"My face is achin'..."

– Clayface Aiken

🎃👻😱

In this late to the party Halloween special, Clayface Aiken, HBO Max, and Lena Ghoste remove their masks and have a heart-to-heart convo about the absurdity and weirdness of being neurodivergent in a clinically insane world.

Treats:

• How the concept of "voting with your wallet" applies to the film industry (supporting the art we want to see in the world)
• Clayface Aiken realizes he's literally Sammy Scroller (from Cineplex Canada's movie theatre etiquette PSAs)
• What does it mean to be a "nerd" In 2026? Is it a compliment? How does it differ from being a geek or a dweeb?
• Do the out of touch oligarchs running the world into the ground just need more... therapy?
• Should we all take the wrong lesson from George Orwell's 1984 and try to love Big Brother?

Credits for music in this episode:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• Anemone
• JF Gloss
• Ruiqui Zhao
• Miles Avida

*Correction: Wildwood is NOT claymation

the possibility that love is not enough (a poem)

"Metaphorically speaking, you gotta build your life from building blocks, but you don't always get to control what building blocks you get."
– Mel

💭💭💭

In this fan-made Tetris webcomic, two self-aware squares, Tetromino and Mel, go beyond the 2D blocks and comic book panels, and overthink about the overlaps between Western culture, Asian identity, and art.

Stages:

• Is Tetris really a "perfect game"? (yes, it is)
• Comic book adaptations vs. the media literacy crisis: Did Alan Moore's Watchmen and Zack Snyder's obsession with The Dark Knight Returns ruin the fun of superhero movies?
• Putting the Science in Sci-Fi: stories that live up to the name of the genre (and instances where science-fiction blurs the lines with fantasy)
• Surveillance capitalism and the right to be forgotten: how do we assert our autonomy over how the world remembers us?
• Mel defines, describes, and debunks misconceptions surrounding Schizophrenia

Credits for music featured in this episode:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• PME
• Ava Low
• geodesis

"Uhhh... Filipino?'

— Kuya Adobo

🍚🍠🍧

In this exotic Halo-halo dessert, two Filipino-Canadian sinigang fanatics, Kuya Adobo and Ate Ube, transcend the generational tsismis and overthink the complexities of living in the West: the balancing act of race, identity, and existing “in between” cultures (as part of the diaspora).

Non-traditional toppings:

• Context collapse // how, on the internet, we never really know who (beyond our target audience) will see and/or "get" our work
• Filipino cuisine going mainstream? // that one time ube (purple yam from the Philippines) became a huge trend, and whether it will become a mainstay in Western culture

• On Asian and Western identity // our experiences of being children of immigrants, and the challenges of living multiculturally, code-switching, and exoticization of mixed identities (e.g. "wasians")
• Postpone the Apocalypse? // the dangers of the "AI superintelligence race" mixed with the hubris and greed of tech oligarchs (see: recipe for dystopia)
• The Psychology of the Batman Effect // how creating an "alter-ego" as an artist can empower you to do the hard thing and break out of your shell

🇨🇦🇵🇭

Credits for musical interludes/segments featured in this episode:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• Adelyn Paik
• G Mills
• Loyee

⁠Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Anthology)

the possibility that love is not enough (a poem)