the most lightweight system ever called Ultralight. And the idea was to have it be like a diamond age hard light sort of setting. But the only thing you ever need are either, I kicker on the idea of either like two coins or just two dice. And basically every stat you're either neutral on or you get advantage or you get disadvantage. And that's it. That's the only stat. I like that idea. And then you just kind of rework it a couple different ways. That sounds fun. Let's play that. I've played a little bit of Monster of the Week, which really, I mean the character build is a little more complex, but you only ever need 2D6. That's neat. That's pretty cool. And like your stat modifiers never get like that intense. It's like, you pick a stat line and that's basically it for the rest of the game and nothing's more than like plus two or minus two. This is supposedly like the thing about Gerps, although we made Gerps the butt of this joke, is that like, after you get past character creation, the reason I picked Gerps for this joke is that I never got past character creation. Supposedly once you get past that point, it's just D6 is sitting pretty. All the video, the video I'm pretty comments from is the, there's rules for that about building an avatar character in D&D 5E. That's right. Yup. So this comment comes from Firestorm, says, actually need some advice. Backstory, I'm planning on making a character who was once a pixie, but pissed off in Archfey by falling in love with the human and bringing him home with her. Spicy. The Archfey responded by turning her into a human and kicking her out of the Feywild, severing all her connection to it and forbidding any Fey creature from even acknowledging her existence. Spicy again. Problem. What class do I play her as? I was thinking College of Glamour, but I'm worried the mechanics don't sync up with her backstory. So I think this is all depending on what is her goal, right? Is she trying to get back in the Feywild? Because if so, you've also got like a, this is a 5E question.  Who cares? Oh, wow. Okay, okay. The answer is working. There's a bunch of Fey subclasses, right? Like College of Glamour is a Fey subclass. There's almost certainly a Druid's Fey subclass, right? Right. There's a, I know there's an Archfey warlock patron. So going warlock and like saying, and like appealing to a different Archfey. You have a Fey probation officer. You're revenge paladin. It's in the DMG, but there's rules for the Forsaken paladin. Oh, is this a non-lawful? Yeah, it's a like, it's a paladin that, it's Oathbreaker, Oathbreaker paladin. Oathbreaker? It gets to do like, all sorts of cool things, and that could be your character like cut off from their previous world. Or just Mono Wizard, who cares, the class doesn't matter, the story matters. Class can help though. If you want to, like class, so this is a, a live long debate in like the Pathfinder community is a class just a bundle of actions and like instructions and you don't need any flavor attached to it. Yeah, sure. You can definitely write like, I sure I'm a ninja, but really I would prefer to be thought as a gentleman thief and I don't need any of these like, they're not key points. It's just my luck or whatever, right? Or, So I do this already. Right. But if you are looking for, if you're like, if you're not comfortable with role play, your class is always a great starting point. Like, you're tight and you move, like if you're, if you're looking for it to build off of, class can be important. This person has written a huge backstory. They'll be great at role play. Sure. They just need a class. Yeah, if you want, like, I think actually College of Glamour is still fine if that's what you think you're running. Like it's just like the last little, like a little, because it's definitely not full fairy powers, right? Where, so I think it's like last lingering little bits, plus it gives a little bit of edge of tension. Like, it's a reminder that you always want to go back or that you used to be from there because you still got this last little vestige. Right. That's my thought. It's from Von Schott. Oh, this is the... Okay. Please read it. Please, please read it. Ask your question. Do I, do I? Do I? Do I? My character has a history with ending up on the path to the stomach of different crocodiles, alligators, or their kin. Is this from grappling? If you are struggling as you slide down their gullet, thankfully, one of them choked a death on me. A rascal. Natural one, over and over until it died. Been there. Is that Benye Blanc in the flesh? Benwa. Benwa. Benwa. So I think we recently watched Knives Out. Which is so good. Which is so good. But it's so good. Watched Knives Out. And this is from the the 5e video, right? Yes. So I can answer this question for Pathfinder. In Pathfinder, to usually swallow whole action, you must first grab them with your grab ability, which is usually just jaws for creatures. And as long as the creature you are grabbing with your jaws is on one size smaller than you, or less, you can swallow whole. And then once you're inside the creature, you either can attack out of the creature with a sharp slashing or piercing weapon, or you can attempt to escape the grapple from there. When you're inside the creature, you have the grapple condition, but the creature that has swallowed you does not. Thank you, grapple research, for telling me all of this. Now for 5e, I don't know if it matters. For 5e, no one knows what a swingy arch sword is. Yeah? Unless you've been swallowed? Yeah. Why not? Are you grappled? Who cares? The rules, maybe? No.  It's just sort of like you just are just taking damage for being turns in there. Yeah.   Okay. Yeah. Welcome to our spin-off series. There aren't really any rules for that. Or who cares about the rules for that?  And it's like, it'll either say if you were swallowed, you'd instead die. Right. Or it'll say take like this much acid damage every turn. And like, all you do is you just attack from the inside. Interesting. So that's going to be it for our community comments this week. We'd still like to be putting this out at least once a month. I would really like to get back to doing this regularly because we are doing it pretty regularly. We are, yeah. We've got like, I don't know, if we missed the month and we'd love to keep you from here. So make sure you're commenting and we'll answer your questions at least once a month. All right, we should all for John to make this annoying for him. Yeah. We should all look up in that way. Like we're listening to the voice of God and John to answer his own voice here. Guys, it's not God. Come on. Jamie. Jamie. What's that? I'll give you a dollar to lay it down for you. Please. It's a miracle. You're saying for only one dog. No, guys. No, no, no. All right, that's it. If you want more, you can go over to twitch.tv slash doormonsterTV right this minute and we are streaming our morning show. We have a morning show. What did we do on the morning show? What did you want me to do? Because we both do the morning show. We do. Yeah. And we stream every single weekday morning on Twitch from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Central's time and we've had a, it's been fun, but not a lot of people had it, so we're just advertising it real quick. You can go watch it right now if you're watching this during that time. If you're not, then it's not happening, but if it is, go come say hi because we miss you. Thanks. Hi.


Hey there, friends! How's it going? My name is Kevin. Oh, wait. Hold on. Yes, I'm not used to being over here. And I'm not sure I like it. This feels weird. But today I needed to make some adjustments because we're doing something a little bit different. Oh, I can get very casual here now. It's like we're having a nice fireside chat, separate the fire. Or anyone to talk to. I'm just talking to a camera. But today we're going to be playing some connect games. And I'm really excited for this. I've had this connect for quite some time and I've had these games for quite some time. But I've always been putting it off because it's a lot of setup to actually record it. It's a big change for my office. But the other day I was watching a video by Eddie Burback who kind of summarized the launch of the connect and how Microsoft kind of oversold what it was capable of. It's a good video, I'd recommend it. But it kind of got me hyped to actually set this up and actually go play them because I kind of forgot how bad they were. But even thinking about my own videos that I've done about it in the past brings back good memories. All right, Troll. Take a load of the Lord of the Dance. You don't have a chance, buddy. So I'm excited to give it another go. I'm sure it'll be brilliant. So this is what we're going to be playing. Connectimals, I think it's called. This is one of those games that I ran a game store if you didn't know already. This is one of those games that was 50 cent, but no one ever bought anyway. Oh, look at him. I made him sad. Oh, no. I don't like the narrator already. I'm facing the camera. Identify me.  Hey, look at the state of his face. I'm not picking that one. I don't want him. This is the longest intro known to man. Are we really bored? Oh my God, that long intro just to do a crab rave.  Okay, that one has like some sort of vehicle. I'm picking that one. Oh, he does sick ramps and everything. Are you an adventurer? An explorer? A mountain climber, perhaps? Imagine how disappointing it would be after he listed all those things and I'm just like, No, I'm a YouTuber. God, my eye has gone so bloodshot. I think my eye is rejecting the game. It doesn't want to play. What? Go away and rejects. I don't want you. I want... No, I don't want the stone. I want Black Panther. He's the only one to stare in a film. I want his wealth. Excellent choice. Wait, no, I'm not robbing you. I'm scratching my face. Go away. We're not at that stage yet. I think I'm just slapping it. Oh, he likes it, though. There's no animal protective service on this island, is there? When does it end? When do I get attention, game? He's just making me rub him over and over again. What do I do?  A friend for life. Oh, no, trust me. This is just for one video. He sneezed on me the fecker. I don't want your disease like I'm new to this island. Would you like to name him? Of course I would. I think it's time we gave your little one a name. Don't you? Say it out loud. Shitbag. Oh, I like that. Oh, good. Shitbag. Oh, he loves it. That's so cute. My little shitbag.  Would you like to scan a picture or something to identify this cub? Yeah, sure. Why not? Just an awkward picture of me sitting there. No, I think we'll have to find something for that. Okay, here you go. Here's your picture.  I think we're happy with the results. What do you think? You look kind of terrifying, though, but it's oddly fitting. It looks like a boomer Facebook picture. It's just way too close to the pecking camera. Now that you have your cub companion. Just say it. Just say shitbag. That's his name. This is going to be great. I don't even know what's going on, to be honest. I think I'm just on a mad trip. I don't mean trip is in like a vacation.  I've just arrived on this island for no apparent reason. I'm just following this magical thing around. Place for you and your new friend.  I guess we're not so different after all trick learns. Sit down. I've learned that too. Let's start easy. Jump in the air.  I actually have to do this. I don't want to leave my seat. Is that enough for the whole ground shook? Can I just stand up? Yes. When you do a trick. Well, I do a trick just standing up. Now spin in place. Oh, perfect. I gotta take out my earphones and everything. All right. At least it's easy with the seeds. Don't fall over. Oh, this is terrifying. My legs are too long for this. Why is he not reacting? Do the trick. He's not spinning. All I'm doing is getting dizzy. Did he do it? Okay. I'm legit dizzy after this. Well, that's my exercise for the day done. The play dead trick. All you have to do is lie flat on your back. Go ahead. Don't be shy. Play dead. Dude, I do that naturally all the time. Maybe this wasn't a good game to record. All right. If you need me, I'll be down here out of frame. I don't think the camera can even see me. But it worked, I guess. Oh my God. It's a second game. I just want to sit there motionless, dying away slowly. I don't want to do any sort of movement or exercise. I'm sure the audio sounds great when I'm just spinning.  How am I supposed to do a stare jump in this tiny office? Do you know how big my wingspan is? Staring to understand why this game was 50 cent and no one wanted it.  And I suppose to be the one getting a ball from my pet.  I'm going mad. That was zero effort. I just kind of threw it on the floor. The shallows. It's where the river winds itself through the woods. It's so nice and cool there. Would you like to see it? Sure. I mean, I'm lying to you when I'm saying yes, but I mean, I don't think I have any other choice. Be a contender. That's what I need. More participation trophies.  Remember to throw underhand. Oh, now you tell me. Thank you. Hell, this is embarrassing. Come on. Okay, I did it with four seconds to spare. That deserves a participation trophy. Oh, wait, there's a round two. Throwing underhand is the best way to aim after. I don't know. I think just spamming is actually better. Yeah, this is way better. I'm just spamming. Stop telling me these underhanded tactics. Throwing underhand is the best way to improve your aim. Why does he keep telling me this when I'm hitting everything perfectly? Step left and right to help line up your target. I'm already done and he's trying to help me. A new high score. Gold. I deserve it.  You've got diseases, shitbag. Will you look at that view? It is pretty nice. It almost subs the dudes going outside. It's good enough for me anyway. I'm not going out today. Anytime you want to play with one of your toys, open your toy box. All you have to do is hold your arm out to the bottom right. I'm trying, but it's hard apparently. Really trying. It's not doing anything. I'm so disappointed. It's not doing anything. Come on. Okay, he just gave up on me. He left. He's getting right on my face.  All right. Do you want to play? No.  No. I don't want to teach you any tricks. I think I'm not really getting the point of this game. I play a game that's solely about playing with an animal. I'm like, I don't want to. All right, fine. Do you want me to give my animal a drink? Yeah. Feed him some whiskey. Put him to sleep.  No. I don't want to play at all. Okay.  Oh my God. Everything about this was annoying. Yes, let's play. What? No, not this again. I'm not even throwing them. They're just kind of glitching all over the place. Trying to throw it at my second pet. Leave me alone. Get out of here. I don't love you anymore. When the bar goes up to the top. I didn't mean to throw that at you. Sorry. I feel like I'm just directing traffic now all of a sudden. It always comes down to this. I missed the calling there. I'm really good at it or maybe like a conductor. I can almost hear the music now. Have a look in your toy box. Hold your arm out to your bottom right. It doesn't do it. It doesn't. It doesn't do it. Oh my God. I'm going to get right up in this thing's grill and sort it out. Right. Go. Bottom right. Jesus Christ.  I think I should say I'm sick of the connect. It just doesn't want to work sometimes. And it's got like the most ideal setup right now. It's got loads of space. It's got more lighting than any normal person would have. Feed the frogs. Jesus Christ. I don't want to feed them. They're demonic. Okay. I've changed my mind. I want to feed them. Will you please go into the mouth? Thank God. This is taking me far too long. Oh my God. He's got his car back out.  This is actually something I want to play with. To drive the car.  Push both hands forward to drive. This is a hundred times less fun than I thought it would be. I don't know why I thought this would be cool. At least I'm going to run over my pet a bit. I don't see how this is fun for the pet. He's not even interacting. There you go.  Oh, that's a really cool trick. Is it? I am kind of impressed by how good it is at like judging whether I'm going forward or back. That is actually kind of impressive. This poor animal.  I'm saying that affectionately. That's his name. Oh, fantastic. I've unlocked a new area. There'll be lots of exciting adventures, I assume. I think we've gotten past the tutorial part now. We've learned how to care for her pet, even though I've chosen not to. But I think we're ready for some real challenges. Old Stone Circle. The first people to walk could be an ancient calendar or maybe just a pile of big rocks. Drive the remote control car around the course as quickly as you can. Okay, I should be able to do this. This is good, actually. The driving was my strong suit. I didn't expect this. I gotta be honest. I really didn't expect this. They were saying this is some ancient old stone circle like Stonehenge or something. Isn't this a bit disrespectful to set up a race track around Stonehenge? They're trying to get me to jump to collect these things. I'm not jumping. I'm a responsible driver. A new high score. Yeah, I don't like to brag, but I'm probably the best person to ever play this game. I'm probably the only person to play this game that's actually old enough to drive to be fair. Looks like the cub wants to go back to Woodland Glade. Like, I went through all that. Like, all those games I was playing earlier with the ball and the race car was to unlock that area. We spent, like, 30 seconds there, and then we're done. What are you looking at me like that for? They're like, well, that's not all the content we have. What are you doing? I'm being attacked. Kill it. Somebody shoot it. Just open your toy box. I really wish I could open my toy box. I have no idea how to do that. I would like to look at the map. I would like to go see my house, but I can't open my toy box. Like, it's detecting my arm is going out there. So why isn't it doing it? I think it just thinks I'm, like, really oddly proportioned because I'm sitting down. I don't think you're supposed to be sitting down when you do this. It's like I'm a 12-year-old who has really long arms and can almost touch their feet without even bending over. Yes! I got into my toy box. Yes! I'm so happy. I stood up and it worked. It suddenly got threatened when it realized I wasn't a 12-year-old but really long arms that I was a fully grown adult playing this game. Or else it just felt bad for me. That's probably more likely. Heck off!  He's really getting on my nerves. You're going to love what the lemurs have for sale. Wait, I'm not funding these lemurs. I don't want to give them money. I don't know what they're spending it on. It could be gang violence. No, no, don't buy it. The connector's just picking up on things I'm not doing. Yeah, it probably wasn't for you. Do I need to buy food? Do pets need to eat? Honestly, I think I might need some food. I've been stranded on this island and all I've done is played with this cat which honestly I think is a mirage. I think I'm hallucinating. If you like, I'll show you how to decorate your home by selecting the Decorate button. You're mad at this bottom right thing but you don't detect when I'm doing it. Come on! Come on! I think your cub might like a new bed. This cub is getting better treatment than I am. I don't have a bed. Interior designer. I just threw a sheet on the floor. I didn't even straighten it. I was just like, man.  I feel like this is a risky click.  That is so scary. Okay, so I guess this is just where you can swap between pets but I don't even want one. Not on mine too. You can exit any time by holding your arm out to the bottom right. Which means I'm not allowed to leave at all. It's so difficult to hold your arm out to the bottom right in this game. Be sure to give them some food every now and then. Oh, feeding him? Yeah, sure. It's about time I feed him. I bought him a single carrot. I'm going to force him to be a vegetarian even though he is obviously a carnivore. I keep feeding him. I'm over feeding him now by accident. I'm trying to play tug of war with him. Here, take, take, take it. Take the food. He's running away. For the next stage, this is so frustrating. Like, I gotta think that this must be like the perfect conditions for this game and it's still not working. That's it. I'm going home. I'm abandoning my pet. I don't love him anymore and I don't think I ever did when I think about it. Like, I'm convinced none of this exists especially this fairy thing. Especially going off how bloodshot my eye looks. I think I'm just really high, honestly. I think that's a good time to end it though because if I don't, I feel like I'm going to want to die. There's gotta be some good connect games out there though. I'm convinced they must exist. I think this is something we should look into. I think we've tried two of them. The Harry Potter one was amazing in a bad way. This is just bad. I'm disappointed it exists. Even now, like, I'm not moving and the hands are just freaking out. It doesn't know what's going on. I think it should have some kind of inbuilt thing that it's like, okay, this person is obviously having some sort of seizure and it should call the emergency hotline because my arms are freaking out. I'm going to stop before these magical hands like delete my profile somehow. But I can't stop it so I'm going to have to hurry and do an outro. I hope you enjoyed. I know I did. I appreciate you watching as always. If you want to see more connect games, do let me know and also maybe suggest them because I'm not that familiar. I have loads of them now. I bought a lot of them. So I am ready to play them. I just have to pick out the good ones, I suppose. And this is kind of freaking me out because I don't know what it's going to click on next. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed. Thank you very much for watching and I hope to see you next time. Bye for now.